Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I protest being told that my army is cookie cutter. I CAN run a Mech Vet army, but I don't. Why? I don't like mech vet armies. I prefer a swarm of infantry with a few powerful tanks in support. That's the kind of army I like.

Yes, IG can be cookie cutter. Yes, they can be the same as every other IG army. But you can also have a lot of variety. Mech IG with Artillery support is just one of the man many builds the IG can have. It may be the most competitive, but I don't see it as the most fun.

The IG can be as cookie cutter, or as individualized as you want.

I must really play my guard differently than most. I always like to switch it up with every battle. That way noone really knows what going to come out and I get to experience all my Guard have to offer.

I recently just played against Guard for the first time, and I really dont understand the issue. The guy had 5 LRs and I think 4 Basaliscos. Now if you were to come at him with a frontal charge, that would be dumb. But I was sly and camt from the side with a Deathwing Termie strike. I had to endure a full found of massive bombardments, but only lost 3/11 terminators. A squad of 2 later went on to destroy a tank squadron. I had some luck, but my point is there is always a tactic that you need to try. Basilisks and LRBT cant blow through cover, so use cover. Outflank if you have to to kill the annoying ones. Bring your own firepower if you have to. Anything with an AV 14 might bwe a target, but it should sucks some blows before going...if it goes.

All that being said, I cant wait to go against the Guard again. At the very least, it brings something new to the table thats not MEQ.

I really like playing against guard with my dark eldar, this is because there are many guard lists possible, i play against mech, powerblob, and blob with rough rider support.
It is quite nice to have wiped a couple of squads from the table, only to be bombed to death by a basilisk, who also hits his platoon commander .
Another nice thing is seeing guardsman marbo throw a demo charge on himself, i have seen it today.

my own guard list may be considered "cookie cutter" but, none of my gaming group cries cheese, or internet-listiness, or anything derogatory about it, because i have laid out the fluff for my regiment, and am sticking to it.

and besides, nothing is more fun that running an empty tank right smack in front of a squad of tactical marines, and funnel them straight into my platoon blob.


And actually, our group has hated the Blood Angels since they came out.. and probably will until another marine specialty army gets revamped and becomes OPd.

I can take any list that falls in the top 5 of a tourney and predict, within 80%, excactly what is in that list. To do that with IG is no different than any other army. Why? Because those people took 80% of the best units and the people who didn't lost to these guys in earlier rounds.

Whose got Vanguard vets, scout bikers, venerable dreadnoughts, regular terminators, etc.. in a top marine list?

Whose got Wolf Claws, skyclaws, bikes, and predator destructors in a Space Wolf army?

Whose got looted wagons, flash gitz, rokkit boyz, Old Zogwart, and Zzap Guns in an Ork army?

You will be hard pressed to find more than 20% of these units in any army that finishes top 5. Don't tell me it's only IG. IG have a big inherent flaw in their army Codex that very few other armies have, no counter attack element. Without a counter attack element you HAVE to blow the enemy off the table asap or risk getting assaulted and losing. Ogryns can't hold up to the best assault elements in dozen books. You have to shoot to win. Rough Riders, Sentinels and halfling snipers don't help you do that.

I have been playing Mech Guard and pretty much the same list since 3rd, lots of chimera, lots of elite/vets.
Suddenly other people are copying my list and calling it leafblower... sad so sad.

3rd: Steel legion, lots of vets/storm troopers
4th: Vets in Chimera and lots of them, and storm troopers
5th: Storm trooper are too much for my list (i loved to run 30) and now i have lots of vets in.... Chimera.

I Know how these hard core DE fans feel now, they have been muddleing along with the DE dex for years, now we have so many people jump on the bandwagon. tis the same for me I have been playing "leafblower" for over a decade, suddenly im an internet fanlist boy or some such nonsense... rant over

Ailaros wrote:Clearly, not enough people have played against foot guard.

It may be boring to play against an opponent who plays a static steel wall and blows your stuff up with artillery with little recourse, but it's less boring to blow 120 guardsmen off the table (even if you still wind up losing).

