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Jesus after reading some of the other indexes today I'm kind of wondering what the play testers were smoking when they gave us 7pt plasma guns and 5pt plasma pistols.

I would not get too used to these prices sticking around. If GW is committed to balance like they say, we'll be seeing a price rise pretty quickly. I think they gave us a discount because of poor accuracy on regular troops but forgot that we primarily bring these kind of guns on 3+ models. Either way we may as well be "Codex Plasma" right now. We can overcharge with such laughably small risk it's kind of insulting. I would also expect an update saying HWT's go up to 8pts per base, but honestly they'll still be great even at 24pts base for the unit before weapons.

I'm not sure yet if we're going to be dominating tournaments, but it definitely seems like we have all the tools we'll need to be a top contender. I just don't see other armies having the weight of fire to shift an infantry horde army and at the same time having the tools to deal with "start collecting Stormtroopers" doom force. Both are terrifying for completely different reasons but at the end of the day it doesn't matter. The only concern I have with tournaments is if they set the points limit stupidly high (say 2000pts) and yet limit the amount of detachments you can take. If that happens it'll hurt our options a bit, but not be the end of the world.

Nemo84 wrote:
So about Command Squads. I've yet to play 8th edition, but I'm slowly rebuilding my old Guard lists.

I want to use my Command Squads in support of my DKoK infantry squads. Basic setup would be a Regimental Standard, a meltagun to use that nice BS3+ and 2 meatshields. It's Krieg, so all the infantry is expected to be advancing on the enemy lines instead of cowering in cover.

How do I keep my Command Squads alive? They seem incredibly attractive targets, and even with a single casualty I'm testing morale on a 5-.

Target saturation and having more important things for your opponent to shoot. Ironically those 2 meatshields you threw in help with that quite a bit. If he shoots at the unit he's "only" going to get 2 regular guardsmen, a flag, and maybe the melta if he's lucky. Most players will just shoot something else instead at that point.

If your opponent wants them dead they will die, it's that simple. Bring a few, maybe hide them behind a tank, and just ensure there's enough going on in your list that if the opponent does anything aside from throw the odd heavy bolter at them he's wasting shots that he should be devoting elsewhere, like your heavy weapon squads, artillery, stormtroopers, vets, etc.

 vipoid wrote:
I've got a question for you guys (based off something that came up in a different thead):

If plasmaguns ceased to exist, would you start taking Grenade Launchers instead?

You could take all the special weapons we have but grenade launchers out of the codex and I still probably wouldn't bring the dumb things, I'd just spam heavy weapons instead. Grenade Launchers are awful.

 argonak wrote:

 MrMoustaffa wrote:

 vipoid wrote:
I've got a question for you guys (based off something that came up in a different thead):

If plasmaguns ceased to exist, would you start taking Grenade Launchers instead?

You could take all the special weapons we have but grenade launchers out of the codex and I still probably wouldn't bring the dumb things, I'd just spam heavy weapons instead. Grenade Launchers are awful.

What conceptual change could make grenade launchers worth bringing?

Right now its 5 points, plus the trooper, so 9 points total. For 8 points we can bring two troopers with rapid fire 1 Lasguns which have the same range and can receive (and let's be honest, will) FRFSRF. That gives minimum 4 shots, 8 at short range. That completely eclipses the frag grenade aspect, which has an average of 3.5 hits. The assault aspect of a grenade launcher seems completely worthless. I can't see any purpose to using that feature.

So really, the most grenade launchers should cost is 3 points, if we're only considering the frag option. And given their randomness, I'd say 2 points might not be unreasonable. The Krak option is honestly nothing to write home about, I think that ought to be free.

So if Grenade launchers were 2 points, would I include them? Yeah at that point I probably would, if I didn't have the spare points for anything better. What do you think?

Eh, I mean at that point it's not terrible, but now it's directly competing with the sniper rifle, which, when fielded in the numbers IG is capable of, is actually a pretty viable choice if you're tight on points but don't want the special weapon slot to go to waste

Vipoid wrote:
I think that's the wrong direction. I'd much rather pay more and have a weapon that is actually worth a damn than pay a tiny price for a weapon that barely outclasses a lasgun. Otherwise, I'm just going to ignore the option entirely and take a more meaningful special weapon.

This guy gets it.


If we really wanted Grenade Launchers to become a serious choice again, they need to fill some sort of niche or purpose. Just being cheap doesn't really do them any favors when literally every possible role they have is done by something else, and usually at the same cost or cheaper or just so much better that it doesn't even warrant a comparison. IG is never hurting for S3 shooting, even if a single command squad can theoretically spit out 24 S3 shots in a single phase, I'd just rather bring a conscript or infantry squad instead, who have more numbers, better board control, and only take up a troops slot. S6 is just in a really weird spot this edition and with a random damage profile can be quite hit and miss.

