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So I originally posted a list similar to those on dakkadakka and you guys offered some very valuable advice. Here is the new and improved 1500 points of Astra Militarum competitive list. Let me know what you guys think.

HQ
Company command squad with 4 plasma guns
- 120 points

Primaris pysker master level 2
- 75 points

Troops
Veterans squad with 2 melta guns
- 80 points

Veterans squad with 2 melta guns
- 80 points

Veterans squad with 3 melta guns
- 90 points

Veterans squad with 2 plasma guns
- 90 points

Dedicated transport
5 chimeras
- 325 points

Fast attack
Vendetta
- 170 points

Heavy support
Leman russ battle tank
- 150 points

Leman russ battle tank
- 150 points

Leman russ demolisher
- 170 points

According to math, during 6 turns of a typical game every plasma gun will inevitably get hot at least once. I recommend to trade one of the command squad`s plasma gun for a medi-pack.

I don't really want to give up the shots though.

This list is not competitive. While you have many veterans with special weapons, they are short ranged. You will not be able to order them until they get out of chimeras. If they get out of chimeras they are dead. You will struggle to ignore cover and lack weight of fire needed to power through some of the units you will face in a competitive environment. I can get on board 1 or 2 squads of veterans. You also brought leman russes. They range from terrible to situationally passable. If you want to bring them, bring pask. They are too expensive for the damage output. And will inevitably be charged and killed by invisible, rerolling saves 3++ (enter unit).

These are my thoughts on the list. Objective wise, you have a lot of scoring units. But none of them are durable.

Do you think I should put carapace armour on the veterans?

Adime wrote:
Do you think I should put carapace armour on the veterans?

That would help. But it's slapping a band-aid on an amputation. Imperial Guard is not a very competitive Codex at the moment, so you're going to really struggle making anything tournament worthy with it.

Would you say its a good semi-competitive list? Also, someone mentioned to drop the carapace armour on my veterans to add other stuff. I'm not planning to use this for a tournament, but I do plan to use this list to win.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, what about Baneblade lord of war cheese?

Adime wrote:
Would you say its a good semi-competitive list? Also, someone mentioned to drop the carapace armour on my veterans to add other stuff. I'm not planning to use this for a tournament, but I do plan to use this list to win.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, what about Baneblade lord of war cheese?

Baneblades are not very good Lords of War. They're just too pricey for what they bring to the table. If you want a good Lord of War, ally in a Knight.

What about Warhounds with two double-barreled turbo laser destructors. Those dish out 4 strength D shots able to annihilate Wraithknights.

Adime wrote:
What about Warhounds with two double-barreled turbo laser destructors. Those dish out 4 strength D shots able to annihilate Wraithknights.

Those are good. But how many points are they?

They are 720 points. But in the Horus Heresy book 5, they ignore Haywire, ignore pyschic tests and cannot be locked in combat.

Adime wrote:
They are 720 points. But in the Horus Heresy book 5, they ignore Haywire, ignore pyschic tests and cannot be locked in combat.

Really? Only 720 Points? Dem.

That being said, front armour of 13, yis? Against 14 Kataphron Breachers (700 points)...

14 shots, hitting on 4s, twin-linked: 10.5 hits

Glancing on 5s: 1.75 Glances

Penning on 6s: 1.75 Pens, which turns into 4.67 HP

Total HP of damage, assuming the Cult Mech player burns their Twin-Linked Canticle: 6.42

Not bad, actually.

That being said! You're kind of that guy if you bring a Warhound to average games.

Warhound has front armour 14, side 13, and rear 12. Also has two void shields (armour value 12) that must be penetrated before actually damaging the titan. They also get restored on a 5+.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Yeah, your right. It is very overkill.

Adime wrote:
Warhound has front armour 14, side 13, and rear 12. Also has two void shields (armour value 12) that must be penetrated before actually damaging the titan. They also get restored on a 5+.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Yeah, your right. It is very overkill.

Then the Ad Mech, with their Breachers, do only 1.75 HP (assuming something else strips Void Shields).

