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I have been refining my mechanized guard and am looking for opinions on how to make it a tad more competitive. It has thus far been good enough to dominate the local scene, but I am planning on playing in some larger tourneys and would like to have my list ship-shape. My previous list used a couple of Russ variants, all veterans (5 squads) in chimeras, 2 full psykers and a flamer armed command squad. I am wondering if people have experience with using platoons in chimeras, and how the AV12 heavies have worked out. Here is the current build I've been toying with:

Platoon Command Squad
4 Flamers, Chimera with flamer, multilaser
total: 105 points

Infantry Squad
Autocannon, Grenade launcher, Chimera with flamer, multilaser
Total: 120 points

Infantry Squad
Autocannon, Grenade launcher, Chimera with flamer, multilaser
Total: 120 points

Veteran Squad
3 Meltaguns, Chimera with flamer, multilaser
Total: 155 points

Veteran Squad
3 Meltaguns, Chimera with flamer, multilaser
Total: 155 points

Veteran Squad
3 Meltaguns, Chimera with flamer, multilaser
Total: 155 points

Psyker Battle Squad
6 Psykers, Chimera with flamer, multilaser
Total: 135 points

Psyker Battle Squad
6 Psykers, Chimera with flamer, multilaser
Total: 135 points

2 Vendetta
Total: 260 points

Valkarie
Multiple pods
Total: 130 points

2 Hydras
Total: 150 points

Medusa
Total: 135 points


Guardsman Marbo
Total: 65 points

Company Command Squad
3 Plasma guns, Astropath, chimera with flamer, multilaser
Total: 180 points



Where would you change things? What units would you find especially effective in your army, and how would you have me kill them? Where can I make it a little more of a mean, blue fighting machine.

I was also thinking, is it worth dropping one of the flamers from the platoon squad to buy a vox for the company command? That would make "bring it down" for TMC's nearly automatic. Thoughts?

As a bonus, here is a picture of a part of the force from a previous tourney:

I've never been a proponent of PSB. I'd rather see another melta vet squad there. I also notice a distinct lack of AV14 in the army. LRBTs, my opinion, should be a staple. What does a medusa do better than a basilisk? Basilisk has AP3 and you save 10 pts, or spend 10 pts and get a Colossus. I'd probably drop the grenade launchers in the baby sitter squads to make those points.

Nice looking army, but I'd go less Vets and more Platoons. I assume the Company Command rides in the Valkyrie?

I personally, don't think that I have ever seen so many Chimeras in a single army list before. Seriously, 9 Chimeras is rather intimidating. Tack on the 3 Gunships and the Heavy Support...you're looking at 14 AV 12 vehicles up front...that is impressive.

I'll mention a few of my own takes on the list but I must say, as it stands, it is truly an intimidating force.

1) From my experience, Psyker Battle Squads are most effective in groupings of 10, I would have a single unit at full strength and move on from there.

2) Building off of the last point, you could afford 2 Special Weapons Squads to supplement your Veterans and other groups. You could do 2 groups with Flamers for 100 points or two groups with Meltas for 130 points, or you could use them for hunting Monstrous Creatures and the like and build one or both with Plasma guns at 80 points a piece! Have them ride in the Valkyrie or Vendettas.

3) I'm assuming you're going to leave your Infantry Platoon as a screen for your Artillery, I say this because you don't want to leave your longest ranged weapons exposed. Overall, I feel there is a lack of ranged firepower; granted, your entire force is Mechanized, I feel that exchanging your Medusa for a Demolisher would be more fitting as you don't want to leave anyone behind and keep momentum going.

5) You mention dropping a Flamer to put a Vox on the Company Command Squad, don't forget that the ordered squad must have a Vox as well to receive the benefit.

That's all I've got, hope it helps.

Unholy_Martyr wrote:


1) From my experience, Psyker Battle Squads are most effective in groupings of 10, I would have a single unit at full strength and move on from there.
-The reason that I'm running the squads at 6 are because I have found that most of the time a LD drop of 6 is enough to bring it down to the LD 2-3 range, and thus will ensure a fail. If they don't have anything to LDdrop, then S6 wounds most things on a 2+, and thats all they need to be. Streamlined.

2) Building off of the last point, you could afford 2 Special Weapons Squads to supplement your Veterans and other groups. You could do 2 groups with Flamers for 100 points or two groups with Meltas for 130 points, or you could use them for hunting Monstrous Creatures and the like and build one or both with Plasma guns at 80 points a piece! Have them ride in the Valkyrie or Vendettas.
- I originally had another special weapons team in there with a demo charge and flamers, but I felt that upgrading plasma on the command squad would get better results. I just don't trust a couple guns with BS3 in such a small squad. Seems like free KP's, and lacking in effectiveness. It was marbo or the 6 guys, and I'll take the -5 to scatter and the annoyance of marbo in cover to make up for only having one dude.

