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I usually run meltavets in my armies to great success, stopping enemy armour from getting too close and dropping Terminators and MEQ.
But whenever I try platoons I seem to do pretty badly. They get blown up a lot, and the one or two shots I get with lasguns isn't enough to deal with the impending CC death.
So what would be a good shooty guard list?
Platoons with Heavy Weapon Squad backed by vanilla Leman Russes and a Manticore?
edit-around 1500 points too.

I don't like gunline armies of Guard, I prefer vets. Forgeworld's codex for the DKOK allows them to have heavy weapon platoons as heavy support choices, bringing 3 of these platoon with auto/ las cannons would make an army really hard to stop, imo. But, it would mean that you couldn't bring tanks. for standard IG, the gunline has become outdated as more agressive tactics are much more successful.

You don't have to go full Mech Vets to get use out of a blob. Personally I find a power blob to synergize very well with Mech Vets, giving them bubble wrap against charges. They're useful for tarpitting units that do a ton of damage but don't put out a lot of attacks. Good examples of this are Hammernators, Daemon Princes and Daemons in general, and Dreads.

I've ended up with boatloads of heavy weapons in my collection - they are one of the reasons I liked guard in the first place, and they've always been such a good deal (buy one get five!), with a little conversion work.

Anyways I've stubbornly kept to my heavies in fifth, tinkering with vehicle-supported platoons (I like mostly wysiwyg all-comers lists). I've got more infantry, a plasma sent and a demolisher to ramp up to 2000 (sometime bringing Creed).

My latest 1500pt list, suffered a close loss to Green Tide the other night:

CCS (Regimental Standard, Plasmagun, Lascannon)

Lord Commissar
-Chimera

PCS (Heavy Flamer, 3x Flamer)
-Chimera (Heavy Flamer Turret, Dozer) [Counts as hellhound]

PIS (Heavy Bolter, Grenade Launcher)
PIS (Heavy Bolter, Grenade Launcher)
PIS (Heavy Bolter, Grenade Launcher)

HWS (3x Lascannon)
HWS (3x Lascannon)

PCS (4x Grenade Launcher)
-Chimera

PIS (Mortar, Grenade Launcher)
PIS (Mortar, Grenade Launcher)
PIS (Mortar, Grenade Launcher)

HWS (3x Missile Launcher)
HWS (3x Autocannon)

Leman Russ Battle Tank (Lascannon)

Basilisk

I find the best place for the anti-vehicle weapons are in a HWS, where their concentrated firepower can be maximized with one of the fire orders from the CCS. The fragility of the HWS is frequently mentioned on Dakka, so I don't need to go into it here. To mitigate this, I make sure the most important ones for any particular battle (read: lascannons) are near the CCS and Lord (he's usually in the CCS), at least in the opening phases. The CCS provides the reroll on morale (and orders), while the Lord lets the ld7 HWS take morale (and orders) on ld10. That basically means you have to destroy the whole squad to silence the battery, instead of them running away after losing one model. The orders are just a (huge) bonus.

I've experimented with platoon commissars and am back to MSU. I can make a blob with the Lord if I want. I'll eventually add a power blob or two, once I get past 2000 points.

The squads get heavy bolters and mortars because their role is anti-infantry and I have layered anti-vehicle in my list anyways. Grenade launchers are cheap and ranged. I'm thinking of trying sniper rifles with the morts. (Dakka be damned!)

I've tried various vehicles in support, I like the bassy/russ combo alot. I'm thinking of swapping out two boats for a hellhound. Everyone has always told me mobility is the big problem with my list, so I bring at least two chims, but lately I've realized they aren't really necessary, for a few reasons: Infantry can run; I've got enough firepower to destroy scoring units at range, with plenty of scoring units of my own; and 1/3 of battles have no objectives.

The most important thing is learning when to get your infantry moving. I don't worry about a heavy or two not shooting for a round, movement wins the game sometimes.

It's an unforgiving list, very easy to make mistakes. Multicharges are my total bane - hard to estimate, and can be devastating. Deepstrikers/outflankers aren't as scary as people tell me they should be because with 100 guys I control what they can do in my deployment zone. I'm still learning it to tell you the truth. I still lose more than I win, but the losses are usually close enough to have been a fight, and the wins are often very crushing, so thats good.

