Thinking about re-enlisting with the guard

[ThatOneMarshal]

Hey guys so recently I've been looking nice for a new army and after playing a 500 point game against my brother I've been in the mood to try out the guard again.

 

I'm looking for a mostly tank army backed up by some infantry. I know that the guard aren't the best army in the world, but how do they fair normally? Are they CSM or orks bad, better, worse?

 

I play mostly semi competitively and the worst I play against is necrons and the space marine Gladius. I was wondering how would you go about making a guard tank list?

 

So how are my favorite defenders of the imperium?

[WarriorFish]

Guard aren't doing too bad overall, while things could be a lot better they could always be worse. There aren't really any "super" combos or anything like that and you can sometimes struggle with mobility for maelstrom missions. When our stand out unit of the codex is only so because it's cheap - and it kills infantry - then that may be a good indicator. Guard can put lots of models on the table and muster a lot of guns, and our tanks are tough and powerful albeit not cheap.

 

Semi-competitively you should be ok, though Necrons and the Gladius can be potent so it depends on how they're run. For a tank list you need to maximise their effectiveness so that means protecting them as they're not just an investment but also do most of the killing. Cheap Platoon units are good for this but it's also down to managing things - deployment, movement and where possible your opponent. There are too many tricks that can be pulled to get in close quickly so victory often hinges on how well you can respond and control it (along with some luck, of course :P ).

 

Is there a point value you're looking to build to? Any particulars you're interested in or is it just general tanky stuff?

[HackedDuck]

I too am just starting guard and having looked through the codex and formations I would say if you like tanks go for either the armoured battle group from IA1 or the emperors fist armoured company backed up by a platoon or two.

[duz_]

The new formations will help achieve what you want.

 

Emperor's Fist formation (which is >5 tanks in 4 units) plus a CAD with a couple of small platoons and maybe some wyvrens and chimera or Taurox.

 

 

I like taking my guard to tournaments (although I've been giving them a break of late) I usually place in the top 3rd or so. Depends on how competitive and how well you like to do. Played correctly you wont get faced stomped but that requires practice.

 

The prevalence of grav does take the fun out of using anything with hull points these days though.

[ThatOneMarshal]

Thanks for the help guys! So I've been binging ww2 movies recently including Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers and I've been liking the idea of having a more combined arms style of play similar to how Americans fought. As the guard seems to be rife with veterans and military history buffs I'm sure y'all know what I mean :D.

 

I primarily play 1850, however we are playing combat patrol at the moment, at 400 points. We primarily play eternal war with ITC.

 

I like the Leman Russ of all variants, stormtroopers, vets in chimeras, hell hounds, the quad mortar, infantry blobs, artillery of all shapes and sizes including the forgeworld ones, and Valkyries/vendettas. As well as yarrick.

 

It's a good shout out about emperors fist formation. Where can I find all of the guard formations and are there any in particular that are worth using?

[HackedDuck]

The Cadia iBook from games workshop has pretty much al the formations I think (it also has the datasheets for the bane blades).

[Endman]

The Cadia Codex is great and pretty mandatory if you want to play Guard these days. There are good formations for Armoured, Mechanised and Footslogging Infantry lists.

[duz_]

Yes you will need the Base codex plus the digital cadia supplement ( which is the cheapest way to go).

If you want a hard copy then you'll have to buy the montka & red waagh campaign supplements.

[Indefragable]

Personally, I find I do the best with Guard when I go as OBSEC as possible. Cheap OBSEC bodies in a CAD are perhaps our greatest strength. Back them up with AV14 everywhere and you're opponent is going to be stuck between a rock-solid tank wall and a bayonet. The secret to winning with IG, in my experience, is to die slow. Get your forces where you want them to be and have them die slower than your enemy wants to kill them. Then look at the scoreboard. 

 

If you are considering tanks, ask not what Pask can do for your army but you can do for your Pask. 

 

Here's your flak, your frags, and the Emperor's Lasgun. Try not to bleed too much on your armor when you go....makes it harder to power wash out.

 

Welcome to the 'Guard, son. 

[WarriorFish]

Well said, numbers is our strength and arguably Guard's asset these days - number of models and dice! Let their fancy units and equipment struggle as they remove one cheap squad only to be ganged up on by more waiting for the chance...

Make it a battle of attrition they can not win. Victory through superior fire power - for annihilating your enemy is always a win condition! Never forget that victory needs no explanation and defeat allows none

[Akrim]

I'll of course endorse Guard since I've been rocking them since '99 lol. As mentioned in Maelstrom they can struggle due to lower mobility and dynamic deployment options.

 

That said though there are some great formations; Artillery Company and Armoured Company are my preference.

 

I'll second Indefragable; I like to supplement my formations with a CAD for lots of ObSec troops and transports.