Let's check what a Skyhammer would do...

10 Grav shots at BS5, 30 at BS4, for 28.33 hits.

That turns into 8.66 HP, or 6.66 HP after Void Shields. But then again, this only costs 660 points.

How many HP is a Warhound?

But aren't these warhounds pretty good for a competitive match. Rock like a solid 1100 point blob army and then throw in the warhound to demolish every vehicle on the table.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Warhounds are nine hull points.

Here are some things that have worked well for me for The Guard:

Wyverns work really well, otherwise go with Quad Mortar "Thudd Guns" as they're artillery and can be given orders

In general any of the Forgeworld Artillery pieces are good bets.

If you're into the Vets, I'd keep a couple out of the chimmies and in cover (Forward Sentries Doctrine for camo). The ones in cover just give a heavy weapon and that way you can give them orders.

If you're looking for a good close combat option, I came up with a nice setup:

Infantry Platoon blobbed up with 30 guardsmen. Give the Sarges Power Axes. Attach a Priest. Attach an Inquisitor with Rad Grenades. Take Iron Hand Straken as your Company Commander. That way your Sarges are hitting on str4/5 on the charge. Your enemies are at -1 Toughness and the squad also gets counter attack. The priest keeps them fearless and with a prayer can make the squad reroll wounds or armor saves. It gets a bit pricey but it can be effective.

OK, thanks for the input IronMaster. I think its extremely difficult to rock a competitive Guard list without using some lord of war cheese though. I guess my list would be more of a semi-competitive list.

You are going to have to play to guards strengths. At this time, all they have going for them is orders and the ability to bring a lot of bodies. You are going to have to utilize infantry platoons blobbed together supported by characters and orders. They require a lot of fire power to shift and do not disappear in combat thanks to supporting characters. You can leave yourself enough room to then bring in planes or artillery or a knight. Conscripts and wyverns are probably the best unit in the codex.

I know JNAProductions doesn't recommend it, but I would like multiple perspectives of bringing a Baneblade (or variant). Is it worth it? Which one is best? Should I bring a Warhound instead?

They are a bit expensive for the damage they can deal. Should be around the 400 pt mark I say. I have a standard baneblade and a stormlord. Both do well enough. They are just no wraithknight. If you are playing ITC, they do not allow titans and I have only experienced a titan in an apocalypse game so its power is diminished a bit by the crazy-ness going on everywhere.

Baneblades are pretty terrible, due to the low rear AV. Assuming you're using the proposed FAQ for one grenade per unit, they're better, but still not very good. They're just not points efficient, compared to a Knight, and the Knights bring more utility to a Guard army, being pretty good in close combat against non-super-units. Stomps are your friend.

The best I've done with Guard is play a few Russ, with a few Chimera Vets, wrapped by cheap infantry. They all bubble around the Commander's Preferred Enemy Relic, that very much helps to keep your plasma units alive. See the current Rulebook FAQ.

This can work against a frontal assault type army, or gunline, but crumples like paper to any kind of high-mobility army... like most competitive lists are. Your dudes do get dumped out of their Chimerae, but then you can issue orders... so there is that. You can use your cheap duders like speed bumps, and I also take a unit of conscripts with a Commissar [personal preference] to keep them around as a last-ditch tarpit.

On the plus side, your army is completely mobile. A slow as molasses mobile, but mobile. You won't get screwed by not having objectives in your Deployment Zone. If you can actively cluster objectives in the centre, you make a slow rolling push to the middle, go to ground, and hope the game ends early. :(

It's the only style of play I've used that won a game.

Tossing a Knight or two into the mix wouldn't hurt. Easily done, and no doubt better than running Russes at the front. It's damned hard to make a working Guard list that can remotely compete against a tournament style list.

So no one recommends Baneblades? I mean, they do have a 10'' ap 2 blast, lascannons, heavy bolters, an autocannon, and a demolisher cannon.

Perhaps I should have been more blunt. They're gak. The best one is the one that ignores cover.

Even then, competitively, you're going to be fighting 3++ with re-roll Deathstars. They shrug off 8/9 wounds.

