How do you kill IG (Imperial Gaurd)

[Iron Father Ferrum]

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.

 

1.) With a 60" range, the Thunderfire can reach length-wise across the table to punch side armor on an advancing Chimaera.

 

2.) True. But that's why I put in the bit about being fragile and how the IG player is likely to have more important things to shoot at. Like the drop podded Sternguard that landed in their midst, or the assault squad jumping towards them. Let's face it, Thunderfires are not popular choices and so most players have never fought against them and thus don't have the personal experience in how to counter them. They disregard them until they lose an entire squad to one in one turn of shooting.

[Vaktathi]

1.) With a 60" range, the Thunderfire can reach length-wise across the table to punch side armor on an advancing Chimaera.

Potentially yes, but it's not something that's going to occur often with an intelligent IG player (or if it does, it's going to happen with that potentiality in mind, and thus steps taken to mitigate it). They're great for killing infantry, I'm a huge fan of them, but the AT role is purely opportunistic.

 

2.) True. But that's why I put in the bit about being fragile and how the IG player is likely to have more important things to shoot at. Like the drop podded Sternguard that landed in their midst, or the assault squad jumping towards them. Let's face it, Thunderfires are not popular choices and so most players have never fought against them and thus don't have the personal experience in how to counter them. They disregard them until they lose an entire squad to one in one turn of shooting.

:lol: They do seem unassuming, but I think many players at this point, over a year and a half after the SM codex, know to kill the thing early, or at least should :lol:

[minigun762]

The difficulty with Codex Marines is that they rarely load up on Tactical Squads and instead go with the more specialized units like TH/SS Terminators which are overkill against basic IG.

[Captain Idaho]

I think the best thing to do is persevere! You will have to develop a plan and stick to it, or else take alot of casualities when you change emphasis mid-game.

 

I would say that all your Rhinos should move together 1st turn, and trust that not all will be taken out until at least turn 2, likely 3. You may have a staggered attack, but just a single Tactical squad in their lines is enough to turn the tide. And once turned, the rest of your staggered force can make it into range to add to the damage.

[Fatuous]

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.

 

This is pure gold, and well worth lsitening to.

 

A reg tac squad is plenty to take on guard, until they blob, then use multiple units if needed to tip the balance.

 

Flamers, pistols and assualt in, and you will route them if you don't kill them all. Unless they have commissars and blob squads (which any half decent IG player will certainly do).

 

Prob most importnat tho is the multi attack. Having been multiple assualted as guard many times, it is the tried and tested method of dealing with lots of squads that don't blob. Forego shooting to ge tthe multi assualt in. Put the fist sarge against a tank if possible and the rest agains tthe infantry, you don't need the power weapon attacks so much with guard (altho it never hurts).

 

Pack lots of flamers, and don't get stuck in to a fire fight. You wil take casualties as you advance, but don't loose your nerve, even 1 marine sargent with a power weapon can route a regular infantry squad.

[Brother-Captain Isaac]

GET CLOSE！

 

IG hate close combat. I've spammed 2 Assualt Squads,3 Dreads and 6 Tacs all with pods right in an IG player's face. The first Guard turn had nothing to shoot at, while his second turn was chaos with little piles of red mush in flak vests all over the battlefield.

[Captain Idaho]

"Blob" squads really aren't that dangerous. They need at least 3 PW weilding models to cause any real threat to you, which soon mounts up their cost. I have had 10 Tactical Marines beat 10 Veterans and a 20 man infantry blob with the loss of 2 men. Larger and more dangerous units can take a few bolt pistol shots before you charge to weaken them and your assault force will eat them for breakfast. What is more, the expensive unit is a single target so you won't end up sacrificing an expensive unit for a smaller and less damaging target.

 

As an example, 225pts of Honour Guard and a Chapter Master with Relic Blade and SS can inflict a massive amount of kills on a Blob squad in a single charge, so much it is doubtful whether many casualities will be caused in reply.

 

Obviously that is not the 50 man, 10 PW weilding squad, but then that is unlikely to ever be fielded. 20 and 30 man squads are much more likely to ranged against Space Marines. Rest assured though, 50 men in a single unit is asking for trouble!

 

I would be more concerned with several smaller squads shooting me after I beat down on a solo squad of infantry.

[Fatuous]

That is one of the new strengths when playing as guard, being able to deploy combined squads during deployment, in many ways it is even better than combat squads.

