How do you kill IG (Imperial Gaurd)

[Aron]

Do you have any tipps on how to kill Imperial Gaurd?

[RIGHT-Titan]

I've found it a challenge, but I'm in the process of redoing my list...

 

But I've found you have to take out the armor. Most Guard players, at least in my area field a lot of Chimeras, one guy uses Russ' and I usually see at least 1 Valkyrie, not to mention Hydraflak... so take out that armor with heavy weapons fire fast.

[Arikel]

IG on the whole are shooty, but squishy in cc for the most part. Knock out the transports and get stuck in, as they are light infantry, these are the guys you want to take assault squads against so you can reach them quickly.

[Captain Juan Juarez]

Depends on the type of list you face.

 

As with alot of SM players these days, Mech appears to be king with a leavening of Valkyrie-borne Vets, so that means you'll need plenty of anti-armour.

 

It's basically a case of target priority.

[thade]

It's going to be a hard fight, as they can just hold up and wait for you to come to them (which is a bad idea as marine range is 24" and IG range is much greater, esp if they're sitting still). They'll roll out for objectives come turn 3, so I think I'd play a waiting game and do the same as they. Roll out to contest them and try to get them into assaults (remembering that once they've moved they've reduced their fire power for that turn).

 

Use your anti-armor to crack them open then charge in. Their units will be pretty big and if they don't break on your charge, you can ride out their turn then repeat on your following turn.

[Fatuous]

Flamers.

 

Take lots and have ways to get them close. Guard hate flamers! Especially dreads wtih heavy flamers, just don't let them bog you down by getting assaulted by a large combined squad with a commissar, you'll kill 1 or 2 per turn, and even if they can't hurt you back, stuborn Ld 9 with a reroll will hold them place and tarpit your dread.

 

So drop pods, speeders. Maybe assualt squads (but I don't have any, so cant comment too much on em, but mobile flamers will help).

 

Infiltrating scout squads can work well too, but you need large units to be effective.

 

The main thing with guard is taking out their units that will really hurt, which usually means Leman Russ battle tanks, possbily in formations, and most likely protected with infantry screens stopping you getting in to melta range, so a drop poded vanilla dread can be useful. BUT at the same time, firing on their infantry from turn 1. If you are facing platoons u have to start taking them down from the beginning.

 

Bring the fight to them and charge them as soon as possible, ganging up with multiple units in one area.

[Koremu]

Every single unit in the IG Codex can be killed by a properly played Tactical Squad.

 

Their Tanks are (at best) AV11 rear. Their Transports are AV10 side. The biggest thing you have to worry about is the AP3 Chem template on one of the Hellhound variants. None of their big blast weapons are scary because they miss over half the time, and because they are so immobile that you can almost always arrange to have intervening Cover.

 

Their Infantry are rubbish, but they do get a lot of shots for their points. Don't try and engage a 50 man Infantry platoon with a Commissar in CC unless you are certain you can win quickly - getting stuck in a Combat that you can never lose, but can never leave either is a bad idea.

 

Watch out for Rough Riders. They are one of the few IG units that can hurt Power Armour (albeit only on the charge) and they are cheap for the effect.

[ShinyRhino]

I don't tend to table IG when I face them. I just bog them down.

IG shoot poorly, unless they're using meltavets. That means they're relying heavily on Bring It Down! orders on heavy weapons teams to shoot your armor, and massed crappy shooting to take out your bodies.

The wildcards tend to be what form of pie plate they'll bring. Some like Russ tanks, some like artillery. Most of these have a hefty range on them, so you have to weather a storm to get to them, and also break through the junk infantry screeners.

 

My local meta has been leaning on the Straken Blob lately. 50+ bodies planted squarely in the middle of the board, taking Stubborn 8 Ld tests in close combat, and damn near invulnerable to shooting Morale checks for three turns or so, with rerolls from Commissars. I've found that Dreadnoughts beat these guys at their own game. They typically do not splurge on grenades, and buy powerweapons instead of powerfists. This means you can chomp down 3 guardsmen a turn, while being immune ot their attacks. Make them tempt fate by rolling that Stubborn 8 and hoping for two failures in a row. After two turns of CC, Straken cannot join the fight and base the Dread, since all the Blob Squad members had to move 6" to base after every round. Your Dread is now fully enveloped by IG mooks who can't touch him. You're now free to use the rest of your army to do other things.