This is getting into proposed rules territory and would never ever happen, but in order to get me to take grenade launchers with their attack profile the way it is they really need some sort of utilitarian or toolbox rounds, such as say a flare round that helps with night fighting, or a smoke round that can be used to disrupt an enemy unit's aim. It would make the grenade launcher unique in that compared to most other weapons it's more of a tool and would have a variety of uses depending on the matchup. However, this adds more special rules to the game when the whole point of 8th is to try and dial these back.

As it sits I just don't think you'll ever see them show up in any serious list. Most of the time I've ever seen one fielded is either a new IG player who doesn't have anything better to run in his army, and even then they're normally proxies. If they show up in an older IG player's list, 99/100 times it's because he still has the models from when he started and just wants to get them out of the case for a game.

Think about it. Sure, you can make Grenade Launchers 2pts a piece all day long, but I still have to pay 40pts base for the infantry squad carrying it. If I've already set down 40pts for the squad, odds are I'm willing to pay the 5-10pts extra it takes to get a proper special weapon. The old saying "you get what you pay for" immediately springs to mind.

Invinciblebug wrote:
So purely hypothetically if plasma guns didn't exist (say they hit the nerfbat hard) what would you guys think of meltaguns and HSVGs on Tempestus Scions?

Would it be worth to bring melta/HSVG scions if plasma was gone or would you just not bother with scions?

Plasma could go up to 15pts a gun and I would still take it, they're that good. I can't imagine GW doing anything crazier than that to them that wouldn't just horribly nerf everything else with access to plasma even worse. There are way too many things with the plasma statline in the game for it to go away. They will do a points adjustment and that's it, it's all they can do. This in mind the plasma gun fills an important role for guard special weapons, hence why I said I'd still buy them at 15pts. I'm used to that from last edition and to be honest that plasma gun was way inferior to the one we have now.

As for the other weapons, I tried both out on stormtroopers this weekend. I actually really liked them, they had a niche they filled pretty well. I took the HSVG's in a full 10 man squad, so 4 HSVG's, 5 lasguns, and a sarge with a plasma pistol. Puts out a stupid amount of fire and if they survive the drop to move into rapid fire range, their lasgun buddies get 4 shots as well with an officer nearby. Worked really well for hollowing out space marine squads and high save units in cover like scouts. Also draws a crazy amount of fire when you drop a unit in and are rolling something like 20 AP -2/-3 dice, which helped take heat off the plasma and melta elements.

As for melta, I had a 5 man troop squad with 2 meltas and plasma pistol. With a 4 man plasma command squad, an officer, and the 10 man volley gun squad, the opponent ignored the melta unit as the other units are far more flashy on the drop. I ended up sicking the meltas on his characters and being able to advance to point blank range for that 2d6 pick highest damage is excellent. Plasma is still the ultimate jack of all trades gun but I will absolutely continue to use the meltas. Even at 7-12", that potential for a money high damage roll and completely negating most armor saves is very handy. It really lets you punish a sloppy player leaving their characters exposed, that's for sure.

Anyone else just stop bothering with running conscripts at all lately? Note that when I say this I'm not talking from a competitive standpoint, but more from a boredom one. I pretty much brought them to screen stuff and people have stopped bothering to attack and shoot them entirely. I was running them as if platoons were still around (I.E. I was bringing infantry squads and pcs as well) and opponents would just shoot the other units in my army and lose the objective to a wave of unharmed conscripts. The last 3 games I ran them they didn't take a single casualty, it got that bad.

I've swapped mine out for pure infantry squad armies and have honestly felt like I'm winning more games, I know other players seem to fear them more for some reason, I have no idea why. I've been running variations of the following at a 1,000pts and while my meta is fairly casual even this is proving to be absolutely crushing. I'm about to take the stormtroopers out but they'll be taking out a lot of my most aggressive elements and that also means spamming even more regular guardsmen or just masses of heavy weapon squads. At this point I'm kind of at a loss on how to run an Imperial Guard infantry list without taking intentionally bad options that I don't really have modelled or running vanguard detachments for a veteran only force, but that may be what I have to do at this point.


Essentially I'm just mentally preparing for the fact that we may never get platoons back and conscripts will be nerfed into oblivion because GW is never known for minor tweaks. I've found my infantry holding it's own quite well even in more aggressive playstyles and that the heavy weapons tend to be pretty reliable, for the most part. I would heavily recommend anyone attempting a similar list completely forget about lascannons on their infantry line squads, they just whiff far too much at these numbers to bother. Perhaps at 1500pts or so there'd be enough to bank on but I find they're a bit too specialized for what they do on line infantry. They can hit hard when they want to, but without consistent access to anything more than rerolling ones it's just not enough, not to mention they have a limited pool of preferred targets. Instead I'd recommend Autocannons as they seem to hit a sweet spot and have been extremely reliable for me, even against enemy russes, just due to weight of fire. I know that the mathhammer doesn't exactly support this but the weapon synergizes very well with plasma and essentially just acts like a longer ranged plasma with less AP. Deployed en masse as a weapon in every single squad, they just have a disturbing ability to consistently chip away at things.

