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I'm a new IG player (I have a bit of previous xp from playing around with black reach) and I know my way around the rules, at least, I think I do. But to the point. I'm building a new IG force w/ a Cadian starter, 2 squads of infantry, and a LR. I know my army's strengths and weaknesses (be shooty but run from cc unless your ogryn) but what I am sorely lacking is experience in the IG. I know what's good on paper but I don't quite know what will perform and what will get imo'ed on the second turn (thanks dreadnought) I will for the most part be playing varied forces (Orks, elite Tyranids, & SOB) So to conclude this long-winded speech. Got any pointers on starting a new Guard army?

PS: I love my decked out LR to death, and he is already outfitted with battle cannon, heavy bolters, lascannon, and a side of stubber.

As for troops expect nothing from infantry platoons, other than to slow down the enemy. This buys you precious time for your tanks to kill the enemy so don't deck the squads out too much, you want to not care when (not if) they die. Veteran squads on the other hand you can expect something from, equipping them with three of a particular special weapon can make them very good at what you want to kill. Meltas for tanks. Flamers for infantry and plasma guns for space marines. Load them in a transport and send at the desired target. The downside is that you don't have as many speed bumps so they can be less forgiving if you make a bad choice or bad roll. I like to run all of one choice or the other, this is generally known as an infantry build or a mechanized build respectively.

HQ you 99% of the time want to field a command squad. You can deck them out with special weapons and send them similar to your veterans if you are running a mechanized list. Or if you field an infantry list have them stay with your gunline to issue orders. I find Creed is a good investment to really boost your order ability

Heavy support is the heart and soul of the Imperial Guard. It's why we all play guard. Every guard player has something in the heavy support that they love. You join the ranks of the Leman Russ lovers by the sound of it, I am biased to basilisks myself. Heavy support becomes the backbone of an infantry build and a nice add-on to a mechanized list. Your choices should always balance out your army. Do you have enough to kill space marines in your army? No? then consider an executioner. You will learn how to build a solid heavy support selection over time. The school of hard knocks is the best teacher. But if you ask me 3 squadrons of 2 basilisks suits any guard army just fine!

I like the Basilisks but the 36 min range is a downer, or is that only for it's barrage shots?

Alright, for an IG army (and most armies, really) you need these components:

1. Anti-horde. This is served by your Guardsmens' lasguns, chimeras' multilasers and heavy flamers, that sort of thing.

2. Anti-MEQ (things with a 3+ save). These are things like your Russ' battlecannon, plasma guns/cannons, meltaguns, etc. This is probably the least important area, as all the other kinds of shooting can do this as a secondary role, but it's always nice to have some punch here.

3. Reliable Anti-tank. This means meltaguns - with meltaguns, you're nearly sure to kill any sort of tank that blunders into range (and will also do a lot of damage to big Tyranids).

4. Long-range anti-tank. Most vehicles in the game are transports, and if you can only kill transports once they're brought their cargo to your lines - what's the point? Get some autocannons in your line squads, Vendetta Gunships, Hydras, that sort of thing.

Find a balance of these - try to get at least two units to cover each role in average-sized games, or, if you're doing smaller games (which you probably should be if you're just starting), just try to build up as much redundancy as you can. You should have plan for each unit, and never be in a situation where your opponent has a unit that you're completely unprepared for.

Some general Guard tips:

1. A lot of players like to have mobility in their lists for taking objectives - because, face it, Guardsmen simply aren't tough enough to take and hold them on foot. Take some chimeras for your most powerful squads (The Company Command Squad and Platoon Command Squads/Veterans) to give you some mobility.

2. With Guard, you have a lot of non-weapon upgrades available - try not to get too caught up in them. Guard are cheap, and your strength is in numbers. A lot of new players will throw so many upgrades at a unit and have used enough points on the upgrades to simply buy a second unit instead.

