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I've been on a WW2 documentary-watching binge for the past few days. Tanks (of the treaded variety) in 40k seem pretty fragile but these docs have been driving me insane. I'm very tempted to play a Guard force centred on tanks, just wanted some feedback before I decide.
______________________________________

Here's what I have in mind:

DOCTRINES: Grenadiers, Veterans, Light Infantry, Drop Troops, Close Order Drill (strange how none of these directly involve vehicles... oh well)

HQ=320

Junior Officer Command Squad
-4 meltagun/plasma gun
=80

Anti-tank Support Squad
-3 lascannon
-light infantry
=120

Anti-tank Support Squad
-3 lascannon
-light infantry
=120

ELITES=225

5 Hardened Veterans
-3 meltagun/plasma gun
=75

5 Hardened Veterans
-3 meltagun/plasma gun
=75

5 Hardened Veterans
-3 meltagun/plasma gun
=75

TROOPS=465

5 Grenadiers
-2 plasma gun
-chimera
-multilaser
-heavy bolter
=155

5 Grenadiers
-2 plasma gun
-chimera
-multilaser
-heavy bolter
=155

5 Grenadiers
-2 plasma gun
-chimera
-multilaser
-heavy bolter
=155

FAST ATTACK=360

Hellhound
-extra armour
=120

Hellhound
-extra armour
=120

Hellhound
-extra armour
=120

HEAVY SUPPORT=480

Leman Russ
-heavy bolters
-extra armour
=160

Leman Russ
-heavy bolters
-extra armour
=160

Leman Russ
-heavy bolters
-extra armour
=160

______________________________________

GENERAL

Points=1850
Infantry=47
Vehicles=9

HEAVY WEAPONS

Battle Cannon=3
Inferno Cannon=3
Multilasers=3
Heavy Bolter=15
Lascannon=6

SPECIAL WEAPONS

Plasma Guns/Meltaguns=19

______________________________________

The HQ section has a fairly obvious set of purposes. The JO squad drops down and shoots at expensive things, diverting attention and potentially knocking out threats to my tanks. The AT squads infiltrate into cover and begin smacking enemy armour and expensive units.

The Hardened Veterans can deep strike like the JO squad or infiltrate to support the AT squads, strengthen a flank, shoot at transports, etc.

The Grenadiers in Chimeras seem very expensive for what you get (correct me if I'm wrong), but I wanted to have a decent number of vehicles on the table. Plus, this was much cheaper than getting a bunch of crap Guardsmen and giving them crap transports. The crap transports remain but at least I'm not spending loads of points on filling Troops requirements. I think the AT squads make up for the heavy weapons lost by not running any normal line squads.

The Hellhounds could be used for counterattacking or for aggressive burnination and tank shock. I guess that depends on who I'm playing against and what the situation is.

I didn't like the Leman Russ models until recently. They're definitely growing on me. Anyway, they shoot things and things die. Very excited about combining their firepower with that of the Hellhounds - templates galore.

______________________________________

Of course, any comments would be awesome. I want an army that isn't very common and requires a lot of practice to use well. Also, I want to avoid the horde-of-hundreds tedium that comes with infantry IG armies. I want fast games full of critical decisions and explosive moments.

My main concerns are:
-Low numbers of troops. Are Grenadiers the correct choice in this case?
-Armies able to attack many targets with effective AT fire. Losing tanks is fine but I don't want to be wiped out in one turn.
-The rules. I have the rulebook and all that, but I don't know if treaded vehicles in 40k are very fun. Do players who use a lot of treaded tanks have too many "random enemy missile just took out 100+ points in one go" moments? Are the rules surrounding treaded vehicles widely considered to be a weak part of the game? A strong point?

Thanks.

Well, at 1850 points, having 9 vehicles is pretty awesome, regardless of the fact that 3 of them are pretty weak. Your opponent is going to need a ton of anti-tank to bring you down.

That said, your model count is exceptionally low for an IG army. Not that this is a bad thing, but seeing as how your army is going to be in serious trouble without its tanks, I'd be wary of doing anything bold with your armor.

Other than that, the list looks good. I like it, and run a list quite similar to it. I just posted it up on the Army List discussion thread, if you want to see what I mean. It's called " Imperial Guard 1850 Points - Tournament List."

CK

That said, your model count is exceptionally low for an IG army. Not that this is a bad thing, but seeing as how your army is going to be in serious trouble without its tanks, I'd be wary of doing anything bold with your armor.