 

Veterans make great fire support or mech units (just caution against loading them with too many points)

 

Infantry squads can do well if combined up to maximize orders and can mech up with a flamer for cheap mobile ObSec. If on foot, Aegis/quad gun almost mandatory.

 

Conscripts work great as a buffer unit to keep tanks and artillery safe from deep strikers and melta. Take 25-30 and add a Ministorum Priest = living shieldwall.

 

They get a lot of bad press but I find Scout Sentinels to be valuable, they can outflank to grab line breaker or deep objectives and are cheap. Deep striking Scions can work in a pinch but they are pricy as a throw away unit.

 

Good super heavy options too; Stormlord, Hellhammer or more favourably Knights (since they can advance and assault).

[Indefragable]

The other thing that deserves a mention is the humble lasgun. 

 

Know the expression "a thousand points of light?" That's the IG infantry melting you away like a bug under a microscope in the summer sun. The single lasgun is almost worthless on its own (S3 AP- Rapid Fire...you'll learn to appreciate how amazing bolters are) but they are the epitome of the guard. If you are not getting kills with them, then you are not using them right: you need MORE lasguns. A single infantry squad at 24" will put out 9x S3 AP- shots. That may kill a grot or two if you are lucky. However, at 12" with Orders, you can put out 27x S3 shots. Suddenly, even Terminators start rolling 1's. This is the single most important lesson in playing Guard: you need to actually think like a commander and plan your supporting fires and when and where to commit your Troops. If you can't get those 3-for-1 lasgun shots in, then that means you are either in the wrong position or perhaps you should forgo offensive and Go to Ground on the Obj instead. Feel naked without your Power Armor? Embrace that feeling. Harness that fear to heighten your tactical senses. Think like an actual human would on a battlefield as mad as those of the 40k. 

[Akrim]

Massed lasguns certainly have their place. First Rank Second Rank order can do some crazy stuff especially at close range, three squads bare comboed at 12" crank out 90 shots! For infantry heavy style Kurovs Aquila does well, give it to the CCS, hide them behind some tanks and have units connecting within range. Its pretty nasty.

[WarriorFish]

Last game I faced termies in I blasted them off the table in a single turn with loads of lasgun shots :lol: Orders are a crucial part of the structure of a Guard army, so you should be trying to get the most out of them whenever possible :)

[Indefragable]

Last game I faced termies in I blasted them off the table in a single turn with loads of lasgun shots Orders are a crucial part of the structure of a Guard army, so you should be trying to get the most out of them whenever possible

I used to fit Flamers, GL's, autocannons, etc.... into the infantry but now I just want MORE lasguns. The way I see it, your Guardsmen are either there to add to the volleys of the Emperor's Light or to act as meatshields for special weapons. Remember Ahnold in Predator? "If it bleeds, we can kill it." ANY target that can be hurt by lasguns can be killed by them. It's simply a math problem to solve: x unit requires y amount of lasguns. Solve for y. I keep harping on this point becaue it's helpful to think of lasguns like muskets back in the age of sail: the best way to use them is to clump them together to make a giant volley of death. Otherwise, you're better off fighting like a pire manning a cannon or having a sabre in your teeth.

[ThatOneMarshal]

Hey guys so with battlefield 1 coming out I've got reinvigorated with doing the guard again. I'm planning on using the death korps models but I'll probably stay astra militarism ruleswise.

 

How would you go about doing a list centered the classic guard, how would you go about doing a tank/ infantry heavy list? How many infantry squads are enough per a tank?

[M@verik115]

Firstly get the codex. 
Secondly, astra militarum is more of a veteran army, so know what you are getting into. You will not get easy wins like with marines, necrons, tau or eldar. 
Most of the time you will be on a back foot and you will really need to know what you are doing to win. 
Having said that, guard is lethal if you know what you are doing and you can make quite a few competitive lists. 

Do you intend for your army to be lead by a tank commander or an infantry commander?

[WarriorFish]

Roughly two squads per tank works out quite well for me. Gives you the numbers to form a defensive line and set about taking objectives as well as weather losses.

[Ulrik_Ironfist]

If it's tanks you want, you should look into the IA1.2 Armored Battlegroup list. Russ tanks become troops, Vanquisher Company Command tanks and Commissar tanks can take monster hunter shells, which trade Armorbane for Instant death and blast. You can get 5 BS4 tanks into a list (2 Company Command tanks [HQ] and 3 Commissar tanks [Elites]). Commissar Tanks have a leadership bubble of 6" that affects units, not models. Unfortunately all of your infantry must be mechanized, so you'd be best off taking vets, which are expensive from that list, but have Tank Hunters but can only take 2 special weapons.