3. Get weapon upgrades! Another mistake new players make on occasion is to just take as many lasguns as possible. Guard's best feature is probably just how many special weapons your squads can take. All line squads will have 1, veterans will have 3, command squads will have 4. Lasguns are just okay (let's leave it at that), and your lasgunners' purpose is to serve as meatshields to keep your valuable special weapons alive. This isn't Tau or Necrons where each model is good in its own right - no, in the Guard 70% of your models are there to keep the other 30% alive.

There are a bunch of army styles you can do with the Guard - a horde of light vehicles, a horde of infantry, a heavy tank division, and airborne company, an all-outflanking army, etc. (or, of course, mixes of these) Try the ones that sound interesting and then you should be able to get some more detailed advice, but I'd say that all the above (and Volkov's advice as well, though I'm partial to Manticores over Basilisks) will hold true no matter which you choose.

Hope I helped


(also, the minimum range on all artillery is only if you fire as a barrage)

I am Guessing by starter you mean Battleforce right?

This Means you tentatively have 1 HQ and 4 Vet Squads(with 3 heavy weapons) and a Sentinel

before you assemble any special/heavy weapons or decide Wholly on just vets you need to decide what type of army you want:

Footsloggers: best done with Platoons, lots of squads, combined("Blobbed"). For a good Slogger list you want over 100 models at most point ranges armed with Grenade Launchers/Snipers/Flamers and Lascannons or Autocannons.

Mechanized: best done with Vets. Guve the Vets Plasmaguns(x3) and Melta guns(x3) put them in Chimeras(either an IFV with hull Heavy bolter, multilaser, and stubber; or Flame tanks). This is the best type for heavy armor to chill with as the target saturation is ridiculous(do I shoot at the Chimeras headed for my tanks or the Leman russes/artillery causing havoc)

Defence Force/Hybrid: a mix of both large combined platoons and Mech/Vets.

I like the Basilisks but the 36 min range is a downer, or is that only for it's barrage shots?

Only for barrage my good man

Okay to the OP this is just a general suggestion on whenever you are playing. You want to make your enemy slow down and deal with individual units. You don't want them crashing into you lines with some insanely powerful close combat unit. You want to be able to whittle them down. Knock them out of there transports is the most important thing. This should be your priority. The best example of this is a Land Raider with a cc terminator unit inside. Just imobilize it make the terminators get out and then they are easy picking for vets in chimeras or your tanks. On Leman Russ's I recommend Demolishers, most say that these are too short ranged but now in 5th edition and most of the new codex's and armies are already on top of you turn 2 or 3 you have armies drop podding and deep striking and they will think twice if you blow apart there 200pt. unit of space marine in one shot without armor saves. Your rule of thumb is really never to let any army outshoot you. That is the imperiums bread and butter and if you get out shot you are done. Because no unit you have is even decent in cc even ogryns, which i would recommend never to use because they are a point sink. I personally run a mech vet list with a valk and marbo. Which is truly a life saver. Even though my 2 demolishers cannot get in range of some unit i can drop a unit of vets with meltas and demos and watch as my opponent loses 400 points without getting a shot off.

@Volkov I love your signature its hilarious

I play a ton of very competitive games with IG... looking at the codex for me now there are just a ton of obvious things that I take for granted.

It'd be an interesting perspective for me to be looking at the codex again without any preconceptions.

I think you should try and get small games in, since you are so green. There is really just one thing that I will flatly swear that you should persue, and you already have most of the models for it.

Every guard army I make, revolves around a single platoon.

This includes 'full mech' lists that you are going to start hearing people tell you about. This also includes pure gunlines with leman russes, that eschew armor 12 altogether. And hybrids of some vehicles and some infantry. Here is what I suggest...

If you don't have any chimeras, wait another two weeks and then buy the new chimera kit. Don't get suckered into buying the older one. its a PITA.

Buy three chimeras....

Your HQ should be a company command squad at first. They should take 4 of the same special weapon and I'd recommend the meltagun to take advantage of their BS4. The chimera is prefect for them as they can fire all four special weapons out of the hatch without getting out, and can also issue orders while safely inside. We should plan to have two units on foot so that we can use the most powerful orders this unit has... bring it down and fire on my target. I would suggest putting a hull heavy flamer on the chimera instead of a heavy bolter, because the vehicle will nearly always want to be moving and so will rarely if ever get to fire both the multi-laser and the heavy bolter.

