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Covered a small bit in this post about the Manticore. Seems like weapon destroyed is the end of weapon !!

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/236117.page#661870

I'm not really scared of Imperial Guard as much as I am afraid of Imperial Guard Players. I mean seriously have you seen these guys?! They are either scary, creepy, unwashed gamers or muscle-bound ex-cons likely to gut you with a shiv if you so much as argue about a cover save!

At least thats been my experience....

The simplest reason is because Leafblower is the must ubar list evar!!!111!!lolololol.

In all seriousness, because the Imperial Guard codex was really solidly built. Unlike a lot of armies, it has very few crap units and even most of those can be taken and can work properly if you build your army around them. Contrast with say Orks or Chaos Space Marines, where taking Flash Gitz/Stormboyz/Looted Wagons in the former case, Possessed/Noise Marines/Thousand Sons/Reaper-Terminators/Spawn/Bikers/etc in the latter case is setting you up to lose. (Or Vespids/Krootox/Ethereals/Skyrays/etc. for Tau, etc, etc...).

So in this regards, it's like the old Chaos Codex people complained about being overpowered back in the day because they had way too many options, and many a 40k player (no offense to anyone in particular, but this is the way it tends to be) tends to be a feeble-minded Chicken Little who is prone to panic, and forgets these loads of options compete with each other. While the Guard can do an infantry gunline, an aircav army, an artillery company, a wall of Chimeras (bring mobile firepower to sidesnipe them durr), or minor hybrids of each ones, people assume they'll face all those armies at the same time.

On a minor related note, look at the panic that occured with the Blood Angel codex. Cheaper Devestators and Rifledreads, Fast Vindicators and Predators...all in the same Heavy Support slot.

Manticore The unit that makes people pay for grouping to closely to each other. Only 4 turns worth of shooting but almost pays for itself and then some in spades.

I'll second that! I've been slowly painting an IG army for a friend of mine, and he was so stoked to get the custom Manticore I put together. He rolled that thing out at a tournament, and it either seriously disrupted his opponents' tactics (ie, they spread their armies all over the board when they saw it) or, if they didn't know what it was, it reaped a terrifying harvest of ANY troop concentrations ('specially an opponent playing orks.) It didn't make him invincible, but it sure made the other player's job a LOT harder.

He gave rave reviews of the Demolisher too, saying that it soaked up a LOT of punishment and dealt out a great deal in turn. As was already mentioned, IG's heavy use of template weapons, especially VERY strong ones like the Manticore's rockets (which are ridiculously long-range, and drop D3 warheads each, IIRC) and the Demolisher cannon, go a long way towards making up for their BS3.

MagicJuggler wrote:In all seriousness, because the Imperial Guard codex was really solidly built.

Borris the Blade wrote:What makes the IG so tough, at least in my opinion, is the codex is very undercosted on too many units for what they do. Then on top of this they have answers for pretty much everything that you can throw at them and their units have great synergy.

Right. I don't think the units are particularly undercosted or overpowered in and of themselves, it's just that their power can be multiplied very well when all of the units support each other (moreso than other codecies). I mean, defeating most armies has traditionally been a matter of identifying their one cheese unit and wiping it out and watching your opponent fail. Armies are now moving away from this, and the new guard codex just happens to be a really good example of this.

Borris the Blade wrote:
Chimera Armor 12 front with 5 fire points with a multi laser + Hvy Flamer or Hvy Bolter that carries 12 for only 55 points. Usually with 3 Melta guns inside with a hvy weapon using an autocannon. Some times 3 Plasma Guns instead of the Melta Guns.

Firstly, you've got to remember that unless your opponent is running 2x heavy flamers on their chimeras and always manage to get into your lines, chimeras actually have really cruddy firepower for their points. Really, you're paying 55 points for a transport that is neither fast, nor is it a skimmer (so, terrain problems), nor can it deepstrike. The reason its so cheap is because it's basically a lumbering piece of AV12 that gets snarled in terrain and only has the opportunity to drop off T3 BS3 models. That doesn't seem particularly undercosted to me.