Plus, when you really need to kill that Monstrous Creature, you can't. Because that big blast only inflicts one hit. Half your shots miss with Lascannons / Auto Cannon and your heavy bolters are practically useless. The Demolisher cannon? Hasn't been good, really, since 5th, and even then it was better in 4th.

So no. Baneblades and equivalent are not good. They are bad. They are point sinks. They don't do what you need them to do. Consider that you can get nearly 2 Knights for the same price, and you can easily see how the Knights are better mobility, better damage, capable of stomping out those death stars, are capable of engaging in CC where a Baneblade just dies and you start to see why Knights are simply better than... any... IG vehicle. I'm going to say they're even better at winning the game than Wyverns are, because they can go out and smash-face their way onto an objective.

The problem with IG is that they need Allies to win. The problem with that is that as you shift your focus to your allies, you realize that the IG aren't puling their weight. So you start using more allies. And then you stop using allies because you stopped using Guard and just started playing the allied army. They just aren't competitive right now. They're a have-not... simple as that. You can't build a competitive Guard army using the Guard codex. It doesn't have the right tools for this edition.

I guess I'll just have to stick to using my baneblade's in apocalypse matches and start to use my knights more often.

I guess I can agree on the not too competitive part, but then again I've had a lot of success with this list:

HQ
- Tank commander squadron
Leman Russ Punisher (Knight Commander Pask), sponson multimeltas
Leman Russ Punisher, sponson multimeltas

- Primaris Psyker Mastery Level 2 (mainly for Prescience for Pasknishers)

Troops:
- Veteran Squad (2x meltagun)
Chimera, heavy flamer
- Veteran Squad (2x meltagun)
Chimera, heavy flamer
- Veteran Squad (2x plasma gun)
Chimera, heavy flamer

Fast Attack:
- Vendetta Gunship
- Armoured Sentinel (Plasma cannon)

Heavy Support:
- Manticore (heavy flamer)
- Manticore (heavy flamer)

This list clocks in at exactly 1500 points, it's quite similar in the fact of being armoured army (that also looks awesome on the table and is fun to play).

With prescience Pask throws out 20 S5 rending, preferred enemy and penetration re-rolled shots, with his platoon buddy that's 40 shots. Sure, there's no AP, but it can wipe out whole units in one shooting and it can strip vehicles off their HPs in moments. And then come in the multi-meltas.

The two manticores deploy hidden in opposing corners of your deployment zone to make sure that they cover all of the table and even if someone gets too close to one of them, you still get to shoot the other at it.

Also the Manticores are the main anti-vehicle weapon with their D3 S10 blasts - who cares about pen chart, when you can just strip the tanks off their hp turn one?

And with this list you want to go first. Let the opponent be all happy about going second - you'll blast him in his deployment zone where he'll be at least a little clumped.

The vet chimeras are there to form a AV 12 wall in the middle of the table and act as deterrent to infantry with three heavy flamers and special weapons parked in them. Once the enemy's done for you just move them for the objectives.

Lastly, the armoured sentinel... well, there's nothing really interesting you can fit in 50 points, so I just squeezed it in. It can always pop a wound on something nasty or just harass stuff, because everything else in my list is more dangerous and higher a priority target.

Hey, thanks for the list Klerych. I'll definitely try this list out; it looks really promising. Only problem is I don't have any manticores, but I'll think of something.

No problem. You can always proxy them with a Chimera or anything built on that chassis - LOS is not important, because they fire indirectly from behind a building or a hill if you can hide them, so model's height shouldn't be a problem.

Overall the list is very fun to play and it really feels like a column of imperial armour taking the fight to the filthy xenos, heretics and renegades in all of it's heavy metal glory. Definetely a pro for all those that want to play fluffy and themed lists, rather than just a cheesy mashed mess of the most OP units from the current 'dex. If you ignore the poor psyker trying to hide behind tanks as he buffs them, that is.

Yeah, I'm going to proxy my chimera's. I think its the best bet since manticore's use the chimera chasis (as you mentioned).