[Hellios]

Do you have any tipps on how to kill Imperial Gaurd?

 

Ya know what? I think a few scout units and maybe LSSs can give you a cheap way to put pressure on them early on and maybe throw a few spanners in the works.... although the scouts may die pretty fast it is better to lose a squad of scouts than a squad of marines... I've also seen vanguard vets do horrific things to mechanized guard (and these weren't even dedicated tank busters) the problem is as they are expensive you need a way to deliver them in a reliable manner and play them in such a way they aren't exposed at the end of every combat.

[thade]

I've also seen vanguard vets do horrific things to mechanized guard (and these weren't even dedicated tank busters) the problem is as they are expensive you need a way to deliver them in a reliable manner and play them in such a way they aren't exposed at the end of every combat.

 

Haha, that's a funny idea. Full ten man Vanguard squad with two power weapon choices (I'd go with Lit Claws), combat squad them, Heroic Intervention. Costs just a bit more than a full assault squad. One claw in each squad. If there are ANY units not in a transport, try to drop the vanguards such that they can multi-assault them. That's a *lot* of attacks on the charge, even for a five-man squad.

[Fatuous]

Sounds like a very expensive way to kill IG in cc tbh tho.

 

The dreadnaught tactic as above can work well, but don't expect them to run anywhere, commissars up the Ld ship as well as give stubborn, plus the reroll. To date, my stubborn blobs squads (I play guard regularly) have fialed 1 morale check in this manner, which they passed on the reroll. Against 50 guys, it is deffo worth the price of a dread. But don't let them do it to you with 10 or 20 guys, as they tie up more of your points than their own.

 

Oh, and a dread in CC with guard, will kill a max of 2 per turn (regular dread, once all charging bonuses taken away) and usually manage to either miss with one, or fail to wound. So expect maybe 2....... against 20 guys, you will just be there all game. Tarpitting 50 guys is deffo worth it, but 20...... not so much, sure you may just tie up a few more points than they do, but dreads are a lot less common than the guardsmen they will have to do it with. I actually use this tactic if there is a dread too close for comfort and it won't take the autocannon shots......... oh course these blobs could hide krak grenades as well, so just be careful.

 

Scouts, with LSS (with heavy flamer) are probably some of your best options, to get in, do damage, and either make a mess of infantry or crack open transports....

 

Some useful units.

 

Rifleman dread for chimera chassis work.

Whirlwind, the no cover saves options is nasty for guard.

Stern guard. Much better IMO than van guard, again, stop the cover saves and guard are toast!!!!!!!

heavy flamers, on land speeders esp. Some guard might turn up in carapace, and they fear heavy flamers.

Mobile melta weapons for tanks. drop podded dreads are good for this.

 

Guard bring lots of tanks as a general rule, so target the most dangerous till it is nullified for at least a turn (shaken and stuned results are fine as long as they arent squadrons), once they are silenced move on to the next. You really need to stop as many of those tanks every turn from firing until you kill them.

 

Final note on scouts. if you take them, avoid hellhounds. In fact, if you see a hound derivative on the table, kill it as soon as possible, especially the chem tanks!!!!!!

 

Tac squads are move than enough to take out even large units of guardsmen, flamer and bolt pistols, and a charge. Just don't get in to a fire fight with them. Mass lasguns with FRF SRF will get through power armour.

[mannstein]

Funny thing about guard armies: they play the game system better than most. This means they can throw a LOT of dice at a problem, and usually the problem goes away. The repeated claims about guard being "rubbish" (aired frequently on this board, for one) might be true on an individual level, but they are surprisingly effective if the guard player actually has a clue how to run them...

 

So, being a guard player myself, here are a few tips on how to beat them.

 

Firstly, DO NOT allow him to concentrate his fire. One platoon (without special weapons squads...) has more than enough firepower in its lasguns alone to render any marine infantry unit ineffective. With a few select upgrades, its a dead unit. But that represents fifty+ models shooting at one target, which is tricky to achieve, and if you maneouvre properly, should be impossible.

