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OKay this has been bugging me for a while, why is there so much scorn for any guard player who doesn't run veterans as chimeltas. It seems like everywhere I go that is all I see and anytime someone runs something different they are always told that it is a waste of points and that they are wasting the veterans BS.

Now I really don't understand what all the hype is about, I used to run chimeltas and I didn't get much use out of them in fact I was fairly disappointed after all of the hype. But my prefered build using shotguns, flamers, forward sentries, and a powerfist in a chimera, which have made up more than their points worth for the last ten games I have played, is called a waste.

Maybe you guys can explain why that is. Am I just extremely lucky with my build or are people just hating on non chimelta vets because they are different from what everyone else is running?

Because foot guard is weak, leaving you with the only alternative of veterans.
And plasma guns blow up in their faces, a lot. Leaving the only viable alternative, melta guns.
Maybe if platoons didn't suck, or they dropped the point cost.

But my prefered build using shotguns, flamers, forward sentries, and a powerfist in a chimera, which have made up more than their points worth for the last ten games I have played, is called a waste.

well that is a bit of an odd build, forward sentries in a chimera? but if it works for you it works

Maybe you guys can explain why that is. Am I just extremely lucky with my build or are people just hating on non chimelta vets because they are different from what everyone else is running?

Its the latter, mainly. You'll always get builds that pepole see as as or actually are power builds and any builds that differ from these builds will rightly or wrongly recieve abuse.

My current 1750 only has one squad of vets with melta, the other one has plasma and the other one is a 30 man Al'rahem power blob.

I get told to take vendetta's a lot, the moral is that the list isn't everything and there is always more than one build.

I use Harker with meltas and demolitions on my vets, along with shotguns, and they always do well, only one game that I can think of where they didn't make their points back (when they actually were needed, there are some games they just end up hijacking a vendetta and never getting into the fight because they aren't needed at all). And yet lots of people say don't take the UCs available to the veteran squads.

Each to their own.

Harker is essentially a Heavy Bolter that can move and fire, as well as, IIRC, giving infiltrate to his squad?
Imo that's not enough for how much he costs. Add in the cost of the doctrine and you're looking at some serious points.

Yeah its 185 I think, but they always make their points back for me. As I said, each to their own.

Because someone who's "awesome" on the internet said so.

DarknessEternal wrote:Because someone who's "awesome" on the internet said so.

Or using platoons is just an excersise in being humiliated.
When I used blobs I lost, every time.
When I use mechvets, I win most times. Go figure.

Ailiros (I always misspell his name) seems to do pretty damn well with blobs, ogryns, things like that.

Personaly I dont use Veterans at all, I prefer the volume of fire a large number of foot sloggers supported by lots of heavy weapons. So far this combo has worked quite well, the platoons soak up casualties whilst the fire power of the support takes out the tougher units and vehicles. Command units filling the gap between the 2.

Blobs can work, it's just not as easy as mech vet. So as is the nature of things people who can't use them say the y don't work.

Don't worry include myself in this group, I can't get a full foot list to work well for me.

motyak wrote:Ailiros (I always misspell his name) seems to do pretty damn well with blobs, ogryns, things like that.

Yep. He's pretty excelled at fielding foot-guard. I wouldn't be surprised if people use him as a template to get out of Chimeltas and Vendettas.

But OT, there are alot of people who insist that Veterans are used one way only, which is terribly narrow minded, and constantly point to the Vets BS 4 like its some sort of holy grail for the entire army. Don't listen to them.

I find giving my Vets a Heavy Flamer and Two Flamers, shotguns, and a power weapon really gives them some serious bite when assaulting units in cover, not to mention all three templates fire simulatneously so you don't roll until all the templates are fired. My highest hit score was on a squad of Space Wolves, 16 Auto-Hits. Let's see 'melta-derp or plasma-derp' tack on that many hits.

Testify wrote:Harker is essentially a Heavy Bolter that can move and fire, as well as, IIRC, giving infiltrate to his squad?
Imo that's not enough for how much he costs. Add in the cost of the doctrine and you're looking at some serious points.

He gives them stealth, infiltrate/outflank, and has a heavy bolter. He's not the most points-efficient model in the world, but he's not terrible.