Even standard infantry squads are just crazy tough this edition, I've stopped bothering with cover entirely and even taking 75% casualties I'm normally mauling my opponent to force tablings by turn 5/6. I've not seen a single weapon that scared me other than things in our own codex, and even there it's just punisher cannons and variants of it. Another IG player in the area picked up a vulture so maybe he can give me a run for my money but standard guardsmen are just so brutally efficient with proper heavy/special weapon support that I've found little that can stop them when deployed in force. You have less guns than most lists, but they take so much damage to chew through most will be up and firing well into the final turn of the game, usually with a few men here and there, battered remnants of squads down to a couple of men on an autocannon or plasma gun and maybe the sarge left if they're lucky. Usually I find that I maybe kill a few units the first turn but for the most part wear down key targets and cripple them fairly quickly. Then the turn 1/2 deepstrike flank attack happens, I wrap that up by turn 3, and then proceed to hunt down any surviving units in the enemy's half of the table by turn 5/6 and start focusing on objectives. The only list to give me pause is a Raven guard player who is running tons of scouts (ironically at my advice), so far not much else has phased me. I'm sure I'd be singing a different tune in a more cutthroat area but as it stands I'm basically just running variants of old lists and seem to be doing fine. Honestly I'm starting to think that if platoons were brought back we would see infantry squads overshadow conscripts again, they've been that solid in my experience so far, literally their only weakness is being forced to field them in 10 man squads meaning your army tends to be an MSU nightmare.

Another weird thing I'm noticing with 8th, does anyone else feel like IG infantry take far longer to play now? I'm taking less infantry than I used to and yet I swear the game takes far longer. Not just the alternating deployment phase, although that doesn't help, but in the regular game as well. I really miss platoons, having to move, deploy, and fire each squad independently is getting really old. I don't even need to really worry about spacing and yet I feel like it's taking forever to move just due to the fact that every unit is moving independently.

 vonjankmon wrote:
I'm with you MrMoustaffa. I don't really think Conscripts are massively better than taking infantry squads. When the nerf to conscripts eventually comes I think many of the players whining about them currently are in for a surprise when the IG armies they face have a fewer models on the board but more fire power and that the change will make very little difference to the outcome of games.

Oh trust me, conscripts are still better in a competitive sense, I'm mainly just pointing out that at casual level even the humble infantry squad does quite well. I'm mainly chalking up to 3 things.

1. We almost always get our armor saves, means guardsmen in the open are often harder to kill in 8th than guardsmen in cover were in 7th. While infantry squads cost more than conscripts, they're still only one point a model more base and even a pretty decked out squad still comes out to about 6pts per model. This means that while you technically have less guardsmen, you usually end up taking more "useful" ones. I.E. heavy and special weapons. In addition, an infantry squad's firepower remains relatively constant until you deal the last 3 wounds. Being able to take essentially 7 wounds before the special and heavy weapons bite it means that most people just can't afford to focus units down to finish them off. Command points should always be spent to keep units around, both the 2pt inane bravery and the reroll, if only to completely demoralize the opponent when he finally kills a commissar only to realize you had a backup plan. I'm getting pretty confident that my commissars have finished off more of my squads at this point than my opponents.

2. Even a fully decked out squad still puts out 28 lasgun shots with FRFSRF. With BS +4 they get a pretty decent amount of shots and it never ceases to scare people just how many shots a ten man unit can put down if I want them to. Always remember the heavy weapon teams have lasguns and can use them even if the heavy weapon fired. While your pure amount of lasguns is obviously less than conscript spam, they tend to be more consistent and annoying for the opponent due to point 1.

3. Plasma is just absolutely brutal, even at 1 gun a squad with BS 4+, I know I've seen my squads put an unbelievable amount of hurt compared to their weight thanks to plasma. It's not uncommon for me to drop two primaris with a single plasma Gunner, and that's before the rest of the squad even fires. Sometimes I use the "Take Aim" order, sometimes I don't, usually in close range I find it more beneficial to spam FRFSRF unless I know for a fact the squad will survive into the next turn. This still baffles me as to what GW was thinking with IG plasma pricing. Even our "worst" delivery platform for it still feels incredibly efficient using it.

 argonak wrote:
Other than conscript screens, what's does one do against a strong and fast cc army when you're running a tac list?

Infantry squad screens

StevetheDestroyeOfWorlds wrote:
I recently got a decent sized IG army for pretty cheap which has several mortar teams.
Looking at the index, 27 points for 3d6 long range strength 4 shots that ignore line of sight? They sound amazing!
Have people had success using a lot of them?

Yes, they're kind of stupidly cheap, I would imagine we'll see that changed a little come the real codex, but for now they're absolutely worth it, at least in moderation.

If anything, they're great for denying areas in your backfield for enemy deepstrikers. For a guard army that's a big deal, we're one of the only armies in the game that can reliably shut down deepstrike for the first turn or two.

 Bobthehero wrote:
So about them Hotshot Volleys gun? Are they worth their points? I know plasma is all the rage right now, but I got a bunch of Scion rocking the damned things and I wonder how good they would be?

