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First a little background as I have never posted here.

Last month I started playing in a progressive point tournament at my local game store with my guard. It started out with 500pts and will progress 500pts each moth thereafter. Only condition is your army must be fully painted. The goal is to get our new players (and lazy ones ) to have fully painted armies. Onto the good stuff...

That first tourney I took 4th place (which I've never done before) and I was feeling good. I had:

HQ
1 CCS with, 2 meltas and 2 plasmas and a MotO

Troop
2 vet squads in chimeras with 2 meltas and 1 plas each

Pretty simple list but it worked.

For the 1000pt today I nixed the MotO (as he didn't do a darn thing) and added a chimera for the HQ, 1 LRBC, and 1 LR Executioner.

This tournament sucked for me. I think I ended taking second to last. I went 2-1 and just plain stunk up the place. My first two fights were against other guard players who were mostly infantry and stuck in cover and never moved. Since I have nothing to negate cover, all they did was sit on objectives and I couldn't eat them away fast enough.

So for my 1500 point list I was thinking;

HQ

1 CCQ
2 Plas/2 Melta , Commander with PW all riding nicely in a chimera (ML/HB/HS for weapons) 175pts

Troop

3 Vet Squads
2 Melta/1Plas, Sarge with PW again, riding comfortably in chimeras 180pts x3 (540pts)

Heavy

1 LRBC (2 HB sponsons and hull LC) with extra armor 200pts

1 LR Executioner (2 Plas sponsons and hull LC) with extra armor 260pts

1 Squad of 2 Colossi with ECC 310pts

Pt Total: 1485pts


Thoughts or suggestions pretty please. I play a lot of MEQ armies as well as an Ork player who loves bikers (especially nob ones) and now these few guard players.

OK: basic units are all strong choices, but there are some problems with how you're equipping them.

Command and veteran squads in chimeras should always have 3x or 4x the same special weapon. If you need to shoot a vehicle, the 1 plasma gun in a squad is a liability - by not taking a meltagun, you increase the chance that the vehicle won't be killed/crippled, and this messes up your plans. In the same way, if you need to kill elite infantry or MCs, meltaguns reduce the amount of damage you can do. Choose one or the other!

You are on the right track in giving vets those weapons though, general consensus is that with BS4 mechanised troops, those are the hard-hitting guns you want. They are short-ranged though. Your transports will have to move to get the most use out of them. Because of this, it's very common to use a multilaser+heavy flamer on chimeras. When you move 6" (and you will be doing that more often than staying still) you can only fire one weapon. When you're at long range, a ML is nearly always better than a HB. When you're up close, a HF can do dramatically more damage. Suffice to say, almost everyone who plays to win, takes a HF and ML on any chimera filled with special weapons.

Power weapons on any IG squad below 30 men or so are often regarded as a bad choice. The idea being, if a 10-man IG squad gets charged, you are going to lose combat. In some cases the PW won't even live to swing, and if it does? One round of attacks from a S3 model. Unlikely to make its points back, except under ideal circumstances. Massively unlikely to actually change the course of a game.

Heavy stubbers, my advice is to take them off, and see what real units and bigger guns you can cram into a list. Only take them if you have 10 points free that you can't find a use for.

Heavy support - generally, never take a squadron of 2 tanks or 2 artillery pieces (cheapo hydras and griffons excepted) until you've filled out your fast attack, troops choices. Squadron rules blow. Also, if you read the rules for multiple barrages, you'll see that if you have more than 1 indirect fire large template in a unit, it's hard to get full use out of it. So drop the second colossues IMO.

Extra armour is very rarely worth it. Especially on tanks like leman russes, which are for shooting not movement. For weapons, choose either HB sponsons or a LC on the LRBT - they have opposite roles, so taking both is silly. I'd take neither myself, but it's not a bad decision to take one. The LC on the executioner is also a pretty inefficient upgrade IMO. It's never going to be a first choice if you need to move before firing, and against most targets, 5 plasma templates is enough already.

So, you can save a lot of points in this list. Say you drop one colossus (-155) 2xextra armour (-185) HB sponsons and LC (-220) 4 power weapons (-260).

You could easily take 2 FA choices, or one FA choice and one more veteran squad.

Hope that helps.

Ok, wow, that was all really good advice!