Borris the Blade wrote:
Vandettas / Valks This unit with Veteran Troops inside with Melta bombs and Demolitions, can allow a first turn kill on a Land Raider. If you go first your opponent can do nothing about it. A very undercosted unit for what it does. Valks rain down destruction and become a total thorn in your butt until you deal with it, but for 150ish points its worth being a fire magnet.

You've got to remember, though, that the guard used to have drop troops. For way fewer points they were already able to show up with 3x melta vets and you couldn't do anything about it. Now we can still do this, but we have to pay many more points (no more 5x vet squads, and vendettas are expensive). Plus, most other armies have the ability to show up out of nowhere and blow up a vehicle for "free", so it wouldn't make sense to purposely single out the guard for this. In any case, spending 260 points for a vendetta with 3x melta vets and demolitions hardly seems undercosted to me.

Borris the Blade wrote:
Orders Need a target to gain no cover? Np. Need that unit of 50 IG to get 3 shots each rather then 2? Np. Need your heavy weapon teams to get twin linked weapon shots? Np. Need to move at double speed? Np

The thing that's nice about orders is that they're flexible. They're not nearly as powerful as other armies' upgrades. While you're stuck getting a single unit or two of BS3 guardsmen trying to ignore cover, a marine sternguard can take BS4 bolter shots that ignore cover automatically. I mean, orders are nice, but they're still being used on relatively cruddy individual units who still have to pass a low leadership test in order to be able to accept them.

Borris the Blade wrote:
Officer of the Fleet and Astropath Not flashy units but they can cripple the opponent with subtle table wide abilities. -1 to opponents reserve rolls and flanking units can be made to reroll the side they come in on. The other allows your units to gain a +1 on reserve rolls.

Now this, I like. The guard army is littered with metagame goodies, and not just in the CCS. I expect more armies will have things like this in the future.

Scott-S6 wrote:

Gavo wrote:Remember, a single weapon destroyed result kills all the remaining rockets.

Where did you get that from? It's not armed with a manticore launcher, it's armed with 4xStorm Eagle Rockets.

Look under Wargear. It states that it has:
-Storm Eagle Rockets
-Heavy Bolter
-Searchlights
-Smoke Launchers

Now, if it said that that it had: Storm Eagle Rocket, Storm Eagle Rocket, Storm Eagle Rocket, Storm Eagle Rocket, then you could destroy an individual one. Since it states only one wargear entry, you destroy it and all of them are gone.

By that definition, you destroy sponsons in a single attack.

Except you don't.

Melissia wrote:By that definition, you destroy sponsons in a single attack.

Except you don't.

Keep in mind when you buy sponsons, you buy "a pair of", which means it gets 2.

Yes. Just like you have four Storm Eagle Rockets, not one...

I would be strongly inclined to think that it's one Storm Eagle Rocket destroyed. Probably something that belongs in you make da' call though.

Case of rules as written vs rules as intended?

I could see it either way. I think it comes down to how it's described in the codex. If it says you get four shots, then all rockets are blown in a single weapon destroyed result. If it says you get four rockets then you have to destroy each remaining (non-fired) rocket with individual weapon destroyed results.

gardeth wrote:I'm not really scared of Imperial Guard as much as I am afraid of Imperial Guard Players. I mean seriously have you seen these guys?! They are either scary, creepy, unwashed gamers or muscle-bound ex-cons likely to gut you with a shiv if you so much as argue about a cover save!

At least thats been my experience....

Wait...I have never been to prison and bathe regularly.....

The war gear says storm eagle rockets, but the special rule says they only have 4 turns of shooting. This tells me that there is 1 rocket launcher which happens to be stocked with enough ammo to fire 4 times.

If the weapons profile indicated that storm eagle rocket were one shot weapons and that there were four of them, then each weapon destroyed result would kill one rocket. For examples of this look at the missiles on Valks and the rockets on the BA storm raven.

SlaveToDorkness wrote:Wait...I have never been to prison and bathe regularly.....

Oh, so you're just scary and creepy then

Ailaros wrote:As an imperial guard player, I can honestly say I've lost a fair number of games.

Gasp! Shock! The Visionary is flawed!? Do you mean to say that reality dares go contrary to your contrived mathematics? Heresy!

Melissia wrote:By that definition, you destroy sponsons in a single attack.

Except you don't.

