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It's been less than a month, and I'm already sick of reading about and playing against mech-vet melta spam. They're not too bad - I've found wagon-mounted lootas to be pretty useful against the psyker squads, and a well-timed kommando attack can take out a couple lingering vehicles. They're just boring.

Does *anybody* run real guard armies anymore? Or is it all just valks, chimeras, and executioners?

If I played guard I would play waves of men style.

I hate the new Valks, and guard are one of the few armies that can get away with not being mechanized.

Unfortunately I have seen the true light of chaos, And chaos cannot be denied.

Chaos can still play Guard. Turn to the Guard side of the Force.

I play Mech Vets competitively with my Nurgle Renegades, but my fluffy force is Platoons with SITNW Conscripts, modeled as Zombies.

I play more of a regular guard I use a couple Valks and Chimeras but not w/ melta spam they're mostly support/fast units. I think it's boring using the melta spam.

Dumbuket, I couldn't agree more with you! Me and my gaming group have been saying the same to each other.
If it should be IG it should be massed infantry backed up with tanks! Not a elite army who is outnumbered by Marines.


//Edge

Its the same for the whole of 40k right now, just replace mech vets with lash spam, horde orks or land raider w/ assault termy spam with 10 bazillion meltas + vulkan.

Hey, how do you think I feel? I played all infantry IG off and on for years in 3rd and 4th. I still had tanks and Chimeras, but my favorite build was all infantry. This new book does make basic infantry better, but 5th edition really hurt the concept. without Transports, the IG have trouble taking objectives. In full MSU mode, the IG are vulnerable to kill points. The new vehicle damage charts and the availability of cover make lascannons far less good for anti-tank. The new heavy weapon teams, one of the supposed strengths of the infantry, are shockingly fragile (in both taking damage and morale) and lost sharpshooters in exchange for the new orders.

My point? The new IG book allows the IG to actually compete, toe to toe, with the other armies. I'm pretty psyched about that.

Except of all the armies you listed, at least horde orks is interesting and resembles the fictional army they're supposed to represent. If you're going to whine whine whine (like I am) about orks, moan about nob bikers.

The only thing that annoys me is that they took away the DS ability for most of the units. Then they gave us a really expensive no brainer good transport that could allow guard to get some mobility.

Lets be honest, they made the new tanks and skimmers so good so they can sell models we don't have yet. They made most of the formerly forge world only stuff good so they can sell lots of that, and when they come out with a plastic kit they will sell even more. Then they made IG very good overall so that the WAAC players would run out and buy 3 almost 60 dollar transports, then sell a kidney for the FW stuff.

They left the foot guys with dregs, but just enough stuff so the old grognards wouldn't abandon them.

Nothing really new with how that works, they do it with every book, they are a for profit company.

As for the guys who doesn't think it is in fluff for guard to be so mechanized, guard always had a heavy tread/artillery theme. The foot horde guard was just as stale as mechanized is going to be. At least this time you can sort of choose which one you can be. The foot guys will struggle in missions, but they are still viable.

And as for the new guard being boring, the problem is that the army of the month players are boring. They rush out and all buy the same "perfect" build of an army. Then they dominate for a couple of months, then people take things that crush their obvious builds. Then they wait for the next book to come out. Just look at the ork codex. Sure the Guard finally puts a fork in some of the abusive builds, but the hated nob bikers have been dropping off before that. People figured out how to really hurt them. (number 1 was they forced people away from their crappy Meq vs Meq armies.)

dumbuket wrote:Except of all the armies you listed, at least horde orks is interesting and resembles the fictional army they're supposed to represent. If you're going to whine whine whine (like I am) about orks, moan about nob bikers.

Whats so interesting about pushing 6x30 orks around the table? Mech IG are just as fluffy ala steel legion, its just that vets are ridiculously good for the points and that melta weaponry is king right now, so spamming them is the probably 'better' then lots of infantry platoons in chimeras.

notabot187 wrote:The only thing that annoys me is that they took away the DS ability for most of the units. Then they gave us a really expensive no brainer good transport that could allow guard to get some mobility.

Expensive? Go look at a devilfish and tell me the Chimera is expensive.

How is a mecahnized infantry army not fluffy? either historically, in the fluff of the game or the novels. Gaunts ghost may not have been mechanized but they encounter and work with mechanized guard all the time.