 

20 guys aren't a huge problem, but like you say, when they start getting bigger 30 plus guys and commissars thjey can start to be headaches.

 

The only thing to really watch out for when assualting 20 man units with commis, is they really are unlikely to run, and if you aren't likly to get the 21 kills you need to wipe them out, be causious in whether you engage them, depending on how well supported they are. You can quite easily get stuck in CC, while they have time to do something about it, like send in a platoon command squad with a powerfist, or even another blob as well.

[Grey Mage]

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

1) Whirlwinds. Killing outright on a 2+ in the open, 3+ in cover, out of LOS if needed, for a mere 85pts is simply amazing. Pinning at -1 means youll more often then not supress anything you dont completely kill.

2) Landspeeder Typhoons- Krak missiles to the side armor will help against even Leman Russ Battle Tanks, and will decimate anything else.

3) Infiltrating scout squads/LSS scout squads to get in close and pop enemy armor before assaulting enemy gaurdsmen as needed. The HF on the LSS helps alot too.

4) Heavy Weapons on every tactical squad, for dealing with transports and light armor as needed. Theres no reason not to have a missile launcher in every squad anyways.

 

- Use cover to your advantage. Sure, that crater wont help one bit against lasguns, but its life or death against an executioner.

- Target anything with a large blast templates first, and plasma after that.

- Know your foe. Gaurd has alot of unique abilities, like orders and their SCs add alot to any force their in. Know what your facing and know what it does.

[Captain Idaho]

The only thing to really watch out for when assualting 20 man units with commis, is they really are unlikely to run, and if you aren't likly to get the 21 kills you need to wipe them out, be causious in whether you engage them, depending on how well supported they are. You can quite easily get stuck in CC, while they have time to do something about it, like send in a platoon command squad with a powerfist, or even another blob as well.

 

Actually I think killing most of the unit but having a few left over is immensly useful when assaulting the Guard, as they can't shoot your unit in their turn yet you are likely to wipe them out in the opponents assault phase. Good eh?

[Vaktathi]

"Blob" squads really aren't that dangerous. They need at least 3 PW weilding models to cause any real threat to you, which soon mounts up their cost. I have had 10 Tactical Marines beat 10 Veterans and a 20 man infantry blob with the loss of 2 men. Larger and more dangerous units can take a few bolt pistol shots before you charge to weaken them and your assault force will eat them for breakfast. What is more, the expensive unit is a single target so you won't end up sacrificing an expensive unit for a smaller and less damaging target.

Indeed, and if the IG player doesn't design their blobs right, that's exactly what's going to happen, so it's a great way to take advantage of it. Blobbing really does require the army to be built around that mechanic. If IG player isn't building the army around the blobs well, then it's going to forfeit the advantages of IG being cheap and replaceable very quickly.

 

As an example, 225pts of Honour Guard and a Chapter Master with Relic Blade and SS can inflict a massive amount of kills on a Blob squad in a single charge, so much it is doubtful whether many casualities will be caused in reply.

Yes, but at that point you're putting a 400pt unit into that, so hopefully it'll do something scary to anything that isn't the 50man blob. The problem there is that again it's a 400pt unit likely killing something that cost far less than it did and possibly getting tarpitted until it completely kills the blob. That said, for the same cost, you can get that 50man scary blob platoon with a PF commissar and PW wielding sergeants, that'll still put 4-5 wounds on that SM unit (which, if the IG player is intelligent, will all go on the Honor Guard, killing almost all off them off), whilst remaining still mostly intact (on average taking 13-14 casualties, so 65-70pts of guardsmen :rolleyes:), likely leaving little but the chapter master for the next assault phase.

 

 

Obviously that is not the 50 man, 10 PW weilding squad, but then that is unlikely to ever be fielded. 20 and 30 man squads are much more likely to ranged against Space Marines. Rest assured though, 50 men in a single unit is asking for trouble!

Indeed, as shown, above Guard blobs are very dumb when built like that, when supported by Straken they are simply ridiculous I've found. They'll eat charges by full squads of Berzerkers and silly stuff like that with disturbing regularity.

[Fatuous]

In principle I do agree, but it all depends what they have lurking near by that can counter assault.

 

A platoon command sqaud with commissar (ok, not that popular, but I've taken them in the past against marines) counter charging next turn, and they probably won't even need to worry about not being able to shoot. You won't be able to attack them and they are pretty likely to knock down your numbers without even taking any hits back, and can soon swing a combat, especially if you only have a combat squad in teh assualt.