Then I would start building a platoon...

Starting with the platoon command squad. Think of them as a mini-company command squad. they should also have 4 of the same special weapons as they can also fire out of their chimeras and issue orders out from them. Since this unit is only BS3 I like to take 4 flamers. These guys can only issue one order per turn and they don't have any orders that are important until later in the game. It would be nice to have one unit available for 'first rank fire second rank fire' however. Put a heavy flamer on this chimera as well.

for the infantry squads you can take a special weapon and a heavy weapon. I like autocannons or lascannons for imperial guard, and for special weapons I think that it is a lot less important what you take. once you start getting to the cut-throat competition level, you will probably end up want a specific weapon. However, since I'm going to suggest you start this unit on foot, I'd recommend against a flamer or a melta, they are too short ranged to be of any use to a slow and assault vulnerable list. The sniper rifle is long ranged, the grenade launcher is also acceptable here. Either way, the special weapon isn't as vital as the heavy weapon you choose here. I am going to recommend that you take three of these units and in one of the units you purchase a commissar. You should spend time getting used to what a re-rollable leadership 9 stubborn unit with 30 models does. It is a little challenging at first to see the value in this unit, as it won't win combats. But since it can combine to form one unit, it can unload a pretty devastating first rank fire... and it will take your opponents assault units many turns to finally get through your unit, giving your other units plenty of time to shoot at other things.

I will suggest you take at least two heavy weapon squads for each company command squad that you buy. I recommend autocannons and lascannons for them. These units here are the main reason I even suggest using platoons at all. Heavy weapons squads under bring it down or fire on my target orders are very points efficient in their damage output. They are admittedly vulnerable to enemy fire, but not so much that they aren't worth buying. You will want to keep your company command squad near both of them to issue orders, and the platoon command squad should hang out near the infantry squads.

While one platoon is very good, I never find the need for a second one. I would like a second platoon command squad, but I don't want to buy more infantry squads, and one platoon gies you access to 5 heavy weapon squads, more than we need. So for your second required troop I'll suggest a veteran squad in a chimera. Think of the veteran squad as a cross between the company command squad and an infantry squad. I like to purchase them 3 of the same special weapon (I usually go for meltaguns) and a heavy weapon. Again I'll suggest either a lascannon or an autocannon. Their chimera can either have the hull heavy flamer like the others or you might also use the heavy bolter. This is because if the veterans have a heavy weapon, there might be a few turns where they remain stationary to use it.

Recap.

company command squad 4x meltaguns chimera hull heavy flamer

platoon command squad 4x flamers chimera hull heavy flamer
infantry squad grenade launcher autocannon commissar
infantry squad grenade launcher autocannon
infantry squad grenade launcher autocannon
heavy weapons squad 3x lascannon
heavy weapons squad 3x lascannon

veteran squad 3x meltaguns autocannon chimera hull heavy bolter (or heavy flamer)


That would be a fantastic core collection for a budding IG general to build from. It might be that you end up liking being mechanized, and so you may buy chimeras for your infantry squads later. A lot of people go that way. Fast attack, heavy support and elites can go many different ways around this core... if you want less punch but more survivability, you can continue to use leman russes, if you want more firepower and lots of vehicles, but nothing particularly sturdy, you can start fielding artillery. If you want to encircle people and blow them to bits you can start fielding vendettas.

If you don't really want to explore the different units, and you just want a "net-list" I can oblidge, but I think it'd be better for you if you built these troops and HQ out first, and then started adding support and attack units little by little.

If you don't have any chimeras, wait another two weeks and then buy the new chimera kit. Don't get suckered into buying the older one. its a PITA.

However the reverse is true with the new basilisk kit. It includes less and costs 10 dollars more. So try to get your grubby hands on the old one. You can tell the difference because the old ones have these large side skirts that protrude from the sides of the tank, and they have no hatches. The new kit has a rectangular hatch followed by a square hatch on these side skirts

Start by getting your hands on six Hydras for Heavy Support, at least four Chimeras, and plenty of melta from vets or commands. Then you want a platoon with a commissar. That's a nice core army.