Right, but sponsons are purchased as a pair of weapons, and are treated as separate entities for the purposes of firing. The Tau codex, for example, makes a clear distinction between the various sponson options of PAIR of gun drones, or PAIR of burst cannons, or the smart missile system (which is destroyed on a single result).

Then let's look at the Manticore itself. There is clearly a guidance/targetting system (i.e. turret), and then a limited ammunition supply of four rockets. In the tank's description and in the army list, its wargear is stated to include "Storm eagle rockets" (and then has a special rule called limited ammunition), not "Four Storm Eagle rockets". The closest comparison is the Storm Raven, which has "four Bloodstrike missiles" as its wargear. The hurricane bolters of the Crusader are also composed of four weapons, yet the whole thing goes on one destroyed result.

Come on folks, let's be reasonable here. I use two manticores a lot, and I love the hell out of them, and I'm far from the nicest guy around, but never have I even imagined the levels of sheer dicketry (dickatude?) required to claim each missile is a separate weapon. Like every other piece of IG ordnance, the manticore only has one primary weapon.

Loricatus Aurora wrote:
What makes them tick, what are their favourite tricks or 'cheese' and how do you give yourself (as SM or CSM player) a better than average chance of beating them?

By mastering the art of chasing down and smashing Leman russ tanks and artillery pieces. I dunno about anyone else, but THOSE are what kill me in IG armies.

Nice one Jihallah, bringing back on topic.

Theme throughout is artillery and tanks.

Obvious answer is godhammer however have seen a lot of comments about how effective Valks are at taking them out, meaning a large hole in points from the get go.

One CSM variation I reckon is worth trying is starting 2x possessed vindis behind a LR, charge everything first turn & pop smoke/use cover and shield the Vindis behind the LR then assuming LR survives, from there start deploying large ordinance/TL Lascannons against Guard armour.

Having said that hearing of 10 armour pieces perhaps targeting vehicles to cause traffic jams might not be a waste of time either.

Still like the idea of an orbital strike - hard to argue with that if you get it landing correctly.

Ailaros wrote:

MagicJuggler wrote:In all seriousness, because the Imperial Guard codex was really solidly built.

Borris the Blade wrote:What makes the IG so tough, at least in my opinion, is the codex is very undercosted on too many units for what they do. Then on top of this they have answers for pretty much everything that you can throw at them and their units have great synergy.

Right. I don't think the units are particularly undercosted or overpowered in and of themselves, it's just that their power can be multiplied very well when all of the units support each other (moreso than other codecies). I mean, defeating most armies has traditionally been a matter of identifying their one cheese unit and wiping it out and watching your opponent fail. Armies are now moving away from this, and the new guard codex just happens to be a really good example of this.

Borris the Blade wrote:
Chimera Armor 12 front with 5 fire points with a multi laser + Hvy Flamer or Hvy Bolter that carries 12 for only 55 points. Usually with 3 Melta guns inside with a hvy weapon using an autocannon. Some times 3 Plasma Guns instead of the Melta Guns.

Firstly, you've got to remember that unless your opponent is running 2x heavy flamers on their chimeras and always manage to get into your lines, chimeras actually have really cruddy firepower for their points. Really, you're paying 55 points for a transport that is neither fast, nor is it a skimmer (so, terrain problems), nor can it deepstrike. The reason its so cheap is because it's basically a lumbering piece of AV12 that gets snarled in terrain and only has the opportunity to drop off T3 BS3 models. That doesn't seem particularly undercosted to me.

I'm going to have to disagree. Why are your veterans getting out of the chimera? you can fire their 3 meltas out of the top. Secondly, they don't have cruddy firepower for their points, they're 55 points Front armour 12 with 5 fire points. Any guns on that are a bonus I may as well say my rhino has cruddy firepower for its points...

Ailaros wrote:

Borris the Blade wrote:
Vandettas / Valks This unit with Veteran Troops inside with Melta bombs and Demolitions, can allow a first turn kill on a Land Raider. If you go first your opponent can do nothing about it. A very undercosted unit for what it does. Valks rain down destruction and become a total thorn in your butt until you deal with it, but for 150ish points its worth being a fire magnet.

