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HQ

Junior Officer, Honorifica
Veteran Standard Bearer
Commisar, Plasma Pistol

126

Troops

Platoon 1
Junior Officer
Flamer
Squad 1, Heavy Bolter
Squad 2, Heavy Bolter
Remnantas Squad, 5 guardsmen

216

Platoon 2
Junior Officer
Flamer
Squad 1, Heavy Bolter
Squad 2, Heavy Bolter
Remnantas Squad, 5 guardsmen

216
Platoon 3
Junior Officer
Flamer
Squad 1, Heavy Bolter
Squad 2, Heavy Bolter

180
Platoon 4
Junior Officer
Flamer
Squad 1, Heavy Bolter
Squad 2, Heavy Bolter

186
Platoon 5
Junior Officer
Flamer
Squad 1, Heavy Bolter
Squad 2, Heavy Bolter

186

Fast Attack

Sentinal w/ Multi-laser
Sentinal w/ Multi-laser
Sentinal w/ Multi-laser

135

Heavy Support

Leman Russ Battle Tank. Lascannon 2x Heavy bolters
Leman Russ Battle Tank. Lascannon 2x Heavy bolters
Leman Russ Battle Tank. Lascannon 2x Heavy bolters
495

Total 1746
My first attempt at a semi competitive 1750 guard list. Please give me some critiques.

Sorry, but that's not even semi-competetive.

1. Iron Discipline. You MUST take this for your officers, or evrything will run away.

2. Commisar. No. Just no. They're utterly useless. Gorgeous models, lovely fluff, crap in game.

3. Lots of J/O squads with just one flamer. What are they going to do? If you want to counter assault with flamers, put 4 in!

4. 3x Light Vehicles with mediocre weapons. These will go down very quickly. If you take sentinels you need to have a plan. Outflanking with lascannon to go tank hunting is a good plan. Expect to lose these so make sure you can get their points back first.

5. 3x Good tanks. Great! Except they will attract the entire enemy armies AT firepower as they have no other targets. If you want to run vehicles, run enough that the opponent has to make difficult choices. Or just stick bassy's behind a hill.

6. Heavy bolters everywhere. Great guns, they really are, but you need more than one option. HB's cannot reliably take down MC's or vehicles. Nidzilla or anything mech will pwn you.

Again, sorry if all that was harsh - but you really need to go back to the drawing board.

I disagree with always taking Iron Discipline and the commissars. 5th has offered some new perspectives on Chem-Inhalers and Camo Cloaks that make those doctrines almost brokenly good. LD10 with no negative modifiers ever? 2+ cover saves?

I would recommend looking at the doctrines to decide how you want your army to play and start there.

In regards to the Leman Russ... why would you take the lascannon and heavy bolter sponsons? If you are firing the ordinance you aren't firing the other weapons.
The leman russ is typically an anti infantry vehicle. While ordinance makes its blast weapon somewhat equivalent to a lascannon with glancing in 5th you will most likely always fire this weapon at troops. I recommend these 3 variants:

Leman russ with Hull Heavy bolter
Leman russ with Hull heavy bolter and heavy bolter sponsons
Demolisher with Hull Lascannon

Most other combinations are not as optimized in my opinion for obvious reasons.

Chimera_Calvin makes a great point about the sentinels. Lascannon sentinels with Hunter killer missiles outflanking is a pretty nasty set up. I would recommend dropping all of your remnant squads for these upgrades and an Improved comms.

paidinfull - I agree on the camo-cloaks, but I still think Iron Discipline is top of the list (and well above chem-inhalers).

ID helps you to rally after you run. chem-inhalers stop you from running. The problem is you want to run with IG, getting you clear of combat so you can shoot again. Not to mention ID is a lot cheaper.

