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Hey dakkites, those who have seen some of my posts may have noticed my creeping dislike for transports. Now ive always played a fairly static game and most of the games of 40k ive played, for good or for ill one player gets tabled, so objectives are rarely a concern to me. Ive recently started IG with my best nate starting Tau and my Fiance starting CSM respectively. ATM were just playing against each other but come summer ill probably be playing games at the GW in swansea (Heading back to the area for Uni) So ill have a bigger opponent selection. This is my long winded way of saying I have a fairly static playstyle.

I Dislike Transports.

I know 5th ed is all about moving, and transport add survivability and every shred of common sense dictates them as a nessicity.

I say again, I Dislike Transports.

Now my IG army is currently limited, Family and Fiance having put a curb on any pre chrimbo spending. I DO however have a fair bit of orks from a Black Reach box + Odd bits ive picked up over the years (ive been hit and miss with 40k over the years) Is it possible to build an IG army without Transports (HERESY!!!!!ONEONEONE!!1) or should I switch to orks (Im assuming they can do transportless better as ive seen footslogger lists) Since availability is an issue, this is what I have for both.

Ig
Company Command Squad
Platoon Command Squad
Heavy Weapons Team (Currently as a Missile Launcher)
10 Guardsmen w/Lasguns
2 Guardsmen Plasma Gunners
Harker Stand in

Orks
Warboss
5 Nobs (2 Spare metal bodies I can bash into 2 more nobs probably)
25 Slugga Boyz (1 Big shoota)
10 Grots + Runtherder

Oh and a large military style vehicle that could become a ork vehicle with a little work and the slugga boys with a little work could go into Ard boyz.



BTW Sorry if this is in the wrong forum.

Both armies are very small, so either could be expanded easily. The orks would probably involve less investment, so I voted for them. You can probably get the boys more easily than infantry for guard. Limiting yourself to no transports is going to hurt you. I bet when you get out of the small group you have and enter a LGS to play you will see why people like transports so much.

Ailaros (sp?) has had quite a bit of success running all infantry IG. Of course, you need a lot of bodies to do that. He'll be able to tell you about it in more detail, but the core of the army is a CCS, three tweny-man blob squads, two HWS's, some Ogryn, and some SWS's. Here's his blog with lists and battle reps. Even if you don't go with the IG, his batreps are entertaining.

I don't know how well a green tide can work; one of the players at the FLGS runs them, but he's a younger guy who doesn't do all that well.

Either way, you'll need a lot more bodies.

Though I have been told IG blob armies work I have never seen it done (much to my dismay, I would love to play against one) I do know that Orks can pull it off, there supposed to.

Kff mek, boyz and if you want/have money, kanz and your pretty much done, maybe a few support units in there. The other plus side to Orks is that you can pick up super cheap boyz from people parting out the black reach kit on ebay, you can get 20 boyz for like $16 shipped. Then just convert them to whatever you want with random bitz, keeps it cheap.

I just hope you know what your getting into, painting 90-150 boyz or gaurds and having to move them all around the table can be a challenge if your not willing to go through the work. It is also somehow satisfying.

Yeah I know im going to need a lot more warm bodies to survive first contact with the enemy. To be clear ive got theories on both IG and orks as to how I could run the armies without transports.

IG: Alrahem outflanking Platoon + Harker Vet squad. That should allow me to dig harkers bunch into some nice heavy cover while hitting the opponents backline with alrahems brigade backed up by tanks and artillery, to be clear, I dislike transports, got nothing against heavy armour though.

Orks: Boyz Boyz, more Boyz, and maybe some extra boyz. I Kid. A lot of slugga boys, deffkoptas, Storm boyz, anything to get close and tie up the enemy nice and fast.

I voted Guard...not that my opinion is biased in any way, shape, or form...[what do you mean there's no shifty eye smiley!?] Without transports, go blob guard! I'm in the process of building a blob guard army myself after having played chimera/russ spam. Its definitely fun and will make your opponents wonder what you're doing initiating a charge with your guardsmen against their [insert assaulty unit here]. As has been mentioned above, check out Ailaros' stuff, he's got it nailed down pretty solid.

Im gonna say guard because iven if you dont take transports you will eventualy take tanks and you can use them in combination with MMM to make fast progress across the board and stay out of LOS of the enemy main guns ( depending on race and position of the tank)

I'm voting guards sweetie!

i like blob IG, i would go with that.

orks are also a viable option, i just personally find tons of IG running across the battlefield a nice thing to have

blob guard looks so sweet. i have just started one and i have been skimming ebay and now almost have 1300 points of infantry for $150 (this was when there was parody of the US dollar with the australian dollar). it can be done and they kick ass. go for it dude it may take you a while to get to large points but you will be happy when you dont compromise and get what you really want. and you know you do.... think of all those flashlights and power weapons...