You've got to remember, though, that the guard used to have drop troops. For way fewer points they were already able to show up with 3x melta vets and you couldn't do anything about it. Now we can still do this, but we have to pay many more points (no more 5x vet squads, and vendettas are expensive). Plus, most other armies have the ability to show up out of nowhere and blow up a vehicle for "free", so it wouldn't make sense to purposely single out the guard for this. In any case, spending 260 points for a vendetta with 3x melta vets and demolitions hardly seems undercosted to me.

Before vets weren't a scoring unit, couldn't do it on the first turn and could only get into melta range on a "hit" on the scatter die. Yeah, vendettas are expensive but after their scout move you get 3 lascannons into the side arc of something. I really feel your pain. They're not there just to drop off your veterans you know, they also coincidently happen to be one of the most overgunned vehicles in the game...

Ailaros wrote:

Borris the Blade wrote:
Orders Need a target to gain no cover? Np. Need that unit of 50 IG to get 3 shots each rather then 2? Np. Need your heavy weapon teams to get twin linked weapon shots? Np. Need to move at double speed? Np

The thing that's nice about orders is that they're flexible. They're not nearly as powerful as other armies' upgrades. While you're stuck getting a single unit or two of BS3 guardsmen trying to ignore cover, a marine sternguard can take BS4 bolter shots that ignore cover automatically. I mean, orders are nice, but they're still being used on relatively cruddy individual units who still have to pass a low leadership test in order to be able to accept them.

You mean a 25 point non scoring T4 3+sv sternguard or did the book change when i wasn't looking? Why are you ordering your infantry platoons to do anything? they don't do anything above and beyond what you can get elsewhere in your army for cheaper.

Ailaros wrote:

Borris the Blade wrote:
Officer of the Fleet and Astropath Not flashy units but they can cripple the opponent with subtle table wide abilities. -1 to opponents reserve rolls and flanking units can be made to reroll the side they come in on. The other allows your units to gain a +1 on reserve rolls.

Now this, I like. The guard army is littered with metagame goodies, and not just in the CCS. I expect more armies will have things like this in the future.

Lessee why a Veteran would want to get out? Cannot fire at Cruising Speed unless they disembark. Realistically, what opponent is slowed enough to place his vehicles within 6"+move Meltarange. It's not like your opponent won't be able to sidesnipe your metal boxes as you advance to midfield...

And Vendettas are good. But look at the drawbacks. They're big, ungainly things which are impossible to find cover for, their Scout Move can be hemmed in by infiltrating dickery, and their wings give them such a big top-down view that blast weapons work against them.

I think the real key to beating IG is killing the massive amounts of Chimeras.

Chimera are 12/10/10 so deploy heavy weapons on the flanks. It's rather easy to get a side shot on a Chimera when heavy weapons are deployed on the flanks. People just need to put more thought and planning into getting shots off at a Chimera's juicy AV10 sides. A lack of planning will result in being forced to shoot at a Chimera's very tough AV12 front.

In many deployments the IG players often have a lot of Chimeras crammed into a small location. If a few are wrecked, immobilized, or stuns it can quickly turn into a giant parking lot / motor pool. If that happens it's often a disaster for the IG. 1 or 2 units of MEQ can tear through multiple chimeras a turn multi charging with a power fist and krak grenades. It's a rather nasty situation that IG can fall into if the IG player isn't careful to avoid it.

Yep - lascannon squads on the rear deployment areas for:

Crossfire side shots on chimeras
Preventing or limiting Vandetta infliltrate with 'dickery'
Armoured boxes on objectives

Prob worth throwing Hunter Killer Missiles on these Rhinos to add to that Lacannon goodness - with luck 2 of those troops could result in 4 en vehicles down first turn (ie lascannon and HK from the vehicle)

Not a solve and still plays to IG strengths (sitting in backcourt and shooting) but sounds from threads here like a nice part of dealing with IG and to compliment the assault units moving foward to start carving up those GEQ

In my favoured list I have 2 Basilisks that sit back and fire, 1-2 Heavy Weapons teams that do the same, while the rest is an entire footslogging batallion.

Against CC armies such as 'Nids, BA, SW and a few chaos armies (Hell, anyone better than IG in close combat) I sit back and try to blast them to smithereens before the reach my gunline. It's not fun for the opposing player until they either Deepstrike into my core or get into charge range. If they do that it quickly gets very nasty, very messy and very fun.

