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Alright, codexs are in hands, rules have been leaked, so let's talk IG! I was hoping we could try and have a big "general" thread about the new IG/AM to bounce ideas around.

To get the ball rolling, I have a question: Who or what is the "best" HQ choice?

I think the CCS is still "the best" and Creed gives a TON of options with loads of orders and two warlord traits.

I can see Creed + Tank Commander/Pask lists doin' the deed together.

The buffs to Straken are nuts. His only downside besides being more pts expensive is having to issue challenges and a smaller buff radius (12" down to 6"). However, he's ripe for deathstars, more so when you add in Space Marines or Sisters.

I feel like the true heroes are the Psykers and Priests. They are going to be EVERYWHERE in IG armies. In 1850, why would you not bring 2-3 ML 2 Psykers fishing in Divination for Misfortune?

Misfortune plus Wyverns, Medusas, and Russes all buffed with prescience to snipe buff characters out of other deathstars. I don't know if it's game breaking, but it has a shot.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Here's an 1850 I could envision with just being loose with my thought process:

HQ:

Tank Commander (w/ Punisher)
+Std. Russ
+Std. Russ

Comp Command (Officer of the Fleet, Chimera)

2x Priests
2x Psykers (Mast. Lvl 2)

Troops:

PCS (4x Flamers)

Infantry Blob (x40 Bodies, 4x Melta)
Infantry Blob (x40 Bodies, 4x Melta)

Vendetta (<--- PCS in here)

Hydra
Hydra
Wyvern (x3)


Basically Psykers and Priests go in blobs. Psykers dispense buffs on the necessary units when needed. You can issue some fancy orders to your guard blobs as needed and they give some good AT to support them.

Hydras be doing what Hydras be doing in two separate units to spread out that love.

3 Wyverns?! it's so your opponent HATES you. Using them as Thudd Guns, basically. Cast prescience on the unit and use your Tank Commander to get them to split fire... vaporizing multiple units with a ton of shots.

Vendetta delivers flamer PCS squad for late game scoring and dig out anything the rest of the stuff cracks.

Quick list, dunno how good it is, but looks fun.

Divination psykers are very nice, but there are two issues with them; they need units which justify dropping buffs on and they need to be kept safe.

The AM only have a few units which have really significant firepower and benefit a lot from Prescience. Basically, you are looking at Vanquishers, Executioners and Punishers as the best candidates. The nice thing is that you can take a couple of different squadrons and assign your psykers to buff the ones you feel you need most.

As for keeping your psykers alive, you can either put them in Chimeras or hide them in a large squad of cannon-fodder. Neither is especially safe, but at least you get to choose where they go after you know what powers you have and what you are facing.

I agree that Wyrvens are going to be nasty, especially in taken in a Battery format, even moreso with the Tank Commanders ability to give them Split fire. Take one battery of these, x2 Leman Russes and you have a pretty nasty and solid core of Armor and Artillery in your army.

I'm liking the idea of running a pair of cheap CCSs for some delicious ordering goodness. A backfield CCS with MoO, four sniper rifles at 2pts and MoF seems like a reasonably cheap option that will bolster HWTs and any blobs behind an ADL, while still throwing out some hurt.

EDIT: missed an S in bolster

Wyverns are brutal against the right targets, but you do need to actually have something for them to shoot. With the ability to buy buildings to hide in very few light infantry units should be actually deployed outside these days. They can't really do much to vehicles or artillery and most bike units are tough enough to survive and spread out enough that you won't get many hits.

Misfortune makes them a lot better, but misfortune makes everything better.

I think that Hellhounds are still better for the ignores-cover role, thanks to their AP 4 and the ability to hit units inside buildings.

 TheKbob wrote:
In 1850, why would you not bring 2-3 ML 2 Psykers fishing in Divination for Misfortune?

Because Inquisitors. Why pay for ablative wounds when you can just shove the guy into the back of a squad.

Tank commander's can only give orders to themselves. I'm liking the idea of an augur on a hellhound or tank and deepstriking a scion platoon with 4 plasma and a plasma pistol other than that I haven't given it too much thought.

Out of curiosity, how good are LR Exterminators? Good enough to have two of them backing a Pask in a Vanquisher?