And as for fun of play I will take a mobile army over a static dice rolling gunline anyday. thats why guard had always been less popular because playing 200 models with massed heavy weapons that sit still and shoot is not the most active way to play.

I dont want to hammer my brother guard players who love gunline, but it is definitely an aquired taste.

Everyone who complains about how 5th edition is all mechanized now has a point that mech is the most effective way to play so its the most common and competitive. So if you hate mech you wont enjoy 5th edition, or you will have an uphill struggle against the mech armies.

I wont pretend that it does not make me happy as Im a tread head, i served in a mechanized infantry unit during my time in the reserves after my 2 years in the airborne. The new mech vets with valks armies are like going home for me, so of course i love it.

I can understand not liking the play style, but the idea that its not "fluffy" to have guardsmen in chimeras?

Sorry dont get that argument at all.

I much more enjoy playing against new Guard armies. Boring to me is waiting 40 years for my opponent to deploy 900 little guys who are going to get smashed in combat by my basic infantry. On top of that he will roll tons of dice for shots that either won't hit or won't do any damage except on a 5 or 6. How is that fun? Taking infantry Guard is probably the most effective stall strategy in any game I've ever played. I'd much rather plop down my 7 Rhinos and 3 Oblitz and be deployed in under 30 seconds.

It's in the guard Codex it's self. Under Chimera's fluff it talks about how only a few IG armies are fully mechanized, most of them only having a handful of Chimera's for commanders or specialized groups. We see the same thing in most described campaigns. Taros, for example, has 10 different IG armies as it's invasion force, and only one is mechanized, and one other airborn. While fluff says they exist, 'everyone' being mechanized isn't consistant with the fluff.

In the end though, the reason most of us play the armies we do is because that's what we find as fun. Because we like the fluff, or the models, or the style of play, or some combination there of, Ork players are there because they like orks, Tau players because they like Tau, and IG players because they like the Imperial Guard.

I do, however, wish they had given IG a little better ability to continue with their WWI style tactics. but that's the nature of the beast.

Sure, mech vet is plenty fluffy - the entire army consists of nothing but hard-bitten veterans, all wielding a full compliment of the most dangerous-to-use special weapons possible, all mounted in chimeras with identical kit, and accompanied by the rarest possible variety of leman russ. And trailed by not one but two squads of the highly improbably battle psykers.

It's toss-the-fluff-aside WAAC bs. Which would be fine if everyone didn't do it. If you want a fast, versatile mechanized strike force with the best possible equipment and the most finely trained troops, why aren't you playing space marines? The mech vet build is for people who want to exploit the undercosted chimera and the ridiculous new executioner rules, plain and simple.

WW1 style tactics in 40k would be very dull. We sit in trenches and shell your guys while you sit in trenches and shell our guys. Occationonally some guys run out into a field and get shot by some other guys. A tank may trundle along killing some guys until it falls into a trench and cant move. What fun.

@OP

What do you consider to be a 'real' guard army (in a fictional universe that we represent by pushing plastic figures around a table)? Why is one style of guard army any more real than any other? According to the fluff IG regiments are kept on fighting for years or decades at a time, so its entirely possible that there are companies made up entirely of veterans. With IG is that there is scope in the fluff to do pretty much anything as the galaxy is pretty big. If I want to make an army of the 276th Korzan Mobile Infantry, that has been fighting on the eastern fringe for the best part of a decade, what makes this any different from the 77th Cadian that has been just been raised to help guard the cadian gate and is composed entirely of infantry?

Why do you have to be all-or-nothing in your army? Why not have an army with a gunline AND a mechanized element? this is what I'm planning. There is some versatility to this- Taking a platoon with 3 squads, each with dedicated transports. If its a KP mission, blob up the infantry and use them as a gunline, and have the transports carry other units or act as mobile cover, blockers, etc. If its an objective mission, mount the squads in the chimeras. They're cheaper than vets, too.

People also under-utilize orders. A voxed CCS in a Chimera with special weapons can do a lot of things in a game; has the mobility to stay in command/weapon range or away from assault.

Fast tanks (also under-utilized in lists) allow you to get right up in the opponent's face and blast the bejeesus out of them. A devildog is more likely to get in optimal melta range than a melta vet chimera and since they are fast attack you can take a few AND a few LRBTs along for the ride.

Leman Russ can now move and shoot ordinance+1 weapon letting you use them agressively. Demolisher has short range, sure, but keep it moving 6" every turn rather than waiting till something gets in range.