 

Secondly, the odds of not being template spammed in a standard mech guard army are roughly nil: my own army features 8-10 AP2 or 3 templates at 1500 points. They are going to hit you, and they are going to hurt when they do. Expect to see a squad getting hit every turn. Use cover wherever possible to even the odds a little, and if they are using the (rather sub-par, actually) hellhound variant, its an easy kill in assault, even tac marines will kill it using grenades.

 

Thirdly, don't expect to get anywhere significant in assault. Here's why: I can feed any unit enough 50pt squads to neutralize (I dont have to beat you, just keep you tied up assaulting chaff while the rest of my army kills the rest of yours) it permanently, and if I choose to spend valuable points on upgrading those squads, attrition will wear you down eventually. Oh, and while you are standing around in the open after slaughtering 50 points worth of guys, your uberkilly squad is getting lasgunned to death, possibly with nice little extras like flamers and demo charges... I am also not afraid of hitting my own guys with artillery (no good guard commander should be, IMO, everything and everyone is expendable) so dont think that because you are within 12" I'm not going to shoot ordnance at you.

 

Fourth: Speaking from personal experience, the thing IG armies hate most is mobility. Marines have some decent options, so use them. Just don't expect to get good results from drop pods, they are a bit of a liability, as you need to get real close to anything valuable to be effective, and the odds are quite high the infantry will prevent you melta-ing the tanks. Use speeders to strike at the rear armour of heavy tanks, and any other mobile stuff you can bring to bear to back them up.

 

Fifth: Remember your bolt guns. Use the same theory as the guard themselves: more dice = win. Bolters and flamers vs infantry.

Multi-shot str5+ weapons vs light armour. Outmanoeuvre the heavy armour.

 

Sixth, and this is important: concentrate your attack at a single point in his line. Give him too many targets to kill at that one point, you get in close and bolter/flamer away until the line breaks. Combined with the other things I have indicated, you should be able to neutralize most of his firepower through movement.

[Mustalid]

Try to kill the tanks and heavy weapons as well as break up their infantry. Guard heavy weapons have that annoying tendency to eat you up and spit you out. If you can all of that infantry out of the way for a bit to kill the tanks, bolters are about as good as it gets for dealing with the remainder. Note that all Guard vehicles have bad back armour, so a charge w/ sargent w/ melta bombs backed up with your marines w/ krak grenades will do something as combat vs. vehicles is against back armour.

[Koremu]

The solution to Guardsmen is template weapons. Assault Marines work because of their Flamers. The Chainswords are just gravy.

 

The other thing to use is a Whirlwind.

 

Oh and Mannstein, you'll notice that the first thing I say after "Their Infantry are rubbish" is "but they get a lot of shots for their points". T3 and a 5+ save is rubbish.

[SpecialIssue]

Two words.

 

Get Close.

[mannstein]

Oh and Mannstein, you'll notice that the first thing I say after "Their Infantry are rubbish" is "but they get a lot of shots for their points". T3 and a 5+ save is rubbish.

 

Actually, I prefer the term "average" :P, with marines being "above average" and some of the other stuff being "what??"..(side note for the young 'uns: the bog standard guardsman profile is actually the one around which 40k is based, everything else is costed around that little 5 point meatbag with a lasgun and flak armour.)

 

Oh, I know its not T4/3+, but quantity has a quality all its own :tu:

 

Problem is, IMO, too many players only consider statlines (in general) in isolation, not considering the overall effect many of the choices have in the army as a whole. Many of the dumbest things I have ever seen in armies have resulted from random high-powered stuff getting dumped into a list without thought for how the synergy of the list actually works. Simply throwing together a list of "must buys" for any army can result in something horribly broken- IF it works.

 

And that is actually where the great strength of the guard lies, in the synergies of the various types of list. Most of the stuff works well in synergy with the rest of the army and requires little special attention. Individually, the trooper on the ground might be of average quality but get a whole bunch of them together and the relative value of each one increases. Its why most guard armies actually have a tipping point, at which the effectiveness of the army begins to drop off much more rapidly than a marine army, since the individual marine choices are far more capable of operating alone without any synergy at all. Get the army beyond that tipping point quickly, its game over for the Guard because they can't bring enough force to bear. Some types of guard army simply disintegrate after the tipping point, with their effectiveness barely being diminished prior to that.