As for too many tanks... yeah... hasn't played against foot guard...

PREACH IT BROTHER!

Dashofpepper wrote:That's the difference - there's pretty much only one IG list that people run.

So in your local meta, you have boring and uncreative guard players. I feel sorry for you. Including myself, there are 4 guard players I've seen at my store. Not once have I seen a leaf blower.

Dashofpepper wrote:Plop me in a grand tournament, and tell me there are IG players there.

Yeah, but that's Grand Tournament, something painfully different than the "entirety of 40k".

It's something that never ceases to baffle me - just because one or two TOURNAMENT series have uncreative guard players does NOT mean that all people across all of the regular world of 40k are following suit.

Of course, GT myopia appears to be uncurable, so...

I agree but since I play orks and IG I have to hate them and like them. Kill maim burn............ I mean for the emporer............. aw this is to confusing

Dashofpepper wrote:
All armies *can* be cookie-cutter, and have particularly popular build.

No army *is* cookie-cutter like IG, with a single build that every player uses.

What's your damage? Not every player uses a mechvet spam list. Just because you play against gakky people in tournaments doesn't mean that everyone, the world over, uses the same stupid list. Don't use blanket terms like this when you have no idea what the hell you're talking about.

ChrisWWII wrote:
So basically you're saying you don't like the concept of the Imperial Guard as a whole? The IG is traditionally meant to spam infantry squads, spam heavy tanks, and spam so many of them that they crush everyone in front of them. The IG are the steamroller of the 41st millenium. Its their lot in life...complaining that the IG spam, or that they steamroll is like complainging that Chaos is good in close combat, or that Eldar are the living embodiement of crippliing overspecialization.

As a matter of fact, yes. I hate IG as a whole. And dilute anything that much and you can pretend to be the best debater in the world.

What IS boring, is having to try to deep strike half of you army and watch the other half be blown away on the first turn. You're telling me Manticore/Vendetta/Mortar spam is fun to play against? Oh, here, let me make my turn take an hour while you have a five minute turn afterwords. My problem is not that they can take so many vehicles, it's that they can take so many powerful vehicles for dirt cheap. Every game I've played against a Guard army is the same. Every game I've watched with a Guard army is the same. My friends and I hate playing against IG because it's boring and aggravating to us. I personally see it as an army setup that requires zero tactics, which I believe has no place in a strategy game.

As for the spamming infantry, I've never seen a Guard player do that. Minimum infantry requirement and spam vehicles for everything else. Pretty fething boring if you ask me.

If an IG army is taking the minimum number of infantry required for a legal list, that's probably the easiest IG army in the world to beat. An IG army with only a couple troops units in a good sized game is going to have some very real problems. If you are having a problem with that kind of army, I don't know what to say. The armies that really are scary are the ones with lots of troops units.

If you are getting blown away so quickly, you probably aren't playing very well. Stop deep striking in front of a tank gunline without some way to put a dent in it and ways to restrict LoS when you come in. Tank parking lots are very easy to engage in such a way as the hulls block each other to restrict direct fire shooting and they can't get blast templates down without hitting their own stuff or risking hitting it with scatter.

And Mortars? Really? That's a cheese weapon?

Yes Vendettas are undercosted, but Manticores are certainly not any worse than a basic LRBT. Sure they can get multiple templates and higher S, but they lack that magical AP3, the ability to effectively move and fire, are useful for nothing but a mobile heavy bolter after turn 4 if they live that long, and are no harder to kill than a chimera.

The Fragile Breath wrote:
What IS boring, is having to try to deep strike half of you army and watch the other half be blown away on the first turn. You're telling me Manticore/Vendetta/Mortar spam is fun to play against? Oh, here, let me make my turn take an hour while you have a five minute turn afterwords. My problem is not that they can take so many vehicles, it's that they can take so many powerful vehicles for dirt cheap. Every game I've played against a Guard army is the same. Every game I've watched with a Guard army is the same. My friends and I hate playing against IG because it's boring and aggravating to us. I personally see it as an army setup that requires zero tactics, which I believe has no place in a strategy game.