The model count is definitely a problem, it's one of the main issues I have with my list. As you can see, it's pretty lean. No frills. So adding bodies would require removing tanks or heavy/special weapons, which is something I'd rather not do. I am very reluctant to remove firepower in favor of numbers, unless it's to add another tank... but the Guard can only have 6 real tanks without inducting expensive squads with the horribly expensive land raider. Also, what do you mean by "doing anything bold"? Do you mean doing something bold with the list (like removing tanks) or playing boldly on the table? Both?

Other than that, the list looks good. I like it, and run a list quite similar to it. I just posted it up on the Army List discussion thread, if you want to see what I mean. It's called " Imperial Guard 1850 Points - Tournament List."

Thanks. Your list seems much more balanced than mine. I guess balance isn't what I was going for.

Thanks for the input regarding my list. I've fielded it as both an elite, tank-heavy army, and as a troop heavy gunline. I still find a mix of Deep Striking suicide troops and heavy armor support to be the best type there is.

As for the "doing anything bold" comment, I was specifically referring to being bold on the tabletop. Trying to tank shock an enemy squad off of an objective where said squad has a Chainfist or two, for example, is something that is a little too daring for a list like yours (one that is dependent upon its armor, I mean) to consider.

Regardless, at 1850 points having this much tracked death on the table is quite a sight. My ultimate goal is to play a 3000 point Apocalypse battle with my (currently unfinished) Armored Company, headed my Baneblade, "Malediction."

CK

Thanks for the input regarding my list. I've fielded it as both an elite, tank-heavy army, and as a troop heavy gunline. I still find a mix of Deep Striking suicide troops and heavy armor support to be the best type there is.

Well, heavy armour with deep striking suicide troops is what I'm going for. I think the Veterans could probably be used in several ways (as I already mentioned) and I think the infiltrating AT guns give me a flexible threat to their hard stuff. Really, I started the list with 3 Hellhounds and 3 Leman Russ, then asked myself how I could best spend the remaining points to support them without having to deal with lots of Guardsmen. It's unfortunate that the Guard can only field 6 real tanks. I hope they introduce some kind of Elites tank ace or tank hunter in the next codex.

As for the "doing anything bold" comment, I was specifically referring to being bold on the tabletop. Trying to tank shock an enemy squad off of an objective where said squad has a Chainfist or two, for example, is something that is a little too daring for a list like yours (one that is dependent upon its armor, I mean) to consider.

It's pretty strange that one has to be so cautious when using a force made up of heavy armour. It's very counterintuitive. But ok, I'm prepared to play with a lot of finesse. I do, after all, want an army that's challenging to play with. The AVs aren't even that high. Chimeras have painfully poor armour and Hellhounds aren't much better. I guess that's another thing I'd like to see changed in the next codex...

Regardless, at 1850 points having this much tracked death on the table is quite a sight. My ultimate goal is to play a 3000 point Apocalypse battle with my (currently unfinished) Armored Company, headed my Baneblade, "Malediction."

It seems like a lot of tanks, but when you consider that Chimeras and Hellhounds don't feel anything like heavy armour, it's a little disappointing. I'm still excited about playing a list like this one. I might eventually get into Apocalypse, but the next step for me is getting a Combat Patrol bought, painted and ready. I just want to make sure that I'm heading in a decent direction, which is why I made this thread in the first place. Your comments have been very helpful, thanks.

sry i just don't like the list. at 2000pts i have 132 guradsmen, 30 are veterans, and then on top of that i have 2 hellhounds, and 2 leman russ', and a demolisher. the advantage of guard is having so many guys it's hard to wipe them all out.

for constructive criticism now i say drop the grenadiers completely, stormtroopers are a waste of points, and instead buy a platoon or two, and then some armor fist squads. also you don't need nearly that many meltaguns/plasmaguns. take one or two per command unit. also the anti tank units are way too expensive. i'd much rather have a platoon of guys with a missile launchers in each squad to them. much more versatility

At fewer points, I have more real firepower across the board and the same number of effective tanks.

Chimeras aren't tanks, they're wannabe rhinos with S6/5 guns that don't scare anybody.

IG don't necessarily need lots of bodies, they need lots of units to diffuse enemy fire.