[Koremu]

My personal rule of thumb for creating effective IG lists is that you should do as the Departmento Munitorium does, and do everything in Triplicate.

 

There's no point taking one of everything in a guard list. It's all about taking lots of something and then filling in the gaps, IMO.

[Fatuous]

I think the only thing we've prob missed so far is dealing with melta vets, and air cav lists (or chimera heavy lists).

 

For these guys you need to almost forget you are fighting guard and think Eldar for a moment, the air cav list has massive mobility, and potential for dishing out serious pain, from squadrons of valkaries and vendettas (3 valks can easily put out 9 multi lazer shots and 6, yes 6 large templates. All while still moving 12 inches, or drop 6 inches and add an extra 18 heavy bolter shots.....) before you even start to worry about the possible 7 plasma gun shots and a demo charge from each transport!

 

the main problem (after all the guns) is the mobility. You don't know where they'll be arriving from. DS (ok, unlikely but is possible), general reserves or outflanking (or the more risky, less seen air bourne drop). And guard have ways to get them in where they want them with astropaths.

 

So you can expect something to die when they start to arrive. Even terminators aren't safe, not even in a landraider. A vendetta can easily crack the LR open, after depositing it's plasma/melta cargo. If this is a command squad, add in some bring it down to reroll successful cover saves for even more pain. If vets, add a demo charge to the unit as well.

 

So how do you deal with this????????

 

Well at least you know at the begining of the game which way they will be arriving, so act accordingly. If outflanking, then stick to the centre of the table (altho this does not guarantee safety). Which every way they are arriving, seriously consider reserves. The best way of taking out air cav lists, is to take away the first turns of shooting, where they can rock up and annhilate something of their choosing. Just as people reserve to remove some benefits from drop podding marines, keep your guys off the table till you have some targets. Once they are on the table, well a valk is reletively easy to take down, and vets, once out of their transports drop like any other guardsmen. Of course they can take carapace, but most IG generals try to keep their vet doctrines down to 1 if possible, and demo charges seem to be more popular. Of course, many do take demos and pace, taking us back to the mobile heavy flamers you should be packing, on speeders or LSSs.

 

As far as I know now, there is no real way to combat the psyker battle squad. If they want to take down one of your units, odds are they will manage it, by dropping your Ld down to 2, and getting a few casualties through. So crack em out of their transports and wipe them out ASAP!!!!!!

[Vaktathi]

Funny thing about guard armies: they play the game system better than most. This means they can throw a LOT of dice at a problem, and usually the problem goes away. The repeated claims about guard being "rubbish" (aired frequently on this board, for one) might be true on an individual level, but they are surprisingly effective if the guard player actually has a clue how to run them...

 

So, being a guard player myself, here are a few tips on how to beat them.

 

Firstly, DO NOT allow him to concentrate his fire. One platoon (without special weapons squads...) has more than enough firepower in its lasguns alone to render any marine infantry unit ineffective. With a few select upgrades, its a dead unit. But that represents fifty+ models shooting at one target, which is tricky to achieve, and if you maneouvre properly, should be impossible.

 

Secondly, the odds of not being template spammed in a standard mech guard army are roughly nil: my own army features 8-10 AP2 or 3 templates at 1500 points. They are going to hit you, and they are going to hurt when they do. Expect to see a squad getting hit every turn. Use cover wherever possible to even the odds a little, and if they are using the (rather sub-par, actually) hellhound variant, its an easy kill in assault, even tac marines will kill it using grenades.

 

Thirdly, don't expect to get anywhere significant in assault. Here's why: I can feed any unit enough 50pt squads to neutralize (I dont have to beat you, just keep you tied up assaulting chaff while the rest of my army kills the rest of yours) it permanently, and if I choose to spend valuable points on upgrading those squads, attrition will wear you down eventually. Oh, and while you are standing around in the open after slaughtering 50 points worth of guys, your uberkilly squad is getting lasgunned to death, possibly with nice little extras like flamers and demo charges... I am also not afraid of hitting my own guys with artillery (no good guard commander should be, IMO, everything and everyone is expendable) so dont think that because you are within 12" I'm not going to shoot ordnance at you.