3) I'm assuming you're going to leave your Infantry Platoon as a screen for your Artillery, I say this because you don't want to leave your longest ranged weapons exposed. Overall, I feel there is a lack of ranged firepower; granted, your entire force is Mechanized, I feel that exchanging your Medusa for a Demolisher would be more fitting as you don't want to leave anyone behind and keep momentum going.
- The infantry platoon will be sitting back, but mainly to hold home objectives or close objectives. When I was running 5 vet squads, I was reluctant to hold anyone back because they were so useful. It ended up being a situation where I'd have to run BACK at the end of the game. I thought maybe some cheap troop squads with heavies would stop that problem

5) You mention dropping a Flamer to put a Vox on the Company Command Squad, don't forget that the ordered squad must have a Vox as well to receive the benefit.
- The vox would be for themselves. When he casts orders on his own squad (bring it down on TMC's with lots of plasma), then having a vox in the squad would fulfill the requirements wouldn't it? Both the casting squad and receiving would have vox. That's the theory atleast.


I used to run a demolisher and LRBT as my heavies, but I felt lance really made them weak, and I want my heavies to draw fire from my far more deadly vets and Valkyries.

That's all I've got, hope it helps.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Sarge wrote:I've never been a proponent of PSB. I'd rather see another melta vet squad there. I also notice a distinct lack of AV14 in the army. LRBTs, my opinion, should be a staple. What does a medusa do better than a basilisk? Basilisk has AP3 and you save 10 pts, or spend 10 pts and get a Colossus. I'd probably drop the grenade launchers in the baby sitter squads to make those points.

The Medusa is S10, AP2 36 inch range. It knocks the crap out of terminators, wolf cavalry, and all that sort of nonsense. I have found that with so much melta, I have to really give a big hug to termies to kill them, which can put my really vulnerable veterans in a bad position. A S10 blast also presents the sort of target someone MUST engage, saving shots from the mobile and truly killy parts of the army. I had a demolisher before, but the 30 points for AV 14 and short range just don't seem worth it.

Alright, your explanations clear up alot of points. To be honest, the only other suggestion I can even think of is dropping 3 Chimeras and putting the respective squads in the Gunships and going with another Medusa...at that point, all your Long Range worries kind of disappear, you still have a very impressive armored from and you can create 3 very fast scoring/fire fighting units.

I was thinking about mounting some guys in the gunships, at least for the Valkyrie (it moves 12 and shoots its stuff, while the vendettas drift 6 and fire their stuff), but would the loss of up to 3 vehicles reduce my ability to super-saturate an enemies anti-tank. I've played against some 20 something dark lance dark eldar armies, and it always seemed I needed to go balls to the wall with my number of tanks.

One of the biggest issues you'll run into, especially competitively now after the advent of the Imperial Guard's Mechanized strategy is that everyone will have anti-tank in hardy supply, you just have to remain flexible and capable. 10 AV12 tanks with three AV 12 Gunships will give anyone a nightmare situation (with the aforementioned list). That's THIRTEEN AV12 targets, not to say anything but at that point you have anti-tank saturation covered and then some. Most opponents won't even have that many units let along the firepower to deal with everything you're throwing at them.

Have you considered armoring up your Medusa? Though it has a high-power gun, AV 12 open-topped vehicles have a tendency to bite it pretty fast, especially when they're as high in the target priority as a Medusa is likely to be.

Yeah, armoring it up seems like a good idea. I need to find 15 points tho. It seems that I'm trying to squeeze in everything I want, and there's just a tiny bit too few points. I'm going to try to juggle it around.

Oh, what are peoples thoughts (if I choose not to use a 2nd medusa) on the hydras? In one squad or not?

spackledgoat wrote:Oh, what are peoples thoughts (if I choose not to use a 2nd medusa) on the hydras? In one squad or not?

Definitely two separate squads. However, while Hydras are fantastic, with so many multilasers in your list I think they might be a little redundant. Another Medusa would go better I think.

I have had some issues knocking down Eldar skimmers, although in that version of the list I did not have the 2 autocannon units. I'm going to playtest with a 2nd medusa in place of them, and see which one I really like. I keep trying to find a good use for the multilaser, but it never seems to produce. It wounds things nicely and can threaten weaker armor, I suppose.

Even with that many multilasers, it never seems to produce? Seems like alot of dakka...

