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This is a serious list I'm considering building. I need every ounce of critism and advice you can give me on how to make this army decently competative. (Not for tournament play, but for friendly games)

HQ:
Command Platoon with Junior Officer(honorific imperialis) with a Master Vox Caster and a Heavy Bolter

Death Watch Kill-Team: Librarian with Force Weapon and Plasma Pistol, Fury of the Ancients, Artificer Armour, Iron Halo, Terminator Honours, 2 Heavy Bolter Death Watch Veterns, 2 Veterans with Bolters and Power Fists, Razorback with Extra Armour and Smoke

Elites:
Hardened Veterans, 8 men strong, Lascannon and 2 plasmaguns, Chimera with Extra Armour, Heavy Stubber, Multi-laser Turret and heavy Bolter hull.

Troops:
Infantry Platoon with 1 heavy bolter, 2 Lascannons, 3 Voxes
Armoured Fist with Vox, Lascannon, Chimera with Extra Armour, Heavy Stubber, Multi-laser turret, heavy bolter hull.

Heavy:
Leman Russ with Lascannon Hull, Heavy bolter Sponsons, Heavy Stubber, Extra Armour, Track Guards
Leman Russ with Lascannon Hull, Heavy bolter Sponsons, Heavy Stubber, Extra Armour, Track Guards
Basilisk with Indirect Fire

Oh! They all have carapace armour! And the Junior officer has Iron Discipline

Kill teams are over priced and over rated. I might be a lite more worth it to get a unit of sisters in there for some support rather than the kill team. I know the hood is nice to have but in the long run that unit will be mowed down very quickly.

Other than that the HS looks fine (very cookie Cutter) Though I am a big fan of having a demolisher in there.
Troops look good (get rid of the voxes they are a waste).
get some heavy weapons squads and some fire support teams in that HQ selection.

I don't think that the voxes are a waste. I'll need the leadership boost, and the commander has Iron Discipline, which will help out a lot!

Demolisher is possible.

The killteam is there for long range firepower support. (With Fury of the Ancients) Hopefully being able to slow them down until they get to me.

Which kill team rules are you using BTW?

Fine for friendly games.

Not very viable in tournaments.

It's hard to give you the full monty when you say it's for friendly games.

By assigning the Chimera to the vet squad, you're giving up the infiltrate ability. If you just want the extra Chimera on the table, it may be better to assign it to either the HQ or LT squads.

Using the deathwatch kill team rules from GW's website.
Stelek. Tell me how to improve it for tourny play, then

IG for tournaments are pretty easy, but can be real expensive.

Either all mechanized guard or all foot guard.

Don't go half and half. Not enough bodies, not enough targets.

Sekai wrote:I don't think that the voxes are a waste. I'll need the leadership boost, and the commander has Iron Discipline, which will help out a lot!

Sure they are. Iron D does not work over the Vox. So since they have to be within 12" to use the Iron D, why bother with voxes? Instead use the points from all those voxes to make your JO/Honorifica a real HSO and give the Platoon JO the Honorifica and Iron D. Now you have TWO LD 9 officers.

Also, I agree with the Chimera/Hardened Vets statement made earlier. One of their assets is that they can infiltrate so that the BS 4 lascannon can shoot at that prime target. Giving them a Chimera negates that ability.

Funny to hear you say that stelek. I thought your drop troop army of death was a half and half.

For the same 1850 pts, I'd want to take something like this:

JO w/ Honors, ML, 2 plas
Chimera w/ 2 HB, PMHS
6 IG w/ 3 MLs
6 IG w/ 3 MLs

6 Vets w/ ML, 3 plas

JO w/ 4 Meltas
Chimera w/ MtL, HB, PMHS
10 IG w/ ML, plas
10 IG w/ ML, plas

10 AF w/ ML, plas
Chimera w/ MtL, HB, PMHS

Sentinel w/ Autocannon
Hellhound w/ PMHS
Hellhound w/ PMHS

Demolisher w/ HB
Demolisher w/ HB
Demolisher w/ HB

Depending on wargear and such, this is also 1850 pts.

