Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

well seeing how there is a super mass of evil enemies out there trying to claim our killpoints,

how about we go mass mechanized with three demolishers, add some hellhounds while you are at it.

14 Armor front is the power right now, so lets take it to them!


i haven't heard much (maybe i haven't been looking that hard)

but people are saying IG is dead, well why not adapt?

Because you need troops for a legal army list, and a platoon is at least 4 KPs, and you need two of them, and possibly more if you want to be able to hold objectives with good reliability. (4 KPs is 1 for the 2 mandatory 10 man squads, 1 for the command squad, and 1 for the IC in the command squad).

IG are not dead.

You can reduce your KP tremendously by using Last Chancers. They can be mechanized as well, and fit in 2 transports. There is a bit of a question if the IC's in the squads count as IC's, retinue, or just troops like the entry says; but it's not something I'd care to argue about.

What Stelek said.

Or, if you're saying 'screw it' and trying to maximize killiness in hopes of tabling your enemy, Last Chancers with Witch Hunters/Sisters of Battle makes for a resilient (Sisters) and versatile (Last Chancers) troop core around which you can throw on tanks to your heart's content. In an 1850 list you can do:

Schaeffer & Kage
16-20 Last Chancers
Canoness/Inquisitor Lord
20-40 Sisters
3x Melta Vet Squads
3x Hellhounds
3x LR Battle Tanks/Demolishers

Depending how you split up your last chancers or whether or not you take transports and retinues for your Witch Hunter HQ, you can keep it down to 16 kill points. Not great, but not disgusting, either.

I have played 3 kill point games with my guard, and i have won every one. Its just a matter of minimising your casualties. By deploying or moving venerable infantry, so they always have cover, then taking cameoline, and going to ground, it gets pretty hard to move them off the board. As for kills, I rely on demolishers+ Russes vs. MEQ and hellhounds vs. 4+ or worse armour. Its a strategy that works really well, because the enemy will ussually try to charge down the guardsman- leaving cover and making themselves very easy to kill with templates of doom. Hellhounds end any andvantage that a 30 ork mob had, and if anyone can kill the tanks in 5th, power to them.

Example-
Junior w/ honorificus+ Iron Dicipline
Veteran Medic
Cameoline

Platoon-Junior officer- cameoline
squad- cameoline
squad- cameoline

Armoured Fist-
Chimera (you choice of armament)
squad- Cameoline

Then fill out with tanks based on the enemy.

Sorry, 3 kill points? If you've figured this one out, power to you, but I don't see how you're taking Cameleoline guard in a 3 killpoint list.

i have played 3 games using killpoints to determine the victor. sorry for the confusion.

The only change I've made in my all-infantry/sentinels list from 4th is to drop two sentinels and a line squad and add two hellhounds (no longer all-infantry.......). Only seven games so far (two with KP) but undefeated so far.

My list is bloated with kill points (Mech Guard, Drop Guard, Last Chancers, Sisters, a fella with a psychic hood if necessary) but in the single game I've played so far with KP I managed to table the guy. I wouldn't want to run up against a 7 kill point Ork list in Annihilation, but I've got enough experience with my guys that I wouldn't throw up my hands and auto-quit either.

Actually, its a 7 KP list.

HQ command squad = junior officer (IC) plus retinue = 2 KP

Pltn command squad = junior officer (IC) plus retinue = 2KP

2 Infantry squad = 2 KP

Armored fists = 1 KP

Actually the AF is 2kp one for the squad and one for the tank, but that's 8kp in about 6-700 points worth of guard. In a 1750 list you're still bringing another 1k worth of stuff.

"IG are not dead. " ----Stelek

Really cause I told you the same thing and you told me they where dead.

Gun line is still very good and can be won with. Takes more thinking.

Drop IG can easily Win cause gives them less turns to kill ya. and also you bring more hurt down on them.

IG arent dead and never where dead.

Gunline is harder but not dead. Mech you have to now what your doing.Last chancers can be ok as long as you take more then like 13 guys. and meching them is ok.
Drop is pretty good.

haha! Ah, the impossibility of ever changing your mind in an online forum!

Whoever figured out the Last Chancers abuse first is owed some credit but being back at work means I'm not about to chase people over it.

Why is it abuse? Last Chancers do the same thing they did in 4th ed... let you take an HQ and 2 troops on the cheap so you can shave points on your mandatory FOC choices.

My current kill-points strategy is to lose. I can't win kill points without losing the other mission, so I don't try. When kill-points does come up, I hide my infantry behind things and bomb the enemy with artillery in the hopes that they can't get at me. It's even worked sometimes; nothing like attacking 5 assault marines with 55 lasbolts and 14 plasma rifle shots when they drop into the building the fusiliers are hiding in.

Low offense mode on:

Last Chancers let you dodge the kill point bullet if you aren't building an army based purely on tabling, and if you are building an army based purely around tabling they are another 5 templates on the cheap.

Tangential rage mode on:

It is abuse because the new rules are clearly intended to sink IG until they get their new book with some ridiculous new way of building them designed to screw over everybody with fewer than 300 infantry and one of each possible vehicle.

My guess is that what they have that is good will get the nerf like a pinata party for two year olds. (hey, one of the kids might cry if you break the funny animal...better just scrape out the candy before hand and EVERYBODY WINS! but pay GW first for the service...) Maybe they'll switch them over to boltguns then be real fascists about enforcement. That'd get some money out of a fair segment. And those who refused to conform are the ones who would probably just play War Machine, AT43, homebrew, house rules or hate GW with a passion anyways, so **** them.

