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So I'm planning to put together a list for the Imperial Guard, and I have to admit it's rather intimidating. There seems to be so many delicious options that I want to take for units, and the fact that units themselves are cheap! I looked through the codex quickly and pretty much realized that due to the above reasons the list that I'd make would be incredibly weak. Are there any basic guidelines when putting a list to follow? (i.e. get these essentials first then splurge on everything else)

Oh, I'm planning on going mechanised...because that seems interesting? Though I'd be interested to see what people normally do for firelines...also this has been nagging me and asked in another thread: Are allies effective in Guard list?

And to just set a point limit...let's say 1,500 points since that seems to be the common point level...?

To answer your first question about basic guidelines you will get plenty of differnt answers but I think these cover many of them

1) Start with a company command squad they are a fantastic choice and everyone uses them. Cannot go wrong with them
2) Vets are your specialists (anti MEQ. anti tank) while platoons are your obective holders (IMO)
3) Vets work better in transports line platoons change depending on game
4) Don't waste flamers on BS 4 models

To your 2nd question mech is a very strong IG list.

Most popular I've seen around are

1) Mech vets: lots of vets in chimeras/valkyrie/vendettas with special weapons
2) AV 12 spam: Chimeras/valks/artillery/hydras this list spams lots of 12 armor
3) Air cavalry: Lots of valks/vendettas with embarked infantry
4) Balanced mech: a mech list that incorporates vets, platoons and a variety of other tanks together

As for allies I'd say
Inquisitor/hood/mystic combo is the most popular.

And to make up your army you need to ask yourself some questions. Is this a friendly army? is it competitive? To very different types of lists. Also what are you favoriate units, sometimes its better to take a lackluster FOC slot because you like the units/fluff/look or conversion potential. Also how much $$$ do you want to spend on yoru army. IG is a very expensive one. hope this is helpful

The current IG codex is great in that you have many manners which you can build a list, and most of the units in the codex are either playable or great. So making a list is less about what works and more about what you want.

You have to decide how you prefer to defeat the enemy and what you want you army to look like, then you can start assembling your army. Once you've got a starting point its all about playing games and finding out what works and what doesn't work for your play style.

You've stated that you want to go mechanized, which is a strong way to play IG. Vehicles in 5th edition are hard to deal with at range and at range is where you want to be. A strength on a strength is always a good thing.

Another basic tenet of IG is that they are horrible in assault, meaning that if just the remnants of a dedicated assault unit gets to your lines, they can cause a lot of damage. What them means is you need either the short range shooting power to wipe out a small unit, no matter how tough that unit is, at close range, or the ability to tie up the opponent and minimize their damage. With IG you can rarely count on winning out in assaults. (though, it is possible)

Finally, since you are going mechanized, all your units will come with a chimera, unless you have another vehicle for them to ride in. For instance, in my own IG list, my Platoon Command Squad (with 4 flamers) rides in my Vendetta, so I don't buy a chimera for that unit. The great thing is that chimeras are solid choices. I run them in one of two ways. First, if they are carrying a unit that has a heavy, or is designed to sit back in my battleline, I use multilaser and heavy bolter. This offers strong anti-infantry while offering protection to the unit inside. If they are carrying a unit designed or able to move because of a lack of heavy weapons, they feature a multilaser and heavy flamer, since they are moving they fire one weapon at a time, and since they get close, the heavy flamer can really shine.

So you should start with your compulsory choices, one HQ and two troops.

For HQ you have a choice between Primaris Pysker, Lord Commissar and a Company Command Squad(CCS). Going mechanized usually means you won't be relying on orders, just using them when you can, so the CCS is less mandatory that for an IG gunline. However, CCS offer a rare commodity for IG, BS 4 and the ability to take special/heavy weapons. Most players utlize special weapons, such as meltaguns, in their CCS. I use a combination of 2 plasmaguns and two meltaguns. Since many mission give a bonus to killing your enemy HQ, I find it troubling to use them as a suicide squad. Instead I use them as described above, to wipe out whatever is in my backfield. I find the combinations of two types of weapons compliment each other and since they can order themselves, having four meltaguns is less necessary for taking out things like Land Raiders.

This all said, a Primaris Pysker is also a good choice. They are cheap and offer very respectable firepower. Plus they ring it at a lot cheaper than a CCS with all those specials and their own Chimera.

Next are your troop selections.

IMO you have one of three choices, all vets, all infantry platoons or a combination. All mechanized vets is very popular and effective. With their ability to take numerous special weapons at BS 4, they are very good at killing things in you get them in the right position. The only issue is that they die as quickly as regular guardsman and cost more points, meaning you'll have fewer of them.