Compared to your list, I trade the Deathwatch and Carapace for 2 triple-ML teams, 2 Hellhounds, and a Sentinel. I have way more tanks, and they're generally tougher. I also have more long-range guns with more flexiblity. Most importantly, I have more mobility for those inevitable Objectives missions.

Anyhow, this is just another crack at a "fun" IG list.

Sekai wrote:I need every ounce of critism and advice you can give me on how to make this army decently competative.

Ok... but don't say I didn't warn you.

Sekai wrote:Command Platoon with Junior Officer(honorific imperialis) with a Master Vox Caster and a Heavy Bolter

Bad start. This unit is bloated with crap that is either useless (Vox) or stuff that will get it killed (Heavy Bolter).

Ditch the Master Vox (25 points saved) and the Heavy Bolter (35 points saved). Get a Standard Bearer (11 points). With the Iron Discipline this unit already has it it makes the unit 81 points, and that's all it should cost. Total saved 24 points.

CHQ's cost 81 points, period (unless you take Cameleoline, but more on that later). They hide, they provide an Ld9 bubble with a re-roll (standard) and the Iron Discipline, they don't get shot, they don't shoot and they don't fight in HTH.

Sekai wrote:Death Watch Kill-Team: Librarian with Force Weapon and Plasma Pistol, Fury of the Ancients, Artificer Armour, Iron Halo, Terminator Honours, 2 Heavy Bolter Death Watch Veterns, 2 Veterans with Bolters and Power Fists, Razorback with Extra Armour and Smoke

As much as I'd say 'NO! Overpriced! BAD! NEVER USE!', this is your toy unit, and I happen to be starting a Deathwatch army myself, so I'll leave it for flavour. I'd ditch the Artificer Armour however. You're not going to use it, plus majority armour saves means that it's not useful at all. 44 points saved.

Sekai wrote:Hardened Veterans, 8 men strong, Lascannon and 2 plasmaguns, Chimera with Extra Armour, Heavy Stubber, Multi-laser Turret and heavy Bolter hull.

You stick a Lascannon in this unit, and it becomes Target Number 1 for the enemy. It's a BS4 Lascannon, therefore it's a threat. Luckily for your opponent, they're still just T3 Guardsmen, so they're easily killed off, and you can't hide them as Target Priority makes a mockery of 'hiding' anything.

H-Vets only ever Deep Strike. The current ruleset makes them good at that and that only, unless you're talking 3 such units with Lascannons, as you'll get some utility that way. They have a Chimera, which is just 'ok', but I'm going to leave them for the time being.

Sekai wrote:Troops:
Infantry Platoon with 1 heavy bolter, 2 Lascannons, 3 Voxes

I'm guessing Command w/HB, 2 squads w/Lascannons right?

If so - very bad.

Guard are about Infantry. You should be aiming to have 5-6 squads of infantry (as in 10-man squads) at 1500 points. 6-8 squads at 1850, and so on. They are the lifeblood of the Guard. Furthermore the Voxes are an utter waste, as is an HB inside a Command Squad. 69 points saved.

Your infantry squads also need special weapons. The only weapon that matches with the Lascannon is the Plasma Gun, and they should be in every squad. But we'll worry about them when I get to the rebuild.

Sekai wrote:Armoured Fist with Vox, Lascannon, Chimera with Extra Armour, Heavy Stubber, Multi-laser turret, heavy bolter hull.

Vox is a waste. 74 points saved. Needs more Plasma.

Sekai wrote:Heavy:
Leman Russ with Lascannon Hull, Heavy bolter Sponsons, Heavy Stubber, Extra Armour, Track Guards
Leman Russ with Lascannon Hull, Heavy bolter Sponsons, Heavy Stubber, Extra Armour, Track Guards
Basilisk with Indirect Fire

Bloat-tastic.