 

But generally speaking, yes you are quite right. Try and be in CC so they can't target you with the russes, which are far more dangerous.

 

But guard can pack decent counter charge units, so worth noting what is near by. Platoon command sqauds can be a real suprise once you've taken the assualt on a blob. This is one of my fav tactics, even managed to kill Yariel couple of weeks back....

[ShinyRhino]

In principle I do agree, but it all depends what they have lurking near by that can counter assault.

 

A platoon command sqaud with commissar (ok, not that popular, but I've taken them in the past against marines) counter charging next turn, and they probably won't even need to worry about not being able to shoot. You won't be able to attack them and they are pretty likely to knock down your numbers without even taking any hits back, and can soon swing a combat, especially if you only have a combat squad in teh assualt.

 

But generally speaking, yes you are quite right. Try and be in CC so they can't target you with the russes, which are far more dangerous.

 

But guard can pack decent counter charge units, so worth noting what is near by. Platoon command sqauds can be a real suprise once you've taken the assualt on a blob. This is one of my fav tactics, even managed to kill Yariel couple of weeks back....

 

This is a dodgy scenario in my mind. let's say a 10-man tac assaults a Blob. Combat ensures, and the Blob stays put. All Marines that did not make base contact must now pile in to make base contact with as man IG models as possible, using the 6" move. Then the Blob must do the same. This should just about completely envelop the tac squad, preventing the CCS from assaulting the tacs next turn. There's no holding back the IG Blob to leave room for the CCS to get stuck in. If you assault a big old squad like an IG Blob, you should be fully surrounded after the turnis over. If not, someone skimped their movement, or the Blob was all strung out in a line to begin with.

[Giga]

From my own experience, beating IG is all about hitting them fast and hitting them hard. I usually do this by rushing them with pretty much my entire army.

 

First turn, I turbo-boost my bikes and/or speeders, move full 12" with all of my transports and pop smoke, and hope my long-range shooting (usually a lone combipredator and a plasma cannon combat squad) will destroy one or two of their vehicles. This means that, by turn 2, my bikes and speeders should be meltaing their vehicles and/or frying/rapidifirng their infantry. Generally, by turn 3, a huge part of my army should be in IG deployment zone. Some transports usually will get destroyed on their way to the IG lines, and that's fine, the units that were in them will keep footslogging ever onwards.

 

Anyway, once you reach their lines, it's all about killing them as fast as possible. Keep in mind that, while IG die just fine from rapid firing, it's on the whole better to engage them in assault. Thankfully, even our crappy tactical squads are gods of close combat compared to guardsmen of any kind, so flamer+boltpistoling them and then assaulting is apt to wipe out entire IG squads in a single turn.

 

Most IG armies nowadays consist of a bunch of veterans in chimeras, which means there aren't going to be too many AP3 pieplates going around, which is great since then it's a lot safer for those marines who are forced to footslog because their transports were immobilized or blown up. TH/SS terminators are excellent for this job as, depending on deployment and enemy movement, they may or may not be able to assault multiple chimeras. Either way, don't save th/ss termies for infantry killing - use them as soon as possible to pwn vehicles. If there's a leman russ squadron or an artillery squadron over there, then that's what you want to apply your thunderhammers on. Seeing an entire squadron of 3 leman russes blowing up in a single turn of assault is always awesome and usually demoralizing for your opponent.

 

Basically, when fighting IG, you want to overwhelm them with dangerous things in turn 1 (by turbo-boosting and rushing a whole lot of killy at turn 1), forcing them to make difficult decisions on what to shoot, and hoping your cover saves are going to keep you mostly safe until you reach their lines. Then, in turn 2 you want as many of their transports blown up (bikes, speeders, and th/ss termies assaulting out of a LR do this really well) so that, by turn 3, your tacticals, assault marines, sternguard, vanguard, etc. can get busy shooting or headbutting entire guardsman squads per turn.

 

In objectives games, it's a smart idea to put at least one tac squad in reserve, or even to combat squad it and then put it in reserve, depending on objectives and terrain layout.