Testify wrote:Because foot guard is weak, leaving you with the only alternative of veterans.
And plasma guns blow up in their faces, a lot. Leaving the only viable alternative, melta guns.
Maybe if platoons didn't suck, or they dropped the point cost.

Foot Guard and platoons are fine, just not as efficient as mechvets. Plasma guns blow up 1/6th of the time, and even then you save 1/3 of the time outside of command squads with FNP or vets with carapace armor. The chances of blowing up and losing a standard dude are about 10%, which isn't exactly that often. Not ideal, but plasma guns are still a useful special weapon choice on veterans.

The masses naturally gravitate towards the path of least resistance, and in the Imperial Guard book that seems to be Chimelta Vet spam. I have one squad of Chimelta Veterans in my list, but only because my list is a bit thin at anti-tank. Otherwise, you have a lot of talking heads that maintain slavish devotion to the popular opinions of the internet, and who regurgitate them as if they were some fount of strategic gold. "I read somewhere that A is better than B, so stop using B!" is the gist of it.

Not to say that there aren't some bright, savvy individuals that have perfectly good reasons for running Chimelta Vets, and who can support their reasons with sound evidence.

Guarder22 wrote:Maybe you guys can explain why that is.

It's psychological. People who cling to the idea that you can ONLY win with chimeras and veterans hold this position as a person holds a religious belief. They have formed an opinion, and anything else is literally a sin.

Like religious ideas, when people get together of the same mind, it becomes an echo chamber (known more formally as "groupthink"), wherein people simply reinforce each other's positions, and make it more difficult for anybody to disagree. Meanwhile, they self-encourage to compete with each other over who has the most extreme point of view within the group. Eventually, it spirals to the point where you get the Salem witch trials, or Al'Quaeda flying airplanes into things.

In the end, you can either drink the kool-aid to reduce social friction, or you can keep an open mind. Doing the latter is harder, but it allows you to circumvent rigid dogma and, in the case of 40k, use this knowledge to beat the pants off of them.

SkaerKrow wrote:Not to say that there aren't some bright, savvy individuals that have perfectly good reasons for running Chimelta Vets, and who can support their reasons with sound evidence.

Not to say that I'm trying to be nothing but contrarian. Mech lists are good for good reasons, and if someone wants to play mech lists because they want to play mech lists, they are free to do so for good reason, but what's much more likely amongst your average player holding this position is more like...

DarknessEternal wrote:Because someone who's "awesome" on the internet said so.

Ailaros wrote:

Guarder22 wrote:Maybe you guys can explain why that is.

It's psychological. People who cling to the idea that you can ONLY win with chimeras and veterans hold this position as a person holds a religious belief. They have formed an opinion, and anything else is literally a sin.

Like religious ideas, when people get together of the same mind, it becomes an echo chamber (known more formally as "groupthink"), wherein people simply reinforce each other's positions, and make it more difficult for anybody to disagree. Meanwhile, they self-encourage to compete with each other over who has the most extreme point of view within the group. Eventually, it spirals to the point where you get the Salem witch trials, or Al'Quaeda flying airplanes into things.

In the end, you can either drink the kool-aid to reduce social friction, or you can keep an open mind. Doing the latter is harder, but it allows you to circumvent rigid dogma and, in the case of 40k, use this knowledge to beat the pants off of them.

My win rate with infantry guard - 0%
My win rate with mech guard - ~70-80%
I am following empirical doctrine in rejecting foot guard in favour of mech guard. Please do not regard anyone who disagrees with you as religious (that in itself is grossly offensive).
Foot guard is rejected because it's weaker than mech guard. Case closed.
The fact that it is still possible to win as foot guard is irrelevent. GK are more powerful than SM but it's still possible for SM to beat GK. it's a game of luck after all.

Testify wrote:My win rate with infantry guard - 0%
My win rate with mech guard - ~70-80%

Perhaps you're really unlucky or really bad with infantry guard, then. Perhaps you only played good opponents when you played with your foot lists, while you stomped noobs otherwise. Perhaps you had a good night's sleep before your games with mech lists and not with foot lists. There are SO many variables at play here.

Testify wrote:I am following empirical doctrine in rejecting foot guard in favour of mech guard.