So after you hit a single terminator or thunderwolf cav with your small blast template and they pass their invulnerable save (of a 3+)..what's your plan exactly?

To be honest with 2 Medusas, 2 Vendettas and the horde of Multi-lasers, I don't foresee either of those units making it across the field. Unless your opponent is running entire squads with Storm Shields, Terminators will more often then not be wiped out with a single Medusa (S 10 AP 2 Large Blast, no point in taking the Bastion Breacher Shell), 2 would certainly finish the job. Thunderwolf Calvary would be at an even bigger disadvantage as they don't have a base invulnerable save; and even then, it costs around 30 points a pop to give them Storm Shields. The fact remains that 2 is better than 1 in this case and as unbeliever pointed out, with so many Multilasers, the Hydras just seem redundant.

Well, if I'm fielding terminators they're all assault terminators with maybe a single pair of lightning claws. If I'm really doing it right, I have Vulcan on the table and a Chaplain in the squad to make them fearless. Big points squad, but good luck killing all of it.

I've never had a problem with units of terminators. They are slow, unless they have a raider. If they do have a raider, it becomes worth it to run up with vets and trade my vets for your raider. If you have 7 + Chaplain, you're talking upwards of 400 points. I can either feed squads, or just run everything far away. They might kill 2 squads a game, but my mobility means that I will still retain a vast majority of my firepower while avoiding theirs killyness. Maybe I should have had a bigger problem with them, but experience has said otherwise. Worst case I have to run 3-4 squads up and lasgun/melta/quad-flame them. Having command squads close gives extra shots from orders. Might not kill them all, but should put a VERY decent number of wounds on. It's a dangerous unit, but its not something that the firepower of this list will be overwhelmed to kill in a turn or so. Vulcan being in the army does very little, as they'll already murder anything in close combat.


I think I'm going to drop a chimera from one of the vets, and put them in the Valkyrie. I will also drop one of the hydras. If I shuffle some points around, I should get enough for another Medusa. Anyone see where that's a bad idea? Where should I make the 5 points, maybe a 3 flamer command squad instead of 4??

I actually run a very similar list with my 2k guard. I would suggest chaning one PBS into a Vendetta. Unless you realy realy want the redundancy one squad should be enough.

Also, I'm not a fan of the plasma on the CCS. It's more points then meltas and doesn't do anything that a PBS can't take care of. If you must stick with plasma, at least put a medic in their so a 1 doesn't kill your guardsmen.

Rambo is fun, but I think you would get more out of an AC Heavy Weapons squad for the same points.

If I run another vendetta, I have to make 2 of them into a squad (3 FA choices already). I have found having 2 PBS saves me for those times when I REALLY need a unit to run and I fail a test, or against eldar where 2 tries at 3d6 are alot nicer than one. Worst case I have a S6 blast extra. An autocannon heavy squad seems like bait for anything S6 or anti-infantry (which normally is worthless against this list). How would you use them, so they aren't just an easy KP and target? Rambo is just there to blast something thats being annoying that is tough against my normal squads. It's nice to have one autohitish template to have in reserve.

I have the plasma in the command squad as a fire brigade unit, to sit behind and be able to rush and take out that one thorny unit that just deep struck. Trygons and the sort, or Carnifex's coming out of spores. A medic is alot of points, that doesn't kill anything. I'd rather have one more gun and half a plasma pistol for that, and not care if I lost a guy, because I'd still be good (and have used that ones shots too).

With regards to your question of dropping a Hydra and a Chimera for the Medusas points, you should consider that in your list you have presently 9 Multi Lasers, while I understand your concern for Skimmers, I feel that you are more than capable of handling them with your fusillade of Multi-Lasers. I would actually drop both Hydras and keep the Chimera so as to tack on another Medusa, this will leave you with 15 points leftover, just enough to get an Enclosed Crew Compartment for one of the Medusas, I would try and get them both enclosed. Not that I think your original idea is a bad one, that's what I would do. Your original idea is feasible and a tri-Flamer Command Squad is just as good as a quad.

What would the point of the empty chimera be?

I guess that was a little confusing, when I said keep the Chimera, I meant keeping the Vets in there as well...worst case scenario, they dismount from the Chimera for some last minute Objective grabbing by hopping in a gunship.

I like the list, presents a little alternative to what I had in mind to do now I'm back into things (haven't run IG since 3E).

If you're using the two guardsmen units to force yourself to have something to hang back with, why not substitute one for a unit of conscripts? I don't know how it would work into your grand scheme, but it might save you points and present enough of a meat blanket that it can soak some damage.

of course, it's late and I'm tired, so I could be wrong!