Chosen Allies for IG.

[Aethyran]

Since I got the Kataphron Destroyers, I have not had a game without them. They fulfil just about every need/removes any glaring weaknesses (exception psykers) against the open meta of my local club. 

Grav Cannoneers - Kill MCs, FMCs, MEQs, Vehicles and Flyers.

Plasma Party Poppers - Heavy duty horde killer.

This got me thinking, what other allies could I add to compliment my current force. And what do you guys use - if you do use allies - with your own Imperial Guard. 

A 1k game earlier in the week, Death Company with a Flyrant ally (I know) vs my IG with Cult Mech. The Destroyers and the indestructible Tech Priest Dom won me the match. 

 

[nismogrendel]

You mentioned a weakness to psykers... what about that anti-psyker assassin?  He looks cool, not sure if it is good value for the points cost or not.

 

I saw another post on B&C a while ago that mentioned flying him around in a Valkyrie to drop where needed.

[Myrkul]

I use codex marines, generally running white scar tactics.

 

Mainly Bring marines for droppods, to land my melta vets in my opponents back field T1 to pop/soften high value targets; and the fact pods are such a pain to kill, and give my line breaker majority of games. I also bring in Bikes w/ grav to give me some mobility to snag objective or take out MC/GC's.

 

Blood angels Sanguinary priests are nice additions to blob squads, even being t3 it still gives them a little more milage. But Ive really found a sanguinary with a Bulgryn squad and a priest makes for a really durable beat stick.

 

Ive seen people (depending on what kind of rules format you run; we run ITC at my store) bring flesh tearers for pods and drop in the destroyers.

[Ulrik_Ironfist]

If you're worried about Psykers, don't worry about nullifying his, just bring more than he can. To that end, grey knights would make great allies. March10k always suggests a libby and a strike squad, I like termies. I'd suggest taking a couple termie squads and a libby so you get a bit more CC ability. 

 

I like My Space Wolves or Dark Angels. Space wolves offer really good close combat with their counter attack special rule, and their great formations. Dark Angels offer really good bikes and some decent formations as well, with their ravenwing attack squadron and their deathwing formation. Assassins provide some really good options, and you also might try Elysians, or Militarum Tempestus, or Death Korps, they provide some nice help too.

 

The Skyhammer Assault Force formation also provides some really nice benefits too.

[WarriorFish]

Sisters work as a nice cross between Guard and Marines. You get all the bonuses of Marines (and more) on the attack for fewer points. Suits my fluff and reminds me of the olden days. That said I run my Guard on their own mostly now but I'm thinking of mixing it up with allies once more. This includes the Inquisition, very easy to add a bit of them in for some character and fluff too.

 

The trick with allies is to play to strengths and avoid stepping on toes. Fortunately that's easily done with any allied force to Guard :)

[cypherthefallenangel]

For me i usually ally my guard with more guard. If im running my DK assault brigade, ill take armored company(IA1.2) just to get bs4 vanquishers with beast hunter shells and my vulture gunship or old vendettas. Its also nice having obsec thunderers(best tank). Beast hunter shell for instakilling riptides and carcas shells for burning out pathfinders. It works out great i find good synergy between the two and i still get to play an all guard army. Some might call it cherry picking units, but when your usual opponents all run cheese armies, i call it leveling the playing field.

[duz_]

I like to take GKs at least a lib and 5 termies a fully kitted dreadknight too if I have the points.

[Ulrik_Ironfist]

Most often I use my Knight and an assassin as allies for my guard. Inquisition makes good allies and you can get cheap psykers that way too. You can also get land raiders and land raider crusaders too, which can really mess up an opponent's day.

[Emicus]

Imagine if you went full Admech - the devastation you could bring :o

[Terminus]

I think Raven Guard made a good addition.

[Ulrik_Ironfist]

Basically any army that does close combat better than guard is a valuable ally. The Skyhammer Annihilation force is a great ally, drop podded relenless devs, and 2 assault squads that can assault after deep strike, backing up a shooty guard force. Especially vicious if paired with an air assault army like MT. Those relentless devs come down with grav cannons and wreck MC's days, then the assault marines chop up his shooty units while your guard sits back and hammers his choppy units. 

 

MT get dropped off closer to the choppy guys and rapid fire the hell out of them with AP3 guns. And with formations you generally get all of what you want and nothing/not much of what you don't, and still get to be battleforged, so that CAD of guardsmen don't lose ObSec.

[Aethyran]

Oh wow thanks guys, lots of food for thought. :D

[Ulrik_Ironfist]

Oh wow thanks guys, lots of food for thought.

