New to the Guard. Need some advice against Astartes forces

[Rodmor]

Hi everyone,

 

A few months ago I resurected/ really started my 40k carrier (an impetuous decsion from when i was 13) when me and my friends discovered my old models. 

 

We already have had some very fun games  1500p but overall i had some rahter difficult times fighting Space Marines. I undersstand that my casualties with the Guard will always be somewhat high, but in previous games i mostly recieved some crushing defeats.

I know that, as a Guard player you should wear down the enemy enough before he can reach you. The problem is that if he uses rihnos or droppots or my beloved deep-striking terminators there is often not much i can do to get rid of them in time or hold them at a comfortable distance.  

 

So far i tried:

A balanced List with 2 MBT´s a HWS with Autocannons and a lot of normal basic guardsman with a Wyvern

A blob list with the main focus on a 40 man squad with a Lord Commisar and some powerfists on the sergants. (wich failed because of my limited focus)

Some kind of artillery list with some mortars and wyverns behind an aegis line with lots of Guard to protect them.

 

 

The only real limitation i have is that i dont want to play a too mechaized army. Also i didn´t want to take too much plasma guns into my army because i think that it is a big risk  to put such a thing on a guardsman pointwise.

 

P.s.: Sorry if there are some mistakes in this text my english is a bit rusty.

 

[WarriorFish]

Welcome to the B&C Rod, and back to the hobby Your English is nothing to worry about, I would have thought you a native speaker had you not mentioned anything Do you have any pictures of your models to share?

The core strength of Guard has always been in numbers above all else. Through numbers you gain more fire power, more resilience and more tactical options. When in doubt add another unit! Or as some say "boys before toys" Therefore I think this is always a good default, in particular against deep striking lists. Weathering the storm isn't enough as you've got to maintain effectiveness for the counter strike afterwards and this is best achieved with additional units.

Escort your more valuable units with cheaper ones. For example a simple Infantry Squad with a flamer is cheap, and with good use of terrain/board edges/etc they can help protect your expensive and powerful units by acting as a buffer. Use unit placement to limit his landing spots too so you can better control where he will be coming from - funnel him and prepare a welcoming party :tu:

The weight of fire tactic can be difficult against such lists as you can't leverage it well enough or long enough to be properly effective in most situations. As such I'd recommend taking something a bit more powerful to handle it. Maybe something like SWS or Vets with plasma or flamers to counter attack and take them down? If you fancy a new unit or have a Hellhound to proxy perhaps a Banewolf would be perfect for this as it can almost wipe out an entire Marine squad alone...

[Ulrik_Ironfist]

Guard is a very tactical and strategic army. They like to call us the emperor's hammer, but I don't quite think that's right. A hammer needs to be heavy and strong, able to be swung freely, that's not the guard (to me), it certainly can wielded like a blunt instrument of course, but I prefer finesse over brute strength. Using combined arms to wear down the opponent and forcing him to make the choices you want him to is key to any victory.

 

To win through battle shows strength, to win without fighting shows true skill. 

 

The simplest answer is to simply put more wounds on the table than he can kill in 7 turns of gameplay. That's boring, and I despise the Soviet mentality that many guard players tend to adopt with their human wave tactics. Not that I have anything against massed infantry formations, just as long as it's employed effectively instead of just running them into gunfire. 

 

With marines, you need to stack the wounds on them, they'll fail saves eventually. So for every one marine, put 2 to 3 guardsmen up against him, and make sure you're in rapid fire range so you can pump out 40-60 shots at him. That should take down a marine squad pretty easily.

[librisrouge]

Have you considered plasma? A lot of plasma? I regularly field at least ten plasma weapon in an 1850 army and I sometimes worry I don't have enough.

 

That'll at least solve your problems if they're fielding power armored bodies. Battle tanks help here too. Otherwise, all I can add, since you don't want to go mech, is the make sure your big guns are properly bubble wrapped with men. Conscripts are something you'll want to look into.

[Ulrik_Ironfist]

Stormtroopers, plasma, and battlecannons. Those will be your friends.