Ork footslogger list would need ghazzy, a huge amount of boyz and a mix of kommandos, stormboyz, lootas, kans, dreads and will most likely need a KFF big mek for the dandy cover saves.

Well it looks like IG won the vote, and tbh I like the idea of a horde of brave sildiers backed up by an armoured division, theirs just something about the sight of numerous LRBT's it swells pride in the imperial heart

Either blob guard or green tide can be plenty viable.

I'd be tempted to lean towards orks in this case just because you already have a fair number of the models, but as others have said, the current army size is pretty small, so you could go either way.

Also, both of them can be done really simply. All you need for a good green tide is a mek with KFF and a crapton of sluggas with some klaw nobs, and all you need with a guard army is al'rahem, a couple of commissars, and a bunch of guardsmen with either power weapon sergeants or plasma guns.

Really, both armies can be competitive with nothing more than troops and an HQ choice if you really want.

Either orks or IG can run mass inf very well, just pick whichever color you feel like painting 120+ models with, green or brown, :p

Juvieus Kaine wrote:Ork footslogger list would need ghazzy... and a mix of kommandos, stormboyz, lootas, kans, dreads and will most likely need a KFF big mek for the dandy cover saves.

Lies and slander! All you need is a metric -ton of boys (fine, add an HQ to fill that damnable FOC). Sure, a KFF mek and/or a loota firebase is a good idea. Yes, a wall of kans can screen your boys. Yes, Ghazzy is a CC beast with a sweet WAAAGH! This is all icing on the boy-cake (eww...) - you can bulk up and tweak your list however you want, but if you included all the units you mentioned into a hoard list, I'd say "Ooh, looks cool. Seriously, though, stormboyz and dreads? Where are the looted wagons full of flash gitz? "

To the OP: I love hoard orks. I have no idea how/how well blob IG plays. Having said that, I'm tempted to suggest IG, just to see it done non-mech (only seen one guy run it - he has some batreps up on dakka).

Another option, if you like heavy tanks is to play a forge world Imperial Armored Battlegroup. Most Leman Russes that are in the updated pdf on the forge world site are available in GW boxes.

The only problem with that is that the only scoring troop choices you have are a regular infantry squad in a chimera (transport)

Otherwise, for true hordey goodness, I would play orks with ghazz and another warboss, taking a meganobz and a nobz unit as troops, backed by 4x30 man blobs and dakka incarnates (lootas).
Guardsmen rushing forward just does not seem like a likely story in my mind. They can pull it off decently in the game if your opponent really does not know how to deal with MSU, but fluff wise, I only see the guard as sitting in trenches firing their giant guns.

I play Imperial Guard as well. I play a Blob/Mech hybrid army. If you don't like transports I suggest an entire Blob Guard army. Blob Guard armies are very hit or miss though, and require you to play them very conservitively.

First I would suggest 2 Blobs of 50 guardsmen. A "Blob" is when you have 5 squads of 10 men all platooned into a single choice. Basically for 1 troop choice you have 50 models. I would suggest Lascannons in each squad, thats 5 Lascannons per Troop Choice! Next I would suggest if your going completely blob to add 2 to 3 more blobs of anywhere from 30-50 models and play around with different builds using Lascannons and Autocannons for heavy weapons. I hear Mortars are decent though I have never tried them myself.

For an HQ choice I would go with either Creed or Stracken, or if you want close combat guard you could go with both. Creed has an order that lets your units charge forward and Stracken gives them Furious Charge. Also I would add in priests to that army to allow your units to reroll hits (I think, I don't have my Guard Codex on me but I think priests are like Chaplains, anyway they are good for close combat guard I know that). Put power Weapons on all your seargents. If you make your army right and make your blobs big enough a 50 man blob has, 5 Lascannons, 5 Plasma Guns (for Anti Infantry and most notably Anti-Terminator fun), 75 Lasgun shots, and to top it all off 20 Str 4 Power weapon attacks on the charge. Space Marines, Orks, Chaos, etc will fear you like the Plague...Nurgles Plague.

Anyway thats a pretty good Blob Guard army, now I don't know the Meta-Game around where you play, but where I play Mechanized armies of any sort are the norm. Thats why for my Hybrid army I usually take 2 Blobs of 50 Guardsmen and use 5 Lascannons, and 5 Meltaguns in each squad. It makes my opponents tanks cry. I then take Executioners, and Vendetta's with Melta-Vets inside for extra anti-tank fun.

Your games sound really boring. So you guys just line up your stuff in your deployment, and roll dice? Lame.

