How do I beat you?

[Frostglaive]

Hey Guardsmen, it's your friendly neighborhood cogboy sneaking over to your side of the forums. Despite the obvious tech-heresy in asking questions and trying to learn new things, I wanted to ask you guys a few questions.

 

I've been playing AdMech since they came out in 7th. Easily my favorite army to play, and I love how they work now in 8th. My cogboys have faced off against just about every other faction in 40k so far (except Dark Eldar). And I've come to the conclusion that fighting Imperial Guard is the most challenging faction for me to go against.

 

I'm trying to get a bit more competitive in how I play, so I'm trying to learn more on how to beat the armies I fight, which lately has been mostly Guard. I can try and look at this through my side of it all, but I want to see what you guys see on the opposite end of the table.

 

You're about to face an AdMech army. How do you build your army list to combat that? What is your strategy in trying to win the game (let's say Eternal War missions instead of Maelstrom)? What's your heaviest hitter? Your weakest links? What do you fear the AdMech player will bring or do?

 

Long story short, how do I beat you?

[Tirak]

That question is impossible to answer without knowing what your list is. There are many different styles of Guard, from Mechanized to Armour to Airborne to Infantry, the list goes on. Guard is in a strong position right now so there's really not a single way in which people are fighting, so answering your question isn't feasible since everyone's Guard is different with different strengths and weaknesses. It'll be easier to help you bounce tactics around if you tell us what your army is and how you intend to use it, then we can bring scenarios of likely guard play to react to what you're bringing.

[Altasmurf]

Tirak is right, the guard have a couple ways of being successful so it's tough to pinpoint a specific weakness. Admech do have a few units that are specifically good vs guard though.

 

Onager, these (I'm sure as you know) are devastating vs tanks. Try to utilize you long range and fire lanes to hit artillery hiding in the back.

 

Corpuscarii priests. These guys kill infantry dead. Take multi ole 5 man squads so you don't overkill 10 man infantry squads, and the just gang up if they have a blob of conscripts.

 

Rangers with sniper rifle. Guard are one of the few armies that snipers can really affect. Just 2 or 3 can kill our minor characters like astropath and basic commissars. 4 or 5 and you take out our order givers. And should he hide every character these can easily pull double duty killing light tanks, sentinels and heavy weapon squads.

 

Robots, because well... They kill everything.

 

With guard you need to find the important targets (usually artillery) and ignore the chaff. Don't get sucked into I have to kill 50 conscripts.

 

Hope this helps

[gunnyogrady]

Hey Frosthglaive, happy to help!

 

First of all, I agree that we can help you better with a look at your list. Also, give us a general idea of your play style and typical scheme of maneuver.

 

You asked how to build a list to fight the guard? It will be much the same build as any other good TAC list, because Astra Militarum offer challenges along a wide and varied threat spectrum, depending on your opponent and the mission.

 

Seems like a non-answer, I know. With that in mind, here are three actionable rules for your list building:

 

1) Take Effective and Efficient Units - Guard are strong this edition, so don't leave all your power units at home. Take the units that kill things really dead, take the units that kill things pretty darn good for the points cost, or take both.

 

2) Cover the Full Threat Spectrum - Guard can bring great, non-token units along the entire threat spectrum. Against us specifically, be sure to have answers for: LOW, heavy tanks, fast tanks, deepstriking Plasma, blobs/hordes, and Character Support (from Commissars to Guilliman).

 

3) Build Redundancy into Your List - There's an old saying, "two is one, and one is none." This is true in 40k, and it's doubly true for fighting against guard. If you are up against a good player, they will focus their fire well, and kill the units that pose the greatest threat to them. You're going to need two or three of whatever units you want to use for sure.

 

Alright, so now you've got your list. While you are playing the game, here are three more actionable rules to keep reminding yourself of when you're up against Guard.They are pretty self explanatory.

 

1) "Only shoot what you can kill"

2) "Choose to kill the right things"

3) "Don't kill Conscripts until their support characters are dead"

 

Seriously, put these on a sticky note in your codex to remind you during the game. They are in order of importance. I see so many players using too little shooting/assault to kill units that are not lynchpins for us.

 

Kill our Commissars, Officers, Astropaths, Heavy Weapons, and Tanks (specifically Taurox Primes, Hellhounds, Manticores/Basilisks, and Russes). The conscripts, while intimidating, are much less potent without their characters to buff them.

 

I hope this was helpful! Some of this seems pretty basic, but to beat guard now, you have to have solid fundamentals.

 

 

*Another kind of redundancy can be achieved by taking many units of similar threat profile (T, W, Sv), so that it creates a target priority issue for your opponent.