[Lukash_]

Consider Armored Sentinels with plasma cannons. More survivable against Gets Hot! and requires valuable anti-tank weaponry to kill.

[Emicus]

Not mech, and I suppose by extension no birds in the sky either? And limited plasma because it will blow your face off. Interesting.

You could try like librisrogue and expect the plasma to melt your own face more often than not and just have so many men you don’t care. There’s the tried and tested “two buckets of dice worth of Lasguns” preferably backed up with good orders and/or Heavy Weapon Teams galore.

or there’s close range Meltaguns to avoid blowing your face off, but at 12” it’s pretty darn close.

​

[vampyrerodent]

I don't have any plasma guns in my army and only two meltas. So, I have to wear down the Marines before they get to me.

 

Pour rounds and rounds into the enemy. Anything that creates wounds with less chance of failing to hit is best. Flamers are a very good thing. You should get about three Marines per flamer on average. You can set them up to get a better grouping for your flamers.

 

Large blast weapons are also very good, battle cannons, earth shakers, wyvern rounds. 

 

Opposed to many plans, do not charge the Marines. Force him to shoot you up and charge on his turn!. If you charge on your turn to get the extra attacks, you may get one or two Marines, but he will undoubtedly get three to five of yours. Then you fallback, get overrun, and he is then set up to charge a unit of his choice on his turn. This leads you to lose two units to zero for one turn.

 

Move up into his face, use your Order: First Rank Fire, Second Rank Fire, and a flamer. This gets you a chunk of rounds into them, maybe getting one or two. Meanwhile you bring up your command squad in to back them up with three flamers or more. On his turn, he will have to chew through the squad or face another thirty lags rounds. After your squads' destruction, he should be nicely bunched up and set for your flamers netting you maybe 15 hits at strength four.

 

I also like my Psychic Shriek from my Astropath, when it hits...

 

Do not try to go toe-to-toe with the Marines. Make him work through you. You pretty much have to jab them to death. Guard rarely have several dependable uppercuts available to them. And even less trustworthy assault units.

[Chefzilla]

Here is my experience against Black Templars and he always puts his Crusader squads in Rhinos and will always use a drop pod or 2.

 

A Vanquisher will make short work of those Rhinos and then follow up with your Wyvren or a mortar squad. I always bubble wrap my back board artillery by surrounding them with my infantry. This frustrates his drop pods and forces them to land in a spot that my many, many flashlights, I mean lasguns, can make his day difficult. Terminators aren't too much to worry about when facing a Leman Russ Battle Tank or Pask in a Punisher.

 

Necrons are really the only army that gives me trouble against my combined arms IG list.

[Ulrik_Ironfist]

Best thing to do against space marines is throw buckets of dice at them, or negate their armor saves, like I said; Stormtroopers, plasma, and battlecannons are your friends for negating SM armor saves. 

[Rodmor]

Thanks for the advice guys, i think its going to help me a lot, to finally beat my friends ass^^. Im going to build a new list and maybe be uploading it later for some further council

And as soon as i have my guard troops paintend in a satsifying state im going to uplaod some pics of them.

[Truesight]

My main opponent has been Astartes, and from what I can see nothing in their army likes getting shot by an Executioner.  With plasma sponsons it will blow chunks out of his army every turn.   If you can't proxy or need a cheaper tank, a plasma sponson eradicator can perform a similar role.  I know you said you wanted light mech and to not rely on plasma, but one squad of chimera vets with two plasma can be incredibly versatile and damaging as well.

[wulfgar hammerfist]

i recently used the Librarius Conclave with my Thunderwolf list and was very pleased with the results. That got me to thinking about using it with my Guard army as well. Divination would be the best discipline so you could get prescience, which is always useful, and misfortune which will really give marines a reason for pause before moving within range of a blob's worth of rending las guns. Three ML2 Librarians is reasonable and your casting powers on a 2+. If you wanted to splurge you could throw Tigurius in there for an ML3 psyker and make him your primary.