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The new Guard codex comes out and the main addition is a large number of good to excellent AV12 vehicles. In the old story of "everything counts in large numbers", if you take one AV12 in a lynchpin for a role then you might as well take 10 and end up mechanized more or less, since you are just overloading the opponent's list of anti-transport shooting. Now that is a fine army, but that is pretty much just one build with some tweaks for the metagame and thats about it.

So with the "all or nothing" base on the defensive aspect, if one wants to build an alternative but still strong list, one have to consciously avoid AV12 shooting tanks. So this leaves us with a few things:
1. Russes
2. Guardsman
3. Expensive guardsman, expensive guardsman on horses, expensive guardsman with toys...all of which gets shot and die first unless there is a lot of them
4. Indirect fire that hide behind Russes

With this in mind I set out to build an army that can kill everything and defend everything. Now infantry shooting is not that strong without problematic things like HWS which is killed easily by anti-AV12 that so much have been given to avoid and also give KP silly. I'll have to rely on russes which due to cost and the number of slots, will often have to pull double duty which means no specialization and no doing things that can be done by infantry. Artillery is okay, but one needs constant LOS blocking or else it isn't shooting, and with only three slots that is just too much stuff tied down in one place. The infantry isn't that good value for points, but russes can't do everything so they have to fit the roles that it can do, which is take a cheap AC, be a bit scary to vehicles thats too close (but not more, since it isn't chasing down a tank) and take attacks and die cheaply. (oh, and flashlight small weak things...but there aren't many of that left)

With all this in mind, this list is weaker than mech, but if the meta-game shifts to anti-mech it should have a niche.

HQ: 140
CCS with Creed = 140

Elite: 97
inquisitor with 2x mystics = 32
Marbo = 65

Troops: 650
PCS 4 = 30
Squad x 2 AC, melta = 140
Squad x 1, AC = 60
Squad x 1, AC, Commissar = 95
30+140+60+95 = 325

PCS 4 = 30
Squad x 2 AC, melta = 140
Squad x 1 AC = 60
Squad x 1, AC Commissar = 95
30+140+60+95 = 325

HS: 960
LRx2 = 300
LRDx2 = 330
LRDx2 = 330

Total 1847



~100 infantry
8AutoCannon
4Melta
4Demolisher plates
2Battlecannon plates
---------------------------
Lets see how it deals with different things:

AV11/12 : There is 8AC and two Battlecannon shots...and of course it dies when it gets close.
AV13/14 support: since it can only shoot at guardsman and russes, it probably wouldn't do too much, mostly ignore and drive demolishers at them if nothing left to kill
2+ save: drop demo plates on them
fast assualty stuff: let them eat a squad and drop plates on them, if not hold them up forever by cheap stubborn men while killing other stuff
long range torrents for fire: find some cover for the guardsman and let the russes clear them out. At least it isn't killing your expensive AV12 but only guardsman that can go to ground.
Deep strike/outflank: let mystics do its job, and see pray that with so many identical units, nothing critical is killed.

KP: blob, shoot the weak one and be happy that you have less kp to give than many armies
Missions: multiple small units that all score.

I am going to stew on this topic and try to math hammer out a list, but I do agree that this is a hole in the metagame understanding of new guard that we should be filling soon.

My prediction for the new metagame: PBS gets broken down and IG falls into a heavy mechanized list.


Either that, or Pariahs have just become a whole lot better in all-comers lists when compared to Immortals.

AC/melta is not very good.

Heavy 48" assault 12"? Not understanding how that works

If anything, I'd drop the meltas quick, just a waste of points.

Also, squads kind of suck and I've found that 2 Demolishers and 1 tank that counters the local meta is the meanest thing to do.

Spend the points on actually giving your tanks guns, especially plasmas on the Demolishers.

It's fun fielding a lot of pie but in the end a 4+ kill really blows, a 6 on glance kills, and all you gain is stun=shaken.

With the rest of the points, I'd go and buy heavy weapon teams with lascannons that creed can stand in between in a chim with camo netting and order BRING IT DOWN to MC and Vehicles.

Once all the MC and vehicles are down, order FIRE ON MY TARGET to deny some cover saves to 2+ armor.

Needs;

Voxes

Better equipped guardsmen

Somthing to keep creed alive.

I think you're making a mistake ignoring Heavy Weapon Squads in a non-mech list. They can be killed by anti-transport firepower, but how much will it take to substantially eat into your HW base?

A BS4, S6+ shot, target in cover: 2/3*5/6*1/2=10/26 or .278 chance of killing one of your heavy weapons. This is reduced to 0.185 if the team goes to ground.

This means that it takes 3-4 BS4, S6+ shots to kill one third of one squad of guard heavy weapon teams. To wipe out a whole squad (not gone to ground), it takes almost 11 of these shots. This is a non-trivial amount of firepower. They are vulnerable to fire, to both more and less than S6, but it's not as if they blow away in a stiff breeze.

I'm new to Guard (I guess we all are in a way), but I'll weigh in.

I think mech IG is really good, but I think guyspam could be a contender too. A few things I think a platoon-centered army should probably do:

1) Actually spam guys. We have 5 point troop models that aren't very good on their own (compare to a 6 point ork boy). If we're gonna rely on them, I think it would be wise to field them in at least triple digit numbers, if not close to 200. I'm not sure if we have enough points in 1750 to still afford the necessary toys and vehicles, but I think it's doable.

2) Abuse orders. I think they're a great strength of Guard, and you can easily field lots of officers. To this end, I think voxes are a good idea. Maybe not on every squad, since that will get expensive, but a good number of vox-squads would amplify (no pun intended) the power of orders greatly.

3) Use artillery. I think Russes could work too, but artillery is cheaper and can be screened by sufficient amounts of guardsmen. Our large numbers of small squads (as opposed to small numbers of large squads ala Orks) can create a very large footprint to limit deep striking.

4) Double CCS. The more advisors the better, and the company commander's orders are even better than the platoon commander's.

The one thing that bothers me about IG armies taking no fast moving units/chimeras is how do you contest/take objectives on the other side of the board without heavy use of vendettas/valks?

I think horde guard with a Catachan theme, Vendettas and Griffons will rock.

G

Smooth, the thread was avatar-free before you went and posted. Look what you've done!

I won't be running a mech list, because you can't blob your platoons and that many Chimeras/Valkyries are really expensive, even with cheap online retailers, so I'm sticking with a horde gunline.