Yeah, played a game against a Tyranid friend tonight. I had fifteen mortar squads in hvy weapons teams (not practical, but that massive barrage is beautiful) and used them to wipe his gaunts and genestealers before they crossed the middle of the table, which left the hive tyrant (Sv 2+ with regen wounds) and the lovely Trigon Prime (+3 Sv with 6 regen wounds) to crush my infantry into tiny bits. I now see why the "arm your squads with meltas" advice is common.

Fl@nked wrote:I like the Basilisks but the 36 min range is a downer, or is that only for it's barrage shots?

Basilisks min range has been FAQed now. Its now 12" i believe.

orannis01 wrote:

Fl@nked wrote:I like the Basilisks but the 36 min range is a downer, or is that only for it's barrage shots?

Basilisks min range has been FAQed now. Its now 12" i believe.

What? I believe you're wrong. Basilisk has always had 36" min range, but it can ignore it by firing "direct" in which case it is treated as a normal ordnance weapon in all respects.

@Shep: Don't you find the LD 7 on heavy weapons teams to be very limiting? Do you use Kell or a Lord Commissar?

I run Kell with my CCS, and except for running them like a Vet squad, I agree with everything Shep said. Personally, I've not found 4 Meltaguns to be more effective than the re-rolls to my Lascannon batteries.

willydstyle wrote:@Shep: Don't you find the LD 7 on heavy weapons teams to be very limiting? Do you use Kell or a Lord Commissar?

Not really. Rather than spend 70-90 points and adding a kill point to make them both pass, I just operate knowing that i've got around a 55-60% pass rate. Usually when I crunch numbers I assume that only one of the two HWS received their order.

If I'm going to spend 70 points on a lord commissar, it'd be better to just find 5 more points and get another HWS with autocannons.

Until you reach that magic number of HWS that make the other models points efficient, buying more guns is going to have more value than slightly increasing their order passing rate.

Ok, I'm bored, so I wanna knock out some math to find that magic number...

alright. HWS naturally pass order 58% of the time. Kell (with creed) and the commissar lord knock that up to 83%.

Thats a 25% increase in passing the order, but not a 25% increase in firepower...

over a 6 turn game, assuming you issue bring it down every turn, a plain CCS ordering an HWS lascannon team will get to make between 22-23 shots, factoring in re-rolls at a 50% order pass rate.

The kell/comm lord powered lascannon team will get between 25-26 shots, assuming it passes 5 of 6 tests over 6 turns on bring it down.

That is an increase of 3 shots over a 6 turn game. Or 1/6th the effectiveness of just adding another lascannon HWS. Since kell is slightly cheaper, and the commissar lord is significantly cheaper than the lascannon team, I'll figure that in.

Kell will need to be covering 6 HWS in order to actually increase lascannon HWS firepower. If he were covering anything cheaper (like autocannons for example) then he'd need to be covering much more. This does also require you to have 6 orders available, so Creed and another CCS will be needed to get to this magic number.

the commissar lord will need to be covering between 4 and 5. And again, you need enough orders to cover it. Either you have two CCS, or you took Creed here. And if you took Creed, then Kell is likely a better value than the comm lord.

disclaimer: When playing imperial guard I am always most interested in efficient increases in firepower. The commisar lord brings more than just his order bubble. I don't value what he brings very highly at all, but of course it does have value. Kell brings even more value. The regimental standard effect makes morale from shooting a real non-issue. His power fist can and will make an impact in counter assaults into thinned down units. And he is just cool. But if you are looking to just get more shots down-field for your points, and you are ok with small units running off the table every so often. Then just running more HWS is easily the most efficient, until you start running into the really big games.

Even without Kell, I recommend spending the 15 points for the Company Standard.

Shep wrote:they can fire all four special weapons out of the hatch without getting out, and can also issue orders while safely inside.

I'm fairly certain officers can't issue orders if they're embarked in a transport vehicle. Am I missing something here?

