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Howdy.

I'm brand new to the gaming aspect of the hobby, and I'm going to be starting an Imperial guard army. And I was inspired by DOW2's catachans I decided to start my own

Im really tempted to do a Catachan armoured regiment, with:

'Iron Hand' Straken and Nork Dedogg in the command squad
A few techpreists
a Commisar
Harker in a veteran squad
Sly Marbo
Leman russes!

All the infantry will be in vehicles. but I don't know what to put them in. Valks maybe? The command squad will be in a chimera for sure.

But the main bulk of the points will be leman russes of all shapes and sizes.

Im just looking for some expeirenced people to tell me wether I'll be destroyed in every game! I'll mostly be making them for the joy of painting, so as few men as possible and no double squads. Any suggestions?

You'll do fine; it's hard to make a bad army with Guard these days. Before you go too Leman Russ-happy though, remember the old adage: "boys before toys" - make sure you've got enough infantry before you spend 1000 points out of a 1500 point army on tanks.

Here's some more specific critique:
Nork Deddog isn't terribly good. He's very expensive for what he does. Techpriests are fluffy, but don't work often enough to really be worth it. Commissars are very useful in large infantry squad blobs, but Catachans aren't trusting of Commissars, but that's a fluff thing, not a gameplay problem. Harker in a veteran squad is very cool; I like having him outflank with a bunch of plasma guns. Marbo is badass too, and can really come in handy.

Wasn't aware the Catachan used armor, being a jungle-fighting infantry/scout specialist force...

If I get the gist of what you're saying, you're basically rolling on the table with a handful of tanks (depending on points allowed) with some light infantry support.

Might be ok against a CC-specific army, but I think you will be in a world of hurt against anyone fielding anything with tank-killing abilities, but I'd take what I say with a grain of salt, since I havent fielded a table army in many, many years.

Brother SRM wrote:You'll do fine; it's hard to make a bad army with Guard these days. Before you go too Leman Russ-happy though, remember the old adage: "boys before toys" - make sure you've got enough infantry before you spend 1000 points out of a 1500 point army on tanks.

Here's some more specific critique:
Nork Deddog isn't terribly good. He's very expensive for what he does. Techpriests are fluffy, but don't work often enough to really be worth it. Commissars are very useful in large infantry squad blobs, but Catachans aren't trusting of Commissars, but that's a fluff thing, not a gameplay problem. Harker in a veteran squad is very cool; I like having him outflank with a bunch of plasma guns. Marbo is badass too, and can really come in handy.

I read the rules of Nork, and with my limited knowledge, I agree totally, but I want to model one really badly.
Yeah I read up on the commisars just there, I probably wont include one
Spot on with Harker, I was going to give them all shotguns and plasmaguns. Plasma guns seem risky, but worth it. And shotguns because of DOW2, but are they any use?

Psienesis wrote:Wasn't aware the Catachan used armor, being a jungle-fighting infantry/scout specialist force...

If I get the gist of what you're saying, you're basically rolling on the table with a handful of tanks (depending on points allowed) with some light infantry support.

Might be ok against a CC-specific army, but I think you will be in a world of hurt against anyone fielding anything with tank-killing abilities, but I'd take what I say with a grain of salt, since I havent fielded a table army in many, many years.

Yeah they have a limited amount of armour support, but I really really like tanks haha
Its not going to be super competitive, but I still want to stand a chance, so would it be a works half the time army?



Im thinking of getting a trio of sentinals aswell, each with autocannons,


Anyway, things that I defo want to include would be:

Iron hand and Dedogg in a chimera
Harker w/shotgunners + plasmagunners
3 Sentinals
LR vanquisher w/ commander pask count as
LR battle tank X2



I dont know what other troops to include, I dont want loads of men to paint, maybe 30 bodies max, and the rest being armour.

Anyending wrote:
Spot on with Harker, I was going to give them all shotguns and plasmaguns. Plasma guns seem risky, but worth it. And shotguns because of DOW2, but are they any use?

Its not going to be super competitive, but I still want to stand a chance, so would it be a works half the time army?

Shotguns are fairly useless in the game, lasguns are more usless though, so you might aswell go for shotguns. I just don't know where you can get the shotguns

You would struggle with Dark eldar for sure, drop pod marines would also give you a hard time. MEQ armies (normal marines + Chaos marines), horde armies, footdar and necrons would cry when they see the amount of tanks.