^^^ what he said. chimeras as a supplement, a mechanized detachment, not the whole army. also the rest. not the cookie-cutter meltavetspam

I disagree with the premise of the thread, I do not find Guard boring at all.

To OP:

IG are good at turtling , to some people its boring .
But to others like me, its so fun!!!

( like TF2 engineer and their sentries lol )

dumbuket wrote:Sure, mech vet is plenty fluffy - the entire army consists of nothing but hard-bitten veterans, all wielding a full compliment of the most dangerous-to-use special weapons possible, all mounted in chimeras with identical kit, and accompanied by the rarest possible variety of leman russ. And trailed by not one but two squads of the highly improbably battle psykers.

It's toss-the-fluff-aside WAAC bs. Which would be fine if everyone didn't do it. If you want a fast, versatile mechanized strike force with the best possible equipment and the most finely trained troops, why aren't you playing space marines? The mech vet build is for people who want to exploit the undercosted chimera and the ridiculous new executioner rules, plain and simple.

Actually the mech vet build is for people who want to play a mobile game, love the valk model and are thrilled that for the first time ever IG actually have a competitive tourney build.

As for the way they are equipped that is how any REAL force would equip thier veterans. And of course they have identical kit, thats how a functional army works. How many different kits are there supposed to be. What your supposed to take one GL, one PL and one Melta just so we can suck like morons. Any comanding officer equiping his troops like that would and should be shot.

God it blows my mind how some people seem to feel that its only "fluffy" to play as if your entire army is filled with drooling morons with no skills or intelligence.

As for the current codex not giving you options for all infantry armies? Really, no army has ever had the variety and quality of options for a ground pounder list. Orders and blob platoons are totally unique to guard and only work well with GROPO style armies. So you dont like to play mech vets, fine dont play them. If you dont like playing tournament style armies, then dont play in tournaments.

Bahh, its all pointless anyway, the care bears will always hate every competitive build and competitive players will always find them and run them. We are just two very different kind of people who get very different kinds of enjoyment from the hobby.

Oh, and btw, I do not run PBS in my army. Not because I feel they are unfair or unfluffy or any of that garbage but because my style of play is more effective without them. Thankfully the IG codex gives plenty of builds for people who actually want to run an army that can fight.

bigtmac68 wrote:

God it blows my mind how some people seem to feel that its only "fluffy" to play as if your entire army is filled with drooling morons with no skills or intelligence.

It's the rallying cry of the 'MY FUN IS FUNNER THAN YOUR FUN!!' crowd. Remember, these people understand every nuance of the codex, and after having input it into their massively overstated ego, they have come out with the Standard Template for Fun Game Play that everyone must adhere to, or they're dumb.

What's less boring?

1. Static gunline made up of 300 guys that move an average of 3" throughout the entire game, where Win/Lose is simply determined by attrition and mass dice rolling.

2. Dynamic mixed forces of men and vehicles with many options stemming from mobility, firepower, and tactical roles.

Yeah, how DARE those cheesy MechVet players not field another 250 guys and slowly grind forward after their thirty minute deployment phase.

So the only alternative to mech-vets is 300 guardsmen? I guess there's no such thing as rough-riders, hellhounds, sentinels, penal legion, platoons, ogryn, stormtroopers, bassies, medusas, or any russ variants besides the executioner.

It's another book that's been reduced to a few choices by the net-list crowd. I don't claim to understand every nuance of the book, I'm just bored by this particular WAAC variant of it and am resigned to facing it at tournaments.

Feel free to disagree, but try to come up with a better, more well reasoned response than to insult us. Nobody's claiming that there's a Standard Template for Fun Game Play. If anything, the problem is the Standard Guard Template for Competitive Play.

dumbuket wrote:So the only alternative to mech-vets is 300 guardsmen? I guess there's no such thing as rough-riders, hellhounds, sentinels, penal legion, platoons, ogryn, stormtroopers, bassies, medusas, or any russ variants besides the executioner.

Problem is you're shoe-horning the other side into the opposite extreme. I play Mech-Vets, I have Chimeras and Vendettas. But I also have Banewolfs, Paskquisher, an Eradicator, and a Medusa. Am I boring? I know I'm having a lot more fun actually moving and having tactical options than my static, hope I can shoot you before you reach me, gunline lists. My opponents seem to have more fun now that I actually have a movement phase.

