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After a not too bad mech list i feel the time has come to create an infantry army, the site of a lot of guardsmen flooding the board and throwing themselves into the fire.

anyway, i've never had too succesfull a time at creating infantry armies, so i thought i'd ask dakka dakka for suggestions and ideas to build an army upon.

i'd quite like to use one of the 2 special characters, dunno what reason for, just have always liked the idea of one of them leading my army.
all i know about infantyr lists is its best to have commisars with platoons, but i'd like to know at least a semi effective way to go about making this list.
preferably for 1500 points

Easy way to do it take tons of meltas and flamers in just basic squads and meltas in HQ and you can handle alot of armies.
Take sly to.

like 4 squads of just meltas in 1 platoon and command with 4 mewltas and commiser


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*meltas

If you have heavy infantry army, i think the best way to go is to get a couple large blobs of guardsmen, 20-30 men in each one. If you upgrade two guardsmen in each blob to an autocannon, they'd be real good at sitting on objectives w/ the added long-range weaponry. Toss a few power swords in the sargeants and a comissar and they'll be the best tarpits you'll ever have, and do some real damage to them hardshelled MEQs. Couple that with Creed and a line of Leman Russes/Basilisks and you'll be good to go. Terms of anti tank, might be good to keep a couple of your chimera vet melta squads around, or bring in a squad of scout sentinels w/ autocannons and HK missiles. Just ideas that you can play around with, i personally play a hybrid of both mech and gunline IG

thanks for the advice, the idea of tarpits sounds good. and i had thought about how best to deal with enemy armour and so far all i'd come up with was to use either leman russ or 2 vendetta gunships. 6 twin linked lascannons should bag a transport. least thats the thinking.

for infantry though, creed or straken ? which makes a better commander for infantry, and does creed rely heavily on a vox network ? i know straken is an aoe commander i know, have never used creed, but i like the idea of master tactician that he's meant to be

I have done the other thing, started with a infantry line and just recently started to build a mech army.

I find the blobs to be less effective than separate squads with a HW in each squad. I usually go heavy on the lascannons since most armies I meet are rather mechanised. That's where Creed comes in. With his four orders and a command radius of 24" he's a real piece of work for gunline stuff. Along with two PCSs you have a lot orders at your disposal. I normally pack my squads with voxes since I find that the orders can be crucial to winning a game. I know that others find them not so useful. Also, a regimental banner is gold for keeping the heavy weapons firing.

Also, the ability to give outflank to any unit can be a godsend since it means you can outflank with melta- or flamer chimers. Good stuff. Especially if paired with an astropath.

I haven't played with my vendetta for very long but if it can live long enough it is a real can opener for transports. The really fun part is when you blow up a transport and then hit the remains with large plates. Fun stuff. Russes are no good at popping transports but I still run them with a lascannon since it's InstaDeath to most things and if I get a weapon destroyed I still have a lascannon that's a real nuisance to get rid of.

At times I have fielded upwards a 100 guardsmen in a gunline with a HW team in each squad. Highly effective against most lists. Especially if you field a couple of russes, manticores or basilisks in the back to force your opponent to come to you.

The only drawback with this type of build is an inherent difficulty to score objectives. You usually have to ditch the HW capability and just run them towards the nearest objectives. Transports will help alleviate this if you can keep them running until the endgame. Vendettas and Hellhounds are great for last minute contesting and if you pour enough squads at an objective it'll be virtually impossible to even get near it.

Sorry for the rambling, my head hurts after playing five games today and my thoughts are spinning with guard related stuff.


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Oh, and in a pure gunline setup I played for a long time without any melta or plasma at all. The heavy teams in the squads and the tanks more often than not just pulverizes most tanks before they get close enough for melta.

The trick is to find an open field of fire and then just let the heavies do their work. When the enemy gets close, mow them down with massed lasgun fire utilizing FRFSRF.

So, here is the 1850 infantry+artillery list I run.

So, there are a few things to do with infantry-heavy armies.

The first is blob squads. Take 3 infantry platoons with a commissar in each one as often as points allow. There are two ways to arm them: squatter (no power weapons or special weapons, just a couple of heavy weapons), which are a huge points sink for damage, but they're hard to clear off objectives. The other is power blobs (everyone has a power weapon, throw in a couple specials, and maybe a priest or some meltabombs), which are good for assaulting stuff and then holding what they took.

The second is mobility. It's rather low in guard infantry squads, but there are two solutions. One is to outflank with Al'Rahem with an astropath (dont' use Creed - he costs way more to let less stuff outflank), the other is to bring so many guys that just rush forward sprinting that you're always inevitably going to get SOMEONE there. Personally, I use the former, but I could see the latter possibly working with chenkov.

The third is firepower. You're going to be bringing a lot of PCSs, and you have access to take a whole lot of SWSs and HWSs. Make sure you use these to your advantage. For example, I have an infantry platoon with a power blob, al'rahem with 3 melta, a 3 melta SWS and a 3 plasma SWS. That is an AWFUL lot of hurt (especially since al'rahem gets "bring it down") for something that just popped out of nowhere.

Finally, note that not all infantry units are appropriate to an infantry army. For example, SWSs do what vets do, but for half the price (they're really only good in chimeras anyways), and penal legionnaires (who are good for minimizing the number of points you spend on troops).

Oh, and don't go for the gunline.

Ah thanks for some clarification Ailaros. I had contemplated the idea of using Al'Rahem and an accompanying power blob, was just not sure to give the extra's. if points allow i do like the idea of Al'Rahem and Straken in the list. purely because of Al'Rahem allowing a good portion of my army to appear from nowehere and for the other half to hopefully benefit from furious charge or counter attack, both of which proved to be extremely useful in a game i played today.

will go and begin writing up a list now, would appreciate feedback when done and pointers as to how to tweak it to get the most out of the choices i've made