Lascannons - Bad. You'll never use it, doesn't match with HB sponsons. You either take Hull HB and no sponsons or Hull HB and HB sponsons. 94 points saved.
Heavy Stubbers - Bad. You're firing your main gun every turn, and doing so wastes the Stubber. Furthermore, the Stubber is 12 points! It's 15 for the three HBs (1 Hull/2 Sponson), so why pay 80% of that cost again to get a single gun with a lesser profile? It's a false economy. The only Russ that Stubbers belong on is the Leman Russ Exterminator. Ditch them pronto. 118 points saved.
Track Guards - Umm... what? Moving ain't that important, and if you need to move, you've got EA for that. Ditch them. 138 points saved.

Oh! They all have carapace armour! And the Junior officer has Iron Discipline

Tremendously bad idea.

The Special Equipment Doctrines are a complete joke. Cybernetic Enhancements makes me wonder what drugs the Dev team take, Chem-Inhalers possibly gives an answer to my first question, Warrior Weapons is a joke (8 points per Guardsmen for an extra attack? No...) and Carapace Armour is what I like to call 'Throwing points at a weakness in the hope it'll go away'.

The reason Carapace Armour is bad except on All-Drop Troops Guard armies is that it does nothing you need. Your Guardsmen never get to take their 5+ Armour Saves, everyone knows this, so Guard players sit their men in cover so they can get a 5+ (or 4+ in a lot of cases) cover save. These cover saves are essentially free, so why not use them?

Then you go an add Carapace Armour at 20 points per squad. What does this do? Well, their armour save is 4+ now, but they're still going to spend most of the game taking 5+ or 4+ cover saves. You've thrown points at a Guard weakness (armour saves) in an attempt to make it go away. This doesn't work. You should be playing to your army's strengths, not its weaknesses. Playing to your army's weaknesses is your opponent's job, so let him worry about that.

This army has 120 points spent on Carapace Armour (CHQ, H-Vets, PHQ, 2 Squads, Armoured Fist). 120 points thrown at a weakness.

You know what you can get for half that? For 60 points?

Cameleoline.

Your Guardsmen are already in cover (or should be), so why not throw half the points you're wasting on Carapace Armuor to improve something they're getting already for free. That means all those 5+ and 4+ cover saves become 4+ and 3+ cover saves. Yep, your Guardsmen are now getting better saves than Marines against everything AP3 and better.

So why waste this opportunity to significantly increase the durability of your Guardsmen for fully half the cost of Carapace Armour?

We'll assume for a moment that you switch to Cameleoline, making it another 60 points saved. That's 198 points - two points shy of 200 points - that I've saved you by removing bad choices (Hull Lascannons, Carapace Armour, those utterly useless Vox-Casters) and general bloat (Stubbers, Track Guards, those utterly useless Vox-Casters).

In a little while I'm going to do a rebuild of your list, doing all the things I talked about here (getting the H-Vets right, bulking up the infantry and giving them Plasma Guns, etc.). The Deathwatch will stay as I - as I like them and they're cool, if not really competative - and the general structure of your army will remain as is (I don't like Basilisks, but this is your army, not mine, so I'm not about to remove it to make the army more competative), and then I'll repost it.

So await that...

BYE

JohnHwangDD wrote:Anyhow, this is just another crack at a "fun" IG list.

This is the problem with people doing rebuilds of other people's lists. They create a list that is totally alien to the other person's. There is no 'one true way' to play this game, and if you're going to rebuild someone's list (especially if it's just a 'fun' list), then you should attempt to keep as much as what he's got in there the same, but tweak what he's taken so it can be more competative.