Improved comms I never take this and had completely forgotten about it but in 5th with outflanking and voluntary reserves in evry mission - this rocks big time. Thanks!!!

very true... sometimes you want to run and then rally, though you still lose that turn rallying.
In 5th i haven't seen much getting away from combat (i presume you mean hand to hand), and I do have a soft spot for the wargear chem-inhalers.

paidinfull wrote:In regards to the Leman Russ... why would you take the lascannon and heavy bolter sponsons? If you are firing the ordinance you aren't firing the other weapons.
The leman russ is typically an anti infantry vehicle. While ordinance makes its blast weapon somewhat equivalent to a lascannon with glancing in 5th you will most likely always fire this weapon at troops. I recommend these 3 variants:

Leman russ with Hull Heavy bolter
Leman russ with Hull heavy bolter and heavy bolter sponsons
Demolisher with Hull Lascannon

Most other combinations are not as optimized in my opinion for obvious reasons.

Grabbing bolter sponsons not only gives your tanks much more utility when they suffer that first weapon destroyed result, but it also makes them much more resilient to glancing hits.

The Demolisher is the one that I consider an absolute must for sponsons, *powerful* sponsons. Its main armament is such a threat to just about everything that nearly all AT fire is going to be pointed at it from the get-go. Add to that it needs to spend a turn trundling forward just to blast away at something, I've found that the plasma cannons are very, very good at sitting stationary in or behind cover and hurling long range support fire. This keeps you out of assault range, grants a cover save, and still represents about the same level of threat to 1 wound models.

I've seen a lot of IG players try to "save" 10-20 points per tank by minimizing on sponsons and lose 90% of their armored capability to a handful of glancing hits. Taking out Demolishers with sponsons in cover is an absolute nightmare if you can't shoot them with AP1 or get close enough to assault.

You're definitely entitled to your opinion.
B)

I'd just advise you not tell a new player that what you are citing is the optimal loadout if it's not the case.

I agree with Paidinfull about the LR loadouts as well. I think the conventional wisdom here for a long time and my personal experience as well is that sponsons weren't worth the points. I routinely run two demolishers in my IG army and never take sponsons and I can't really say that I have suffered for it, but that is just my experience.

I also agree that ID should really be a staple especially in 5th Edition where scoring units count to the last man.

5th edition changes conventional wisdom from player experience rather considerably. You won't suffer if you don't take sponsons, but you won't be as optimized without them. Even though guard tanks can move and fire ordnance with no real loss of effectiveness, unless escaping assault troops there is no reason for them not to be stationary. Guard are a stand-and-shoot army, and so are their tanks.

A Demolisher is exponentially more effective and survivable with 20 points of sponsons added on. It's foolish not to.

sourclams
I was attempting to be polite in that I respectfully disagree with your opinion. However I don't appreciate you claiming that your opinion is right and mine is foolish.

It comes down to putting all your eggs in one basket. Conventional wisdom still applies in this case even in 5th.

The question remains: Are you willing to risk losing all your fire power on one shot or many?

I have been playing guard for a long time and have won and come close to winning tournaments with a lot of unconventional army doctrines (Mech + Jungle + Chem).

You are also still talking about a BS3 small template weapon. So the average scatter is what... 4"? That means that the chances your two 3" template completely missed.

First off i would like to tahn you all for commenting and helping me out with this. Secondly, I took all of your Suggestions and managed to come up with this (hopefully) improved list. and lastly please comment on this one as well.
HQ

Junior Officer, Honorifica, Iron Discipline
Sentinal, Lascannon Hunter Killer
135

Elites

Hardened Veterans, Sergeant 4 veterans, 3 Meltaguns
Hardened Veterans, Sergeant 4 Veterans, 3 Meltaguns
150

Troops

Platoon 1
Junior Officer, Iron Discipline, Cameloine
4x flamers
Squad 1, Lascannon, Cameloine
Squad 2, Lascannon, Cameloine

270

Platoon 2
Junior Officer, Iron Discipline, Cameloine
Lascannon
Squad 1, Lascannon, Cameloine
Squad 2, Heavy Bolter, Cameloine

255
Platoon 3
Junior Officer, Iron Discipline, Cameloine
Lascannon
Squad 1, Heavy Bolter, Cameloine
Squad 2, Heavy Bolter, Cameloine

225

Fast Attack

Sentinal w/ Lascannon, Hunter Killer
Sentinal w/ Lascannon, Hunter Killer
Sentinal w/ Lascannon, Hunter Killer, Improved Comms

215

Heavy Support

Leman Russ Battle Tank. 3x Heavy bolters
Leman Russ Battle Tank. 3x Heavy bolters
Leman Russ Demolisher, Lascannon, Plasma Cannons
495

Total 1745

Ha
You really took a lot of advice to heart. B)

I believe that sourclams' intent was to have you equip the demolisher with Lascannon, 2x Plasma canons

Might I also suggest moving your improved comms to your "most resilient tank" the demolisher. If the vehicle is destroyed you would lose the equipment. Up to you however.