Really? What's your sample size? What are your margins for error? Which variables did you control for, and how did you control them? Who has peer reviewed your conclusions? Where have you published your data?

If you're going to claim that you're using science, then you're not doing science very well.

Testify wrote:Please do not regard anyone who disagrees with you as religious (that in itself is grossly offensive).
Foot guard is rejected because it's weaker than mech guard. Case closed.

I'm saying that you're being close minded based on a tiny set of anecdotal evidence and then absolutely refusing to believe that anything could be different from what you believe.

Take offense or not, you're using the classical fundamentalist thought pattern.

Ailaros wrote:

Testify wrote:My win rate with infantry guard - 0%
My win rate with mech guard - ~70-80%

Perhaps you're really unlucky or really bad with infantry guard, then. Perhaps you only played good opponents when you played with your foot lists, while you stomped noobs otherwise. Perhaps you had a good night's sleep before your games with mech lists and not with foot lists. There are SO many variables at play here.
Really? What's your sample size? What are your margins for error? Which variables did you control for, and how did you control them? Who has peer reviewed your conclusions? Where have you published your data?

My sample size for inf guard was about half a dozen games, sample size for mech guard a couple of dozen. I will choose to ignore your sarcasm.
Fact is, one army can lay down BS4 special weapons like no one's business, the other has BS 3 lasguns. Is it really so hard to see why one is superior to the other?
I'm not going to do a tit for tat comparison because it'd be pointless. I don't need to do some mathhammer to tell me that 3 BS4 meltaguns are better than 1 BS3 meltagun.
Or which is easier to kill - AV 12 vs T3?
Mathematically they look weaker, I refuse to publicly humiliate myself by bringing them to the table over and over, getting surprised each time when, oh gosh, those T3 5+ guys are really really easy to kill and do no damage whatsoever. Who'd have thought that!

I usually play all-reserve full-mech Guard, but sometimes, i have weak moments and go for a little foot madness.

My personal experience with foot guard is that it is an army for sadomasochist people. Kinda' like Tau. its simply hard to play, lacks tactical/strategical flexibility, rather unforgiving and offers a very static (and boring) playing experience for both players. Though i can believe that others like it, because it has "potentional" (in the sense that it could be much better with a different IG 'dex), but lets face with it: the codex loves meching, the meta loves meching --> the Guard loves meching.

I like foot guard, if for no other reason than it makes me feel good to play them that way. I'm thinking about running a 150 man "lawn" with three russes and a pack of sentinels one of these days. If I actually collected IG, I would have to go with Catachans for this.

SpankHammer III wrote:

But my prefered build using shotguns, flamers, forward sentries, and a powerfist in a chimera, which have made up more than their points worth for the last ten games I have played, is called a waste.

well that is a bit of an odd build, forward sentries in a chimera? but if it works for you it works

I think I understand, if the chimera explodes, the guard don't have to move, just camp them in the crater and get the +1 to their cover save.

Testify wrote:Fact is, one army can lay down BS4 special weapons like no one's business, the other has BS 3 lasguns. Is it really so hard to see why one is superior to the other?

Firstly, that's just one thing, and secondly, it's wrong to boot. If the winner of a game of 40k was determined solely by how many special weapons they can bring (which it isn't), then a foot list would still win, as you can pack more special weapon hits into a 1500 point list with infantry platoons than with veterans.

But even that's beside the point, you're not even making an even comparison in the first place here. It's like if I were to say that mech lists are completely uncompetitive because vets can't field as many heavy weapons as HWSs (and furthermore, why is it so hard for you to see that a 3x heavy weapons team is going to be more effective than an unupgraded vet squad with only lasguns).

Testify wrote: I don't need to do some mathhammer to tell me that 3 BS4 meltaguns are better than 1 BS3 meltagun.
Or which is easier to kill - AV 12 vs T3?
Mathematically they look weaker

Statistics in no way bear out that a foot list is necessarily weaker than a mech list. Well, it doesn't unless you put in ludicrous parameters like comparing a 55 point vehicle to a 5 point infantry model.

I'd like to see some statistics with reasonable parameters that say that foot lists are non-viable.

Testify wrote:Or which is easier to kill - AV 12 vs T3?
Mathematically they look weaker, I refuse to publicly humiliate myself by bringing them to the table over and over, getting surprised each time when, oh gosh, those T3 5+ guys are really really easy to kill and do no damage whatsoever. Who'd have thought that!