[The Catachan Devil]

Hey Guardsmen, it's your friendly neighborhood cogboy sneaking over to your side of the forums. Despite the obvious tech-heresy in asking questions and trying to learn new things, I wanted to ask you guys a few questions.

 

I've been playing AdMech since they came out in 7th. Easily my favorite army to play, and I love how they work now in 8th. My cogboys have faced off against just about every other faction in 40k so far (except Dark Eldar). And I've come to the conclusion that fighting Imperial Guard is the most challenging faction for me to go against.

 

I'm trying to get a bit more competitive in how I play, so I'm trying to learn more on how to beat the armies I fight, which lately has been mostly Guard. I can try and look at this through my side of it all, but I want to see what you guys see on the opposite end of the table.

 

You're about to face an AdMech army. How do you build your army list to combat that? What is your strategy in trying to win the game (let's say Eternal War missions instead of Maelstrom)? What's your heaviest hitter? Your weakest links? What do you fear the AdMech player will bring or do?

 

Long story short, how do I beat you?

I personally am a big fan of a Stormlord combined with HWT inside with a trojan support vehicle. I then bring 3+ Earth shaker batteries and surround with ~90 conscripts. I then have a taurox with either a SWT or x2 cmmd squads with plasma and have Harker ride with them. This brings me up to around 1,500 points. For 2,000 points I'd probably bring a fire raptor too, for that extra S6 AP-2 D2 spam.

 

That's the list I typically run. Now the good thing about guard is that you can have a variety of lists. 

 

However I personally find the Kastelan Robots to be particularly strong; a unit of 6 will put out 108 S6 shots/turn. Fortunately I've yet to face that many of them in a game (I imagine due to cost, both in points and £££).

 

My biggest fear in my list is for my conscript wall to get overwhelmed and my back line gets assaulted. As a result my force has been designed to deal with hordes and have some anti-DS response (Harker + plasma). 

 

Typically against guard you want to polarise your army into units that either deal with T8 tanks OR units that deal with light infantry. Having anti-elite units are fairly redundant vs guard.

[NatBrannigan]

People are having trouble beating Guard.... I don't know what to think about this! I mean you're not wrong, I haven't lost a game yet with my Guard and I'm used to losing most games. It's hard to put my finger on why that is (I don't use the dreaded conscripts) but is there any particular aspect of Guard that you are having difficulty against? Is it sheer numbers?

 

I think, just think so don't go jumping down my throat, that people are mainly still running 7th edition lists. Any weapon without at least an AP of 3 useless, Storm shields everywhere you look etc etc. Guard really don't have much to worry about there. No-one used to use Heavy Bolters for instance because they were rubbish in 7th.

 

Is this the feeling everyone is getting? Will Guard become easier to beat as people realise they need a larger variety of weapons in their lists and can't just smash up the table with a Chapter Master tanking every single shot? Or is our list really just that good? Because frankly it only looks to be getting better with the new Codex.

[Withershadow]

AdMech do not feel very strong this edition, but you have some options. 2 arquebuses have about a 50% chance of scalping out commissars and commanders so give those to your rangers, Corpuscari and Infiltrators are great at cleaning out large units, Dragoons are a good unit to send to engage vehicles, and Kastelans/Destroyers/Onagers/Cawl are good backfield dakka. Those are basically your best units.

[Are Verlo]

Imperial guard is a strong army. Many of the core rules changed and guard benefit from them a lot. Such examples are the new to wound charts (S5 only wound guardsmen on 3+), disengage is strong when orders are available to get you back in the fight, the new save mod system gives guardsmen a 5+ (4+ in cover) save vs weapons that used to be ap5 and gave no save, vehicles of many sorts got a buff and see use on the battlefield.

 

Guard armies do well in objectice based battles because of Numbers and speed (orders can make 100+ inf models capture objectives at a furious speed).

 

Many of these rulechanges benefit hordes (both msu and lagre units) but the changes synergise so well with guard because of orders and commissars. Shooting is currently s little stronger than melee and guard armies are primarily a shooting army,

Hordes can be viable both as a few lagre units and for guard you can also play with many 10 man squads at the cost of order efficiency.

 

So to beat guard you have to win at objectives and have a reliable source of anti infantry.

Many "top builds" field lagre numbers of conscripts or brimstones. That is why wyverns and mortar HWTs find their way into the same armies.

Conscripts are imo superior to horrors based on damage output, speed with orders for takling objectives and relative immunity to morale.

Edited September 28, 2017 by Are Verlo

[BIG ROB OF DEATH]

I haven't played with IG yet in 8th ed, but I have watched several games, and so I humbly offer my insights:

 

The IG I've seen so far break down very roughly into 2 camps: the alpha strikers and the attrition hammers. Forgive my over-simplifications, but deep striking alpha dudes want to get in fast and take out the heart of the enemy primarily with plasma, meltas and some fast, light vehicles (many with flamer weapons), while the attrition gamers (of whom I consider myself to be one of them, eventually) take speed bump conscripts and such en mass, and try to win largely with heavy artillery and heavy armor outlasting and outshooting the enemy.