After consideration of what you have said compared with my knowledge of what I am going against at the store and what my play style is... I've come up with this;


HQ 145pts

CCS
Melta x4
Chimera with ML and HF

Troop

2 Vet Squads 170pts (340pts)
3 Plasma
Chimera with ML and HF

1 Vet Squad 155pts
3 Melta
Chimera with ML and HF

Fast Attack

1 Hellhound 130pts

1 Banewolf 130pts

Heavy Support

1 Colosus 155pts
ECC

1 LRBC 185pts
2 HB sponsons, Lascannon

1 Executioner 245pts
2 Plasma sponsons, Lascannon


1485 pts

My rolls are pretty bad lately so I want to keep the LC's on the tanks....I just need all the firepower I can get sometimes :/

I aslo have 15 pts to play with and no idea where to put them. Thoughts anyone? List wise or 15pts wise?

So, everything the bounty hunter said was right, and so this list is much better.

However, it's still not well-balanced. For all objectives games, you're relying on only 20 dudes at 1500 points. Be prepared to lose a lot of objectives games without more troops.

The banewolf is trash. Dump that for another vet squad. Drop the crew compartment for the colossus and with the extra bane wolf points left over, you can get yourself a chimera for it.

At 1500 points, you're going to need lots more guys, and having at least 30 is a start.

(Ailaros, he does seem to have 30 troops not 20. But still)

I actually agree with Ailaros that you could use another troops choice. I don't consider the banewolf that bad, but unless you're facing marines (admittedly a common occurence) you'll just wish you had a hellhound anyway. Banewolf fulfills a role you already have the 3 HS choices for, and it's short-ranged. Take another veteran squad instead.

Ok, personally I shun all Mech IG lists, for the pure fact that the codex has power creep. However, this list seems to have some good exeptions to the stereotipycal list. Good work

I agree with most of what the other dudes here have said. I would like to add, however, that I think that the plasma sponsons aren't worth it. I understand the massive ammount it can pour out if it stays still, but I personally prefer to keep my Russ mobile these days. With the Lascannon, points are going to get wasted unless you stay still most of the game. If you plan to stay still, I'd consider adding Pask at that point. I think general consensus is that he's too expensive, but I've had some fun with him.

As for getting more troops, I'd go with replacing the Melta Vets with an Infantry Platoon, and put 4 Meltas in a Chimera the PCS. Same average number of Melta hits (2), but it comes with two more scoring units for your backfield.

ElCheezus wrote:As for getting more troops, I'd go with replacing the Melta Vets with an Infantry Platoon, and put 4 Meltas in a Chimera the PCS. Same average number of Melta hits (2), but it comes with two more scoring units for your backfield.

That math doesn't work out. It costs 125 points for a Melta PCS in a chimera. It costs 155 for a melta-vet squad in a chimera. Where are you getting the points for the two infantry squads?

Biophysical wrote:

ElCheezus wrote:As for getting more troops, I'd go with replacing the Melta Vets with an Infantry Platoon, and put 4 Meltas in a Chimera the PCS. Same average number of Melta hits (2), but it comes with two more scoring units for your backfield.

That math doesn't work out. It costs 125 points for a Melta PCS in a chimera. It costs 155 for a melta-vet squad in a chimera. Where are you getting the points for the two infantry squads?

That would be up to the OP. If he listens to Ailaros, then he'll have some points from cutting the ECC and a Banewolf. Or he could cut the sponsons on his Russ. If he agrees that more troops units are necessary, he'll find points. My intent was to mention the idea, not tell him what to do explicitly.

Ailaros wrote:So, everything the bounty hunter said was right, and so this list is much better.

However, it's still not well-balanced. For all objectives games, you're relying on only 20 dudes at 1500 points. Be prepared to lose a lot of objectives games without more troops.

The banewolf is trash. Dump that for another vet squad. Drop the crew compartment for the colossus and with the extra bane wolf points left over, you can get yourself a chimera for it.

At 1500 points, you're going to need lots more guys, and having at least 30 is a start.

As someone has already pointed out, I have 3 vet squads...so I *think* I am ok in that department for now. Every 500 points I'll be adding one to two more sets of vets until all 6 are out. For now though, I am teetering between the thoughts of dropping the Banewolf and LCs of the Russ's and getting one more Vet squad. I just don't know what I would put in them for weapons. The amount of meltas and plasma I have already is astounding. As it stands now, the reason for the Banewolf is because I do play a lot against MEQ. At higher levels some bug players start showing up...but for some reason I don't fear bugs near as much as MEQ.

@ElCheezus - The 5 plas templates annihilated an entire wolf unit on turn 2 of my final game in the last tournament... They made up their points. They went on to clean off the other 10 puppies that got booted out of their transport on turn 4. I'm going to keep for now.

@Agemman - I'm sorry, as I am new to this forum and getting deeper into the game, some terms I don't understand. What is "power creep?" Also, what is the stereotypical list? I would like to see how far "off" I am from the "norm." lol