AV 12 is easier. T3 touches cover, 4+ cover save!

Samus_aran115 wrote:I like foot guard, if for no other reason than it makes me feel good to play them that way. I'm thinking about running a 150 man "lawn" with three russes and a pack of sentinels one of these days. If I actually collected IG, I would have to go with Catachans for this.

Vostroyans make the best horde armies.

Maybe just point him to the link to your battle reports. If he isn't convinced by those, he's not convincable.

Platoon guard have a chronic lack of special weapons. You can't pretend SWS make up for this when you have to buy the whole other blob with it first. PCSs are okay but with only 5 of them and BS3 they're still inferior to vets.
Heavy Weapons Teams are only really useful with HBs/Autocannons to keep the price down so you can spam them. If you want to bring lascannons they're incredibly expensive and fragile.
Special weapons on blobs only augment their primary purpose, i.e. to die but hold up the enemy long enough to do something else (not sure what), while adding hugely to the cost of the blob.
Here are some things blobs cannot do:
*Lay down pain. On anything. They're too big to get more than a dozen or so lasguns firing at any target, and the special weapons will be hitting on 4s, and only 3 of them in a 30 man blob is pathetic.

*Damage sponge. A big blob is going to take up a lot of points. An intelligent player will charge them simultaneously with several elite assault units, and they will dissapear, possibly without getting a hit back.

*Move. If they're spread out (which they should be) they'll probably have to difficult terrain most turns. Good luck with that.

Special weapon veteran squads spit out reliable firepower, and in chimeras can use this to incredible effectiveness. You can also avoid being charged by enemy jump infantry, which is nice.
Anyway if you'd like to show some example of how platoons/non veterans can bring down MEQs and light armour, I'd be genuinely interested to hear it. Nobody wants to play horde guard more than me, but it just doesn't work.

Testify wrote:Platoon guard have a chronic lack of special weapons. You can't pretend SWS make up for this when you have to buy the whole other blob with it first.

For 1000 points, with just veterans in chimeras, you can put down 18 special weapons. With 1000 points with platoons, you can put down 32, and that's assuming that you want good special weapons like melta and plasma, if 5-point weapons are introduced, it goes up even more.

Testify wrote:Anyway if you'd like to show some example of how platoons/non veterans can bring down MEQs and light armour, I'd be genuinely interested to hear it. Nobody wants to play horde guard more than me, but it just doesn't work.

Sure. So here is my most recent set of battle reports. If you want to see a foot list clobber an all-termie list, go here, and to see a foot list beat up a mech list designed specifically to be good against it, click here.

Obviously, it's not perfect, as there are loose variables in play (luck isn't controlled for, for example), but there are some examples of what a foot list can do.

Melta vets are good. They're good on paper, they're good on the table top, and they're good in the meta game.

They aren't the only way to play IG, or even veterans, but it's a fantastic unit for the cost.

Unless I"m an awesome person that says so, I'm not listening to anybody else. I've played the army enough, and won enough tournamens with it, to know that it's a good unit.
It was immediatly seen as good when the codex came out, and people still win a lot of games with it.

Foot guard can work fine, it just runs into the same problem all horde lists do: time.

Polonius wrote:Foot guard can work fine, it just runs into the same problem all horde lists do: time.

Yeah, when your opponent asks to take a smoke break during EVERY one of your movement phases, you may be a horde player. Actually happened to me once. Guy nailed 6 marlboro 100's before the game was done (also took a break during my deployment phase). I practically got nicotine poisoning by proxy...

Polonius wrote:They aren't the only way to play IG, or even veterans, but it's a fantastic unit for the cost.

RIght, I suppose the OP was talking about mechvets (and, I suppose by extension vendetta vets), but it's easy to overlook vets outside of vehicles. Haven't quite figured out how to do it myself, yet, but I don't deny the possibility.

I can't condone vets outside of vehicles unless you're having a little fun with Harker. 10 highly valuable Guardsmen are going to die unless they're in a vehicle. It's why Special Weapon Squads seldom work in platoon-heavy armies, although I've gotten a good round or two in with an SWS here and there.