Like I said, though - and before this slides any further Off Topic - I am not the one who figured this out so I am not owed any credit here for helping anyone who might be concerned about trying to improve their game (as the game is IMPLICITLY understood by anyone who is REALLY interested in actual 40k) do so. When I first came here I ripped about 33% of the content of my posts wholesale from the percentage of H.'s posts that I was able to understand. I get more now, I'm just refusing to keep this credit. Somebody look it up. This ain't me. And this DID change.

...and please no flames. You don't like my interpretation block me. That's what it's for.

I like your interpretation, wight widow. What do I know?

The methods of building Imperial Guard at the moment lead to armies that are not Guard. Last Chancers, tanks and sisters: While a valid build on the Inquisition rules it is hardly a stock Guard army.

We cannot get away from the fact that Guard get hosed on killpoints if you play a 'proper' army as envisaged by GW. For now I would try and get a 1KP per platoon house rule, or minimax your lists.

Kill points are abig enough problem that even the most ignorant GW designer would have noticed it by now, I think it is why Guard are high up on the to do list.

Well I have played 15 5th ed games with guard now. i am running 12-2-1 with them.. thats 12 wins 2 draws and 1 loss..

the loss was to a thunderhawk filled with space wolves in a kp mission that never landed and i didn't take it down...

the draws were both tactical errors on my part the first against necrons the second against tau.

please note these 15 games are the only games i have ever played with guard, i used to be an Inquisition player.

Guard are alive and well,

Now that aside..

I take last chancers for added punch death from above style

I also take DH inquisitor with mystics to protect my line squads from deepstrikers.

other then that my army is 150 models with a single sentinel as my only vehicle

odinsspear45 wrote:
I also take DH inquisitor with mystics to protect my line squads from deepstrikers.

I have to ask for I dont know, how does mystics protect your line squads from DS?

They allow the unit with the mystics to shoot at any DS unit within 4d6" of the unit, with two mystics another unit can take the shot.

Well, I got hammered in a Kill Point game Tuesday night (My IG vs Daemons - Nurgle), it was brutal. Up until then I had won all my KP games. Came to find out that he had 2000 points to my 1750, so no wonder...... I might have still lost but it would have been a lot closer. Point being, I don't think IG currently take so large a hit that the only strategy is to plan on losing KP games. Never give up, never surrender!!

Amen Mondo.

The kill point argument is a valid one. Guard do have more trouble than most in a straight up KP denial mission. However, it remains that a great strength of the Imperial Guard is their suicide special weapons squads and other units that inflate kill point bloat.

So even though you have less chance of winning by offering up lots and lots of kill points, you also have chance of winning by taking fewer kill points that are not effective. Personally I'll gamble on the kill point bloat that lets me kill off all my enemies.

Against Nurgle Demons, dunno what I'd do. Probably take Daemonhunter Mystics parked next to demolishers, lol.

Kaiser wrote:They allow the unit with the mystics to shoot at any DS unit within 4d6" of the unit, with two mystics another unit can take the shot.

So now my brain is itching for answers... For all you players that field these "Hybrid" guard lists, what do you field and why? I field a pure drop list out of Codex IG, but have never taken "allies" so im curious. It appears that people do well with these "Hybrid" lists so please fill me in.

wight_widow wrote:It is abuse because the new rules are clearly intended to sink IG until they get their new book with some ridiculous new way of building them designed to screw over everybody with fewer than 300 infantry and one of each possible vehicle.

If the points in the new book drop to where I can field that much stuff in 1500 pts, I will be pleased as can be!

jp400 wrote:

Kaiser wrote:They allow the unit with the mystics to shoot at any DS unit within 4d6" of the unit, with two mystics another unit can take the shot.

So now my brain is itching for answers... For all you players that field these "Hybrid" guard lists, what do you field and why?

Normally you field a Demolisher (or two) near the DH Inquisitor.

There is nothing so satisfying as being able to put a S10 AP2 pie plate over each unit that DS near the Inquisitor.

My guard lists tend to feature the following:

1x Ordo Malleus Inquisitor Lord with psychic hood
2 mystics

2x Battle Sisters squad with Veteran Superior
flamer
heavy flamer

3x LRBT or Demolisher

3x Hellhound

Schaeffer/Kage and 6 Chancers

1x JSO with flamers
10x drop guard with plasma
10x drop guard with plasma
10x drop guard with plasma

3x 5x drop vets with plasma or melta

The Sisters provide much-needed staying power for holding objectives and against 3+ save units you can burn a faith point to make wound rolls of '6' AP1, which is absolutely incredible with two flame templates.

The Inquisitor Lord provides much needed anti-psyker defences with his Daemonhunters hoodie, and mystics parked next to a Demolisher makes any unit think twice about dropping in close.

Schaeffer/Kage are a troop and HQ slot on the cheap, and by dropping in all my other infantry I give enemies very, very little to shoot at that isn't AV12+.

In kill point scenarios I just go for tabling my opponent and honestly, drop guard are more survivable than you'd think with the ability to provide each other cover saves and go to ground.

Going to ground is great in KP scenarios. Think of it this way, if you've already lost your unit to shooting, go to ground. You don't have a great chance, but even one model staying can be the difference. I regularly go to ground to the consternation of my enemies. Sure I can't shoot, but a guard unit that is getting saves against heavy weapons is not something I'm used to.

@Johnny: I meant more as in the people who have been playing, painting, collecting and crabbing about this corner of the overall hobby since Rogue Trader and who own every conceivable GW legal product. If you own everything you could possibly field, even if they screw over 99% of your force, you can play and have fun with the remaining 1%, who were probably useless under the previous FAQ/errata/main game rules/codex.

@wight: You don't need that much stuff or history. I think if you've been playing since 2E and have at least 3 Apocalypse-size (or 5 RTT-size) armies, you'll do OK. IOW, any 10,000 pts of stuff should do just fine.