You are on the right track with heavy weapons, but you don't need a bunch of plasma guns if you bring enough heavy weapons. You really can shoot people off the board, terrain notwithstanding.

sry i just don't like the list. at 2000pts i have 132 guradsmen, 30 are veterans, and then on top of that i have 2 hellhounds, and 2 leman russ', and a demolisher. the advantage of guard is having so many guys it's hard to wipe them all out.

What do you give your guardsmen/veterans? 132 is a big number but I can't imagine them doing much without being loaded to the brim with heavy/special weapons. That may be an advantage of the Imperial Guard but is it a fun advantage to capitalize on?

for constructive criticism now i say drop the grenadiers completely, stormtroopers are a waste of points, and instead buy a platoon or two, and then some armor fist squads. also you don't need nearly that many meltaguns/plasmaguns. take one or two per command unit. also the anti tank units are way too expensive. i'd much rather have a platoon of guys with a missile launchers in each squad to them. much more versatility

What's the point of armoured fist squads? I'd like them if you didn't need to take a platoon for each one, but as is they don't appeal at all.

At fewer points, I have more real firepower across the board and the same number of effective tanks.

Well, that's encouraging. Apart from tanks, what's your main source of firepower? Line squads?

Chimeras aren't tanks, they're wannabe rhinos with S6/5 guns that don't scare anybody.

This is very disappointing. I really like them but I can see how they probably suck in most situations. Still, I'd rather have chimeras with grenadiers than a horde of Guardsmen. I'll ask you what I asked Bastirouss, is it fun to overwhelm the enemy with a wall of Guardsmen, or is it tedious and boring?

IG don't necessarily need lots of bodies, they need lots of units to diffuse enemy fire.

This is an interesting concept. In this case, I read "units" as "perceived threats." Infantry squads equipped as well as possible, with lascannon and plasma gun, aren't much of a threat to anything. For nearly 100 points, they can pump out a maximum of three effective shots per turn. I can see how an infantry-based IG army could be very scary, but that's not what this list is. That's not what I want this list to be. I want it to be an effective army centred around tanks, which are supported by small numbers of (relatively) elite infantry. FA and HS together take up nearly half my points. I don't think the remaining points are enough to reach the critical mass of Guardsmen.

You are on the right track with heavy weapons, but you don't need a bunch of plasma guns if you bring enough heavy weapons. You really can shoot people off the board, terrain notwithstanding.

Where am I on the right track and where am I swerving dangerously off course? If I do get a bunch of line squads, I'd rather not give them plasma guns. Not with overheating and BS3. I like plasma on Veterans because they can inflict enough damage to offset overheating. I like plasma on Grenadiers because they can inflict more damage and survive overheating. Anyway, what's the best place to get heavy weapons? 5 Grenadiers and a Chimera actually have a greater heavy and special weapons density than line squads, point for point. Problem is, the heavy weapons can't be lascannons.

I'm going to work on the list, increasing the number of infantry and moving away from drop troops without making the switch to line squads. For now.

No line squads. Last chancers.

Line squads suck. Last chancers don't.

I'll put a list up for you later, one I'm working on for a friend.

I've never liked line squads but the Guard don't have many other options. Didn't consider Last Chancers. I can see how they could get a little ridiculous.

Line squads do not suck. They are the bread and butter of a Guard army.

An Guard army that doesn't have 6-8 of those squads between 1500-2050 points is not a Guard army.

BYE

Would you two mind explaining your position on line squads? I appreciate the concise replies but some detail and reasoning would help a lot. Thanks.

I don't favor line squads because:

A) They cost you alot of money for essentially worthless models.

B) You can get more weapons without paying the extra points for the extra bodies. Yes, this makes you more vulnerable to being shot away, but most armies have a difficult time killing you at 48".

A is basically another way of saying "they suck." I'm asking why they suck. B covers that nicely. The whole "ablative wounds" thing has been presented as a strength of line squads but I don't see a single heavy weapon and a single special weapon as a package worth protecting. Not for that many points, anyway.

right on! i think the heavy weapon teams are just there to eat fire for a turn so that the other squads can be left unharassed and do some stomping of their own the next turn. other than that they just eat fire and become bloody messes, and my officers hate to clean blood off of their boots everyday.

I'm a treadhead, and the way I look at Guard armor is that a Chimera is like a Panzer 3, and a Russ is like a Panzer 4.

So in the grand scheme of things, regular Tanks aren't that uber.