As for the spamming infantry, I've never seen a Guard player do that. Minimum infantry requirement and spam vehicles for everything else. Pretty fething boring if you ask me.

Yes as a matter of fact, it is. At least if you play well...tell me, why are you deepstirking in clear view of the massed tank gunline? You should deepstrike in cover, or better yet, deepstrike behind the tanks, or so close to them that they won't be willing to risk the shot/won't be able to bring their full firepower to bear. There's a reason gunline IG has fallen out of favor, and that reason is deepstrikers and outflankers. A blinde Leeroy Jenkins esque charge is the paper to a gunlines scissors. You're going to lose in that situation. So change up your tactics some. See if it's the same then.

You can take a max of 3 Manticores, and even that is arguably a bad idea cause your heavy support slots are all full, and you can't take anything else to balance your list. Vendettas can be taken in large numbers, but they can't deal with a swarm very easily. Mortars...Mortars? Seriously? A S4, AP6 weapon is cheesy? What's next, lasguns are cheesy?

I really don't think that any army requires ZERO tactics. Even Mech IG is not an 'I win' button. The IG has no death star which is a point and click, I win button. Leman Russes are fragile in close combat, and AV14 dies within melta range. Blobs die to flamers and large blasts. The IG has some powerful builds, but it can be taken apart. YWhat you may be seeing is that the IG is not a tactical army, it's a strategic army. It doesn't do well trying to change up plans on the fly, it does much better focussing on a pre-arranged plan to take victory. So, maybe you have a point...but it's not a zero tactics army.

I think the problem here isn't that IG sucks it's that youh ave a bad IG player. No sane IG player would go minimum troops and load the toys on heavily. That's a horrible build! A cheesy IG player would have 4-6 mech vets, with maybe some manticores/basilisks or hydras in heavy support. I have never seen an IG player do nothing but spam tanks and win. Tanks are support. Not the core. I am willing to bet it'd be pretty easy to take apart a tank spam IG force with any competitive army.

The Fragile Breath wrote:

ChrisWWII wrote:
So basically you're saying you don't like the concept of the Imperial Guard as a whole? The IG is traditionally meant to spam infantry squads, spam heavy tanks, and spam so many of them that they crush everyone in front of them. The IG are the steamroller of the 41st millenium. Its their lot in life...complaining that the IG spam, or that they steamroll is like complainging that Chaos is good in close combat, or that Eldar are the living embodiement of crippliing overspecialization.

As a matter of fact, yes. I hate IG as a whole. And dilute anything that much and you can pretend to be the best debater in the world.

What IS boring, is having to try to deep strike half of you army and watch the other half be blown away on the first turn. You're telling me Manticore/Vendetta/Mortar spam is fun to play against? Oh, here, let me make my turn take an hour while you have a five minute turn afterwords. My problem is not that they can take so many vehicles, it's that they can take so many powerful vehicles for dirt cheap. Every game I've played against a Guard army is the same. Every game I've watched with a Guard army is the same. My friends and I hate playing against IG because it's boring and aggravating to us. I personally see it as an army setup that requires zero tactics, which I believe has no place in a strategy game.

As for the spamming infantry, I've never seen a Guard player do that. Minimum infantry requirement and spam vehicles for everything else. Pretty fething boring if you ask me.

So let me get this straight.. you and your friends hate guard cause.... why exactly? All I (and apparently others as well) read from this is that the lot of you need to improve your game.

Mortars are NOT over powered. If you think that then you must think lasguns are the uber cheese of 40k..

Vendetta spam looks good on paper, but is pretty easy to take down if you know what you are doing...

Yes, guard have a ton of armor options... but saying that they ALL are pure cheese and under cost is a total waste of a statement. Some vehicles cost more then a damn land raider and have less BS and AV.. not to mention can't carry a squad assault termies who have a 3+ everything save and can assault from it.

Not to mention if you stick Pask of a vehicle...

Hate to break it to you... but if you think 40k is a true strategy game, then you need to have your eyes opened to the wide world outside GW.

Also, how long have you been playing 40k for? Cause no offense, but your statements reek of "young" player.

