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I'm trying to figure out how to best balance out my list, i generally run around 4-6 chimeras along with 2-4 leman russ.

I wanted to see what everybody else is trying out with the new guard. i want to keep my armies centered around the tanks of course, but i really have no idea what to do for elites, fast attack or special characters, i'm not used to so many options!

the games i play are almost always 1000-1500 points, against marines, tzeench daemons, eldar and orks.

Veterans. Meltaguns.

Done.

Mech veterans. The new bread and butter of 40k. Load up your chimeras with vets. Done and done.

Only against armies stupid enough to have vehicles in the frontlines.

Mech melta-vets are useless outside of those circumstances.

Heavy Flamers, Flamers, Meltas, Plasmas. Take your pick based on your metagame. Hell, toss whatever you want on them. Vets are just plain awesome. I love Meltas, but that is just me (Mech and MEQ galore at my FLGS).

Vendettas: 3 twin-linked lascannons that are mounted on a platform that can ignore a lot of cover, scout move, outflank, and carry troops to claim objectives all for 130 points and a Fast Attack slot.

As for your tank load out, I like a squadron of two LRBT, one executioner and an eradicator.

Personally, I only put my CCS and PCS because they are so much more vulnerable and I use them as counter charge units (CCS has 4 plasma and PCS has 4 flamers).

how do people feel about the new hellhound variant? i'm hearing alot of chatter about vets with meltas, what about the Devil dog?

and what characters does everyone suggest btw?

i'm sad they didnt keep Gaunt, and mad they didnt add in macharius. though his old rules were silly (random attacks) lol

The answer to the vets/devildog thing is that the devildog is cheaper, with more anti-tank range, but it's not as reliable and if you need to sit back for the opening turns (which you would against some enemies) you've got no guns, whereas a chimera can put out firepower at 36". A friend of mine uses veterans in a chimera with meltas and a heavy bolter. Seems odd, but the unit can sit back and put out lots of S5-6 dakka, then steam forward to kill tanks at the opportune moment.

I think that the CCS is blatantly the most useful HQ, it's a real firepower unit if mechanised, while the others give support abilities that don't really bolster tanks.

I've only seen some LR variants in action: demolishers are very useful (they scare me when I see them coming forward) and standard russes are a safe choice. I'd try the executioner and eradicator though, it doesn't take a genius to see that they'd excel against certain targets. I don't really rate sponsons, but heavy bolters could be fine on leman russes and eradicators. Lots of people on this site seem to like super-executioners with plasma sponsons. Seems like a lot of eggs in one basket to me, but try it out!

Executioners w/ Plasma Sponsons is only 230pts. That is just solid for the volume of firepower it can unleash. It is good vs. anything, too, except AV14 vehicles, which is not a big deal.

As for Hellhound variants, I just can never find room for them. I would rather toss in a Vendetta, since its nearly the same point value and gives me a lot of nice ranged anti-tank.

For Characters, if you go gunline, go for Creed. Otherwise, I hear Straken is solid. I don't run any, because I am a bare-bones kinda guy.

Cheese Elemental wrote:Only against armies stupid enough to have vehicles in the frontlines.

Mech melta-vets are useless outside of those circumstances.

Yeah, they'd be awesome if they had heavy flamers and 3 shot strength 6 weapons in addition to those meltas...

Mech vets aren't really the core of an ig army. Its just the configuration of the troop you take.

To the OP I suggest buying a number of veterans with meltaguns in chimeras with hull heavy flamers that you feel comfortable with, then buying a command squad with 4x melta and putting that in a chimera with hull heavy flamer.

After doing that you'll have a lot of points to spend, and there are some excellent choices for you to choose from and mold to your playstyle.

My favorites are devildogs, medusas and manticores.

You can choose from psyker battle squads in chimeras, any of the hellhound variants, valkyries with rocket pods, vendettas, leman russes, any of the artillery, and hydras. Feel free to experiment with anything in the codex, but these are the units that I (and many others) have found to be the most effective.

Each of the different heavy supports excels at a certain task, and some are more general. I prefer to choose things that excel at a certain task, and tailor my list to the things I face against the most locally, and the things the rest of my list has trouble dealing with.

I hope this is helpful for getting you started.

Lots of choices, but I dare say a few Leman Russ tanks would be the best investment to add to a core of Chimera-mounted Veterans. Just my 2 cents on the matter, though I have been known to power game.

I agree. There is a Leman Russ variant for every role you'd need (Tankbusting, anti-horde, anti-TEQ, etc) AV14 in the front gives several armies problems because there are comparitavely few armies out there that can reliably destroy an AV14 vehicle at range. In the case of, say, Orks or Nids you know they will have to get close, and you can plan for it.

Even though I really like how many new variants of Leman Russ the codex offers, honestly the vanilla one seems to be the most versatile. You can still give it sponson weapons if you really want-

Hull weapons
Heavy Bolter- The default. If you are going to be staying at range or simply don't know what you need, take it
Heavy Flamer- A source of debate. Personally, while they're good on the more nimble vehicles, I wouldn't take one on a LRBT.
Lascannon-Probably only worth it if you know there are going to be lots of vehicles. If there aren't, probably not worth the points

Sponson weapons
Heavy Bolters- Not that great, but if you don't have the points for a second tank and want to squeeze out the firepower, take it
Multimeltas- A bad choice, in my opinion. Short range, and you'll never be able to fire both if you move.
Plasmacannons- Probably you're best bet. Pricey, but very nasty. With Pask they can even hurt AV14 vehicles!

I love the new hellhounds. I've used an eradicator, and it just gets outperformed by hellhounds everytime. Guard don't have the best ballistic skill so when you get a weapon that autohits, you have to take it. I know some people might not like the hellhound because it takes space from stuffing in more vendettas, but it really is a great tank.

em_en_oh_pee wrote:Lots of choices, but I dare say a few Leman Russ tanks would be the best investment to add to a core of Chimera-mounted Veterans. Just my 2 cents on the matter, though I have been known to power game.

That is essentially my list: 3 Chimeras, 3 Russes and 3 VTOLs. It does very well against everthing except vulkan (which is a dificult game on both sides... basicallythe player who makes a mistake loses) and mech eldar with a jetbike council (I freaking hate this matchup). It certianly isn't the only way to roll with the mechvet core at all though. I know Shep has been really successful with a pile of Chimera hulls (Devildogs, Medusas and Manticores in addition to the mechvet core... its like 12+ tanks at 1750... correct me if I'm wrong).