By removing the Deathwatch and the Basilisk you're removing, I assume, two of the things that the author of the list might see as the most 'fun' about his list. No one takes Deathwatch as a serious unit choice. They're far too expensive for what they are and the points are always better spent on more Guardsmen - the true lifeblood of the Guard. But the author her has taken Deathwatch because he wants to use them, so any attempts at criticising this army and attempting to improve it should always include the Deathwatch, as he wants them. We can tweak the Deathwatch unit itself to get the most out of it, but to remove it completely is essentially saying to him 'No fun toy units for you! Play Guard this way and this way only!!!'.

John, your Guard list that you posted is infinately better than his except for the fact that you're taken Missile Launchers everywhere, and ML's are junk in a Guard army (Autocannons are better at killing AV10-12 than ML's, are equal to ML's vs AV14, and Lascannons are better at killing AV14, so the ML, like the Grenade Launcher, serves utterly no purpose in a Guard army), and you CHQ is a giant points sink that's easy VP's for the enemy, but at the end of the day, that's your list and it's how you'd play it.

But we're not here to show Sekai what you'd do with your list. We're here to help him improve his list, by tweaking the existing list. Throwing out his list and replacing it with one you or I have made that bears no resemblance to his original list will teach him nothing, and robs him of the fun stuff he chose (like the Deathwatch).

BYE

That is the kind of information that I was looking for H.M.B.C! Thank you so much! (Not being sarcastic, btw.) I'll put up a changed version of the list in a little bit, hope you can help me with that one too!

Dude, I'm a RAW guy, and the instruction was to make it decently competitive. Expecting me to RAI that DWKT and Bassie are must-have just isn't something I can do.

I dumped the bad stuff (Carapace) and simply averaged the HB / LCs into MLs.

Then I figured that more mobile / survivable Scoring Units would be the next key change. The thing is, he has a fundamental problem if he ever plays Objectives - he's currently auto-lose if he has to move. The only things he has a miniscule chance of getting out of the DZ, onto an Objective, and surviving for more than a turn are the 2 Russes. And 2 AV12 Russes supported by 2 AV10 Chimeras & AV11 Rhinos / just won't cut it - the side armor is too thin. Hence, the Demolishers & Hellhounds, along with the sneaky Sentinel.

JohnHwangDD wrote:Dude, I'm a RAW guy...

Which means what, exactly, in respect to army list construction?

Sorry John, but he wants help with his army list, not to have his replaced with your army list.

I could give him the most balls-to-the-wall competative Guard list on the face of the planet if I wanted to, tell him 'Go use this to murder every opponent you face', and he could do that and win all his games. But do you know what the end result of this would be, John? He'd have fun at first, his opponents wouldn't, he'd grow tired of it, and he'd remember back to his original list that had fun things like Deathwatch Kill-Teams and Basilisks and think: 'What happened to that army? Why am I using someone else's army?'.

It's really simple to parrot someone John, and to go and take their army list and use it yourself, but it doesn't teach you anything. He wants to make a competative list for fun play that includes non-competative units. To help him with that we try to tweak all the competative units so that they are extremely efficient and/or effective, and do what we can to lessen the damage caused by the not-so-good units. We don't just throw his list out wholesale and replace it with something we'd use instead. That solves nothing.

BYE

Well, if you wanted to, I'd totally love to see the most balls-to-the-wall competative guard list :p

He only gave a little direction as to what he wanted. You presumed (RAI) on to DWKT & Bassie as "must have". But what if he *really* wanted Carapace?

I simply focused on the actual request (RAW) to make it "decently competitive". So I interpreted more broadly to mean 2+ Russes, triple Pie, 1+ AF, 1+ Vets, 3+ Chimeras, guys with guns.

If he wanted Carapace / DWKT / Bassie as must-have, that's great, but I can't and won't guess it.

And as he's a n00b, why saddle him with a list that is weaker? Maybe he doesn't know better and would be happier with a slightly higher win percentage.

Wow. How friendly. Maybe I'm just a noob to Imperial Guard? Stop being such a dick, John.

JohnHwang, I know you're arguing with HBMC, but your last comment came off as being really condescending. Please watch your tone.