Transports add alot to the game and cut play time down also. Ive given up on running foot horde for my orks because no one will play them because they think my movement phase takes to long (I timed it the other day my turns are still quicker then most folks because I already know where I want my models to be at the end of the game)

Nenya97 wrote:Guardsmen rushing forward just does not seem like a likely story in my mind. They can pull it off decently in the game if your opponent really does not know how to deal with MSU

Actually, it's the opposite. Instead of taking a bunch of little squads, you use the combined squads rule to make really big squads. When your opponent needs to kill 27 guardsmen in close combat just to finally start putting a dent in those 12 power weapon attacks per turn, they start folding in a hurry.

The best part is they stomp the crap out of certain other units that people would never expect to be weak against guardsmen in assault, like terminators.

Jubear wrote:Transports add alot to the game and cut play time down also.

Other than because you like the play style, I think this is the reason to play mech lists. Horde armies are a bit intensive in the movement phase, to say the least, and that's saying nothing of deployment...

In my case, I take Al'Rahem, which means my opponents get TWO smoke breaks because I get two deployment phases.

Ailaros wrote:
In my case, I take Al'Rahem, which means my opponents get TWO smoke breaks because I get two deployment phases.

HAHAHAHA this made my day!

I'd have to say IG. Orks can't play without vehicles or bikes & it appears you have neither. Against any decent opponent they will hop in their vehicles & zoom away leaving you to pray for a good waaagh roll. Yes there are counters (Lootas) but for the most part you lack any ranged AT which guard can do very well.

Also a foot slogging ork list should be using shoota boyz not slugga boyz.

Shas'O Dorian wrote:Against any decent opponent they will hop in their vehicles & zoom away

Zoom where?

If the boyz are sitting on objectives, and you're zooming away from the boyz, you're zooming away from the obejctives, in which case the orks win.

If we're talking KP missions, you have to remember that there is only so much space on the board. a green tide can easily take 160 models in 1500 points. Once you get boxed in, it doesn't matter how fast you are if there's nowhere to go. What does it matter when there's nowhere to run to?

Ailaros!! stop killing people's dreams! If I ever see a huge mob of ork boyz, I would like to think there is always a place to run

You've got a point but I've never seen a full green tide army do well. The opponent just has too much ability to shoot you up long before you make it to his line even if running every turn.

Use 12" and go your opponent will not deploy right on 12:
Move 6, run 6
get shot
Move 6 run 6
get shot again
Move 6
waaagh & hopefully assault with what is left of your orks.
If not get shot again.

Even wth a 4+ cover save & the 1/36 chance that you roll 2 6's for your runs you aren't gonna have a whole lot left especially if your opponent has templates & flamers.

Guard have a few nifty little ways to be aggresive on foot. Using some special characters or storm troopers you can get a hold on flank, deep strike and infiltrate (Ratlings work well but I don't like the models). It will take some time to get used to this method because you really need to tailor your force to it. If you're thinking of playing static though I'd reccomend some artillery. I tried pure infantry gunline but its hard to contest the objectives. At least with artillery you can use mass bodies to hold onto your own objectives and artillery to deny him objectives further away. Its not easy to pull off though. I find either a hybrid gunline or using special units works best.

When I use a hybrid list it means dashing for the objectives in the last 2 turns which ideally does need transports. On foot you would have to press forward most of the game which sort of goes against the point of a static gunline. Thumbs up if you want to make an agressive gunline. That would scare me.

If you use special teams to infiltrate, flank, deep strike or perhaps just to sneak up the board in cover (veterans could do well) you can keep a gunline intact. I did find that its hard to support these forward units on large boards. You need alot of them which eats into the points you can spend on your gunline. Without support they die very easily.

I will say that it can be done but cover is the bane of a gunline. You need as much LOS as possible. Its a difficult way to play but it is very rewarding. I think my win to loss ratio for infantry only was about 1 win to 6 losses. It'll take alot of time and effort to learn to use but good luck to you buddy.

Btw you said you rarely play with objectives. If you play kill points its a hard game but if you play to table each others armies its does remarkably well since you can mass cheap heavy weapons.

Imperial Guardsmen are great on foot. Platoon commanders have an order for everything they need to do: Run toward objectives, go to ground if the enemy has a lot of heavy weapons, or fire lasguns if the enemy has a lot of advancing infantry. Meanwhile, the various heavy support can keep pressure on the enemy.

I don't like tanks in general
annoying to paint and a hassle to transport
I am warming up to Ork vehicles though

Transports are basically a buying scheme... in 2-3e they weren't necessary. 4e a death-trap. Now almost essential? Smacks of GW wanting you to have to shell out to mechanise an army. If you don't want transports then jumpy blood angels is good..

hoard orks and guard are fine. My friend runs a nice semi mech list, with PCS/CCS's in Chimera's, sometimes a vet squad in a chimera or a vendetta as well, but also 1-2 platoons. It works well, and provides for many an entertaining game It does have a bit of a learning curve to it though...