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Is full infantry guard the strongest list to run, or are adding LRBT, LRD, and hellhounds good additions?

Wow you started it didn't you... This is a big discussion. In my opinion Guard have three builds of about equal power.

1)3 Russ, 3 Hell hound, multip chimera build
2)All infantry 20+ heavy weapon guard
3)All infantry drop trooper guard

Really you could go either way, personally I lean toward tanks as it gets really boring painting 150+ lasgunners. Plus who does not like building and painting tanks?

yeah i planned on spending a lot of time on my guard and didn't want to have to paint 150 of them to run a viable army. i was hoping about 80 linemen + tanks was enough for 1500 points.

max platoons = a LOT of kill points that are very easy to get.

Envy89 wrote:max platoons = a LOT of kill points that are very easy to get.

Although this is the current popular opinion, I'm not sure it is totally accurate.

Consider an all infantry Cameleoline IG army. If you fire enough shots at it to threaten it, it goes to ground and gets 2+ cover saves. You've negated the shooting from one IG squad for the next turn. You will not outshoot this type of army.

So you either get close enough to flame or assault a unit. Congratulations you've earned one kill point, which you promptly give back when the remaining 20 or so heavy weapons open up on you.

This type of list is one I am currently testing. I'm also including a few squads of Battle Sisters with Book/Flamer/Heavy Flamer/Combi-Flamer as my "counter charge". Three rending Flamer templates + 14 rending Bolter shots will likely get a Kill Point back.
[/theoryhammer]

I'm still not sold on hellhounds. Maybe as orks increase in popularity, but I've never been a big fan of them, as I think they have too little punch on too fragile a frame for the points. Others love them and use them to great effect though, so YMMV.

There were three great builds in 4th, as foil pointed out. 5th edition increases (dramatically) the survivability and firepower of the LRBT. At the dirt cheap price we pay for Lemans, I think its' very hard to pass them up. KPs are going to hose IG pretty much no matter how hard the player tries, so I see little reason to worry about them, and shooty infantry get better. OTOH, the new deepstrike rules make mishaps more likely, and no army has more KPs than a fully rigged Drop Army.

BAsed on the littel I've played and some serious theoryhammer, I think 3 Lemans (either BT or demolishers) are going to be the core of nearly every IG army in 5th. They're too good to pass up now. Hellhounds did get better, and their main target is going to get more common. I think a lot of top IG armies are going to run 2-3 of these.

As for the rest of the points, I think Hardened vets will be used more frequently as shooty counter threats and outflankers rather than purely as suicide droppers. Las/plas squads will still dominate, although HB/flamer squads for objective gathering will gain ground.

Stormtroopers will simply disappear, as will Ogryn and Rough Riders, as counter assault just isn't that necessary anymore. Heavy weapon squads are going to get more popular.

As for camo, I wish I had the cajones to use it with my Praetorians... if not necessary, it's still going to make the IG hard to pull out of cover.

I agree with Kadun that Sisters are the new hotness: even with their high price rhinos they're an amazing unit now. In fact, why add sisters to IG? Adding IG to sisters can be just as brutal. For ~1850pts:
Flying Cannoness
4x 12 Sisters with Flamer, Heavy Flamer, Brazier & Eviscerator
3x 10 Retributors with 4xHB, VSS
infantry platoon, command section with 4x plasma, 3x las/plas squads

You put Leman Russ' on a pedestal, and I can see why witht he new rules. I'm concerned about these Kill Points though; will this render Armoured Companies irrelevant? I appreciate that they never had official rules really, but this could apply to Mechanised Infantry armies as well. I haven't had a proper look at the new rules, but from these forums infantry seem to be the new black.

The last (British) WD implied that the new Guard codex was tank friendly. Any thoughts?

Why would kill points render Armored Companies irrelevant?

You have one kill point per tank. Maybe 10-12 in an army.

That is a lot better than having 20+ kill points in an infantry list.

But can those vehicles still capture objectives. Again, forgive any ignorance on my part. I haven't studied the new rules in depth, amd I'm just a little curious. I tried to listen to the podcast, but it sounded as if it had been recorded in a nuclear submarine.

Vehicles can contest objectives, but not capture/control them. The Armored Company list has no mechanism for purchasing scoring units at the present time, given that its infantry are not from the Troops slots.

As I thought. Thanks for clearing that one up man.

I believe a combination of Sisters + Guard is the key to success with Guard now.