 

IMHO, you will be better served, all else being equal, to want your forces and plans to best take advantage of these likely 2 primary, classic archetypes. So, at least in terms of units, you should try to take some cheap(er) screening units of your own to keep deep strikers away from your most vital units, and also take units that can immediately jeopardize IG tanks and artillery, such as your own artillery. Plus, most IG armies I've seen so far seem to be somewhat vulnerable to snipers, assassins, and flyers. I myself fear an enemy Eversor Assassin and any enemy flyer that can hit with lascannons! 

[jaxom]

A lot of good stuff so far. Here's my perspective, there's definitely overlap.

 

1 - Guard are cost efficient at the moment. They're not overpaying points for their units so they can fit more on the board... which leads to two and three. You "can't" afford to take units which "are known" to be cost inefficient or that perform unreliably (swing units - they either swing the game in your favor or in the other person's favor).

 

2/3 - Guard can take a hit and have redundancy. They'll have numerous ways to accomplish specific tasks and these will often be from different angles (for example, infantry-based anti-infantry and tank-based anti-infantry) so if you have the tool to handle one you'll need another tool to handle the other. They'll probably have back ups; you won't have to kill one infantry tank-threat and one tank tank-threat, but two to three of each.

 

4 - Orders are amazing and add another level of play to the game. Kill officers ASAP and that usually means snipers or effects that target a point or unit and the surrounding area. Infiltrators or deep strikers with some canny deployment might pull it off, but that is less reliable.

 

What does all this translate to in my opinion? If the entire Guard army can target what they want, you lose. If the entire Guard army can present a threat, you lose (because there's always going to be something you need to be destroying at the cost of something else you need to be destroying if their both a threat at the same time). Try to think like an Eldar - stretch them out, isolate portions of the army and destroy them. Have some bait units, have some units that can rapidly redeploy, have some units that can cause chaos, play the deployment psychology game, etc.

 

G'luck!

[noigrim]

Also our dirty secret is that we've got crappy antitak, most of our big guns are damage D3 so be sure to bring high toughness-wounds models like those weird spider turrets

[CoffeeGrunt]

Guard have great anti-tank though...

[NatBrannigan]

Each individual Lascannon in a Heavy Weapon team may only hit on a 4+, but there can be a LOT of them and they can easily be ordered to re-roll 1's to hit. That's good Anti-tank. Deep Striking Scions with Melta or overcharged Plasma are good Anti-tank and the New Leman Russ shooting twice rule means the standard LRBT is good against Tanks as well.

 

I kind of see where you're coming from but the new Codex looks to be taking things up a notch (Bam!) across the board. I'd struggle to kill everything in an all Tank / Monsterous Creature army but I'd be very confident of actually winning the game against that same army.

[CoffeeGrunt]

I mean Cadian HWTs can be easily on 3s re-rolling to Hit, which en masse is sure to rip anything a new one.

[WarriorFish]

The numbers game has always had merit, and for a long time has been a Guard mantra due to necessity. As some very good posts already point out Guard do redundancy well and can do "more men than you have bullets" very well in 8th (which looks to continue with the codex). With how 8th works numbers are strong so this naturally plays into the hands of Guard, not to mention most players already being well placed to put boots on the ground.

 

Generally speaking you want to be quick. The longer you hang around the more time the Guard player has to put his guns on you and carry out counter movements etc. Going in dribs and drabs is a good way to lose units for little gain so the more you can get going at once the better. Numbers of your own will help too; expensive units o' doom will play into the Guard's hands as they feebly fight Infantry Squad after Infantry Squad getting rinsed by Fall Back moves and counter-assaults. Plus with horde armies being better what's stopping an elite army taking some of that pie? A Tactical Marine is still superior to a Guardsman and much cheaper than a tricked out Vanguard for example

[PliskinAJ]

I never change my list based on my opponent. I always assume they have enough anti tank, horde, sniping .... etc to do me in. This is why I run redundancy. If I need 2 company commanders I'll have 4-5. I have always run characters as cheap support roles they have their buffs and I give them a decent ranged rapid fire weapon, aka the bolter. 

 

I spread my AT through out my army. I almost never have 3 lascannons in the same team. Ideally, each heavy weapon team has 1 lascannon. Then maybe a heavy bolter and a mortar. This is done purely as people have to devote enough shooting to wipe all the teams to get to my lascannons. 