 BlaxicanX wrote:

 TheKbob wrote:
In 1850, why would you not bring 2-3 ML 2 Psykers fishing in Divination for Misfortune?

Because Inquisitors. Why pay for ablative wounds when you can just shove the guy into the back of a squad.

Inquisitors are ML 1 at best and slightly more expensive than Primaris Psykers. Inquisitors do have a lot of good options, but there's no reason you can't take both inquisitors and primaris psykers. The cost is low enough and the more rolls you have, the better your chances of getting what you want for each unit.

 Perfect Organism wrote:

 BlaxicanX wrote:

 TheKbob wrote:
In 1850, why would you not bring 2-3 ML 2 Psykers fishing in Divination for Misfortune?

Because Inquisitors. Why pay for ablative wounds when you can just shove the guy into the back of a squad.

Inquisitors are ML 1 at best and slightly more expensive than Primaris Psykers. Inquisitors do have a lot of good options, but there's no reason you can't take both inquisitors and primaris psykers. The cost is low enough and the more rolls you have, the better your chances of getting what you want for each unit.

There are two major reasons people take inquisitors. #1 Cheap divination. #2 Servo Skulls. Option 2 is well worth taking to prevent enemy infiltration and scouting. As you mentioned there is no reason you can't take inquisitors and primaris psykers, which I will probably do.

Yeah, personally I think the inquisitors are worth it for the servo skulls alone.

So, how about Bullgryns?

Toughness 5, 3 Wounds each and a semi-decent armour save should make them somewhat viable. If your opponent has AP 3 or better blasts, spread them out to reduce casualties. If they have lots of Heavy Bolters, Autocannons and other AP 4 stuff, clump them together to boost your armour save.

I think they could work well as a screen for Leman Russes. With their slabshields and a camo net on the tank, you can get a 3+ cover save, which is pretty good against most anti-tank. They also guard against assault units and melta-gunners and provide somewhere to hide your enginseer and/or psyker. A priest is probably compulsory if you don't take another character and not a bad choice even if you do.

The bad news is that they are a very tempting target for anyone with a Strength 10 blast weapon and they suck up a lot of points. I think that a unit of three bullgryns with an enginseer is going to cost more than another Leman Russ. Do they offer enough protection that it is better than simply taking more tanks?

Imo, they're not *terrible*, but their points cost is almost prohibitively high, and they don't really bring anything fresh to the Guard. You can already get the vastly less expensive ADL, which also comes with a interceptor/skyfire twin-linked autocannon in addition to the 4+ cover.

Well, an ADL can't follow your tanks around as you move to get better firing positions and it can't punch people who are trying to plant grenades on it.

Depending on the wording of the slabshield rule, it may be the case that the bullgryns cover save bonus stacks with the ADL. In that case, you might be able to have bullgryns going to ground behind the ADL for 2+ cover saves and providing 3+ cover (boostable to 2+ with camo netting) to vehicles behind them.

Could be some shenanigans possible with Bullgryns and camo-cloak veterans or ratlings too.

I can see Armoured Sentinels being a bit of an unsung hero in the new book too, with that rather massive points cut.

PlasCannon and Lascannon Armoured Sentinels are going to be everywhere.

I'm surprised more people aren't talking about the new and improved Commissar Lord Yarrick. 2 orders, commissar ability, 4++, T4, EW, IC with PE:Orks (which confers to his squad fyi. S6 powerfist and can get back up from death on a 3+, infinite times. Aura of discipline as well as having a fairly awesome Warlord trait that prevents morale checks within 12".

Seems too good to be true honestly.

 Cerebrium wrote:
I can see Armoured Sentinels being a bit of an unsung hero in the new book too, with that rather massive points cut.

PlasCannon and Lascannon Armoured Sentinels are going to be everywhere.

I don't think that Plasma Sentinels can really compete with Executioners. Two Executioners with sponsons have more firepower than three squadrons of sentinels, have much better armour, cost less and fit in one FOC instead of three, making them much easier to buff with psykers. Sentinels suffer a bit less from Gets Hot thanks to having more hull points per gun, but Prescience makes that much less of a risk while also improving the executioner's accuracy.

