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Thanks for posting the results and battle reports!

Now for some questions and thoughts....

sumi808 wrote:IG
Lord Commissar - good for close combat, basically a sargent with more attacks. Camo cloak ? I rolled terrible :(. Good unit but died waaaay to fast
Platoon 1 - good meat shield, thats about it
Platoon 2 - useful firepower but need more men, lots more men.
3 Demolishers - put the hurt on when I really needed them to. Suffer though against monsterous creatues, can only do 1 wound against them per turn. Very fun to play with and stuffed over my opponents infantry n dreadnaughts good. A really compeditive vehicle, but 3 might be too much. 3 LRBT with HB might work better and get more shots off parked on the table edge behind lots of meat shields.

The weakness of the list was not the demolishers but the infantry - once my opponents got into cc I was done for. I needed ogryns or something harder to counter them

Lord Commissar: Do you feel that a CCS with a lascannon (or whatever) would've been a better choice, if only for the orders to twin-link those autocannons and for 'first rank fire!'?

Platoon 1: I experimented with meltaguns in blobs and never ever got any positive results from it. I really don't understand why some people insist on them in blobs. Why? I don;t know if my tactics are just bad but I found them next to useless. Do you feel the same way?

Platoon 2: I feel autocannons are the only real option for blob or blob-mech hybrids. Failing that lascannons. Or my most recent list I posted above that I am experimenting with recently: Both in two separate platoons.
Your comment that you "need more men" in your autocannon blob had me thinking immediately that it's a lack of a CCS and orders that are making them less effective, and nothing to do with insufficient size. I'm not an expert or a 40k veteran or anything, but I have to strongly recommend you drop the Lord Commissar and add a CCS and twin-link those x3 autocannons. You will probably notice a very significant increase in their killing power, especially in turn 1 and 2.

3 Demolishers: I tried running 3 Demolishers because I really liked those lists you posted. It sounded pretty bad ass! However, I found them horribly inaccurate and against mechy armies were next to useless. I'm not sure if I was just unlucky with my dice rolling, but it seems you had much more luck with getting them on target and killing things. I was just left feeling disappointed. Maybe I should try them again? Or maybe I am just a player who likes a lot of infantry? I don't know.

"The weakness of the list was not the demolishers but the infantry - once my opponents got into cc I was done for. I needed ogryns or something harder to counter them":
No. Honestly, the Guard's biggest weakness is CC - every army has an 'Achilles heal' and CC is the Guard's. You have to simply play with the strengths Guard have; Attempting to try and make them something they are not - an 'assualty' army - just won't work. Ogryns are an absolute points sink and honestly i've never heard anything good about them and have never actually played a guard player who uses them. They die easily despite the 3 wounds because they suffer from the cardboard armour that every other guard unit wears. Crap initiative, crap armour kinda makes the toughness value and 3 wounds irrelevant.
Honestly as a Guard player you just have to accept you will suck ass in CC. But there are a few options to nullify that problem; You can give your blobs power weapons, you can use Colonel Straken for counter-attack and furious charge, you can use meltavets for counter-assaulting (works well), or PCS with flamers (works okay), or you can just go mech (if you don't mind being cheesey...and most players expect mech from Guard so...don't do that! lol). All of these I have found help to some degree with the CC problem. But basically, you have to just deploy sensibly - to defend against scouting units who will chew you to pieces in CC - and use the Guards main strengths to make sure by the time any units assault you they are weakened and softened up enough for your infantry to deal with. That means using a.) the fire-power and b.) the strength in numbers to make up for the weakness in CC. If you start funnelling points away from those two things that make Guard awesome (gunz, meatshields 'n tarpits) then you are setting yourself up for failure in my opinion....

Hopefully that makes sense!

Heya fifteen,

Yeah I been thinking about these problems alot as well. I think the Lord commissar is good as as counter assault and for the cover saves, but the board we were playing on was small 4x4 instead of the 6x6 you normally see. So opponents were getting into CC in turn 2 instead of turn 3. So thats one less turn of shooting cover saves I got out of him. Also there was a lack of cover in my deployment zones, it was mostly between armies. Which created nice firing lanes but didnt help me as much as I thought it would. Small boards HURT ! I agree that a CCS able to issue orders would of been a better use of points. Straken would of been the way to go I think as well, but then your left with 4 models with BS 4 left to waste :(

Platoon 1: yeah meltas in platoons suck big time, meltas in chimeras are probably a different story because you can move 12 get into range and fire. Whereas by the time your melta gun is in range with a foot platoon its already too late. You either need to shoot the meltas then assault to deny them the assault or they are going to assault you. I found them to be a BIG fail. It would of been better to take autocannons for the same cost. Though this platoon was great as a tar pit and the power weapon seargents in it did prove somewhat useful, the I3 really hurt as opponents useually got a TONNE of attacks at higher initave leaving nothing left alive. Even melta bombs are cheaper and not that great.... krack grenades can get the job done too.... or just take a power fist. Too much theory hammer going on....

Platoon 2: very useful, needs the CCS to make it more compeditive though for sure.

Demolishers: I agree on paper they sound bad ass and it kinda freaked out opponents, as long as they dont fall for the bait that they are you are in big trouble. Then everyone got meltas nowerdays, so the rear armour of 11 and side of 13 is not so helpful as it might sound. Those attack bikes gave me alot of grief by getting around my rear and kept poping tanks. Then old one eye in CC always hits against the rear armour due to the new rules. Which I think are much cooler - but bad news for a 165 point model.

In 1000 points games with guard I know everyone goes mech cheese and owns, but I really dont like it. I love the idea of foot sloggers backed up by tonnes of russes, it really captures the imagination an gives it a strong feel to the army. Im sure it can be made to work, but the list needs to be adjusted for sure. 3 Russes at 1000 points is more psychological than anything else, though LRBT sitting behind loads of infantry to shield them would be more useful than demolishers I feel. I think in your games it varies, there are alot of "ifs" with scatter dice. You gotta try more games with them.

If I was to re-make the list I would not take the meltaguns, I would take autocannons, CCS with straken, 2 LRBT and with the remaining points devil dogs probably. I owned the marine armies but got hammered to pieces by the nids - sooo many monsterous creatures. But that ork army man.... that was scary..... only sicarius could take them on


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The army list to take at 1000 points as an all comes foot slogger list might be say;

HQ

Straken + 3 plasmaguns = 190

Troops

Infantry Platoon A

Platoon Command Squad; Flamer x 4 = 50
Infantry Squad; Seargent with power weapon, melta bombs = 65
Infantry Squad; Seargent with power weapon, melta bombs = 65
Heavy weapons team; 3x Autocannon = 75


Infantry Platoon B

Platoon Command Squad; Flamer x 4 = 50
Infantry Squad; Seargent with power weapon, melta bombs = 65
Infantry Squad; Seargent with power weapon, melta bombs = 65
Heavy weapons team; 3x Autocannon = 75


Heavy Support

Leman Russ Battle Tank; HF x 1 = 150
Leman Russ Battle Tank; HF x 1 = 150

TOTAL = 1000