Sekai, we don't allow personal insults here on Dakka. If you disagree with someone, you can attack the post but not the poster. If someone says something that insulting (as happened here), you have several options:

1. Hit the Alert Mods button (this one ) to let us know what's going on.

2. Take the moral high ground; by refuting an insult with courteous commentary, you make the insulter look bad.

3. Simply ignore it; this IS the internet.

If you have any questions, please feel free to PM any of the mods, including Yakface.

Sorry about that. I'll be sure to keep that in mind for the future.

I'll do that re-do for you tomorrow Sekai.

And I have to say, as much as they do suck, I am glad to see someone using Deathwatch. Yeah, I'm bias as I'm in a real Deathwatch vibe at the moment (X-Mas money is buying me a 3000 point Deathwatch army, including all the shoulder pads I'll need to do it properly!), so I like the idea of a Guard army including them, even if they won't really help.

And I wouldn't worry about John. His method of thinking is to give you a bazooka but not tell you how to use it. I'd much rather give you the gun you want, but make sure you have the best ammo for the type of prey you'll be going after.

BYE

Thanks a lot, HBMC. I'm going to try this list out today. And I've used my Kill Team in the past. They've blown up Land Raiders and killed lots of crap. I'm very proud of them

Sekai wrote:Wow. How friendly. Maybe I'm just a noob to Imperial Guard?

Sorry, that was a bad assumption on my part based on what I initially saw as a lot of basic design problems with your list. If you've been playing it, and it works for you, then my initial impression must have been mistaken. Please accept my apologies, and continue to play the list you enjoy.

Sekai. You know you can get in a few games in with me and work on the list to see what needs work or not. HBMC did a great service in getting rid of all the unnecessary points but keeping with the theme.

This is my current list that I'm looking over!
Doctrines are Iron Discipline and Cameleoline

HQ:
Command Platoon with a Junior Officer with Honorifica Imperialis, Iron Discipline, and a Standard Bearer.

Inquisitor Lord with Bolt Pistol/CCW, Emporer's Tarot, Familiar, 2 Mystics, Land Raider with Extra Armour

Elites:
Vindicare Assassin

Troops:
Infantry Platoon with 4 Squads, 4 Lascannons, 4 Plasmaguns

Armoured Fist Platoon with Lascannon and Plasmagun, Chimera with Extra Armour(Multi-laser and Heavy Bolter weapons)

Fast Attack:
Hellhound with Extra Armour

Heavy:
2 x Leman Russ Battletanks with Extra Armour, Track Guards, Pintle Heavy Stubber, Hull Mounted Lascannon, Sponson Heavy Bolters

Basilisk with Indirect Fire

Cameloe---blehhhhhhhhhhhhh snorgie. Don't need it.

Try chem inhalers, or hide your officers and don't worry about ID.

Plasma on infantry platoons....bad.

Armored fist squads are the suck. You have doctrines available, just take grenadiers and pay 70 points for a decent GL squad instead of that mess.

Add another hellhound.

LR don't need lascannon, guards, or EA. Suck it up if they get stunned, at least they didn't die right?

HI and IL are highly questionable. LR is neat, but be better with a Inq elite choice with a psycannon and tarot. Cheaper and more useful in a IG army.

Standard bearer...please delete immediately.

plasma guns work with the lascannons, and the standard is a must. much better list than the first. do drop all the goodies from the leman russes, they should have triple heavy bolters and nothing else in most cases.

For the platoon command, consider giving the officer iron discipline, and giving the staff three flamers. I run this config and i love it as i provide ld. and can jump out and provide counter assault.

adding a stubber to both the chimera and hellhound will provide it with extra anti infantry shots.

Sweet.

Now just to burst the bubble, you provide nothing with a standard bearer and a officer in a chimera.

They aren't on the table, and do nothing for your army.

Which is why I don't recommend wasting those points.

Flamers ARE good though. Sorry.