 

Also, fear the outflanking vendetta! It tends to come out at turn 2-3 and contest your objective, so you gotha be ready to deal with it. The best way is to have a bit of long-range shooting to take it down (the LR godhammer is really good here as it can pop a cap in the vendetta's ass even when it's ~40" away, delivering them hammernators). Combipredators, typhoon speeders, rifleman dreadnoughts, and good ol' assault with a powerfist is more then capable of dealing with it. Once the veterans are flushed out of their flying transport, they're easy to deal with.

[Vaktathi]

Most (intelligent) IG players shouldn't be running their russes in squadrons, it leaves them entirely too vulnerable to any sort of CC or melta attacks, personally I haven't seen it done in many months. The 5E vehicle squadron rules are quite frankly terrible, and horrifically awkward, hence why you don't see anything but artillery units and cheap stuff like Hydras typically squadroned.

 

I find that the TH/SS terminators are not a great unit to deal with IG, simply because anything they can do other units can do, and do more flexibly, without requiring the Land Raider. Both of those units (termiantors and Land Raiders) are units that work *great* against other marines and the like, but are heaps of excess against IG, and thus wasteful. Most Land Raiders in general never really do much but simply get those termi's across the board, which is a dubious use of 250ish points, as usually something like a 125pt platoon command chimera packing 4 meltas or a 155pts meltavet unit will ride up to it and zap it. The termi's meanwhile generally find their best uses at tank killing, but unless delivered perfectly to hit like three expensive tanks at a time (read:Not Chimeras/Griffons/Sentinels/Hydras/etc) they generally won't really pull their weight, and will either generally get tarpitted or just zapped down. The 3++ is great, don't get me wrong, but IG is probably the best army out there at oversaturating that invul save. 600ish points of termi's+character+land raider rarely seem to end up being effective against IG, especially not in the same way they are against other marine armies, at least in my experience.

 

Also, it's entirely possible to fit in 6 meltavet squads and 3 Leman Russ tanks in even a 1500pt game, and anything higher there's no question. There's also the very popular mechanized platoons which you see as often as the vets almost (not quite as often as they require more models, but still pretty often) which also work very well (not as effective individually, but you can get more in and more guns overall, along with more tank hulls). 750pts with 2 platoons gets you 6 chimeras, 50 guardsmen, 4 autocannons, 12 meltaguns, 6 multilasers, 4 heavy bolters, 2 heavy flamers (that's 28 heavy/special weapons) and a total of 6 scoring units, that's a lot of stuff for 2 troops slots at that points level, leaving room for lots more scary stuff with pie-plates and vendettas to fill out the rest of the army. The TH/SS units and Land Raiders particularly begin to find themselves at a loss against this as it's all individually so meaningless but packs a lot of stuff when combined, whereas say 3 squads of tactical marines will find this easier to deal with than the termi's/LR will.

 

Chaos and SW termi's are better as they can be made much cheaper and loaded with combimeltas and flamers, and you don't need a powerfist/thunderhammer on every single dude, 2 is more than sufficient, allowing you get a much more flexible unit that will deliver greater value against an IG army.

[Captain Idaho]

Yes, but at that point you're putting a 400pt unit into that, so hopefully it'll do something scary to anything that isn't the 50man blob. The problem there is that again it's a 400pt unit likely killing something that cost far less than it did and possibly getting tarpitted until it completely kills the blob. That said, for the same cost, you can get that 50man scary blob platoon with a PF commissar and PW wielding sergeants, that'll still put 4-5 wounds on that SM unit (which, if the IG player is intelligent, will all go on the Honor Guard, killing almost all off them off), whilst remaining still mostly intact (on average taking 13-14 casualties, so 65-70pts of guardsmen :P), likely leaving little but the chapter master for the next assault phase.

 

395pts actually... :P

 

I dunno, it isn't just about killing a like for like amount of opposing units and vehicles. The threat the HG can cause can suck in a disproportionate amount of fire, especially as just 2 or 3 can overwhelm any infantry unit available for the Imperial Guard, aside from Ogryns.

 

If they are ignored they can easily carve through a squad or 2, or destroy a vehicle or whatever. This means the rest of my army doesn't have to deal with that element of the opposing army.

 

Lastly, victory conditions favour my HG more than the Imperial Guard army. I can make an entire objective unassailable for the IG player, even if I remove just 10 Guardsman holding it. Or in KP situations, killing a Guardsman unit is easy to do and actually levels the playing field! :wub:

 

As for them taking on the Blob squad, all I can say is fine by me! HG are not scoring, the Blob is. If it is stuck in the meat grinder with HG then I will rest easy that it won't be counter charging anything else.

