Three Top Tournament Guard Lists discussion

[Diagramdude]

Citing Auspex Tactics' recent video about three winning Guard lists:

 

Jean Masson won a 12 player RTT:

Battalion + Patrol - Gunnery Experts + Spotter Details

 

HQ

Company Commander (Warlord, Old Grudges)

Company Commander (Kurov's Aquila)

3x Tank Commanders with Demolisher and Lascannon

 

Troops

6x Infantry Squad - bare bones

 

Transport

2x Chimera with 2 Heavy Flamers

 

Elites
8x Bullgryn 4 slabshield 4 brute shield

Astropath (Psychic Barrier)

 

Fast Attack

2x Hellhound with Heavy Flamer

 

Heavy Support

Manticore w Heavy Bolter + Full Payload

------------------------------------------------------

 

Liam Hackett took 6th at the Brisbane GT

 

Battalion with Gunnery Expert / Spotter Details

 

HQ

3x Tank Commander with Demolisher and Lascannon

 

Troops

4x 5 man Scions (bare bones)

 

Heavy Support

2x Manticore with Heavy Bolter and Full Payload

 

Valhallan Battalion 

 

HQ

3x Company Commander (one Warlord with Laurels of Command)

 

Troops

6x Infantry Squad (bare bones)

 

Elites

3x Command Squad with 4 Plasma Guns

3x Veteran Squad with shotguns and 3x flamers

 

Heavy Support

2x Mortar Heavy Weapon Team

 

------------------------------------------------------

 

Curtis Hotaling won a 12 player RTT

 

Battalion with Gunnery Expert / Spotter Details

 

HQ

2x Tank Commander with Demolisher and Lascannon

Tank Commander with Punisher, Lascannon (Weapons Expert)

 

Troops

5x Infantry Squad (bare bones)

 

Transport

5x Chimera with 2 Heavy Flamers

 

Heavy Support

Leman Russ with Battle Cannon + Lascannon

Manticore with Heavy Bolter (Full Payload)

 

Cadian Patrol

HQ

Knight Commander Pask with Demolisher and Lascannon

 

Troops

Infantry Squad (bare bones)

 

Transport

Chimera with Multi Laser and Heavy Flamer

 

 

Clearly the full payload manticore and demolisher + lascannon tank commander with no sponsons are our top tier units. The Spotter Detail/Gunnery Experts combo also appears to be the default for competitive play. Chimeras with 2x Heavy Flamers are also making a strong showing. I really like the tech choice of Liam Hackett taking a Valhallan battalion to shoot into melee.

 

These three lists have some obvious parallels in the demolisher tank commanders and full payload manticores but each one is unique and we finally have some top placements by mono-Guard. I'm interested to hear your thoughts on these lists!

 

Thanks to Auspex Tactics for putting together a great video.

Edited October 2, 2020 by Diagramdude

[Danosborne]

Competitive play makes me sad, all those tank commanders with no Leman Russes to command!

[duz_]

As many in the barracks have predicted tank commanders are far better bang for your buck then regular LRs with the current points

 

Interesting with the amount of transports though I played a game with 4 chimera and 2 LRs and barely made it out of my deployment zone because it was a parking lot with the small table size. I guess they must be reserving some.

[sairence]

As many in the barracks have predicted tank commanders are far better bang for your buck then regular LRs with the current points

 

Interesting with the amount of transports though I played a game with 4 chimera and 2 LRs and barely made it out of my deployment zone because it was a parking lot with the small table size. I guess they must be reserving some.

What kind of game size was that? My current list is running 5 Chimeras that either advance out on the mid objectives t1 if I go first or charge and tie up stuff on the mid objectives if I go second. That supported by 2 TCs and 2 Manticores. Parking lot at 2k hasn't been an issue at all with that, but I can imagine it'll be a bigger problem at incursion or patrol games. Edited October 5, 2020 by sairence

[duz_]

It was 2000pts hammer and anvil deployment

Fitting them all in my deployment was the first challenge, later exacerbated by the fact my opponent had first turn and was able to move quickly to effectively block me in I barely made it out of my deployment zone

[sairence]

Interesting...some of the deployment zones definitely do feel small, I give you that. Did your opponent have a lot of scout stuff to cover that distance? It should still be well over 20 inches on most maps.

 

As for the lists...they all feel like variations of the mechanised Guard lists a lot of have been trying. The Valhallan one is a bit of an outlier, but I like the idea, especially with the flamer-vets to free up engaged vehicles.

 

I'd be curious what they actually played against, because the main stumbling block we face isn't so much what our army can do but the ease of scoring secondaries against us. I have yet to find a way of building a list that includes heavy armour that isn't making Bring it Down/Thin their Ranks an auto-take against. And infantry heavy lists face a similar issue with Attrition or Assassinate instead of Bring it Down.

 

That kind of reward for doing what my opponent is doing anyway is a tough nut to crack.

[Cap'm Heckus]

This is all well and good but how were they painted? What was the story??

 

More seriously tho, it’s tourney results like this that are going to get us limited to one tank commander per detachment.... and Im okay with that.

[Kain Mor]

This is all well and good but how were they painted? What was the story??

 

More seriously tho, it’s tourney results like this that are going to get us limited to one tank commander per detachment.... and Im okay with that.

I’m NOT okay with that. Not while tank commanders do jack all to actually buff other tanks, not while our vehicles can be sneezed off the board, and not while comparatively the standard leman Russ would be vastly more effective if you physically threw it at your opponent.

