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Hi there, incoming noob post.

I recently got into warhammer and I am narrowing down my choice of army. IG is an interesting choice for me, but I had a question about what an average army may look like.

Because I've seen a lot of Bat reps and in pretty much all IG games, troops are few and far between. In fact, almost every game is just all tanks all the time.

I mean, tanks are awesome, lets not deny it. But IG to me is tanks and a mix of everything else. Is all tanks really the only way to be successful? I hear customization is a big part of IG, a big reason why I might start an army of them. But If I want to succeed, are tanks really the only way? Because if that's the case, I find that to be incredibly bland.

Lets say for instance, a 1500 point game, how many points are allocated to each branch of unit? And How much would be in an apoc game? Because I have never seen anything other than tanks in an apoc game with IG.

Thanks!

It seems like you have been seeing a lot of 'mech' armies, typically those relying on Veteran squads situated in Chimeras who zip around and blow stuff up with their meltaguns or what have you. While this can be an effective list, it is not the list by any means; I tend to play around with a lot more footsoldiers and artillery to get things done, and others set up large 'blobs' of guardsmen to rush in and assault the enemy to death. As with any army, there are many different ways to create a list that is a) effective, and more importantly b) what you like. Tanks are not the only way to succeed, although they are a very sound choice when you want to blast the enemy to smithereens.

As far as 1,500 point games go, my last few lists have used about 730 points in the Troops category, 220 in the HQ and Elite slots, and 300 for the Heavy Support. While I can't say it was an optimal list, it got the job done with only a handful of Chimera transports and two battle tanks.

[Edit:] And for Apocalypse games ,tanks cost a fair amount of points and are able to dish out a fair amount of hurt. That, and I don't think anyone wants to put down a thousand tiny little men, half of which get blown up the next turn.

The rules for destroying vehicles (it can be very difficult), the number of points they tend to cost in modern codexes, and the mobility mean that a lot of armies are more competitive focussing on tanks than infantry. Another thing, which accounts for a lot of it in tournament and apocalypse games, is it's much quicker to play with a dozen tanks and a few squads, many of whom will never disembark, than with 100+ infantry. It's very simple to pick up a tank and move/rotate it into its new position. Whereas with big complex units you end up taking time to consider how to array them, as well as physically moving the models.

That said, IG can do infantry armies that are probably as good as their tanks! My IG army so far as a couple vehicles I picked up incidentally, but will be played with all infantry. Do a search in the tactics section for 'power blobs' or in the army lists for 'imperial guard infantry'. Most successful armies of this type take plenty of big combined squads with commissars, either straken or creed, and some heavy weapons. Picking the right special and heavy weapons is important, there should be plenty of advice on that topic around.

Another thing is to take plenty of infantry (combined squads with commissars, as before) and 3 heavy support tanks - either leman russes, which are very tough indeed (you use the infantry to stop enemy tank-hunters getting close with meltaguns or assaults, which are the real threats to heavy armoured vehicles) or artillery (manticores are probably best as they bring a S10 barrage weapon, which fills some gaps in the capabilities of IG infantry weapons) or a mix of both.