 

Think about it, You can park a few leman russes on backfield objectives and lob templates into things, while you rush up in chimeras to grab objectives midfield. It's a costly list, but worth looking into if you're looking to run combined arms. Flyer Support is somewhat lacking, though you can take Thunderbolts, Lightnings, and Avengers as Heavy support choices, Using the standard flyer rules, or you can take a single squadron of Vultures or Vendettas as Fast Attack. You can also Take the amazing IA1.2 Hydra, with all it's jink ignoring goodness.

 

I find that the Standard C:AM book is incredibly lackluster when compared to the lists offered by forgeworld. Now this is going to be dependent on whether or not your competitive meta allows forgeworld. Which personally, I feel that if they don't they aren't allowing players to compete at their highest level.

[ThatOneMarshal]

Alright guys so for veteran day I decided to rewatch all of Band Of Brothers... and now I want to do an airborne army.

 

Any ideas for models and strategy? I'm looking for a primarily infantry focused army with some aircrafts thrown in the mix. Would eleyesians be the best way going forward?

[sebs_evo7]

You could still use cadians and use 3rd party bits to get that airborne feel. If i remember the series correctly they were mainly deployed on foot apart from obviously the drop in the 2nd ep. How about lots of camo vets with not heaps of camo on them but enough to show they are special forces. You could always include some russ's with camo netting to match

[Ulrik_Ironfist]

Alright guys so for veteran day I decided to rewatch all of Band Of Brothers... and now I want to do an airborne army.

 

Any ideas for models and strategy? I'm looking for a primarily infantry focused army with some aircrafts thrown in the mix. Would eleyesians be the best way going forward?

Well, that's going to depend. Are you wanting a Paratrooper Army or do you want an Air Assault Army? Either way you're pretty much looking at Elysians, it just depends on the build.

 

Fewer Aircraft with lots of deep striking infantry is going to give you that Paratrooper feel. If you take Valkyries, I suggest taking them dedicated to stormies, because stormies can get Move Through Cover, which will make them more survivable on a grav-chute insertion (No DT test on scatter). I'd take a few forward observer vet squads as your pathfinder units and follow on with an infantry platoon. 

 

A standard Forward sentries vet build will work fine (3 sniper rifles and a heavy bolter, since elysians don't get autocannon or lascannon HWT), just account for their infiltrate rule. Another thing to remember is that you can take a heavy flamer in addition to your 3 heavy weapons so have fun with that. 

 

Also, Vultures are your friends for CAS, and Lightnings and Thunderbolts can still be taken as Heavy Support choices (for cheaper) as your air to air choices. Drop sentinels are good, and you can take a squadron as part of an infantry platoon, so you can still get them even if you fill your elites choices with stormies (like I tend to do).

 

Elysians work especially well with the Planetstrike rules, so don't forget that there are other mission types beside what's in the BRB.

 

All in all Elysians will be your best choice, though you might want to back them up, a small CAD from ABG might be in order...

[Indefragable]

I got into Guard hoping to do a WWI-style army: lots and lots of bodies and lots and lots and lots and lots of artillery. Unfortunately, that proved incredibly frustrating. I know play a fairly well-rounded combined-arms type of force, with Pask in a Vanquisher for long range reliable AT, a big fat blob of fearless Conscripts to gum up the center of the board, Wyverns and Manticore for the Air Mail, and the rest a strong mech core of Melta Vets with Carapace. Funny how I have become far more WWII than than WWI. 

 

Btw, how is Battlefield 1? I liked the idea, but the Beta squashed my interest. 

[Ulrik_Ironfist]

I got into Guard hoping to do a WWI-style army: lots and lots of bodies and lots and lots and lots and lots of artillery. Unfortunately, that proved incredibly frustrating. I know play a fairly well-rounded combined-arms type of force, with Pask in a Vanquisher for long range reliable AT, a big fat blob of fearless Conscripts to gum up the center of the board, Wyverns and Manticore for the Air Mail, and the rest a strong mech core of Melta Vets with Carapace. Funny how I have become far more WWII than than WWI. 

WW1 themes are fairly hard to do in current edition 40k, as the nature of the Great War was very static. Now, Gunline Krieg is pretty much the way to do it, especially taking fortifications like an aegis defense line. If you fancy a WW1 style army that works a bit more like guard should, look at the American Expeditionary Forces from 1917-1918, as the doughboys were far more willing to advance and take ground (having learned our lessons in trench warfare some or so 50 years earlier). 

 

Btw, how is Battlefield 1? I liked the idea, but the Beta squashed my interest. 

The Campaign mode (War Stories) is pretty interesting, and  seems pretty accurate. Pretty hard hitting visuals, though very monochromatic, almost greyscale. Great inspiration for the guard though.