 

Indeed, as shown, above Guard blobs are very dumb when built like that, when supported by Straken they are simply ridiculous I've found. They'll eat charges by full squads of Berzerkers and silly stuff like that with disturbing regularity.

 

Be interested to see it. I can't see how such a squad won't take fire prior to a mauling from a decent Assault squad. If the IG player forks out loads of points on what is essentially cannon fodder then that is fine by me!

[mowglie]

As an example, 225pts of Honour Guard and a Chapter Master with Relic Blade and SS can inflict a massive amount of kills on a Blob squad in a single charge, so much it is doubtful whether many casualities will be caused in reply.

 

You sure? By my reckoning a 345-pt blob of 5x infantry squad + Commissar with 6x power weapons *beats* your 400-pt HG + CM even if you assault.

[Vaktathi]

I dunno, it isn't just about killing a like for like amount of opposing units and vehicles. The threat the HG can cause can suck in a disproportionate amount of fire, especially

Eh, without an invul save, they'll die very quickly if they are outside a transport, and once you start loading them with relic blades to really hurt tanks they are looking to cost as much as a chimera each almost.

 

as just 2 or 3 can overwhelm any infantry unit available for the Imperial Guard, aside from Ogryns.

One would probably do it honestly. Two basic tac marines is really all you need to generally defeat a 10man infantry squad in close combat for 5pts less.

 

Lastly, victory conditions favour my HG more than the Imperial Guard army. I can make an entire objective unassailable for the IG player, even if I remove just 10 Guardsman holding it.

Eh, honor guard aren't that hard to kill, even with cover saves the amount of AP2 fire an IG army can bring to bear against them can quickly see them off.

 

Or in KP situations, killing a Guardsman unit is easy to do and actually levels the playing field! ;)

yes, but KP have a whole host of issues I won't go into here.

 

As for them taking on the Blob squad, all I can say is fine by me! HG are not scoring, the Blob is. If it is stuck in the meat grinder with HG then I will rest easy that it won't be counter charging anything else.

Well, that's the thing, they won't be stuck there that long, after turn 1 the HG should be dead or almost dead, and after the second assault round the Chapter master should be dead or have 1 wound left. So you're looking at 3 rounds of CC at most assuming roughly average die rolls, most likely only, with the IG having the clear advantage either way. Assuming the scary 50man blob. Anything else yes will get wiped very quickly.

 

 

Be interested to see it. I can't see how such a squad won't take fire prior to a mauling from a decent Assault squad. If the IG player forks out loads of points on what is essentially cannon fodder then that is fine by me!

It might take fire, but so to usually will whatever unit is going to try to assault it.

 

Doing the math for a 10man squad of khorne berzerkers with a PW champ charging into a 50man blob them leaves about 16 guardsmen dead on average, the guardsmen strike back (assuming 5 PW sergeants and a PF commissar) kill 5 of the berzerkers back on average, IG pass leadership most likely (1/36 chance to be fail after reroll), round 2 Berzerkers kill another 5 guardsmen, and on average are wiped out at this juncture by the PW sergeants and PF commissar. This is without Straken as well.

[Captain Idaho]

How big are these Blob squads people are talking about? Whenever I have seen a list on Boot Camp or 40K Online that has been built to use one or more Blob squads, it rarely goes to more than 3 PW weilding models for points reason.

 

Most of my comments are on the assumption there are 3 PW users in the unit, 4 at tops. Any infantry more becomes unwieldy.

 

Sure a unit with 6 models all with power weapons and 44 abalative wounds (sorry I meant Guardsman ;) ) are going to overwhelm HG, but no-one plays them!

 

***Edited:

 

Eh, honor guard aren't that hard to kill, even with cover saves the amount of AP2 fire an IG army can bring to bear against them can quickly see them off.

 

An entire army of AP2 firepower is fine by me! :wacko:

[mowglie]

Sure a unit with 6 models all with power weapons and 44 abalative wounds (sorry I meant Guardsman ;) ) are going to overwhelm HG, but no-one plays them!

 

And a unit with 3 PW and 18 ablative wounds costs like 165 points, a fraction of the cost of your HG + CM, and can also (I think) be comfortably handled in CC by a tactical squad.

 

And vs guard that's a *good* case. More likely they're cowering in their vehicles where your HG can't touch them putting AP2 pie plates on you.