Yep guard is going the way of the marines. New book, people freak out, say everything is broken. Turns out the codex is mediocre at best unless you play one version.

PanamaG:

I'm inclined to disagree with the idea that any 40k codex is mediocre unless you play one specific version. Stuff like Nob Bikers, Lash Spam, etc is all easily defeated. The problem isn't with the armies being boring, or overpowered, or whatever you want to call them. The problem is the players, who seem to forget the human element in this all, and that they need to learn, adapt, and overcome, and not just crib army lists off the math-hammer geeks in army list forums. Stuff like imagination and skill doesn't come in the box.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/238377.page

< One chimera & that doesnt have any melta in it.. No pyskers either. I like it & I reckon itll do well. Totally different to what you OP'ed, I had the base ideas for this army as soon as I glanced at the codex.

Just requires a lil imagination!

I guess I run into the problem that when I run a list with various elements, and one element consistently over achieves and the other is always a disappointment, I eventually start phasing out the disappointment. I've been running Chimera Vets along with some small platoons, and the platoons seldom, if every, accomplish anything besides holding objectives and allowing me to buy flamer PCSes. Even with orders, even with upgrades, I keep realizing that any points spent on Platoon Infantry Squads are points spent on stuff that isn't killing the enemy. there's also the key element of army construction that the more you focus your build, the more effective if will be. Half infantry, half mech gives every enemy gun something to shoot at.

So, I have two options: keep playing the units that I don't have fun playing because they don't do well, or switch to something that has more punch. I don't feel morally wrong for simply switching to something better. 40k isn't magic, where the net decks are figured out by a small group and spread. Most of the good stuff is pretty apparent (the stuff that looked good in rumors is still mostly considered good stuff), and simple playtesting will tend to produce convergent evolution. And even then, personal taste and local flavor will shape the good players to take different builds. I still prefer to take 2 basic russes instead of a third Executioner. I'm still trying to make infantry platoons work.

It's a bit of a bromide, but in a game where Marines are Rarer than any possible IG formation, I don't' feel that I should feel Fluff-Shame for fielding a rarer form of IG. There are more fully mechanized regiments than there are suits of terminator armor in the Imperium (or at least roughly the same number). So, unless you play nothing but foot slogging orks, I don't' want to hear "but the codex says it's rare."

dumbuket wrote:So the only alternative to mech-vets is 300 guardsmen? I guess there's no such thing as rough-riders, hellhounds, sentinels, penal legion, platoons, ogryn, stormtroopers, bassies, medusas, or any russ variants besides the executioner.

It's another book that's been reduced to a few choices by the net-list crowd. I don't claim to understand every nuance of the book, I'm just bored by this particular WAAC variant of it and am resigned to facing it at tournaments.

Feel free to disagree, but try to come up with a better, more well reasoned response than to insult us. Nobody's claiming that there's a Standard Template for Fun Game Play. If anything, the problem is the Standard Guard Template for Competitive Play.

That is definitely not the case, there are at least 4 very good guard builds that have already come out of the book in its first month. There are also a large number of variations of the Mech Vets build.

Melta Mech Vets with Air Cav and Tanks
Las Plas Mech Vets with Devil Dogs and Artillery
Mixed Melta, Flamer, Plasma Mech Vets full chimera horde.
Melta Mech Vets with PBS
Melta Mech Vets with Semi Mech Infantry platoons

ect...

There is the full Air Cav with mixed vets and inf platoons

There is the Las/Plas blobs with Creed, Stracken and heavy tank or arty support

Armor Company with 6 tanks and 2 mechanized infantry platoons

I could go on all day, all of them are competitive.

Stelek has already come up with three sick builds and none of them fall into the Melta Mech Vets template.

I won a tournament last week with a Mech list that included only a single veteran squad in a 2250 list no PBS, no Plasma tanks but im sure you would find some way to consider it cheesy and horribly overpowered if it became a popular build. The mantra I seem to see is that if an army doesnt suck someone will start whining about how overpowered and broken and unfluffy it is.

No one complains about how cheesy armies are unless they actually work. God forbid someone actually play a war game to win.

The horror.

You cant expect to field a unit formation & not properly commit by using the right equiped, support & tactics.

You cant simply bolt-on infantry platoon elements to mechensied veterans, its never as simply as that & thats why your not having any luck.