I tend to enjoy using my Chimeras, they make decent light armor/light infantry killers, block off LOS to parts of the battlefield I don't want to focus on yet, and can take more damage than a Rhino.

As a pure transport, a Rhino is better since its cheaper, but Chimeras can do more damage to the enemy than a Rhino, they can be more flexible.

I enjoy line squads, I like having wounds to spare on my heavy weapons, but they are not as good as providing the same blistering fire as a heavy weapon team. It is a matter of taste to me, not inherent worth.

If you wanted to switch it up maybe, adding more heavy weapons, drop the plasma from the grenadiers, add a heavy weapon and start the three squads out of their transports for another small hardpoint with BS 4 heavy weapons.

I like your list, I think it would be fun to play. It would be very effective against horde armies, but a railhead army or bright/dark lance heavy army would probably make it cry.

Hmm? I kind of like heavy weapons teams... more than line squads, anyway. Or did you mean line squads?

I was waiting for a reference to WW2. Thanks. The Panzer 3 reminds me of something I've been meaning to ask. That is, can the clever use of armour in 40k offset its disadvantages? Most of the games I've seen that involved treaded armour haven't been very interesting. Tanks were kept pretty static, used to support static blobs. Is a more dynamic style of play possible and viable? I've seen Tau and Elder players do some very interesting things, but I'm not interested in those armies. So, is a dynamic and effective style of play possible when using an armoured Imperial Guard force?

In a game based on numbers, I don't think taste should enter into the honest comparison of multiple options.

Unfortunately, Grenadiers cannot have heavy weapons.

Any ideas on how to make the list stronger against those armies?

Tactically, Guard tanks are what they are: template tossers, or Transports. Not much tactical cleverness there. The problem is that a lot of Guard stuff is rather overpried by 10-30 pts per unit / model:
- Guardsmen are over by 10-15 pts per unit.
- Stormtroopers are over by around 2 pts per model.
- Chimeras are over by 20-30 pts per model
Russes, Demolishers, Basilisks, and Hellhounds are close to being right, perhaps only 10 pts too high.

The price issue ties to how Guard is priced almost entirely based on static firepower output, and the game has moved past that point.

With Guard, if you want to be dynamic, you either take an armored wedge and advance it, or else you drop a ton of guys all over the board.

Since you're tanky, then try to build the armored wedge.

you could add a plasma pistol to all the leaders also. That would cost about 70 points. Then add 80 more somwhere and youve got a 2K list. Possibly a sentinel squad in HQ.

I do not like the low numbers of troops though.

Let us know how it works out.

John, I'll be asking more about armoured wedges in a bit. Big question: do you think GW will fix most of those problems in the next rulebook and IG codex? There's definitely a financial aspect to the decision I'm trying to make, and I absolutely do not want to invest too much in an army that will be mostly useless in a year or two.

Alex, that's definitely a thought. Really though, what I'm trying to figure out is the basic structure of the army. Exact numbers and placement of plasma guns isn't what I'm trying to get at. I'm not using line squads, so the numbers issue might have to remain an issue. Trying to figure it out.

Based on what has happened to date (chaper Rhinos / Razorbacks, cheaper Orks, lots of Guard stuff sold for Apocalypse), I think GW will make Mech Guard much more viable.

The problem is that it won't happen before 2009, and perhaps not until 2010...

If that's the case, I might as well get some practice in now. I'm not going to use line squads and I'm not going to go Mechanized. That leaves stormtrooper squads in chimeras, with all their shortcomings. I'll probably stick with at least two of those. Last chancers are a possibility but I'm not sure about them yet. That still leaves a good 500+ points to fiddle with. I'm not going to use drop troops because throwing away infantry when I already have very few of them seems like a bad idea. Can someone chime in on using Veterans? I could keep troops, FA and HS the same, and change the rest to:

HQ=125

Junior Officer Command Squad
-chimera
-heavy bolter
-multilaser
=125

ELITES=420

10 Hardened Veterans
-3 plasma gun
-lascannon
=140

10 Hardened Veterans
-3 plasma gun
-lascannon
=140

10 Hardened Veterans
-3 plasma gun
-lascannon
=140

That would give me a few more infantry and another vehicle. I could still DS the vets if I wanted to, but infiltration is more likely. It leaves me with 2/3 of the original lascannon firepower, but it is spread between one more squad. It would also leave me with 15 bs4 plasma guns. The answer has to sit in HQ and Elites choices. Thanks for answering so many questions guys.