No problem, the biggest thing to remember when choosing an ally is what do they offer you that you can't do. Marines offer things like grav, and efficient heavy weapons teams (devs, 4 HW for 5 guys is more efficient than 3 to 6). They also offer some close combat ability that you don't get with guard. The basic troops, scouts have infiltrate and scout, so you can get some advanced board control, or you can take some tac marines for objective camping tanks. They also have the ability to get up the board quickly, via drop pods. What you wouldn't want to do, is ally your IG with something like Tau, because you're adding a shooting focused ally to a shooting focused army (unless you're going for fluff, and disregarding the allies matrix).

Inquisition adds a lot to a guard army, especially with acolytes able to take power armor, sure they don't shoot any better than your guardsmen, but give them all stormbolters and power armor and you can get a unit pumping out 24 S4 AP5 shots with 3+ saves, at 24". That's a lot of dakka, use them as a supporting fire base for a MT army, and they suddenly look a lot better. Inquisition has so many options to benefit you, they can be close combat or ranged tanks, or they can provide you heavy support. That's from a MT perspective though where you have need of something to cover your deficiencies. C:AM does a pretty good job of covering it's units weaknesses.

[HenricusTyranicus]

Oh wow thanks guys, lots of food for thought.

Inquisition adds a lot to a guard army, especially with acolytes able to take power armor, sure they don't shoot any better than your guardsmen, but give them all stormbolters and power armor and you can get a unit pumping out 24 S4 AP5 shots with 3+ saves, at 24". That's a lot of dakka, use them as a supporting fire base for a MT army, and they suddenly look a lot better.

But fam, they cost more than marines and are still only BS 3 S3 and T3. Bring people who can do close combat as well as shooting. 15 man Black Templar crusader squads are Emperor tier allies for a guard army. Especially if you loan them your priests.

[Ulrik_Ironfist]

Oh wow thanks guys, lots of food for thought.

Inquisition adds a lot to a guard army, especially with acolytes able to take power armor, sure they don't shoot any better than your guardsmen, but give them all stormbolters and power armor and you can get a unit pumping out 24 S4 AP5 shots with 3+ saves, at 24". That's a lot of dakka, use them as a supporting fire base for a MT army, and they suddenly look a lot better.

But fam, they cost more than marines and are still only BS 3 S3 and T3. Bring people who can do close combat as well as shooting. 15 man Black Templar crusader squads are Emperor tier allies for a guard army. Especially if you loan them your priests.

Very true, I'm just thinking fluffy allies though. Black Templars, while powerful, aren't really known for "working with" other imperial forces, more like "working around" them. Space Wolves are actually well known for their close ties to the Imperial Guard, as are the Ultramarines, so they'd probably be the best options for fluffy allies.

[march10k]

I was in the process of painting up 5x strikes and a GKL as the ally for my guard, the strikes being a "tax" (not much of one, given the total absence of melee capability in IG lists) to get the GKL in there.  I just couldn't come close to beating those damned "I summon an extra 400 points every turn" daemon lists.  I got distracted by other projects (like 30k alpha legion), now the idea is totally trumped.  My guard ally is a culexus.  He'll ride in a valkyrie to get that null bubble where I need it when I need it while being a lot harder to kill than if I just DSed him.  Works against summoning spam, works against invisi-stars, and it's much cheaper than the GK allied contingent.

[HenricusTyranicus]

Oh wow thanks guys, lots of food for thought.

Inquisition adds a lot to a guard army, especially with acolytes able to take power armor, sure they don't shoot any better than your guardsmen, but give them all stormbolters and power armor and you can get a unit pumping out 24 S4 AP5 shots with 3+ saves, at 24". That's a lot of dakka, use them as a supporting fire base for a MT army, and they suddenly look a lot better.

But fam, they cost more than marines and are still only BS 3 S3 and T3. Bring people who can do close combat as well as shooting. 15 man Black Templar crusader squads are Emperor tier allies for a guard army. Especially if you loan them your priests.

Very true, I'm just thinking fluffy allies though. Black Templars, while powerful, aren't really known for "working with" other imperial forces, more like "working around" them. Space Wolves are actually well known for their close ties to the Imperial Guard, as are the Ultramarines, so they'd probably be the best options for fluffy allies.

I work pretty hard at making mine fluffy. I either use Commissar Yarrick, or my "Black Templar Sergeants" who are recruited as support from BT recruiting worlds and who I'm slowly painting to BT color scheme.