I like em alright, they scare the gak out of scouts and other squishy units that like to hide on objectives, that's about it.

 Colonel Cross wrote:
So I tried searching for this answer but couldn't find it. Are we firing both lasguns in our heavy weapons teams these days?

unless it's changed, heavy weapon teams only have one lasgun, so they can fire the lasgun and the heavy weapon, not multiple lasguns.

 RedCommander wrote:
About the conscripts...

Who would even use them? As in that they are supposedly used every time someone plays IG.

It's not like they are the only bubble wrap awailable.

Platoons are gone in the traditional sense, so they're the only "blobs" we have now.

On top of that, they're practically fearless with commissars, the cheapest and most efficient infantry in the game, benefit from orders 50-75% of the time, have a good all around weapon in a pinch, and just are all in all a pain in the ass to remove. They're not tough in the traditional sense so much as they are just so ridiculously cheap that most weapons and units that attack them are just not efficient enough to remove them in time. You're spending like 90pts on conscripts to hold up like 3-400pts of the enemy's army from killing your main units.

This is ignoring the new things they gained, such as objective secured, and regiment traits, which means that now they get to be S4 if they're catachans, reroll 1's if they're cadians, increased rapid fire range if vostroyans or steel legion, BS 5+ overwatch as Mordians, or take half losses from battleshock and practically endlessly respawn as Valhallans.


It's one of the closest things in the game to a no brainer right now. If you want troops to hold objectives, screen, or even just harass enemy infantry, conscripts with a commissar are one of the most efficient choices in the game. The crazy part is stormtroopers and infantry squads are crazy good too, they're just not as insane as conscripts.

 Red Corsair wrote:

xmbk wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:

xmbk wrote:
Why can't mauls and axes be taken using index points?

it would be a perfectly fine House Rule.

Why does it have to be house ruled? Did I miss a FAQ ruling? Index can be used for models that don't have a codex entry. Use the codex for the unit, index for the maul/axe.

Not correct, index can be used for units that are not updated in the codex. You don't get to pick and choose which version you want based on availability of options etc. So currently any unit that has updated rules MUST use the codex meaning you cannot get axes and mauls on your units unless they are available on a unit like rough riders.

People continue to get this so wrong. Another example are demo charges, there gone, period. I don't get to ignore the more current codex entries in order to swap in wargear that is no longer available.

wait demo charges are gone entirely?

 jamesterjlrb wrote:
Also a BS 4+ Guardsman with plasma gun is 11 points, and a BS 3+ Vet with the same is 19 points, so you can get almost double the number. Obviously you have to pay for ablative wounds in your SWS but even then, they are possibly more points efficient, with delivery and ordering being the only concerns.

Its a weird day when theres actually a point to SWS's and its not demo charges.

Absolutely sucks for vets though, theres almost no point in them now that stormtroopers are so good and SWS's spam weapons better. Vet squads arent even more survivable or anything either compared to equal points SWS. Command squads are easy to soam too since you get one for every cimmander you take.

Without doctrines and counting as elites what exactly is the point of vets now? BS+3 guardsmen and thats it? Theyre not even troops for objective secured.

 Trickstick wrote:

 MrMoustaffa wrote:
Without doctrines and counting as elites what exactly is the point of vets now? BS+3 guardsmen and thats it? Theyre not even troops for objective secured.

The entire point of elites is because they get regimental doctrines (although I guess you meant the old carapace-style ones). They are the units that you want to use many of the doctrines and stratagems on. For instance, they make good mechanised units on an Armageddon list, as you get a lot more firepower for your 1cp ability when dismounting. They are the the unit you want to give the Mordian's exploding 6s through Volley Fire. Personally, I am thinking that outflanking a unit of Tallarn shotgun meltavets can work really well. Order them to move move move to get them inside 6" in the shooting phase, and the doctrine lets you shoot your guns with no penalty.

Veterans seem in a much better place than they were in the index, as they are no longer just "worse scions". The regimental doctrines, orders and stratagems open up a whole load more possibilities and they are one of the better units to do crazy buffs on. Sure, command squads can do a similar thing but you are losing all of your ablative wounds if you go that route, as well as the extra firepower that lasguns/shotguns give.

ah ok, i havent been able to pick up the codex yet (store got screwed with their order) so I havent been able to see every new interaction the codex has

gungo wrote:
Steel legion just needs a FAQ allowing it to disembark and reimbark the same turn.

That looks like the intention from the community article but the rules team seems like they had other ideas.

Even with that change which would make infantry units/vets in chimeras decent steel legion still would play second fiddle to Cadian and catachan, maybe even tallarn which is also really good. It honestly a reworked steel legion doctrine is the only way mech vets are decent this edition.

Valhallan just needs a FAQ for send in the next wave NOT to cost reinforcement Points and they would still be not great but usable.

I'm also hugely unimpressed with sentinels this edition. Without the ability to move and fire heavies without penalty they are bad. Tallarn is the only way to make them viable as well.