 

Fourth: Speaking from personal experience, the thing IG armies hate most is mobility. Marines have some decent options, so use them. Just don't expect to get good results from drop pods, they are a bit of a liability, as you need to get real close to anything valuable to be effective, and the odds are quite high the infantry will prevent you melta-ing the tanks. Use speeders to strike at the rear armour of heavy tanks, and any other mobile stuff you can bring to bear to back them up.

 

Fifth: Remember your bolt guns. Use the same theory as the guard themselves: more dice = win. Bolters and flamers vs infantry.

Multi-shot str5+ weapons vs light armour. Outmanoeuvre the heavy armour.

 

Sixth, and this is important: concentrate your attack at a single point in his line. Give him too many targets to kill at that one point, you get in close and bolter/flamer away until the line breaks. Combined with the other things I have indicated, you should be able to neutralize most of his firepower through movement.

This.

 

Yes, IG suck in combat, Yes, all IG tanks are rear armor 10/11 (like 95% of vehicles in the game), yes IG are BS3. Yes, IG leadership is not stellar (although not terrible either, it's not the Ld5/6 that many SM players seem to think, most units start at Ld8)

 

However, at the same time, Yes IG will have more Heavy and Special weapons than you will have models, and often 3 or even 4 times the number of *tanks* on the field than you can bring. Yes, pie-plates *will* hit (BS3 scatter with a 2.5" radius Large Blast is hitting the model it targeted about 60% of the time with the removal of partials and BS scatter reduction taken into account), and hit more often than you will like, and probably be something terrible that's AP2/3 and wounds on 2's. Yes, IG will outshoot you. If you get stuck in a shooting war with Imperial Guard, you will lose, don't do it. Space Marines are not going to outshoot Imperial Guard no matter how bad some players want this not to be true. (at least, assuming a halfway-decently thought out IG list, not something dumb like an Ogryn horde army). IG will outperform Space Marines in artillery and tank fights (yea sure, you can have your whirlwind duel my griffon/manticore/basilisk/etc), it's only in close range shooting that the SM's can level it out, but even then the IG still will likely outshoot you far more often than not. Guard has the most cost effective shooting platforms in the game and probably makes the best use of the transport rules of any army currently. It's hard to beat AV12 Fast Skimmers transporting 12 dudes that can Scout and is also packing 3 Twin Linked lascannons for the cost of a Rifleman dread, and a Rifleman-like tank that can be taken in squadrons of 1-3 for 50pts less each.

 

The fact that IG suck in combat is something a good IG player will turn against you. Your big scary CC units are essentially wasted points when two space marines will routinely defeat an entire squad of guardsmen. Likewise, because they suck so much, they'll break quickly, meaning your 200pt unit just assaulted and killed of a 50-70pt unit, and now is stuck with its pants down in the open in range of *everything*. On the other hand, if IG do present you with a big expensive unit, it's likely a Stubborn Ld9 Blob platoon with 4-5 powerweapons/fists and 30-51 bodies, that'll eat even a Berzerker squad. That's the one you hit with all your flamers and whatnot.

 

What you will need to do is not only get stuck in, but get stuck in with as many IG units as possible. Don't just charge the 10man infantry squad, hit the chimera and the command squad next to it also. Don't just charge the Leman Russ, get into the Hellhound and Griffon nearby as well. If there's 3 infantry squads in a ruin, hit all of them with your charging tac squad. SM's are killy enough to make this work very well, and will mean you can clear an entire section of the board with a single good charge. That's IG's biggest weakness. Multi-assaults are incredible, and are the Space Marine players biggest tool in defeating Imperial Guard, make full use of it, otherwise the IG player will feed you one tiny, meaningless element at a time while you take unsustainable casualties.

 

Make maximum use of your Deep Strike abilities with drop pods (but don't pod *everything* only a couple units), have your units come in and hit something immediately. If you can combat squad, you'll probably want to do so. IG infantry units take so little to kill that you end up wasting firepower (and thus, helping the IG player) by using 10 SM's on 10 guardsmen.

 

Leave the super killy CC units, powerweapons, lightning claws, and plasma weapons at home. They're pointless. Bring melta's and powerfists for tanks, flamers for infantry, and whatever AT you can pack in.

