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.

Let's say you've decided to start an IG army. You've got reasonable resources and are flexible in that you want a list that's competitive but ultimately fun. What unit/model/tank do you paint up first, assuming that these early units will be in ANY IG list you ultimately decide to go with, whether it's mech, airborne, or infantry blob?

PBI i.e. Poor Bloody Infantry. Lots of the little blighters. No matter what "incarnation" of the Guard you ultimaterly decide you will need at least 45 infantry models for Veterans/ Penal Legion. If you go the Platoon way the sky' s limit (more likely your wallet )

^

That and at least 1 Leman Russ for your starters. I tend to add a Leman Russ for every 750 points of mine, so in 1000pts match I'll have one, 1500pts and I'll have two, and in 2000pts or more I'll field a squadron.

Artillery, Artillery, Artillery...

Uncle Arty's coming to the Party!

Oh, and no IG force is complete without at least a Commissar!

Do you count Leman Russ' as Artillery? Becuase I ran a spam Basilisk/Horde IG army it achieved mediocre sucess.

Plasma Leman Russ. Its great fun.

2 Squads of Penal Legion

Leman Russ Punisher to mow enemy infantry down.

Get some of the battalion boxes. They come with heavy weapons and the full selection of special weapons via the command box. You can build good infantry units, and then put in some melta/plasma guns and make some mechanised veterans once you get some chimeras.

Plan the finished army from day one. If you build it up incrementally without that plan you'll almost certainly end up with a hodge-podge army.

That's true with most armies, but IG - a guardsman looks the same whether he's in a veteran squad, command squad, HW squad, etc. So as long as you've got a load of plastic infantry, you can switch out the weapons with minimal effort. Even a heavily mechanised IG army will have 50-60 infantry models minimum, so some plastic infantry is a good place to start buying.

Also, the new IG vehicles are quite flexible - if you know how to magnetise your models, some hellhounds/leman russes would be a good buy, even if you don't know what the final army list would look like.

Not saying planning an army is a bad idea, but it's not completely necessary. Also, you may find while playing your army that you were wrong about certain units, or want to try new things, so your final army looks different from what you originally planned.

Chimeras, and vendettas. Every army I like to play uses at least 3 chimeras and at least two vendettas.

Also lots of dudes, I went without getting lots of infantry because I play mech but then realized I didn't have enough dudes to cover all the chimeras I was playing with. So I bought about 40 dudes and made a lasgun assembly line.

But chimeras, and vendettas are the way to go. Chimeras are usually sold out in my area anyways ( I have 9) I still need two more.

Leman russes and Baslisk fall into the same spot as hydras which I use a chiimera chasis for. I have 3 of each but only use them in certain lists, so I would not go this route unless you have a list you building towards.

Stay away from sentinals, ogryns, ratlings they are so specific to certain lists and aren't very good.

Heavy Weapon teams are also a must IMO. Lots of solid IG lists run platoons and throw in one or two Heavy weapon teams to get orders from your CC. Assemble them lascannon or autocannon and you'll be good there.

Hoped I helped. I just completed my IG as in I won't be buying anymore IG models most likely.

My collection is,
9 chimeras
3 hydra autocannons from Aegis Defense Line
3 leman Russes
3 baslilisk (medusas)
3 vendettas
12 Heavy Weapon Teams,
gak ton of dudes (psykers, lasguns, meltaguns, few plasma guys, one or two commisar, marbo, straken and more!)
1 sentinal (BB!)

I find this collection to be very flexible when building a list. I can build almost any list.

No offense to those that posted, but the OP is asking for the fundamental units found in any list. Russes aren't found in every list, neither are artillery.

The basic core of an IG army is about 40 infantry. If you buy two battle forces, you're getting the sentinels for free. Either build and use them (not a bad choice for the cost) or trade/sell them for more good stuff. Id' pick up a single Melta gun bitz pack from GW direct. This puts you at $200, but allows you to build the following models:

4 Squad sgts
24 Lasgun troopers (the core of 4 squads)
3 Autocannons
3 Lascannons
2 Plasma guns
6 Melta Guns (2 from the command sprues, four converted from the bitz pack)
1 Standard
1 Company commander
1 Platoon Commander
4 Flamers
6 Grenade launchers


This allows you to field two small platoons, a platoon and two vet squads, eventually four vet squads (with more meltas/plasma), etc.

The two most generally useful units are the basic AC/GL infantry squad, and the melta vet squad. Building around those, especially early on, is going to save you some grief later.

Really, it's a matter of what you think you'll use the most. IG are so versatile. You can field them as a good general "fight everybody" army by getting a standard Russ and some infantry. It also greatly depends on who you play with any regularity.

The basic russ isn't bad, but I'd steer anybody with any plans on competitive gaming away from painting one as a building block. It simply never really shines. Compare it to the exterminator, which is quite good at lower points games, or the Executioner, which is death incarnate when you can afford them. Even the basic Demolisher is better all around than the LRBT.

It's a shame, because for a decade the LRBT was a backbone unit: almost always in every guard army, and I ran three a lot before fifth.

Otoh, if you're focusing mostly on smaller store tournaments and a wide range of casual play, a bare bones LRBT fits nicely into nearly any army.

I completely agree with polonius about the battalion boxes.

So if I start with a core of two squads of 10 IG (Probably start by considering them vets just because they can be fielded a bit more quickly than a platoon, but it wouldn't be a big deal to roll them up into an infantry blob if I go that route), that's a decent place to start since I'll always need troops?

There's quite a laundry list of special weapons in your list Polonius, are they all necessary or if I start with something like 3-4 plasma and 3-4 melta would I be ok? I keep looking at the Grenade Launcher and feeling a bit underwhelmed...is there something I'm missing with it? Autocannons, Meltas, and Plasma Guns all make sense to me. Lascannons I understand in theory but in my other army they're so expensive I've treated them as hands off.

I have some leftover plasma guns and melta guns from building my Chaos Army (I ordered the metal special weapon/expansion packs you mentioned as one of my earliest GW purchases).

I keep thinking along the lines of my chaos army, where plasma and melta infantry are excellent choices. I'm hoping it's not polluting my thinking with guard though.

The gernade luanchers are good in the sense of 1 strength 6 hit or if its a army with lots of troops you can send out a strenght 3 blast.

Paint lots of guardsmen now so you don't have to later. Before I played a game with the Guard and I actually envisioned them as badasses, I was super motivated to paint them. Once I actually started playing with them and realized how many of them die in an average turn, I lost a bit of motivation to paint the poor blighters. Paint up the basic stuff first.

lots of good advice here. I second starting with a couple of boxes of infantry, or if you think you're going to use most of the stuff in it, a battlebox.

Also, as said, once you get an officer squad and about 20 lasgun infantry done, you're really going to want to have a plan for what you want your army to be, because it's at about this point that what you get next will be determined by what your play style is (and thus aren't necessarily going to be universal anymore). For example, a mech vet player is going to want to buy 6 special weapons dudes to turn his infantry into veterans and buy three chimeras. An artillery dude is going to want to buy a regular chimera or a basilisk to make a chimera blank + interchangeable artillery piece. Air cav will already be wanting to get a vendetta early on (especially for how long it will take to assemble and paint), while any army that contains a more serious infantry component is going to want at least 40 more infantry models to round out two whole PISs and an SWS or two.

Really, the absolute universal core of a guard army isn't actually that far away from most other armies: 20 dudes and an HQ. Get these first.

Baneblade/ Shadow sword is what I would get first, along with a host of fotsloggers. Then followed by a Commissar and HQ