Lascannon Sentinels are another story. The closest tank would be a vanquisher, which has less firepower than an equivalent-points squadron of sentinels. Vendettas have twin-linked guns, but also have issues with getting in position. Heavy weapon squads can't fire accurately on the move and die to anti-personnel fire. Lascannon sentinels might have a niche.

Is there any word as to how IA1SE works with the AM codex?

Tactical_Genius wrote:
Is there any word as to how IA1SE works with the AM codex?

As far as I can tell, any reference to Codex: Imperial Guard also applies to Codex: Astra Militarum, since the two terms are synonymous, just like 'Sisters of Battle' and 'Adepta Sororitas'.

 Perfect Organism wrote:

Tactical_Genius wrote:
Is there any word as to how IA1SE works with the AM codex?

As far as I can tell, any reference to Codex: Imperial Guard also applies to Codex: Astra Militarum, since the two terms are synonymous, just like 'Sisters of Battle' and 'Adepta Sororitas'.

Awesome xD

I'm pretty excited about lascannon armored sentinels as well, especially since HWS didn't get any better. Cheap, mobile, durable. I think it's even worth throwing on HK missiles for a turn one alpha strike. That's an awful lot of turn 1 heavy weapons for 180 points.

Wyverns are also cheap enough to benefit from upgrades. 15 points buys 3 heavy stubbers that you can fire along with the hull heavy bolter and stormshard mortars if your target is in line of sight. This also helps them against the armies of low model count, spaced out units. I could actually see HK missiles on them, also. If you ran into a mostly mechanized list, you could drop your missiles turn one to help with more immediate threats than infantry. In later turns maybe it would be beneficial to use them to help finish off remnants of squads. Probably not worth 10 points per tank, but not the worst use of points. It's main guns being heavy instead of Ordnance is interesting.

I think Guard is doing better massed light armor than ever before. sentinels and wyverns are all cheap and benefit from being in squadrons, so you overcome some of the light armor vulnerability (first blood bait) with mass.

Im hoping that I can continue to use the minis that I have without having to buy much more (although some priests sound like a good idea from what ive read). Does anyone have any views on:

* whether plasma vets in a chimera are still viable or is blob guard better? In the past ive run 3x plasma vet platoons and a blob of 20 Guard

* Imperial Knights as allies? In 1500pts I was thinking of swapping out 2 Vendettas for a Paladin.

I'm going to be running two kinds of playstyles this edition I think, I'll be having Valkyrie airborne dudes with Scions and an Armoured list.


I think the toolbox CCS with OoTF and MoO or Astropath (The Astropath needs to be within 24'', the MoO wants to be still) will be a pretty good bet this Codex.

I'm quite keen on running the Pask Punisher with HB's and a heavy stubber for the hilarity of wrecking everything at 24'' with BS4, preferred enemy, shred (iirc) and rending too.

I'm still not sold on the Wyvern just yet, the Ogryns and Bullgryns are a bit meh, but I am actually very keen on getting Nork Deddog. Often my CCS takes a counter attack role when the line starts faltering (and it works way more often than it should), and Nork is ideal for that sort of action, headbutting non EW characters into oblivion and putting down the hurt on infantry while being very hard to kill without instant death or S10, neither of which are commonly found in CC.

pangloss666 wrote:
Im hoping that I can continue to use the minis that I have without having to buy much more (although some priests sound like a good idea from what ive read).

You probably can. The new vehicles seem to be mostly fairly weak: the hydra is not as good as fortification quad guns, the taurox is just a cheap, weak chimera, the taurox prime is probably a waste of points. Only the Wyvern offers anything really significant, with it's cheap cover-ignoring blasts. Still not essential by any means.

Scions are a little better than the old stormtroopers, but nothing you can't live without. Bullgryns might have their uses, but conscript blobs and priests probably do the same thing better.

pangloss666 wrote:
Does anyone have any views on:

* whether plasma vets in a chimera are still viable or is blob guard better? In the past ive run 3x plasma vet platoons and a blob of 20 Guard

* Imperial Knights as allies? In 1500pts I was thinking of swapping out 2 Vendettas for a Paladin.