 

What scares me most as an IG player is facing 70 marines across the board in rhinos, I could care less about dreads (these are almost always worthless against IG I've found, they're either pod'ing meltabait or they're trying rifleman it up against an army that does it better or walk across which ends poorly), terminators, your super killy bajillion attack HQ, etc. Seeing a bunch of dudes, each of which can kill any unit in my army, is scary. Tac squads are really all you need to beat IG most of the time, they're more than killy enough, they've got all the equipment they need (bolters and krak grenades), and can get there fast.

[Koremu]

What makes IG tanks rear armour so critical is that it's twinned with their inherently slow, even static nature. AV10 and auto-hit by Krak Grenades = dead tank.

 

Tanks also aren't that scary to Space Marine Infantry. Battle Cannon are AP3, true. But our units are so small that it's quite easy to claim cover from anywhere the big hunk of rust can get to. And that's if they hit.

[Vaktathi]

What makes IG tanks rear armour so critical is that it's twinned with their inherently slow, even static nature. AV10 and auto-hit by Krak Grenades = dead tank.

Indeed, static nature of IG and krak grenades are a beautiful thing don't get me wrong, that's a huge reasoon why IG mech spam isn't as ridiculous as many people say it is

 

However, you need about 8 or 9 guys to ensure that it dies on average with krak grenades (powerfists are immensly helpful here, as it'll give you a solid chance to kill 2 vehicles with a multi-assault rather than more likely 1), and if it's moved it becomes more problematic, and at least the Leman Russ tanks can always move and fire mostly unimpeded. Then there's the issue of sheer quantity...

 

Tanks also aren't that scary to Space Marine Infantry. Battle Cannon are AP3, true. But our units are so small that it's quite easy to claim cover from anywhere the big hunk of rust can get to.

Wounding large numbers of dudes on 2's and forcing 4+ saves instead of 3+ saves will hurt, and cover isn't available everywhere however, if it isn't, the squad goes bye-bye. That said, even Chimeras throwing out 6 shots a turn 36" away wound on 2's and 3's add's up, and they can penetrate rhino/razorbacks fairly well (A multilaser is 3x as effective against a rhino as a lascannon is against a Land Raider). IG also have a *lot* of blast and template weapons that are ignoring SM saves and wounding on 2's, not just battlecannons.

 

And that's if they hit.

They hit dead on ~38% of the time (with BS scatter subtraction), and they'll at least hit the original model they were aiming for with a large blast about 60% of the time. They aren't whiffing most of their shots like many people seem to think they are for some reason.

[Koremu]

Personal experience leads me to suggest that IG accuracy is like the proverbial line about strategic bombing - all of the ordnance is guaranteed to hit the ground.

[Vaktathi]

Personal experience leads me to suggest that IG accuracy is like the proverbial line about strategic bombing - all of the ordnance is guaranteed to hit the ground.

My experience tends to fit much more with the math, both as a CSM player, and an IG player. IG ordnance is only slightly less accurate than Vindicators and the like, and nobody seems to have a problem with them around here. Yes many shots will whiff, but the majority will still hit something, and a good chunk will hit dead on. If you've got 3 LRBT's, one may whiff, another will hit dead on, and the last one will hit some of what it was firing at (on average).

 

BS3 is not terrible, it's 16% worse than BS4 yes, but when you've got 50-200% more guns firing, it's not an issue. A 50% hit rate does not make something terrible at shooting in this game.

[Iron Father Ferrum]

Although fragile, Thunderfires are decent choices against guard armies. 4x S6 blasts can peel a squad out of a Chimaera, plaster a squad in the open, and can take away cover saves. And unless the cannon is the only thing on the board, chances are the IG player will ignore it for the bigger, more threatening targets like vehicles and Tac Squads.

[Vaktathi]

4x S6 blasts can peel a squad out of a Chimaera

Unless you're hitting side armor (not usually the case with such weapons) it won't do more than glance a chimera on a 6. A chimera's going to have a hell of a lot easier job taking out that thunderfire than the thunderfire will with the chimera, for half the cost.

 

plaster a squad in the open, and can take away cover saves. And unless the cannon is the only thing on the board, chances are the IG player will ignore it for the bigger, more threatening targets like vehicles and Tac Squads.

While Thunderfire's aren't bad units at all, they aren't hard for an IG player to get rid of if they want to even without expending a whole lot of effort, multilasers and heavy bolters work great for that.