Chimeras have the Mobile Command Vehicle rule, which allows officers embarked to issue orders.

Volkov wrote:As for troops expect nothing from infantry platoons, other than to slow down the enemy.

This is complete, and utter nonsense. If anything, you can usually expect more from infantry platoons than veterans due to their flexibility. A platoon command squad with 4 meltaguns is just as effective vs. tanks as a veteran squad, while costing 30 points less. For the cost of a Veteran squad with 3x meltas and demolitions, you could have that Platoon Command, and a special weapons squad with a demolition charge and two flamers.

Infantry squads should be used combined, and make for great fire support bases for popping vehicles (TL with an order) or gunning down infantry through weight of fire, and guarding your home objective and heavy support from assaults (stubborn*). If fired upon, they can always go to ground for nice cover saves and get right back up the following turn. If you take 3+ and outfit them with power weapons, and have Straken or Creed handy, they even make quite potent close combat units** (they will own tac marines or even assault terminators... anything without a large volume of attacks or T<5, really).

Heavy Weapon Squads do have their issues with vulnerability, but I've found intermixing one team among a combined squad isn't a terrible way to go.

Don't buy into the "All Veterans, All in Vendettas, All the time!" hype espoused by the review article here on Dakka. The IG dex has plenty of effective builds, including ones modeled around the platoon. And certainly don't buy/convert 6 Hydras as suggested above (hopefully facetiously). There are plenty of other excellent heavy support choices, like Manticores, paired Griffons, and a number of the Russ variants.

*For just one squad, a Commissar will do. If you're running multiple combined firebase squads, one points-saving option to consider is Chenkov (who costs considerably less than two commissars).
**Assault-based combined squads function best when they can outflank, whether through Creed's Tactical Genius, or Al'Raheem.

Combine platoons with 3x heavy and 3x special weapons, a vox and a commissar have been a game winner for my friend's guard.

The guard are so flexible, I'd shy away from suggesting any particular build.

It's more about having someone like Fl@nked tell us what kind of army he wants or what models he likes and then giving suggestions based on that.

Then again, I play a list that doesn't fall into any specific category like armor, mech, airborne or horde.

Quick question, is there any way to beef up ratling LD without using a commissar lord to baby them?

For orders or to avoid them running?

Creed and Kell help with orders (LD 10)

you need the Commissar Lord/Yarrick for Morale

Would running Creed/Kell in 1500pts be worth it? If so what would be a good build for them??

I think Shep showed pretty well that unless you want the commissar lord or Kell for other qualities they bring to your army, they aren't worth bringing just for increased reliability of orders.

With all 40k armies, it all really boils down to covering the basics, and creating a list that best suits your style. You can always learn how to play with a new style, but it's by far easier to start with a list that is in such a way where the way that you automatically react to certain circumstances is also the strength of your list. Thankfully, a guard army is probably the easiest to customize and specialize to this end.

So, start by taking a characteristically bad situation, and think about how you would instinctually react on the battlefield.

For example. Let's say that you've got a mixed guard army and it's spread across the field in a '/' shape where one end is your objective and the other end is theirs. Now, let's say that a space marine drop pod army of doom crashes down on you with about 2/3ds on your objective and the rest on their objective. What do you do?

If you're reaction is to build your list in such a way where you have artillery (or russes) and other vehicles, and some nasty heavy weapons, and to blow up those marines that landed on your objective while the rest of your forces advance on the other, than you're probably looking at a "firepower" kind of play style. If your solution is to add a few rough riders to your list and keep them in reserve for just such an occasion, and the rest of your guys are fitted with lots of special weapons, and the answer is to charge in and manhandle those marines, you're looking at an "assault" kind of play style. If your response is to put those guys in the middle back into their chimeras and rush them back to base, and rely on some outflankers to handle the marine's objective, you're looking at a "mobile" style.

For me, the list I'm currently building relies on "mass". Namely, I've got 117 infantry models in my 1000 point list, all decked to the teeth with special weapons. In order for the special weapons to cover each other, I need to keep my troops close to each other. The end result is a couple of drop pods crashing down next to large squares of infantry and then me laughing as they patter harmlessly off (and by harmlessly, I mean killing 30 dudes, but me still having that many left over).