Man... 4 sentinels into the back field. Best of luck!
B)

Doh, actually paid points for the lascannon on the demolisher...and i think i will switch the comms to the demolisher. My thinking on the comms off the board was that they couldnt be shot, while still providing the imp. comms benefit.

definitely a great idea.
B)

Freechoice, I'd say your list is tightening up pretty well. One glaring weakness that stands out is that you're very weak on anti-assault. If attack units do hit your line, and this is pretty easy to do with outflanking moves from board edge, you'll probably get chopped up pretty badly.

Thankfully, there's a very cheap and effective counter. Take the lascannon out of your JSO troop squads and replace them with 4x flamers. It's about the same cost and will fill a necessary niche in your force. Place your flame squads in the midst of your gunline, kind of like thus:







Now when assaulting units run in and murder your dudes, they'll be bunched up and take 5+ flamer hits per template. It'll give your close game a lot more ruggedness.

Threw in the flamers to one of the JSO squads. Just Decided on my Doctrines:
Iron Discipline
Cameleoline
Veterans
Close Order Drill
Drop Troops

Not sure how sponsons make a tank more survivable, but will let that horse lie, I guess.

The dropping AT is already being taken care of by the meltas so having the LC sents is a bit redundant. I would drop one unit or the other and/or put ML's on the Sents for antihorde.

If you really want to drop and cause some havoc, drop all the sents and the Vets and take Schaffers Last Chancers with demo charges. If memory serves for around 216 pts you get Schaffer, Cage, 6 LC'ers 4 with Demo charges. Now that is a nasty surprise.

On the subject of the veterans...i might just do one squad with plasma and one with meltas to change things up, but the one rule i hear the most about guard is," everything works better in multipules."

True but vets are most often called suicide squads so expect one volley then toast.

Iron Discipline is mandatory.

There are no two ways about it. It is the first Doctrine you take and the last one you drop.



Anyway, the list...

The list above needs only a little help as it is quite solid in its second iteration. The first thing that must change are the HK missiles. They are not going to help you.

Remove the Lascannons from your Platoon HQ's. Those units are supposed to hide, provide Leadership, and die gloriously after torching something with four flamers. They do not, I said again, do not stand around taking pot shots with Lascannons.

Remove all the Lascannons on the Sentinels and replace them with Multi-Lasers. Each one of those blasted things is worth 1 Kill Point (Christ I hate Kill Points - Jervis what were you thinking?), and giving them a Lascannon just makes them stand out. People ignore Multi-Laser Sentinels because they're 'only AP6'. Use this short-sightedness against them. Take Multi-Laser Sentinels and use them to harass infantry units (this army is lacking anti-infantry a bit).

Replace the Heavy Bolters in your line squads with Lascannons. Your anti-infantry is covered if you switch to Multi-Laser Sentinels and use your Battlecannons correctly.

Take Plasma Guns in every squad.

Cameleoline is fine.

That's all really. I'd do a rebuild, but I'm at work, so that'll have to wait.

BYE

freechoice wrote:On the subject of the veterans...i might just do one squad with plasma and one with meltas to change things up, but the one rule i hear the most about guard is," everything works better in multipules."

Were this still 4th I'd say 'Go for it!', but vehicles are very very tough in this edition (they're like bunkers actually - just like 3rd Ed, only worse), and Meltaguns are your best bet as Lascannons cannot be relied on any more. 6 BS4 Meltaguns should be able to easily destroy 1 or 2 big heavy tanks sitting in cover.

BYE