Taking all infantry platoons means you'll have tons of bodies (and chimeras) but your ability to kill stuff will suffer. Guard are not the most reliable with their average BS and the way weapons are assigned out. (one heavy/special per squad)

I use a mix of both. I like the bodies and low cost of a couple infantry squads while using a few units of veterans to kill select targets and claim farther objective.

I would start with a unit of veterans with 3 meltaguns and a infantry platoon. In the PCS I would make use of the 4 flamers set up, great anti horde, respectable anti heavy infantry. Then autocannons and grenage launchers keep the infantry squads cheap and reasonable effective. This would also bring your total to five chimeras, a solid number of AV 12 models, but not so many to create a traffic jam. Finally, you've got a reasonable amount of objective holders, not a great number, but you'll find that one of the weaknesses of mech guard is their low count of objective holding units. You'd also be at around 750 points, which is half your total and plenty of room for toys.

With this core your next choices are really about what you want versus what you need. While lacking long range anti tank, you have short range "popping power" and plenty of ranged anti infantry.

I would look to add a Leman Russ or two, probably a stock russ and then one of the variants. Russes are good in mech IG because they offer hard targets for the oppoent to shoot at instead of the softer AV 12. They often offer long range, strong shooting as well.

Artillery can accomplish this as well at a cheaper price, but don't offer the higher AV to frustrate the opponent.

Another element you want to consider is your fast moving units. And by fast moving I also include units with the ability to Outflank. Anything which spreads out your forces and gets you in different areas of the board. Scouting Sentinels, Veterans with Harker or Valkyries/Vendettas all are included. I also include the Hellhounds and its variants, these are for the most part dedicated to moving 12" a turn and still offering an offensve threat.

My only suggestion is that when you add a selection, see what role it fills in your list, then try and choose a selection which fills an opposite role. Finally, don't forget that you can always add more troops into your force, further adding depth to you ability to claim objectives. A second unit of veterans with meltaguns could be strong selection, but I prefer 3 plasmaguns and a lascannon. It rounds my army out a little more making it more competitve overall.

good luck!

I ask a number of questions when building different IG varities, these may help you out:

First pick a theme. You said mechinized, but thats not really a theme. Get more specific, AV12 spam, Air cav, LR variants, artillary. Get more specific about how you want your army to look. And be flexable about it when you start getting to filling out specific areas.

Next get an idea about how you want the army to fight. This is actually very important and a lot of lists miss this step. You want to have a basic overall strategy when your building your lists so that all elements of the list can support your strategy. Do you want the list to play like a gunline pounding the enemy at range, do you want to be mobile and rely on special weapons. Do you want an army that really takes advantage of the orders system to force multiply the troops. Their are lots of different strategys

Now start filling out specific slots:

How many valkries/vendettas do you want to run?

Include a PSB?

Include a Platoon? If so how many AC Heavy Weapons Squads?
-Kit the platoon out for CC? or shooting?
-How important are orders to this platoon for your overall strategy?

How many melta vets squads are you going to bring?
-What are they riding to get into range, valkries or chimeras?

What kind of HS do you want to run? LR? Artillary? Manticore? Hydras?

Include some nasty tricks? Nasty tricks are things like DH allies assulting first turn, PBS and Assassin interactions, CC command squads etc.

Am I going to have any physic defense? If so how?


After your done figuring that stuff out you should have spent about 1500 points in a 2k list. Then you start asking yourself some more specific questions about tactics and adding additional units that can fill the gaps:

How are you going to destroy transports?

How are you going to deal with MEQ?

How are you going to deal with hoards?

What is your plan when you get into CC?

What are you going to do about large vehicles?

That should get you to 2k pretty easily.

Ah, thanks for all the great input! These pointers really help out a lot, and now I'll get to work on my first list.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh, I noticed the stormtroopers seem to have extra goodies, and what caught my attention was the Carapace armour package. Is it worth it to give my BS 4 guys a 4+ save?

These are the ones riding the Chimera mind you.

The general consensus on this forum is that stormtroopers are overpriced for what they do, as a Veteran Squad can be given carapace armor and 3 special weapons to the Stormtroopers' maximum of 2.

However, if you really like the idea of them, don't be scared off. Loving a particular troop type for its feel can go a long way toward you making effective use of them. There's little or nothing in the IG codex that doesn't have a good use - I, for example, love my Rough Riders, despite the fact most players see them as nothing but overexpensive cannon fodder. If you want Stormtroopers, take 'em - you can always use them as Carapace Vets if you are unsatisfied with the results.

Good luck!