 

I tend to also commit. I either do all mechanized or all foot. Never a mix, when I have a mix it guarantees you have something to deal with me but if I commit to 10+ tanks on the board or 200+ infantry I can normally overwhelm you in your category of anti-horde or anti-armor. Like wise my offensive firepower is balanced so I can deal with everything. 

 

Melee is our weakness, but even there that is where other armies tend to mess up with guard. They are used to having to melee other armies that can fight back and they completly overkill any unit they get into contact with. If I can throw a 56 point line squad at you to speed bump you I will. If they live I have them fall back. If they die I just try to make sure they are more than 4" away from any other unit so you can't roll into my other units that will hopefully be killing you. 

 

If you have something beefy but honestly doesn't do much AKA land raderisk, I can't kill it by turn 2 so it will drop off its payload then have a few guns poping at targets I'll ignore it. It's designed to bullet sponge so if I don't shoot at it it looses its purpose. 

 

So this is what I do, now how do you fight guard. 

 

Take a look at what they have weapons wise. Do they have a mess of 24" rapid fire but not much long range, if you can cripple their long range weapons fast, allowing you to close distance. Most games are objective based, what do they have that can move fast, you don't have to kill transports, just cripple them. Finally what makes guard work so well in this ed, support characters, kill them.

 

Most of my games I know if I'm going to win by half way through the shooting of turn 2. If I have crippled your force enough by then and still have about half my army I have a good shot at winning. So if you can weather 2 turns of guard shooting you should be good.

[CoffeeGrunt]

I've been debating the decentralised Lascannon idea, but I don't have enough Heavy Bolters yet, and they don't work well with Mortars for me due to Mortars being best deployed out of LoS.

[PliskinAJ]

I've been debating the decentralised Lascannon idea, but I don't have enough Heavy Bolters yet, and they don't work well with Mortars for me due to Mortars being best deployed out of LoS.

I have found out it works great as you don't have to find LOS for the mortar. Just stick that weapon in a spot that LOS doesn't matter and position your other gun or 2. 

 

I have been liking las, bolter, mortar for my heavy weapons. They can do a bit of everything while if it takes damage a I can choose what dies depending on my targets. 

[mertbl]

Deploy the mortar part out of LOS and then put the lascannon in sight. You determine what takes a wound.

 

I've been debating the decentralised Lascannon idea, but I don't have enough Heavy Bolters yet, and they don't work well with Mortars for me due to Mortars being best deployed out of LoS.

[CoffeeGrunt]

Hmmm, fair points all. I try this out this weekend when the Codex lands.

[noigrim]

Beh give me sallies devs anyday, too much "ifs" with guard

[CoffeeGrunt]

You're in the wrong subforum then, amigo. :P

[Happy-inquisitor]

A lot of good stuff so far. Here's my perspective, there's definitely overlap.

 

1 - Guard are cost efficient at the moment. They're not overpaying points for their units so they can fit more on the board... which leads to two and three. You "can't" afford to take units which "are known" to be cost inefficient or that perform unreliably (swing units - they either swing the game in your favor or in the other person's favor).

 

2/3 - Guard can take a hit and have redundancy. They'll have numerous ways to accomplish specific tasks and these will often be from different angles (for example, infantry-based anti-infantry and tank-based anti-infantry) so if you have the tool to handle one you'll need another tool to handle the other. They'll probably have back ups; you won't have to kill one infantry tank-threat and one tank tank-threat, but two to three of each.

 

4 - Orders are amazing and add another level of play to the game. Kill officers ASAP and that usually means snipers or effects that target a point or unit and the surrounding area. Infiltrators or deep strikers with some canny deployment might pull it off, but that is less reliable.

 

What does all this translate to in my opinion? If the entire Guard army can target what they want, you lose. If the entire Guard army can present a threat, you lose (because there's always going to be something you need to be destroying at the cost of something else you need to be destroying if their both a threat at the same time). Try to think like an Eldar - stretch them out, isolate portions of the army and destroy them. Have some bait units, have some units that can rapidly redeploy, have some units that can cause chaos, play the deployment psychology game, etc.

 

G'luck!

 

The one thing I would reinforce is that you cannot be more brutally efficient than AM so do not try. You need to build your list on the understanding that on straight points efficiency AM are top dogs in 8th. I am going to disagree with point 1 slightly, a strong "swing" unit might give you a chance of a win whereas just trying to be efficient will probably more or less doom you to a slow grinding defeat. 

 

To the extent that they have  a weak point it is their general BS 4+, anything that can penalize their BS will improve your ability to stay on the table long enough to win. You need to really consider that when picking the Forgeworld for your cogboys. e.g. Dragoons in a Stygies VII detachment are largely immune to Conscripts (which gives you greater freedom of movement on the table) and will have most of the opposing army hitting on 6's.

[CoffeeGrunt]

You're in the wrong subforum then, amigo. :P