[sairence]

Standard Leman Russes were pretty decent at the end of 8th due to the point drops they got in the last CA. It actually made them cheap enough to field. Start of 9th hiked them up again and brought us back to TCs being vastly better.

 

The order system needs a serious overhaul anyway though. I always found it strange that your Junior and Senior officers only dished out orders to 10/20 men when they can have well over a hundred under their command. Same with TCs...the way they currently work they should just be called Veteran tanks.

 

For a true Command structure there need to be either more orders or ways for the few orders each guy has to affect more units.

[Marshal_von_Speer]

Citing Auspex Tactics' recent video about three winning Guard lists:

 

Jean Masson won a 12 player RTT:

 

Battalion + Patrol - Gunnery Experts + Spotter Details

 

HQ

Company Commander (Warlord, Old Grudges)

Company Commander (Kurov's Aquila)

3x Tank Commanders with Demolisher and Lascannon

 

Troops

6x Infantry Squad - bare bones

 

Transport

2x Chimera with 2 Heavy Flamers

 

Elites

8x Bullgryn 4 slabshield 4 brute shield

Astropath (Psychic Barrier)

 

Fast Attack

2x Hellhound with Heavy Flamer

 

Heavy Support

Manticore w Heavy Bolter + Full Payload

------------------------------------------------------

 

Liam Hackett took 6th at the Brisbane GT

 

Battalion with Gunnery Expert / Spotter Details

 

HQ

3x Tank Commander with Demolisher and Lascannon

 

Troops

4x 5 man Scions (bare bones)

 

Heavy Support

2x Manticore with Heavy Bolter and Full Payload

 

Valhallan Battalion 

 

HQ

3x Company Commander (one Warlord with Laurels of Command)

 

Troops

6x Infantry Squad (bare bones)

 

Elites

3x Command Squad with 4 Plasma Guns

3x Veteran Squad with shotguns and 3x flamers

 

Heavy Support

2x Mortar Heavy Weapon Team

 

------------------------------------------------------

 

Curtis Hotaling won a 12 player RTT

 

Battalion with Gunnery Expert / Spotter Details

 

HQ

2x Tank Commander with Demolisher and Lascannon

Tank Commander with Punisher, Lascannon (Weapons Expert)

 

Troops

5x Infantry Squad (bare bones)

 

Transport

5x Chimera with 2 Heavy Flamers

 

Heavy Support

Leman Russ with Battle Cannon + Lascannon

Manticore with Heavy Bolter (Full Payload)

 

Cadian Patrol

HQ

Knight Commander Pask with Demolisher and Lascannon

 

Troops

Infantry Squad (bare bones)

 

Transport

Chimera with Multi Laser and Heavy Flamer

 

 

Clearly the full payload manticore and demolisher + lascannon tank commander with no sponsons are our top tier units. The Spotter Detail/Gunnery Experts combo also appears to be the default for competitive play. Chimeras with 2x Heavy Flamers are also making a strong showing. I really like the tech choice of Liam Hackett taking a Valhallan battalion to shoot into melee.

 

These three lists have some obvious parallels in the demolisher tank commanders and full payload manticores but each one is unique and we finally have some top placements by mono-Guard. I'm interested to hear your thoughts on these lists!

 

Thanks to Auspex Tactics for putting together a great video.

Do we have any information on what concrete tactics were employed with these lists?

[Guardsman Bob]

 

Citing Auspex Tactics' recent video about three winning Guard lists:

 

Snip

 

These three lists have some obvious parallels in the demolisher tank commanders and full payload manticores but each one is unique and we finally have some top placements by mono-Guard. I'm interested to hear your thoughts on these lists!

Thank you Diagramdude for posting this.  During 8th after GW ignored us and posted a nerf on the Moravian strat I decided to wait for 9th edition.  I was not expecting anything competitive from IG until their next book so this post is uplifting if not a ray of freakin sunshine through GW clouds of ineptitude.

 

During 4-4.5 edition I ran a FW Armored Company during a store faction team campaign.  Since 5th Chimeras weren’t really used as much since the points were almost always better spent elsewhere.  Do they help muck-up the opponent’s secondaries in 9th?  Six over here have been gather dust for some time.  Although a full Armored Fist platoon would run 822 points and that doesn’t work well when trying to build a Brigade Detachment.  A single Battalion Armored Company Detachment is possible although part of me always wants a Storm Trooper Patrol Detachment with that sweet 5” deepstrike option.

Are reserves used with most of those lists?  For the command and special weapon squads certainly but the top two placements skipped any gotcha-weapon infantry.

 

I was surprised to not see any Basiliks.  They are still decently priced so if they draw fire from more important targets it is a win, if ignored they can pummel freely which is a win for cheaper sustained fire.

 

[Galron]

Surprised not to see any horde guard. With the vehicle meta and people bringing expensive AT weapons I would think mass infantry would put waste to the eradicators and dev squads of today's board. Even heavy bolters are overkill now, plus the morale rules really help keep squads on the field.forcing the opponent to shoot more than they really want to if you hide heavy weapons in squads.

[sairence]

I would imagine that's because in a tournament context a true guard harde is difficult to manage in a time efficient way.

[Guardsman Bob]

Tournement scene definitely is not kind for anything horde like in 40K or AoS.  What got me kind of excited is with Armored Fist units early deployment can be with just the Chimeras.  Any delay on 50x guardsmen hitting the table is a good thing for time management.

Edited November 17, 2020 by Guardsman Bob