Anyways, the point is to spend some small amount of points to cover your basics (MEq, TMC, heavy vehicles, hordes, etc.), and the rest of your points you should use to specialize for your play style. The better you get at it all, the more you will be able to just focus on your play style, because your play style will be able to cover the basics by itself. Don't be afraid to do things which are unpopular if you know they fit your style. In the case of my mass example, it would make sense to upgrade to 1500 by taking 2 groups of 6 ogryn: it's 36 T5 wounds that take up a small footprint (and are immune to regular heavy weapons fire to boot!). Likewise, if you're doing assault, take some priests. If you're doing close-range firepower, don't be afraid to spend 500 points on SWS's. So long as you've got your basics covered, don't feel obliged to take ANY "popular" units, and don't shy away from taking unpopular ones if they fit your intuitive strategy of choice.

Of course, we can't help you construct such a list if we don't know what your play style is (remember, this is not necessarily what you think it is, or what you want it to be). The rest, as you've been reading, is us giving advice with regards to covering the basics.

Speaking of which, if you do the math, you will find that the amount of points required to reliably stop enemy transports before they drop of their cargo is roughly 2 - 4 TIMES the cost of the enemy transport itself. Unless you're willing to devote 1/2-2/3ds your army just to stop a transport rush (which I highly argue against), then don't bother at all with trying to stop the transports - rather spend the points to bother with what comes out of them, and cleaning the transports themselves up later.

And for the emperor's sake, never take autocannons. If you take a hydra, I'll cry myself to sleep tonight.

Holy crap, Hydras and autocannons are fething awesome...

If you don't have hydras, what are you going to do when the fortuned, flat-out wave serpents fly up in your face?

Fl@nked wrote:Quick question, is there any way to beef up ratling LD without using a commissar lord to baby them?

There are a number of ways, both good and bad. The cheapest way is just having a company standard around. With a re-roll, that Ld6 isn't quite so terrible. The worst possible option is to bring a Lord Commissar, who just sucks and is overpriced. If you want a model with a Stubborn Ld bubble, may I humbly suggest the Canoness? Sisters work very well with the IG. That said, while the Canoness rules, bringing her just to babysit ratlings is a terrible waste.

Chaplain Pallantide wrote:Would running Creed/Kell in 1500pts be worth it? If so what would be a good build for them??

I don't think Kell is ever worth it, even in 2500 point games. He is simply superfluous and unnecessary. And no, I would not run Creed in 1500 points. You don't have the points to field an effective flanking force at that game size, and you'd be better off fielding a second CCS (you can buy one in a chimera for 15 points more than Creed).

willydstyle wrote:Holy crap, Hydras and autocannons are fething awesome...

If you don't have hydras, what are you going to do when the fortuned, flat-out wave serpents fly up in your face?

Cry? Or kill them before they get that close?

For me, the list I'm currently building relies on "mass". Namely, I've got 117 infantry models in my 1000 point list, all decked to the teeth with special weapons. In order for the special weapons to cover each other, I need to keep my troops close to each other. The end result is a couple of drop pods crashing down next to large squares of infantry and then me laughing as they patter harmlessly off (and by harmlessly, I mean killing 30 dudes, but me still having that many left over).

What does that look like, ailaros, if I might ask?


On a different note, I'm considering 3 bassies, 2 leman russes, a demolisher 2 vet squads then as many platoon types I can fit into 2000pts.

That's an awful HS set-up. Basilisks are already probably the worst artillery piece, and you're taking three ina squadron!

Russes only stand to lose from squadrons. Their firepower is inferior to artillery, but they make up for it in toughness. Squadrons mean glances can kill you, and pens kill you 50% of the time. And it also makes it easy to chain melta shots and CC attacks onto tanks you'd wouldn't be able reach otherwise. So you're defeating the main advantage of the tank.

Finally, the biggest flaw is how may points you're spending on easily killed HS, leaving hardly anything for adequate troops.