IG Horde?

[SgtBilko]

I read a post in the Tyranid Hive bemoaning the fact that our troops are cheaper than theirs when their fluff is 'ultimate horde' (no-one takes 'without number') and that the IG horde is one of the most powerful armies out there.

What do you guys think about maxing out on guardsmen and saving points on everything else?

i.e:
no elites
minimum heavy weapons(lascannon in each squad and no heavy weapon squads?)
no upgrades on tanks?
no fast?

it would look cool.

[Deleted]

considering Tyranids have fleet, better close combat, and synapse creatures, I think whoever said that should shut up. All guardsmen horde armies are unweildy as all hell and rely solely on stopping the enemy from getting into close combat. The minute you get assaulted your army is dead.

[SgtBilko]

160pts gets you 25 lasguns. If you play it right you can fire 3 times before you get assaulted (or once and charge yourself, which i find very effective in the right circumstance) thats 75 shots. 12 squads in 1000pt game still leaves some points for knobs and bells. 120 lasguns firing 3 times. Tyranids dont stand a chance. Haven't considered Conscripts yet.

But leaving the Tyranid argument aside, is it completely crap?

[SgtBilko]

The minute you get assaulted your army is dead.

Not sure I agree with you there. The way to win in a 'let's just kill each other' game is

Step 1) shoot the enemy as they advance
step 2) step forward and rapid fire before they fleet. This creates a space around the doomed squad.
step 3) Their Turn: let them assault you with whatever is left and probably they wipe out your squad. Then they consolidate D6" or 3"
Step 4) Your turn =payback: Rapid fire them with the squad that was on either side and hopefully a tank.
Goto Step 1, rinse, repeat.

All cheep squads are potentially sacrificial squads, thats the lot of the guardsman.
For the EmperAAAAAAAGHHhhh..!

[ssgtdude (M.I.A)]

With 5th Ed I think the IG horde army might fair better than it would have in 4th ed.

Purely for the reason that once a unit is attacked there is no sweep or consolidation into the next unit. Giving the guard army that much more of a chance to back peddle and shoot.

The person who brought up the bemoaning is probably some kid who doesn't know how to play his nid army and was beat soundly repeatedly by a few guard army buddies of his. Once he gets the hang of how to play his own freaking army he will not be crying like a baby about the guard armies. At least until the Amazonian LXIX come by and put a boot up his back side. Then he can cry that not only was he beat by guard, but they were all girls in pink too.

[Mabus]

Although the "Horde" IG army *could* work, I don't think it would very often. The Orks and Tyranids can do a better job of swarming armies than we can.

The imperial guard should stick to what they are good at. Overwheling the enemy with dozens of Tanks and heavy, special weapons.

Jul 31, 2008 14:40:24 GMT -5 SgtBilko said:

The minute you get assaulted your army is dead.

Not sure I agree with you there. The way to win in a 'let's just kill each other' game is

Step 1) shoot the enemy as they advance
step 2) step forward and rapid fire before they fleet. This creates a space around the doomed squad.
step 3) Their Turn: let them assault you with whatever is left and probably they wipe out your squad. Then they consolidate D6" or 3"
Step 4) Your turn =payback: Rapid fire them with the squad that was on either side and hopefully a tank.
Goto Step 1, rinse, repeat.

All cheep squads are potentially sacrificial squads, thats the lot of the guardsman.
For the EmperAAAAAAAGHHhhh..!

Remember chaps, this tactic would only works if you have more infantry squads than the enemy have Genestaler/Gaunt broods. If you run out of squads to sacrafice, then you will soon find yourself in the proverbial nuts.

[silversurfer]

Let's see what we could field for 1500 pts.

Let's have a standardized troup of 1 command squad and 3 infantry guard all with missile launcher : 280 pts, 35 models with 31 lasguns and 4 missile launchers (even if I know perfectly that the missile launcher gunner still have his lasgun ...)

if we field 5 of them : 1400 pts. So we still have 100 pts to equip the HQ squad (to equip it with counter-charging equipment, why not ?).

So, let's field : 180 guardmen with 20 missile launchers and one counter-charging unit (with a lot of meltaguns i.e.).

That's sounds good to wipe out everything in 2 turns. But it's worth 27 kill points.

A lot of variants are possible from this vanilla :
_ replacing one or 2 missile platoons with plasma guns / grenade launchers platoons to be more mobile.
_ replacing 2 platoons with short range special weapons platoons to get drop to the objectives (with the appropriate doctrine of course)
_ replace some missile launchers by lascanons removing one infantry squad or reducing the cost of the HQ squad
_ any mix of those propositions

[Turtleboy(AWOL)]

27 kill points in a 1500pt list is very very high.

vs. shooting, IG is FAR more resilient these days due to the enhancement of terrain and cover saves. it's also WAY easier to get more bang for the buck out of long range weapons with the changes to LoS and area terrain.

in this regard, IG still has some sort of fighting chance with such a high kill point tally.

in melee, the only way I see guard surviving is multiple combats where one squad doesn't break and the other does so that sweeping advance doesn't wipe those falling back.

one great piece of infantry gear in 5th is chem-inhalers. this would help squads stay in combat greatly, but it's got to be given to everyone, so all it turns into is a 'bog-down' piece of gear, so then you must invest in fighting IN melee vs. fighting between melees.

another way to keep a squad from breaking is to use a commissar to create a fearless unit that keeps the squad from sweeping and tarpits - thinking conscripts with commissar here... lean and mean would be the command squad w/ commissar but that'd take a lot of hits and wouldn't last.

at any rate... these are techniques to bog down. techniques about kill point denial, and while it is a valid subject, it's not the direction of the thread.


One thing I have to mention is that while a horde of anti-troop fire/capability is great, we MUST plan for taking down land raiders and monoliths and carnifexes and heavy big bad things too.

my dark angels (I know, heresy to speak of them on an IG message board!!) do well because they are so heavily laden with powerfists, meltaguns, multimeltas, and meltabombs. they have a great amount of anti troop, but almost everything has something to contribute to anti-tank.

all squads should have something to do AT work with. that being said, the meltagun is the new premier AT weapon in the days of 5th edition. the lascannon is far less effective these days than in times past.

coincidentally, if one chooses to pack a bunch of meltaguns to cover some of the AT duties, then that commanders infantry is also more capable of foot-borne mobility on the field (and with the improvement of the cover save provided by hills and forests, and the addition of the 'run' rule, this kind of mobility is becoming far more valid in my humble opinion).

as far as the 'sacrifice a squad to every melee assault unit hitting our armies' strategy goes, A: casualties will be horrible and B: if we are to do that, we must plan on how to TAKE 1 kill point from the enemy for every squad they have in melee every turn so that we do not begin to lose the fight.

there is absolutely something to be said for blowing the crud out of the assaulting squad, but it must be noted, as well, that the humble rhino now provides kill points as well, and can often be found basically sitting out in the open, abandoned, by careless commanders. one should capitalize on 'the forgotten transport' not only in situations like this, but in ALL situations.

as a parting thought, I'll contribute this: autocannon heavy weapon squads are still valuable for grinding up rhinos and are rightly a source of fear and area denial to mechanized marine players of all kinds.

[control]

Bugger antitank I'd just field as many ig as i could with warrior weapons and just charge. With that many men you could contest all the objectives at the very least.