Where does it say send in the next wave costs points for the new unit? Last I heard other strategems worded the same way dont require reinforcement points, like the admech one.

 blazexiii wrote:
Ogryn bodyguard can tank wound for tank commander.
WOW

Yeah my buddy and I noticed this today, we got a good laugh out of that mental image.

They're pretty great. As an infantry player I'm considering a few, not just for countering snipers but also as nice little countercharge elements. I've found infantry characters of all types can make pretty decent little assault forces to take out a few space marines here and there and when you gang them up (say 2-3 officers and a commissar or two) they can fight a unit that appears far more deadly than them. Having an ogryn mixed in would just make them even scarier. Granted they're not beating Mortarion or anything but I've seen more than a couple assault squads thrown back by a few officers stepping in and showing the boys how it's done.

Which is going to be especially fun with Catachans, since they're capable of getting enough buffs with Straken/priests that each guardsman is swinging at least 3 times at S4. That means a single 10 man infantry squad with Straken and a priest nearby puts out 31 S4 attacks! That's more attacks per model than even Black Templar get. And that's without orders, guns, and the fact that you're going to have far more models than the enemy. Granted you're probably not going to survive a charge across the field but it'll make a nasty countercharge element or a way to repel enemy assault stuff. Obviously it's kind of a goofy list idea but I liked the mental image of Powerblobs being back in a sense, especially since you can combine squads now.

 Trickstick wrote:

 Polonius wrote:
I dunno, I feel like in a lot of games I would have liked infantry in a fast transport, either for obsec or linebreaker, or even to assault and tie up enemy shooters.

I hadn't considered the benefits of Tallarn transports too much. The ability to advance after disembarking gives them a decent advantage over others, and the ability to move the transports without degrading firepower is obviously good.

Thats a good point, only weakness of taurox specifically is they cant get track guards, so it will slow down with damage. Transport heavy Tallarn would be fun to play, would heavily encourage meltas and flamers since if you were wanting plasma Steel Legion would be more useful fir disembarking infantry.

For consistency valhallans would ensure tauroxes stay at top speed for longer, about the only way to keep them at full throttle. Vlahallan units could also go in with less emphasis on commissars, something important to consider on tauroxes as they only carry 10.

Otherwise Chimeras with track guards are more reliable as even at 1 wound they will remain at top speed, which is the main point of transports. Your Leman russes should be the bulk of youre firepower, not transports (inless youre stormtroopers of course)

 Trickstick wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:
gak, right. Got excited. Bleh, I miss my powerblobs.

What are you really losing by having 3x10 man squads these days? Commissars and priests are both auras now, so that isn't a problem. Orders can be but power blobs don't particularly need them to function. On the plus side, power swords are cheap now and you can get +1str Catachan fun. I would say melee Guard in in a really good place, even better than the old warrior weapons doctrine to give everyone lp/ccw.

plays way faster, only needs one order a turn for 30, and allows you to have more ablative wounds for your special/heavy weapons. If I could do a stratagem more than once a turn Id probably combine all my squads turn one and go from there, even if it spent half my command points.

Having to do 10+ infantry units individually is an absolute pain and I really miss blobbing up and moving them in groups of 3-5. Just speeds up moving and shooting quite a bit.

Razerous wrote:
Ever any point to hot-shot volley guns?

I found 4 of them in a 10 man stormtrooper squad tends to scare marines pretty good. I think they believe Im running them stock and thats just how many lasgun shots they get normally. Tricks noobs but other than that its basically just for clearing enemy infantry. Might help with clearing scouts or guardsmen off an objective though. I just like it because its a different weapon and essentially lets me FRFSRF from deepstrike.

Oh yeah and they would get the 6+ extra shots when within 12", thats pretty nice too. Rolling that many dice youre bound to get a few 6's.

Anyone tried Hellhounds and Devil dogs yet? They actually seem pretty good for the cost now, especially since the devil dog's main cannon is an assault weapon, which means it can move and shoot without penalty. The codex suggests running them in pairs of Hellhound/Devil Dogs and Im actually tempted to try it as an aggressive element to tie up the opponent as my infantry and tanks rumble up the board.

Tanks are all probably going to be Tallarn or Valhallan. I really like how tough the Valhallan tanks are to shut down since in my meta people like to cripple one tank and move on to the next. With a couple tech priests I can essentially force people to kill my tanks or risk theyre back up to full effect even from potentially a single wound between jury rig and tech priests. Alternatively Tallarn make my tanks far more aggressive and I like being more mobile with my army. Would match my metallica Skitarii pretty well tactics wise as well. I hate gunline guard with a passion and it annoys me to no end that a major chunk of my army is cadians saddled with that doctrine.

Either one would work well with hellhound variants I think. Vallhallans must be killed or they will keep chasing you down, Tallarn are just stupid fast and capable of outflanking your opponent.