Against ranged (Tau other IG) armies, I'm viewed as fairly suicidal in my approach. Have the Basilisks and Heavy Weapons shoot as roughly 100 models of IG platoons run across no mans land. The best fun I had in such a match was against another similar IG army with 2 Leman Russes instead of Basiliks and they had Creed. Best fun in ages. I got shot to gak, but the sight of 50 IG tearing into another 30 or so IG (and getting forced into a draw) had me laughing.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I've noted that against my list Eldar don't hold up so well unless they are vehichle heavy. If they neutralise my Basilisks (which isn't as hard as it sounds) quickly then they have me at thier mercy.

The problem with sideswiping chimeras is that a smart IG gamer will get them to advance in a formation that makes it difficult to get a side armor shot. If you're like me you would advance with escorts, usually 2 LRBT, guarding the flanks. Also, they usually advance with a helluvalot of cover fire, combined with valks/vends bombing your lines and suddenly getting into sideswiping position is quite difficult.

Lots of S8 AP3 large blasts and autocannons. Nasty combination against Sisters.

Sisters beating IG is a crap shoot. The question is, can enough of your rhinos survive to close range with them? That comes down to luck more often than not. The IG don't need too terribly much luck to blow open a big chunk of your transports, either. Your best hope is that they spend a lot of their fire on your Exorcists, in that case you've got a chance. And Exorcists are pretty devastating against AV12, so they often do. I wish there was some kind of special trick, some way to get around the problem, but there isn't. I suppose you can hide rhinos behind Exorcists, but you can only get 3 rhinos totally behind 3 exorcists with their front armor facing out, plus those rhinos are stuck a good deal back behind the Exorcists.

A tempting way to try and beat the alpha strike is to use a Land Raider, which can shield a whole bunch of your army. I've never tested it though, and I've never heard from someone who's done so successfully. It's just not an easy list to make. Maybe that's what I'll bend my mind to next, though: a viable SoB army that includes a 'Raider as a turn 1 anti alpha-strike wall.

Simplest way for many armies to beat a Guard air-rush is bring an infiltrating unit. Infiltrate near enemy gunships. Prevent them scouting meltavets next to your vehicles.

I have never beaten my brother's IG with my CSM. I don't know what it is, I just can't get into the right mindset to fight them. Maybe it's intimidation from the army, Maybe it's from my bro, Idk.

Gaurd are spamtastic.Also,there heavy weapons kill everything.So,the only way to beat guard with csm is to stay in cover and wait for them to come to you,picking off tanks with las cannons.

Melissia wrote:Maybe Dark Angels should go write some bad emo poetry then, it might increase their W/L ratio.

I have no problem with IG with my Dual-wing list's Unless of course it is under 1500 points =P.

Gives them less shooting time against me, and the way I make my 2+/5+ saves, I never have a problem =D!

Something interesting about Chaos Space Marines is that the preferred netlist, the so-called "only competitive build" of Dual-Lash+PlagueMarines+Obliterators is so much fodder for the Imperial Guard.

The Lash of Submission, as we should all know by now, is useless against mechanized troops. If it is not completely useless, that is because the unit it is being used on has been shot out of its ride. The Daemon Prince will have his ethereal ass handed to him by Imperial Guard Infantry Platoons, and getting close enough to open a few metal boxes will mean getting close enough to get shot back to the Warp.

Plague Marines were perhaps designed to be crushed by the big guns of the Imperial Guard, and at a point for point rate higher than any other Chaos Space Marine Troop choice. More importantly they have no integral heavy weaponry, meaning they need to close with the enemy to be anything other than cannon fodder worse than Lesser Daemons.

Obliterators should great anti-Imperial Guard, but their vulnerability to Instant Death means that all the big guns of the Imperial Guard will wreck them, and their extremely limited numbers mean that stuff like Autocannons and Lasguns will too. If they hang back and shoot, then congratulations you just spent 225pts on three Lascannons. If they Deep Strike to use Meltas, then you end up spending 225pts on three Melta shots. On the bright side they'll have 2x the wounds that a 'Termicide' squad would have.