Wow, some nice nerd rage.

First off, I didn't say Mortars are cheesy, I said they annoy me. Pinning is a bitch in objective matches. Annoyance =/= broken, I didn't cry broken on them, you brought that one out.

Second, who the hell said I'm deep striking out in the open? It was one example, I'm glad you all feel you can analyze my tactics with what little I've said.

More than anything, I'm saying what annoys my friends and I, trying to convince someone that they're not annoyed by something is just silly.

Something that the lot of you are missing (justifiable, yes, because I forgot to mention) is that we haven't played anything other than objective matches, and recently our IG player has just been spamming mortars for pinning on our troops which is aggravating, and I haven't been using Tyranids as of late. He hasn't given me a game with my Tyranids since I've written up a different list, just several occasions of (IMO) bad sportsmanship has left the lot of us grudges. As we all love heavy infantry armies, tons of large blasts blowing away our models was a great annoyance.

We have come up with lists to counter it, and they do that quite well, but that drastic of a style change just isn't fun for us. If you want to question my ability, maybe you should look into the fact that I've lost three out of my thirty something games. Once to Wolves, twice to Guard.

So yes, the IG hate has deflated a bit, but when it first came into our group, we were all pissed. None of us have fun against IG, and that is our number one gripe. If you want to complain at me for not liking something that's not fun (for us) to play against, you clearly need something better to do.

its a board game.


deal with it

The Fragile Breath wrote:Wow, some nice nerd rage.

First off, I didn't say Mortars are cheesy, I said they annoy me. Pinning is a bitch in objective matches. Annoyance =/= broken, I didn't cry broken on them, you brought that one out.

Second, who the hell said I'm deep striking out in the open? It was one example, I'm glad you all feel you can analyze my tactics with what little I've said.

More than anything, I'm saying what annoys my friends and I, trying to convince someone that they're not annoyed by something is just silly.

Something that the lot of you are missing (justifiable, yes, because I forgot to mention) is that we haven't played anything other than objective matches, and recently our IG player has just been spamming mortars for pinning on our troops which is aggravating, and I haven't been using Tyranids as of late. He hasn't given me a game with my Tyranids since I've written up a different list, just several occasions of (IMO) bad sportsmanship has left the lot of us grudges. As we all love heavy infantry armies, tons of large blasts blowing away our models was a great annoyance.

We have come up with lists to counter it, and they do that quite well, but that drastic of a style change just isn't fun for us. If you want to question my ability, maybe you should look into the fact that I've lost three out of my thirty something games. Once to Wolves, twice to Guard.

So yes, the IG hate has deflated a bit, but when it first came into our group, we were all pissed. None of us have fun against IG, and that is our number one gripe. If you want to complain at me for not liking something that's not fun (for us) to play against, you clearly need something better to do.

Sure tell signs of failed argument:

* Use "nerd rage" as a justified argument when someone disagree with your view
* Attempt to shift blame/focus.. multiple times
* Run around the point and throw down straw man arguments

Are you done yet? Cause clearly we want to hear much more of your biased opinion on guard.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

redguardsman wrote:its a board game.


deal with it

+1

Uh... The nerd rage bit was a joke, and you merely tiptoed around the rest of my points.

I'm in a Logic class, good sir. Where did I commit the "straw man" fallacy?

Putting on blinders helps one's argument as you can't see the other side of things.

Must not be doing very well then in your class.

Arguing a point using information that you dropped out of thin air while at the same time failing to defend your position and prove that guard are actually cheesy... and not so just because you and your friends say they are.

As for "tiptoeing", well duh.. id rather watch re-runs of friends then argue with a biased person.

The Fragile Breath wrote:First off, I didn't say Mortars are cheesy, I said they annoy me. Pinning is a bitch in objective matches. Annoyance =/= broken, I didn't cry broken on them, you brought that one out.

Listing them along side Manticores and Vendettas seriously made it look like you were calling mortars broken and cheesy. And how the heck are they pinning you? If you're deepstriking half your army, you're probably playing daemons, and daemons are fearless anyway. Heck, a lot of people say that pinning is a nigh useless rule just because everything has such high leadership or re-rolls or fearless or whatever. I have honestly never seen pinning become an issue in games.