But bc careful, as everyone now spams meltaguns into everything and anything

Anyending wrote:Anyway, things that I defo want to include would be:

Iron hand and Dedogg in a chimera
Harker w/shotgunners + plasmagunners
3 Sentinals
LR vanquisher w/ commander pask count as
LR battle tank X2



I dont know what other troops to include, I dont want loads of men to paint, maybe 30 bodies max, and the rest being armour.

I would drop dedogg, as he doesnt allow you to take extra bodyguards, and he is over costed. Have a unit of ogryns instead. Sentinals always work well, good choice with the autocannons. Take 2-4 units of veterans for your troops, as someone already said, boys before toys.

Would this list be okay? Its 1500pts


Company Command.........................................................................220
Colonel 'Iron Hand' Straken - Medi pack - Regimental standard - 2 w/plasmaguns
Chimera.................................................................................70
Extra armour



Sly Marbo...............................................................................65

Veteran Squad...........................................................................160
Sgt. Harker - Vox caster - 3 meltaguns
Chimera.................................................................................55

Veteran Squad...........................................................................100
Sgt w/shotgun - 3 meltaguns
Chimera.................................................................................55


Scout Sentinels.........................................................................135
3 Sentinels w/ Missile launchers

Armoured Sentinels......................................................................120
2 sentinels w/autocannons


Leman Russ Squadron
Vanquisher - w/lascannon - sponson heavy bolters........................................190


Leman Russ Squadron
Battle Tank - w/lascannon...............................................................165
Battle Tank - w.lascannon...............................................................165

Looks ok, command squad looks a bit too expensive though.

i would drop the sponsons from the Vanq since it is an anti-tank... well tank, so the Heavy Bolters wont help much.

Anyending wrote:
Spot on with Harker, I was going to give them all shotguns and plasmaguns. Plasma guns seem risky, but worth it. And shotguns because of DOW2, but are they any use?

I prefer to give them lasguns; shotguns are only more useful if you want to charge, and that's only worth it if you're taking melta guns. Even so, you don't really want them in hand to hand. It doesn't make a huge difference though, as you're taking the squad for the plasma, not the las/shot guns. I take shotguns on my vets with meltas, demolitions, and a powerfist, just because it makes for a damn cool unit with too much expensive kit for its own good.

I went down to GW and say the catachan models in person. They suck, like proper suck. So instead I'm going to go for an armoured company


Im going to use the cadian command squad, the Kasarkin squad, and HEAVILY converted catachan squad.

So its going to be 26 men, 3 Chimeras, 6 Sentinels, 2 bane wolves, 2 leman russes

Did I miss anything? Im going to be getting the models today, so any fast replies woud be sound


Company Command...........................................................190
Lord Castellan Creed - Regimental Standard - Vox Caster - 2 w/plasmaguns
Chimera...................................................................80
Extra armour - Hunterkiller missile

Guardsman Marbo...........................................................65

Veteran Grenadiers........................................................130
Sgt. w/cc weapon - 3 w/Meltaguns
Chimera...................................................................55

Veteran Sentries..........................................................180
Sgt. Harker - 3 w/flamers - Autocannon
Chimera...................................................................55

Scout Sentinel Squadron
Sentinel w/missile launcher...............................................45
Sentinel w/missile launcher...............................................45
Sentinel w/missile launcher...............................................45

Armourer Sentinel Squadron
Sentinel w/autocannon.....................................................60
Sentinel w/autocannon.....................................................60
Sentinel w/autocannon.....................................................60

Hellhound Squadron
Bane wolf.................................................................130
Bane wolf.................................................................130

Leman Russ Squadron
Leman Russ Battle Tank w/Heavy bolter sponsons............................170
Leman Russ Battle Tank w/Heavy bolter sponsons............................170

Thats alot of sentinels. I'm guessing your outflanking the helhound squadron, You have plenty of anti-infantry, so you could replace the flamers and autocannon with a few meltaguns

I think you're making the mistake a lot of new players do with imperial guard - assuming more tanks are automatically better. The thing is that 40k rules for vehicle squadrons are absolutely punishing. Never take more than 3 vehicles in heavy support and 3 vehicles in fast attack (exceptions are hydras, griffons, and sentinels, but of those only hydras are really good. Sentinels are outclassed by hellhounds and even more by vendettas) IG can be perfectly fine without being tuned up to the maximum - a really tuned up IG army is the nastiest thing in the game - but really it's much better to have 5-6 mechanised troop units than to double up in the heavy support and fast attack slots.