As a random aside, anyone else pleased by all the little tactics advice blurbs the IG codex has in it? I know most were in previous books but I really like how theyre placed throughout the book, like theyre there to warn players about potential pitfalls units have. Theres one under the ogryn entry for example that talks about the risks of running an army purely meant to assault will get shot up that I got a good laugh out of, considering we see so many people complain that pure melee has such a struggle against IG. Theyre pretty solid big picture advice and I noticed a lot of the Tactica Imperialis and Solar Macharius quots tend to echo things I've heard as advice on these very forums.

 daedalus wrote:

 MrMoustaffa wrote:
Anyone tried Hellhounds and Devil dogs yet? They actually seem pretty good for the cost now, especially since the devil dog's main cannon is an assault weapon, which means it can move and shoot without penalty. The codex suggests running them in pairs of Hellhound/Devil Dogs and Im actually tempted to try it as an aggressive element to tie up the opponent as my infantry and tanks rumble up the board.

I've never really stopped loving hellhounds since 5th edition. The reduction in damage and increase in shots is an overall improvement for them against their preferred target (not-vehicles) and they didn't go up in price, so I'm considering it an win-win. I run mine with heavy bolter so I can kite things at max range. I don't really do the variants though. Just never had any interest in them.

I haven't even considered how they combine with doctrines. Mixing forces might be fluffy, but it kind of feels unnecessary to me to min-max the doctrines at this point. I genuinely have basically everything I could ever want.

Im mainly looking at other regiments because Cadian and Catachan vehicles feel like a bit of overkill for my meta and dont really take much strategy to make work. With Tallarn and Valhallans I'll actually have to make a decision besides "do I stay still/reroll a dice" so I think theyll be more fun and rewarding to play.

Not to knock Catachan/Cadian players of course, I just find their tank abilities a bit boring to use. I'm basically trying to keep myself from being a boring gunline player and the Cadian doctrine just tempts me way too hard to stay still and reroll 1's.

I run bolters on most of my sargeants, I like having a standard range for all my guardsmen and laspistols never do anything of note anyways. Considering I run infantry, and the cost of all my bolters usually adds up to maybe a melta gun, I see it as no real loss.

Youre not even losing melee attacks anymore, as the extra attack is with the chainsword and it can be taken with a bolter for free, meaning you get close combat ability and an actual rifle type weapon to boot. With an infantry horde army, youre never really short on points and Id rather have those bolters than say 3 more conscripts for example.

Its probably not worth the point for competitive play but Ive never written a list where I could point to the 10 or so points I spent on bolters and say that it impacted me being able to take something useful instead.

Aside from plasma pistols of course, those are pretty great for only 5pts. They just add up pretty fast.

ogryn body guard is stupid powerful since RAW he can take wounds for tank commanders right now. Its about the only thing aside from take cover and psychic abilities to keep him alive and theyre good for cqc in a pinch as well.

I fully expect that to be FAQ'd soon but there you go.

Niiru wrote:

 Trickstick wrote:

 Twoshoes23 wrote:
Can special weapons squads still take demo charges??

Not the ones in the Codex. However, if you take the entry from the index then you can. It's a weird position really.

I'm not sure that's legal... I know there's that FAQ thing that lets you use models or wargear options that are no longer supported in the new codex, such as Chaos Lords on daemonic mounts, which were in the Index but not in the Codex... but that's a whole models' datasheet that was left out of the codex, but people have the models for so GW has said "You can still play them, but use the datasheet from the Index".

People have argued that this also covered things like Sergeants with Axes (which were removed from the IG codex, they can only have swords now), which would seem to be covered, but comes to be a pretty grey area. But a single axe vs sword isn't going to make a huge difference on average so it'll probably slide.

But it then gets to the point where you can say "In the index this unit was allowed to take 3 lascannons, but now it can only take 2 lascannons, so I'll use the Index version". How is that different to choosing between codex sword or index axe? It's not, not really. But it effects the way they (tried) to balance the book.

What if they dropped the toughness of a unit from 8 to 7? Not unlikely, as they just increased Wraithlords from 7 to 8. But If you can freely choose to use the Index datasheet for a weapons option, but not for stats options too?

Someone will reply with "Well no, because they say you should always use the most recent rules, datasheet and points values for a unit, from the most recent codex or index update!" Which is totally true. Which means no axes on sergeants, and no demolition charges on HWTs. But you can field a Chaos Lord on a Juggernaut, because that had it's own datasheet in the index, and it hasn't been superseded by a newer one.

The big thing for me is I have a ton of old IG models with things like shotguns, demo charges, and yes, legit power axes (the original hand flamer commissar, I have 2 of them) so it was a bit of cruel move to give me back my shotgun company and platoon commanders only for them to be taken away again, along with taking away demo charges entirely and other things like power axes. I really hope there's a way to keep bringing them, taking away shotguns on commanders alone invalidated like 10 different officer models I have. Not to mention krak grenades and melta bombs being gone as upgrades for many units, which used to be all over the codex. And then of course we get into all the veteran doctrines disappearing and even more odd ones like sergeants STILL not being able to take lasguns when the new stormtrooper kit even shows the sergeant with one slung on his backpack? Not to mention the other infantry kits have the option of outfitting all 10 men with rifles if memory serves. They just seem like really odd choices and someone must be preventing it higher up, it makes no sense why with all the other stuff we got nobody thought "huh, that's weird, the sarge should be able to take a lasgun".

