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hey im more of a casual player and i just got some guardsmen and was curious about what HW work on a regular guard squad the best

heavy weapons got whacked pretty hard in 5th ed. Everything get 4+ cover all the time, infantry are twice as fast, and it's now easy for your opponent to deploy large swaths of their army directly into your deployment zone. As such, relying on heavy weapons has never been more foolish than it is now.

As such, the only heavy weapons worth taking at all are ones that are really good at their jobs (note that the number of jobs they are good at has shrunk, which means that you've got to take specific heavy weapons for specific purposes). For example, missile launchers are absolutely laughable against vehicles, but they are still good at taking down highly clustered packs of light infantry and insta-killing T4 annoyances like librarians.

In general, they're less worth taking, not only because 5th ed made them much worse, but because the new codex gave us so many options to do what heavy weapons were good at doing much better (why bring a lascannon heavy weapon squad when you can bring a manticore? etc.)

Personally, I don't take heavy weapons in my squads, and when I take them at all, I like mortars (which didn't suffer from the switch to 5th ed at all), and heavier weapons like lascannons for specific purposes (rather than a catch-all against all vehicles).

Well it all really depends on what your trying to do with your squad. Personally I prefer autocannons and grenade launchers in the same squad for my foot soldiers. I play a hybrid guard list and use these soldiers for long range transport killing. If I'm playing against orks or blob guard though I pair grenade launchers and missile launchers together to lay down two small blasts.

I like Heavy Bolters in with a big blob of guardsmen, and as Ailaros said, Mortars are still a very nice choice. I stick mine near an objective in cover, or just behind a building/forest and lob away until it gets close to the end. I find that heavy weapons teams on their own die far too easily: I play lots against eldar, S6 shooting can wipe out the whole squad far too fast.

I don't like playing against AC squads, as they tend to mince up my rhino's pretty well :(

ML's are good in the sense of versatility. You can krak transports, or as Ailaros pointed out, ID annoying characters on there own, or frag up light troops. They work pretty well against orkses, especially if you have a mortar squad- blow up a trukk, take a pinning test, get fragged by mortars, take another! Although against alot of armies I've found mortars pretty "meh".

Lascannon teams are expensive, i would only go them if you seriously lack some long range AT fire. BS 3 is annoying, but nowhere near as annoying as your tanks/transports dieing to that BS 3!


-edit- Grobbicull brought up a good point- str6+ weapons with lots of shots (Scatterlaser, Assault cannon etc) will tear up HWS very very quickly

grobbicull wrote:I like Heavy Bolters in with a big blob of guardsmen, and as Ailaros said, Mortars are still a very nice choice. I stick mine near an objective in cover, or just behind a building/forest and lob away until it gets close to the end. I find that heavy weapons teams on their own die far too easily: I play lots against eldar, S6 shooting can wipe out the whole squad far too fast.

True enough, but every pricey skimmer taking shots at a 75-point troop unit is not taking shot at your more dangerous elements.

Lascannons and autocannons are my preferred heavy weapons.

Mortars does make an appearance, if I have the points to spare and the inclination to annoy my opponent.
Mortars are also present in my Assault Platoons.

Assault Platoon
A big (3-4 infantry squads) blob of guardsmen with powerweapon sergeants and a Commisar whose role is to assault the enemy. Often supported by Straken, Creed, Al'rahem.

It can be difficult to get 30-40 guardsmen into a close combat as btb and "within 2" of a model in btb" only goes so far.
A number of Mortars (cheap at 5 points) in the frontline helps a lot in that regard. You can get more models within 2" of a Heavy Weapon Team in btb, as compared to getting within 2" of a regular infantry model.
Be warned that some people might consider this "gamey" and will frown upon its practise.

Steelmage99 wrote:Lascannons and autocannons are my preferred heavy weapons.

i agree with this. although since the Vendetta has come roaring into the 5th ed. scene, i rarely use lascannons anymore....

I'm with steelmage and alarmingrick, Lascannons and Autocannons. But it does depend on the rest of your army.

IMHO I believe that HWS are an integral part of any infantry heavy army. It is true what others have said about the rules giving easy cover saves or the BS3 of regular guardsmen making it hard to hit with the heavy weapons, but thats where Orders even out the battlefield. You have two awesome choices for Orders to give to your HWS which include; Bring it Down! -Makes all your weapons TL or Fire on my target! -Makes your opponent re-roll his cover saves. Plus most of the weapons you take give you a very nice range so they can sit back and fire safely for most of the game.

allot of this also depends on orders IMO. Personally I find autocannonw to be the best heavy weapon over all. It can pen rhinos and dreads, has 2 shots and only costs 5 more points than a basic mortar. Lacannons I think are just better on vendettas but thats me. If you are going to use lascannons on infantry models my preference is to use them in line squads as opopsed to HWS. You have more ablative wounds and it just sucks when 1 good shot kills your entire lascannon squad.

I run auto cannons or las cannons in my platoon infantry squads. Auto Cannons if they are inside Chimeras for the second shot since they are bs3 and can't receive orders in a transport. Las Cannons if they are in a large blob of 30-40 because they can benefit from the bring it down order.

Veterans I arm one of 2 ways. First is no heavy weapon 3 melta Veteran squad that drives forward in a Chimera to take objectives and melta vehicles or can load up in a Valkyrie. Second is a Las Cannon, 2-3 Plasma Veteran that sits on my objective and shoots at vehicles, MCs or infantry that fell out of transports.

When I was playing my infantry heavy IG I would play with 2 blobs. 3 Squads combined with ACs and GLs (led by a Commissar) and a 2 Squads combined with LCs and PGs (also led by a Commissar). The 3 Squad blob was used against Infantry with Fire on my Target, and the 2 Squad Blob would use Bring it down.

I think Heavy Bolters are so readily available on the tanks that they are too redundant to be used with Infantry. Mortars should only be used in HW Platoons. I've always been a fan of the mortar (when used in this fashion) and I don't think people take advantage of them enough.

Missile Launcher is still kind of Meh to me. For 5pts more you can get the LC (in an Infantry Squad). True you miss out on the Frag Missile, but really? You should have a minimum of 3 pie-plates a turn with IG anyways.