I run at least 2 units of deepstriking stormtroopers in everything 1000pts or more. Of course, as a Star Wars buff, my original incentive for playing Guard was stormtroopers and AT-ST's (Sentinels). I throw in some cannon fodder and some vets, I find that once you get used to how the army works you can tweak most any build to work with at least one unit taken just for fluff. I know Stormtroopers don't quite come off glowingly against Vets, but I love them anyway...

Don't be worried to take units that we say suck online (except Punishers, Exterminators, and Vanquishers, lol).

The IG codex is really well built; you could select a list via dartboard and still end up with a playable army. Really, most "meh" units (like stormtroopers, ogryn, etc) can go into semi-competitive lists - they're not that overpriced, really, and you may surprise your opponent with a unit they've never played against before.

If you want to have the hardest list in the club though, don't go for stormies or carapace. At the end of the day, a Guardsmen is still just T3 and will die easily to anything.

Oh, when I said Carapace I guess I was kind of vague. I was refering to the Veteran's ability to take either camo, demos, or carapace and was just wondering if the 30 points were worth it.

Short answer: no

Long answer: nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Veteran squads have their strength in high offensive power in a cheap package. Adding a 4+ save to that for 30 points isn't worth it when they're T3, it only makes them high offensive power in a more expensive package.

Demolitions veterans are good in valkyries. Any other way you choose to run them they shouldn't have a doctrine at all.

Yeah, I was thinking that the upgrade was a bit expensive, thanks for the advice.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
With your advice here's the list that I've come up with.

Veteran squads have their strength in high offensive power in a cheap package. Adding a 4+ save to that for 30 points isn't worth it when they're T3, it only makes them high offensive power in a more expensive package.

I agree with you as far as mechvets with meltas, but as soon as you take them for three plasmaguns, the carapace (at least to) all of a sudden comes in handy (though 30 pts are tough). Same goes for stationary vets in cover buying camo.
Stormtroopers might be acceptable( more or less) at minimum squadsize, meltas and deepstriking near some enemy's tank, hoping for the best.

Okay, just my two cents and obvious points

to highlight thr point edorian was making is that in some cases paying carapace armor can useful. Specifically in a CCS. If you take a CCS with 3 plasma guns, carapace and a medic you have a a pretty tough str 7 firing pace that will rarely die to it gets hot. Sure you are spending 50 more points on a unit, but in large games I do think its worth it espeically if you are using orders.

Oooh, good point there dumpling. I updated the list I have posted up to include that as well for the cost of 2 members of the psyker squad.

Edorian wrote:

Veteran squads have their strength in high offensive power in a cheap package. Adding a 4+ save to that for 30 points isn't worth it when they're T3, it only makes them high offensive power in a more expensive package.

I agree with you as far as mechvets with meltas, but as soon as you take them for three plasmaguns, the carapace (at least to) all of a sudden comes in handy (though 30 pts are tough). Same goes for stationary vets in cover buying camo.

I'm not convinced that this is a valid place to use carapace armor either... because I'm not convinced that plasma is worth putting on a unit, ever. Let me explain.

First of all, infantry squads can deploy on the table. Veteran squads almost never should. If you're using veterans, they're going to be embarked in a transport for these reasons:

T3 is squishy
10 guys aren't enough to survive
Even at 100-140 points a unit, they're still too expensive to let your opponent dictate when they die
5 guys can fire out the top of a chimera
You can make them a little more survivable, for a big increase in cost.

So why the hell would you ever put them on the table? With that in mind, they'll most likely not take any saves until they reach a point where having a 4+ armor save vs a 5+ won't make a difference. Giving the unit a 3+ cover save won't do jack against an opponent with the tools to remove them - templates, morale manipulation, any kind of fast CC unit.

Carapace armor will protect you from incidental fire. It won't protect you once your opponent decides that your veteran squad is going to die. Not worth 30 points.

As for plasmaguns -

They're the most expensive special weapon you can give them, they kill your own guys, and frankly they're only situationally better than meltaguns. Yes, you can build a decent plasma-bunker from a veteran squad or CCS that minimizes the risks of using them in the first place, but are they GOOD enough to justify the increase in price? I don't think so. Plasmaguns are worst of both worlds weapon, IMO. Sure you can fire at range if you want to. But it would be more effective to just tool the squad out with heavy weapons instead if you want to do that.

Sure, you can fire at close range if you want to. If you get that close, the squad is probably going to die next turn. If you're going to be that close anyway... meltaguns are better against more targets. Whenever you roll up to anything armor 12+, or T4 with multiple wounds you're not going to be thrilled with the effects of your plasma fire.

All this for ~45 extra per unit, yay!

I guess what it comes down to is this:

Veterans are excellent "disposable" units that you can use to put overwhelming pressure exactly where you need to, when you need to. Keep them cheap, they're going to die anyway.