 

Seriously, point-for-point HG are only good against things 1) with good armour saves, and 2) without higher I power weapons.

[Ming]

So math on the back of an envelope-wise, 23 typical generic marines +/- will take down a 50-man IG blob, over a few assault phases reliably, regardless of who charges, and combat would end between the two units roughly in 2-3 assault phases. So a rule of thumb would be, don't charge a 50-man blob of IG unless you have 2 full squads to do it with. A single Marine roughly outpowers a IG trooper about 2.2-1. That is just as an assault. Firing with pistols on the way in, getting charge bonuses, etc., all help. But 10 vs 50 is a bad deal.

 

Same thing, goes for popping transports. You need about 3 melta-like (S8+) AT weapons to fire in a shooting phase to reliably pop a single IG transport or tank by fire. 3 power fist attacks would do the same, but has its own caveats.

[Vaktathi]

How big are these Blob squads people are talking about? Whenever I have seen a list on Boot Camp or 40K Online that has been built to use one or more Blob squads, it rarely goes to more than 3 PW weilding models for points reason.

 

Most of my comments are on the assumption there are 3 PW users in the unit, 4 at tops. Any infantry more becomes unwieldy.

 

Sure a unit with 6 models all with power weapons and 44 abalative wounds (sorry I meant Guardsman :ermm: ) are going to overwhelm HG, but no-one plays them!

I was mainly discussing the 50man blob (since it was about on par in terms of cost), I've seen them used, and even 40man blobs won't be too much worse and are pretty popular. The most common 30man isn't going to be as scary, but while it may not destroy the HG unit, it'll tarpit it for a good long while, you'll need to kill every last guardsmen in there on average to get out of there, and that takes a lot of time, assuming you get in there turn 2, they'll emerge turn 4 or 5, weakened, and likely in a perfect spot for plasma rapid fire :P

 

An entire army of AP2 firepower is fine by me! ;)

Eh, it doesn't take that much, a demolisher cannon and a couple vendettas should see the unit off in a single turn even if its in cover. That's only about 425-450pts of shooting for one round.

 

 

So math on the back of an envelope-wise, 23 typical generic marines +/- will take down a 50-man IG blob, over a few assault phases reliably, regardless of who charges, and combat would end between the two units roughly in 2-3 assault phases. So a rule of thumb would be, don't charge a 50-man blob of IG unless you have 2 full squads to do it with. A single Marine roughly outpowers a IG trooper about 2.2-1. That is just as an assault. Firing with pistols on the way in, getting charge bonuses, etc., all help. But 10 vs 50 is a bad deal.

 

Same thing, goes for popping transports. You need about 3 melta-like (S8+) AT weapons to fire in a shooting phase to reliably pop a single IG transport or tank by fire. 3 power fist attacks would do the same, but has its own caveats.

That all sounds about right :)

[ShinyRhino]

One thing to remember is that not all 50 members of the Blob will be actually fighting in the close combat. Half, at most in the initial turn. Two-thirds reliably after that.

[mowglie]

One thing to remember is that not all 50 members of the Blob will be actually fighting in the close combat. Half, at most in the initial turn. Two-thirds reliably after that.

 

Yes, but it takes about 35 normal guardsmen to inflict one casualty anyway. It'll be the power weapons doing the work, and they *will* be in close combat.

[Captain Idaho]

Seriously, point-for-point HG are only good against things 1) with good armour saves, and 2) without higher I power weapons.

 

HG are good against every army in the game except maybe being overkill against Tau and IG, and selective effectiveness against Daemons. The reason I pointed them out in an example was they all of a sudden have a use that doesn't need against the Blod squad. They average about 15 wounds (sometimes more, sometimes less) against Guardsmen. They can kill a 30 strong blob squad in a couple assault phases, remembering they can shoot before they charge.

 

Oh, I dispute IG players can just point and destroy a unit so easily. Cover, target priority and casualities seldom makes it easy for anyone, let alone BS3.

 

And even if the IG player uses 400-500pts of points to destroy my unit, that doesn't mean the rest of the army can be useful. Often, those AP2 weapons you are using to destroy my 6 models represent a large proportion of the army's longer range anti-transport capacity. With multiple Rhinos, Landspeeders, Dreads and Space Marines infantry to contend with using all your AP2 firepower on 6 models might not as simply a choice as you believe.