They can make you invulnerable to CC, and you won't run from being shot to pieces....and people who laugh at Sisters learn to regret it.

I know my DH army relies heavily on Sisters and Guard to stay viable.

Sisters and DH with Guard are really just guard with the slots arranged differently to give you different combos.

Guard with Sisters or DH get doctrines, which is very useful in it's own right.

If you want a drop army with tanks, it has a few weaknesses but is very dangerous.

Almost any mech force is 'good' now. A welcome change for 40k, despite the vehicles generally just being pillboxes instead of real tanks.

I have to agree with Stelek on this point Sisters are now the best combo for IG.

Write that down, I agreed with Stelek.

do you mind posting your sisters / guard list stelek?

Sure, this is my DH list.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/213341.page

I'm sure you can see how it works.

You don't need Sisters if you run a mech guard or a drop guard army, really. It's for foot guard that you want them.

While it may be just me, I'm having decent success with an Infantry build backed up by two Hellhounds. Six games, 3 wins, 3 draws. Two of the wins were in Kill Point games. Not really enough games for a true statistical sample, but I think it's a decent indicator.

So what Doctrines are worth their points in 5th? With the ammount of cover saves in 5th Camoline looks good 3+ cover saves and the Chem-inhalers looks like a good buy for any cc counter/delaying units(ie orgyns, rrs, etc). Your thoughts?

Although it's not necessarily the case right now as full infantry guard tend to get into each others' way and provide cover saves to their opponents, if the new codex grants Platoon Drill that allows Guard to shoot through each other unhindered then I would definitely see line guard being the most powerful of the Guard lists and probably very competitive overall.

Currently I'm running 3 russes, 3 hellhounds, chimeras and mixed sentinels with a firm line element and I'm enjoying success, but there's still the lottery element where 1 bad turn of shooting will see the majority of my armored core destroyed. The nice thing about line guard is that it flattens out your averages so that it's almost impossible to lose based on only a few [un]lucky dice rolls. Guard in cover, especially with chameleoline, are impossible to dig out at range and their masses of heavy weaponry butchers assaults before they can get close enough to hit home.

The problem with line guard, of course, is that it's BORING. The utter predictability of stationary heavy weapons makes your list "fun" maybe once a week for you, and once a month for whoever you're playing. 4 turns of shooting, 2 turns of running to objectives. Rinse and repeat. Whee.

Tresson wrote:So what Doctrines are worth their points in 5th? With the ammount of cover saves in 5th Camoline looks good 3+ cover saves and the Chem-inhalers looks like a good buy for any cc counter/delaying units(ie orgyns, rrs, etc). Your thoughts?

Chem-Inhalers is still problematic-as a special equipment doctrine, everyone has to buy it, and that gets far too expensive in short order.

Iron Discipline, Cameleoline, Close Order Drill, Drop Troops, Veterans, Sharpshooters (for HW squads) are still my personal favorites.

I disagree on the no rough riders anymore
they still have a place

They can easily dispatch a couple things that give a guard infantry army trouble. Specifically troops with FNT (plague marines and death company are quite popular) as well as troops with a 2+ save.
And with their cost its not like you are spending significant points on something.

Now that tanks can get a cover save is it worth while to just use chimeras as bunkers? A chimera can fire a hvy stubber a hvy bolter and a multilaser on top of the squad firing itself.

That's a lot of dakka, and it also protects the kill points in the army.

As for guard and SOBs - I successfully run a mixed list that goes something like this:

Command squad 4 plasma - deep strike
demo charge squad 2 melta - deep strike
command squad 4 plasma - deep strike
2 infantry platoons missile launcher, melta- deep strike
remnant squad melta
Cannonnes w/ litanies, book, evicerator, jump pack, cloak of st aspira
2 X 10 SOBs squads in rhinos
10 dominons 4 flamers, brazer in rhino
50 conscripts
3 leman russ (or demolishers)

I sometimes find some room fore rough riders too.

Anyways, it needs a little retooling for 5th but the concept is that you overwhelm your opponent. You have guard deepstriking at them in their deployment zone and leman's dropping pie plates on them. If they focus on them the sobs will get across the board unmolested and eat them alive. If they focus on the SOBs, the guard rip them apart.

Meanwhile you have 50 conscripts that have unmodifiable Ld 10 from the cannoness eating up the middle of the board and offering an infantry buffer to the lemans as they advance on the enemy.

Plus you have books all over the place so most of your gaurd are unmodifiable LD 10.

Pete