Infantry squads are better for fire support in every way - more durable, big footprint, cheap enough to mass, and give you access to units like heavy weapons squads for even more dakka.

Hmm I guess this just boils down to a preference in tactical usage of units now.

Here is a fun list that lets you take Transports out the yin yang.

About 2521 points if I did my math right.

HQ-360
CCS with Medi-pack, Vox and 2 plasmaguns - 125
Chimera -55

Tech Priest-180
5 servitors 2 with Multi-Melta

Elite-495
x3 Storm Trooper Squad-495
+ 5 storm Troopers, 2 Meltaguns.

Troops-1420
x2 Platoon -1420
PCS Medic and vox w/ 2 plasmagun-105
Chimera-55

x5 Infantry Squad a plasmagun each vox each-350
x5 Chimeras-275

Fast attack-300
Squadron-300
x3 Valkyrie for the Stormies

Christ that's a lot of points. Maybe I'll build my way up to that eventually, but I think for now I'll stick to the 1,500 point level @_@

I completely disagree with grankobot on PG's. Plasmaguns are excellent weapons. Gets hot! occurs only on a roll of a 1, even when you rapid fire, and you still get your armour save, so I don't see it being a huge issue. Of course if that single unit with plasmaguns is pivotal to your plans, things might be different but there's no reason to make it so. At the end of the day, those Vets are just as expendable as everything else. All they need to do is take down that Monster or unit of heavy infantry.

Whether Vets deploy on the table or in reserve is situational. They could just as well advance and threaten everything midfield very easily. Coming in from reserve isn't a bad idea per se but you never know when they will appear, and they have a very short range when they shoot, so against opponents that do not advance this is a waste of perfectly good units.

First of all, infantry squads can deploy on the table. Veteran squads almost never should. If you're using veterans, they're going to be embarked in a transport for these reasons:

So why the hell would you ever put them on the table?

So that they can contribute to the fight from turn 1. When they appear from reserves on turn 3, those Land Raiders (in the case of melta Vets) or Flyrant in the case of MC's will be upon your men already.

They're the most expensive special weapon you can give them, they kill your own guys, and frankly they're only situationally better than meltaguns.

Not at all. They're amongst the best weapons you can have because they are useful against a wide variety of threats. Transports, bikes, speeders, MC's, medium or heavy infantry, there's hardly a shortage of threatening targets. Meltaguns are ace against vehicles (barring Wave Serpents, where Plasma is better) and T4 multiwounders (barring good Inv saves) but simply do not have the RoF to take down an MC or Terminator-class infantry when they need to die. That's often physically impossible, as even when you hit and wound with all three or four shots and the target gets no save, it'll have a wound to spare.

Oh, and let's not mention an Avatar; it isn't a common sight anyways. Still...

But it would be more effective to just tool the squad out with heavy weapons instead if you want to do that.

By all means, if that floats your boat, but please remember that you now have a static fire support section that cannot increase its RoF. Modern forces have various ways to deploy and can be upon you right off the bat, so having the option to double-tap or to move and shoot is very very useful.

If you get that close, the squad is probably going to die next turn.

Nonsense. Sorry, but I find no other word for that. PG's do not have to be that close, even though it is often a good idea, while meltaguns always and in every circumstance must be that close - or, when fighting vehicles, even closer, so you're defeating your own argument, as surely there is no reason one unit will die but the other won't.

Also, why do you assume that I won't kill that unit that is so close first?

My basic guide:

- if its armored, it has wheels, and it carries heavy weapons, I use it

KISS

Heh, KISS is always a good guide line, and just to mention this it'll be my CCS that'll have my Plasma Guns along with a med kit and carapace armour. Not sure if that's the best call ever, but I'm using my other veterans as anti tank on valkyries so...yeah.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh, and I'm currently debating between the Psyker Battle Squad or another Leman Russ, most likely a variant. I'm kind of lost on the Psykers tactical uses as most things can't be feared away...most things being Space Marines, Orks, and such...well I guess Space Marines can...but what I mean is that worth giving up a Leman Russ?

mech may be good but in most games if you use platoons you will have somany infantry you wont need the
extra guns and armor protection so your paying 55+ points for extra movement. IFS are soppose to die but take out most
of the enemy with them

Also since 5th is a tank game get meltaguns and PF plus the hellhound with the melta cannonn and the
LR with the giant battle cannonn

finna;;y for elites use stormtroopers and orgyns for the ap and CC

@ commander nearsighted - please slow down, read the forum rules, and pay a bit more attention to your grammar, as Dakka has an overall high standard of legibility (and we want to keep it that way).

I'm sure you've got some good things to contribute, and welcome to Dakka by the way, but please slow down and read previous posts before gushing - especially on threads that are essentially finished