Not to mention my priest has a plasma pistol and an eviscerator. I got them back for all of a few months only for the options to disappear again. I'm sure there's more stuff I haven't noticed yet in here somewhere, that's just what I have for now.

Was this an issue with other codexes? I don't remember hearing about this when space marines and chaos space marines came out but surely they had something similar happen.

Doctoralex wrote:
So, what do you people think of Tauroxes?

They dropped by 15 points, making them one of the cheapest transports in the game at 70 points while still rocking two Autocannons.

I think with the Tallarn doctrine, they can work quite nicely.

Only downside is that they don't come with Smoke Launchers (transports tend to advance and make us of them) and can't be upgraded with any of the new vehicle upgrades.

I really like mine. It's actually garnered a fair bit of hatred at the store, as it seems to be really lucky for some reason. The "party bus" as it's known tends to make at least 1 big play a game. I'm heavily considering getting one or two more. It doesn't hurt I really like autocannons even if they're a bit expensive, that consistent 2 damage per hit adds up. Add in the fact that they're stupid fast and theyre my melta delivery system of choice (aside from valks of course)

vipoid wrote:I'm curious as to how many characters you guys include in your armies?

I ask because many of my lists tend to include quite a few, almost by default, and I'm wondering if I'm making them too top-heavy.

I'm particularly interested in how you measure out stuff like Company Commanders and Commissars (assuming you use them at all). Do you like to have enough orders to cover every squad, or do you rely on just ordering a couple of key squads each turn whilst the others fend for themselves?

Also, what about other support characters like Primaris Psykers, Astropaths and Tech-Priests. Do you use them at all? If so, how many do you think is enough?

I run infantry guard a lot and bare minimum I have 6 at 1000pts/ 50pl, usually it's two company commanders and a commissar per "batallion" which in my case is what a platoon used to be. That being said, I'm about to start including priests and primaris pyskers as well. They're incredibly cheap for the utility they give to an infantry army and it feels like a no brainer to include them. If I do that, the amount of characters I have goes up to 9 minimum, and I often throw in a couple of extra commissars for redundancy and counterattacking because I own like 15 of them. Goal is to pick up some Tech priests as well as I'm slowly picking up more russes. Even just a single tech priests with a few russes in the back field can be handy, especially if you have Valhallan tanks.

Our characters are just all so good I have a hard time justifying not bringing them. Plus it's really cool to see these small "command squads" form as usually your commissar, commander, priests, and pyskers will fight near one another and form small units. They're surprisingly handy to repulse assaults as well, a lot of the players in my area have learned to respect these roving groups of characters packing powerfists and weapons. They're not dropping something like an Imperial knight but if they get the charge on things like Beserkers, Genestealers, or Harlequins they can put out enough hits to actually do a fair bit of damage in a pinch, especially if you have an infantry squad or two move in to help them.

Colonel Cross wrote:So with Catachans I started trying out the banner in a vet squad with a Lascannon.

Catachans get +1 Leadership with an officer within 6" and then another one for the banner. I haven't needed commissars since. Basically, if you take any more casualties then a Commissar isn't going to matter much then anyway. As long as my special weapon and heavy weapon stay put I'm happy.

I've been noticing this too. Between your officers and standards there's not much point to bringing commissars with Catachans unless you're running conscripts for whatever reason. LD 9 on guardsmen pretty much guarantees morale losses are rare.

schadenfreude wrote:

 More Dakka wrote:
S4 is a nice bonus, it can help put wounds on some vehicles (5's instead of 6's) but even if you lean into it with Straken and Priests etc you're still not going to hit hard enough, and with enough attacks to get close to anything like Berzerkers or Stealers.

Plasma cannon sponsons are nice but LRBTs are still pretty flimsy and they cost a lot. I'd go for more tanks before any sponsons.

Use regular infantry squads in the double bubble instead of conscripts. Every Sargeant will turn into a roided out beast with 4A s8 ap-2 D3 damage if you buy them a 10 point power fist. 6 squads at 300 points will pump out 24 of those power fist attacks plus 162 regular s4 attacks.


https://youtu.be/qaU5YMC907A

Infantry squads can't bring powerfists, that would be vets. Granted that's only 10 points more for the squad, and you get +1 Bs, so its not the end of the world, but I'd prefer to use regular infantry squads for that as well. That said, running a bunch of Catachan vet squads with powerfists and weapons like flamers and meltas with Straken and Priest support would be a really fun list. I feel like it'd work best for outflanking or ambushing (something you can't really do sadly) but if you brought enough of them I don't see why it would be impossible. My primary trick has been Catachan Company Commanders with power fists. Nobody expects the damage they can do, especially if they get the charge off. Everything else I really just see as a bonus and not something to build a list around, but fists on the commanders has so far been mandatory in my experience. For such a paltry amount of points it can really bail you out of a bad situation.