Well, the chimera went up in price and lost a firepoint, but the veteran squad went down in price (especially if you took carapace and/or camo-cloaks) and you can get cheaper dozer blades and heavy stubbers now. Overall, I think that plasma-chimera vets got a bit worse, but it depends on how you use them. If you just want to form a gunline, then blobs buffed by officers and psykers are probably the way to go. If you want a unit that moves forward onto objectives then you pretty much need to be using chimeras regardless and it's just a question of how to field a scoring unit in them and get the best value for your points... which probably means veterans and plasma guns.

Imperial Knights are pretty much always a solid choice. The only concern is if you are losing too much anti-air by removing the vendettas.

Thanks, yes i pretty much used plasma vets with no doctrines or carapace in a basic chimera to hold try and take objectives and blob to sit on them (now i could use the Knight).
From what I am reading - my codex is in the post - a good move would be to put a priest and maybe a psycher too among the blob.
I love the Vendetta models, but whenever i have used them, they come in late, fly around and do some good damage but then fly off again.

People are going to be timid about using the Vendetta now, mostly because it isn't drop-dead obvious amazing anymore.

I still think its an effective support vehicle and MC/Tank killer that will end up finding its way into some tournament builds. I think Leman Russ spam is going to be a popular build given how much they were cheapened, rightfully so given how pants on head stupidly priced the Riptide has been in comparison to our tanks.

With Chimeras only having 2 fire ports, I think Plasma Mech-Vets can be looked at in two ways:

1.) The third plasma gunner is a spare body for when one guy gets burned. In this way they have less plasma firepower, but more lasgun firepower (woo?), and don't cost any more.

2.) Instead of doing drive-bys, you do a move-disembark to put 6 plasma gun shots (that can benefit from the ignore cover order) at point blank. This approach benefits more from upgrades, like carapace armor and a Priest with plasma gun. This is a power unit that merits some Prescience love. You could reasonably get 8 re-rolling plasma gun shots that ignore cover, plus a 2 bolter and 12 lasgun shots. That probably kills a squad. The carapace armor and Priest in there (along with Prescience that is still up) make the squad super nasty to assault without a sizable dedicated assault unit, and carapace armor makes them resistant to casual shooting. I'm going to try this squad out, at least.

Just a little math (the unit is 210 points including the Chimera)

On Overwatch, with Prescience: 8 plasma shots = about 2.4 hits (call it 2). That's probably two dead charging things. The small arms probably net you another wound or two that needs to be saved. You then re-roll hits in close combat, and may get another bonus from the Priest. It's not winning the day against dedicated assault units, but it doesn't have to.

I think blobs are better also. Plasma Priests really add a lot to them. I think I'm going to run two twenty man blobs with plasma and maybe heavy weapons, each with a plasma priest. Depending on the mission and terrain, I either get a reasonably priced trio of plasma rifles with lots of ablative wounds, that takes a lot of effort to take down assault, and is fearless, or I get a 40 man, 6 plasma gun blob that is getting Prescience and orders every turn, putting out a horrific wall of plasma and lasgun fire, that will roll most units that make it into assault with it.

Priests have the downside that they make you fearless so you can't go to ground, so don't put them in units which are there to dig in and survive rather than shoot and die.

Psykers seem like a pretty good option for any infantry unit over 100 points or so. Even just giving prescience to a twenty-man block with two lascannons and two plasma guns will probably justify their points. Probably best to have a couple of different units you can put a psyker in, depending on what power you roll and what you are facing.

From a pure IG army standpoint (read; no allies or other plug ins), the Vendetta is still the best anti-air option in the book. The Hydra not gaining interceptor and simultaneously losing the ignore jinks rule was a pretty big blow to the already stale anti-air tank. Having to pay for closed top is just a drop of lemon juice in the paper cut.

Armoured sentinels getting cheaper is nice, but I have a hard time seeing anything better than the Vendetta in the FA slot for its role. Its still 3x TL Lascannons with a transport capacity (though nerfed, admittedly) and good armour all around.

I think the real winners here are the Russes. Tank commanders combined with cheaper tanks all around is definitely welcome. I'm curious what will happen to the ABG list when it gets updated to the 6th IG book rules/prices.

I'll have to wait until I'm codex in hand to really wrap my head around what will work and what won't. Still disappointed in the culling of all that arty and SCs, and the Taurox still looks awful both model and rule wise.