Second, who the hell said I'm deep striking out in the open? It was one example, I'm glad you all feel you can analyze my tactics with what little I've said.

Well if you're being utterly annhilated by a single shooting phase, you're probably not behind cover or anything to lessen the impact of the fire, thus you're likely being out in the open without anything to save you from the wall of fire the IG can put out. Like any other faction, the IG has strengths and weaknesses. You have to exploit those weaknesses to win.

Something that the lot of you are missing (justifiable, yes, because I forgot to mention) is that we haven't played anything other than objective matches, and recently our IG player has just been spamming mortars for pinning on our troops which is aggravating, and I haven't been using Tyranids as of late. He hasn't given me a game with my Tyranids since I've written up a different list, just several occasions of (IMO) bad sportsmanship has left the lot of us grudges. As we all love heavy infantry armies, tons of large blasts blowing away our models was a great annoyance.

Alright, so we've found the problem. The IG player is a TFG, and you aren't evolving your lists to deal with them. The first one isn't gonna change very easilyl, but the second one can be fixed with a little bit of change to your lists. Don't spam infantry, bring in a horde of MCs or tanks or whatever. Things mortars can't harm, and Leman Ruses will have a hard time cracking.

Now you later on in your post say that you HAVE changed your list to deal with him, and dealt with him quite well in such situations. To me, that shows that your problem with IG was not with the IG itself, but was instead with the list you were running against the IG. I personally view this kind of evolution with the meta game to be a key part of 40k. Clearly we disagree on that point.

So yes, the IG hate has deflated a bit, but when it first came into our group, we were all pissed. None of us have fun against IG, and that is our number one gripe. If you want to complain at me for not liking something that's not fun (for us) to play against, you clearly need something better to do.

We're not arguing with you for not liking what's not fun for you. We're pointing out that it's very possible to tear apart an IG army, and they are not a broken army. You yourself earlier said that IG had no tactics, and was just point and click to win. We were arguing that it does require tactics, it is very possible to crush them, and yes. If you don't have fun changing your list to deal with a changing meta, then oh well. You're going to be annoyed no matter what. Fair enough. We just want to cure you of your belief that the IG are a broken army.

ChrisWWII wrote:

The Fragile Breath wrote:First off, I didn't say Mortars are cheesy, I said they annoy me. Pinning is a bitch in objective matches. Annoyance =/= broken, I didn't cry broken on them, you brought that one out.

Listing them along side Manticores and Vendettas seriously made it look like you were calling mortars broken and cheesy. And how the heck are they pinning you? If you're deepstriking half your army, you're probably playing daemons, and daemons are fearless anyway. Heck, a lot of people say that pinning is a nigh useless rule just because everything has such high leadership or re-rolls or fearless or whatever. I have honestly never seen pinning become an issue in games.

Second, who the hell said I'm deep striking out in the open? It was one example, I'm glad you all feel you can analyze my tactics with what little I've said.

Well if you're being utterly annhilated by a single shooting phase, you're probably not behind cover or anything to lessen the impact of the fire, thus you're likely being out in the open without anything to save you from the wall of fire the IG can put out. Like any other faction, the IG has strengths and weaknesses. You have to exploit those weaknesses to win.

Something that the lot of you are missing (justifiable, yes, because I forgot to mention) is that we haven't played anything other than objective matches, and recently our IG player has just been spamming mortars for pinning on our troops which is aggravating, and I haven't been using Tyranids as of late. He hasn't given me a game with my Tyranids since I've written up a different list, just several occasions of (IMO) bad sportsmanship has left the lot of us grudges. As we all love heavy infantry armies, tons of large blasts blowing away our models was a great annoyance.

Alright, so we've found the problem. The IG player is a TFG, and you aren't evolving your lists to deal with them. The first one isn't gonna change very easilyl, but the second one can be fixed with a little bit of change to your lists. Don't spam infantry, bring in a horde of MCs or tanks or whatever. Things mortars can't harm, and Leman Ruses will have a hard time cracking.