Keep in mind for my advice I do not play in a very competitive meta, so I actually tone down my lists. I don't take intentionally bad ones, but I do try to tone down things like plasma spam. For example, I no longer run conscripts. Not because they're bad or anything, but because they make the game far too easy and no one at my store has the tools to fight them. So you'll see me talk about things like having to counter charge because I don't have a cheap conscript screen to eat the charge in the first place.

#1

Typical "platoon" looks like this

X4 infantry squads. Usually a 50/50 autocannon/lascannon and plasma, bolter. If I have models voxes as well
X2 company commanders, loadout varies depending on doctrine. Cadians tend to have things like bolters and plasma pistols, Catachans will have Powerfists, etc.( I use 2 right now because I have a mixed regiment and need 2 HQ's per batallion. Once I get more stuff painted this will probably be dropped to 1)
X1 command squad with a standard. Loadout varies, but I traditionally give them short ranged weapons like meltas or flamers and use them to counterattack. Heavy weapons and plasma make them too much of a target.
X1 commissar with at least a power weapon, sometimes a fist depending on my mood.
X1 vet squad with a ride and close quarters weapons like shotguns and meltas with a heavy flamer. Tauroxes are good assault vehicles while Chimera s work better for counterattack.

Sometimes I run heavy weapon squads against newer players and remove my heavy weapons from the infantry squads so new players can learn target priority. Other than as mortar/heavy bolter platforms I really don't care for them, way too fragile. I've also considered special weapon squads but normally find myself just taking vets instead.

#2 additional attack per astra militarum model. He doubles your CQC effectiveness of your base infantry for barely the cost of a squad, but the main reason you bring him is to buff characters. Having him roam around with a bunch of commissars and officers and he makes them way more scary on the charge. Not only that, he's thematic and it just looks cool to see them running around. This leads into number 3

#3 Guard characters are way nastier than their cost would suggest in close combat. I've seen even 2 or 3 face down an enemy squad for a turn and hold a flank to win a game, and they can often kill their cost in enemy models in my experience. Usually this is a desperation tactic but it is a handy trick to have especially for the objective card missions. Some require killing things in CQC and since I don't own Ogryn or Crusaders theyre my next best option. They're no khorne beserkers or anything, but usually what happens is say something like genestealers charge in and crush the first line. You pull back survivors, fire into the genestealers point blank, and then realize there's still a few standing. You can't allow these units to survive because they'll wreck another unit or tie up tanks, so your only option at that point is a counter charge. Nobody really expects IG to take the fight to them so usually they're in easy charge distance for you too. Even if you don't kill the target, you've stolen his initiative, meaning that he's tied up going into his turn and he doesn't get to charge you. This doesn't work against superheavies or jump units obviously but against things like genestealers and Beserkers it can mean the difference between a turn 3 win or a turn 4 loss. Keep In mind I usually end up in this situation because I don't run conscripts.

#4 Accidents? Catachans can't help it if Commissars don't need their advice Although I have one commissar I run with mine, he's earned the right to fight with them after all of the dumb things he's taken on in assault and won

 necron99 wrote:

 MrMoustaffa wrote:

Keep in mind for my advice I do not play in a very competitive meta, so I actually tone down my lists. I don't take intentionally bad ones, but I do try to tone down things like plasma spam. For example, I no longer run conscripts. Not because they're bad or anything, but because they make the game far too easy and no one at my store has the tools to fight them. So you'll see me talk about things like having to counter charge because I don't have a cheap conscript screen to eat the charge in the first place.

That's funny...my meta's the exact and complete opposite. If you don't bring your A game list and play perfectly you will get steam rolled. They're great guys but good lord do I take a beating

What kind of army do you run?

My main issue is I run almost pure infantry. For a fairly new playerbase like my store has, Imperial Guard infantry are a very tough nut to crack. I don't want to reopen the can of worms that happened in the General Discussions but Imperial Guardsmen are insanely good value point for point and when you've got between 100-150 running around with proper officer support even at a 1000pts that's a difficult thing to beat without tailoring. Add in that there are very few efficient anti infantry counters, especially for index armies, and you have my problem. Tanks have counters, but every infantry counter I've seen so far has been underwhelming. The only things that really bother me are Raven guard tactics and maybe guilleman if he gets first turn. Oh, and IG, they're pretty good too

I'm actually picking up more tanks for this reason. Tones down my infantry numbers and Leman Russe's are much easier for new players to understand and fight. Also provides a mix of targets so when someone brings AT they're not screwed like they would be with my pure guardsmen lists.

Don't go too crazy, keep in mind the kind of stuff I tend to charge them into is glass cannon units. Things like Beserkers or Genestealers that hit like a truck but aren't particularly durable. They'll have a rough go of it against things like Plague Marines or Monstrous creatures most of the time.