Now you later on in your post say that you HAVE changed your list to deal with him, and dealt with him quite well in such situations. To me, that shows that your problem with IG was not with the IG itself, but was instead with the list you were running against the IG. I personally view this kind of evolution with the meta game to be a key part of 40k. Clearly we disagree on that point.

So yes, the IG hate has deflated a bit, but when it first came into our group, we were all pissed. None of us have fun against IG, and that is our number one gripe. If you want to complain at me for not liking something that's not fun (for us) to play against, you clearly need something better to do.

We're not arguing with you for not liking what's not fun for you. We're pointing out that it's very possible to tear apart an IG army, and they are not a broken army. You yourself earlier said that IG had no tactics, and was just point and click to win. We were arguing that it does require tactics, it is very possible to crush them, and yes. If you don't have fun changing your list to deal with a changing meta, then oh well. You're going to be annoyed no matter what. Fair enough. We just want to cure you of your belief that the IG are a broken army.

Very well said.

I've got a perfect score in my class. Just aced our test last week. You still didn't say what my "straw man" argument was. You took a lot more out of what I said than, you know, what I said. I've been stating my opinions this whole time. I never said that they were cheesy, you guys brought that one out, I said we didn't like to play against them and I gave you the reasons why. Yes, I am biased, we have one Guard player and we all hate playing against his Guard, maybe I should have been clearer in that he's the only Guard player we've played, so I'll give you that one.

Interestingly enough, at some point, if the builds are all cookie cutter, is that the fault of the players or the fault of the codex?

The Fragile Breath wrote:You're telling me Manticore/Vendetta/Mortar spam is fun to play against?

This was what I said and I stand by it. Did I cry broken? No. Did I cry cheese? No. Did I say it's boring to play against? Yes. You're blowing it out of context.

Polonius wrote:Interestingly enough, at some point, if the builds are all cookie cutter, is that the fault of the players or the fault of the codex?

I would say an equal mixture of both.

50% = Cause the players don't want to be creative and play outside the box (outside TO play)

50% = Cause the codex doesn't allow for enough equal powered builds


Automatically Appended Next Post:
So.. your entire opinion is based off one guy and his army?

Wow.

Just... Wow.

Okay, I was in the middle of a response and didn't see those posts. It seems we've been on different pages, and I apologize if I've come off as rude.

The deep striking thing is something I do with my DE sometimes. And it's not so much "not wanting to evolve" as much as liking the freedom of picking different units that I like to run while staying viable, whereas against Guard it almost becomes necessary to spam Zoanthropes, just to throw out an example.

Edit: I'd agree that that most of this should be regarded as "hatred for TFG IG player" and not the army itself.

Edit: I'd agree that that most of this should be regarded as "hatred for TFG IG player" and not the army itself.

This makes much more sense, and can apply to any army, gakky players are not fun period.

To answer the OP's question - you should play what you enjoy. It's a game, and if you enjoy IG go for it. Any army that sees high level competitive play like IG and Space Wolves will get some kind of bad press, and if you earnestly think they aren't favored in that scene you are out of your mind. Some unconventional armies make it in there to, but nobody is surprised to see a ton of IG and Space Wolves in the finals. Most the guys at that level are competitive enough that they don't really care. It's kind of assumed most the guys there are going to take every advantage they can.

On the local scene, I really wouldn't care one way or the other. Unless you are a megalomaniac that has to win, you can have a fun casual game with any army and not be "that guy". Not being "that guy" is more about how you play than what you play with, although fielding an ultra optimized leafblower list and being over competitive can get you that status pretty quick. Playing what is fun doesn't always line up with playing what is optimal either. I really wouldn't field a chaos dreadnought or raptors if it was a tournament setting, but I do it regularly at home just for kicks.

The short of it: play whatever happens to wet your whistle, put together lists that are as fun as they are competitive, and relax

But here's the thing: are you saying that IG players are inherently less creative? Or more inherently cheesy?

Basically, my question is thus: are IG armies the way they are because of who plays them, or because of how to play IG effectively?