Sorry for the wall of text, but I was actually signing on to post something like this as it had been awhile; that's why I've jacked your thread!

Squidmanlolz wrote:I don't like gunline armies of Guard, I prefer vets. Forgeworld's codex for the DKOK allows them to have heavy weapon platoons as heavy support choices, bringing 3 of these platoon with auto/ las cannons would make an army really hard to stop, imo. But, it would mean that you couldn't bring tanks. for standard IG, the gunline has become outdated as more agressive tactics are much more successful.

I know it may not be competative on a tournament setting, but I play for fun amongst friends. I still want to win of course, but I don't see the point of only playing as one army because it is 0.5% more powerful. Hence I want to blow stuff up and win, not annoy my opponant and be a bad sport.

murdog wrote:I've ended up with boatloads of heavy weapons in my collection - they are one of the reasons I liked guard in the first place, and they've always been such a good deal (buy one get five!), with a little conversion work.

Anyways I've stubbornly kept to my heavies in fifth, tinkering with vehicle-supported platoons (I like mostly wysiwyg all-comers lists). I've got more infantry, a plasma sent and a demolisher to ramp up to 2000 (sometime bringing Creed).

My latest 1500pt list, suffered a close loss to Green Tide the other night:

CCS (Regimental Standard, Plasmagun, Lascannon)

Lord Commissar
-Chimera

PCS (Heavy Flamer, 3x Flamer)
-Chimera (Heavy Flamer Turret, Dozer) [Counts as hellhound]

PIS (Heavy Bolter, Grenade Launcher)
PIS (Heavy Bolter, Grenade Launcher)
PIS (Heavy Bolter, Grenade Launcher)

HWS (3x Lascannon)
HWS (3x Lascannon)

PCS (4x Grenade Launcher)
-Chimera

PIS (Mortar, Grenade Launcher)
PIS (Mortar, Grenade Launcher)
PIS (Mortar, Grenade Launcher)

HWS (3x Missile Launcher)
HWS (3x Autocannon)

Leman Russ Battle Tank (Lascannon)

Basilisk

I find the best place for the anti-vehicle weapons are in a HWS, where their concentrated firepower can be maximized with one of the fire orders from the CCS. The fragility of the HWS is frequently mentioned on Dakka, so I don't need to go into it here. To mitigate this, I make sure the most important ones for any particular battle (read: lascannons) are near the CCS and Lord (he's usually in the CCS), at least in the opening phases. The CCS provides the reroll on morale (and orders), while the Lord lets the ld7 HWS take morale (and orders) on ld10. That basically means you have to destroy the whole squad to silence the battery, instead of them running away after losing one model. The orders are just a (huge) bonus.

I've experimented with platoon commissars and am back to MSU. I can make a blob with the Lord if I want. I'll eventually add a power blob or two, once I get past 2000 points.

The squads get heavy bolters and mortars because their role is anti-infantry and I have layered anti-vehicle in my list anyways. Grenade launchers are cheap and ranged. I'm thinking of trying sniper rifles with the morts. (Dakka be damned!)

I've tried various vehicles in support, I like the bassy/russ combo alot. I'm thinking of swapping out two boats for a hellhound. Everyone has always told me mobility is the big problem with my list, so I bring at least two chims, but lately I've realized they aren't really necessary, for a few reasons: Infantry can run; I've got enough firepower to destroy scoring units at range, with plenty of scoring units of my own; and 1/3 of battles have no objectives.

The most important thing is learning when to get your infantry moving. I don't worry about a heavy or two not shooting for a round, movement wins the game sometimes.

It's an unforgiving list, very easy to make mistakes. Multicharges are my total bane - hard to estimate, and can be devastating. Deepstrikers/outflankers aren't as scary as people tell me they should be because with 100 guys I control what they can do in my deployment zone. I'm still learning it to tell you the truth. I still lose more than I win, but the losses are usually close enough to have been a fight, and the wins are often very crushing, so thats good.

Sorry for the wall of text, but I was actually signing on to post something like this as it had been awhile; that's why I've jacked your thread!

Lord Commissar is a pretty big investment for a small pay-off. If you scrapped him and his chimera you could get a leman russ.
Also, is it possible to have a powerful list that doesn't have lots of chimeras? I don't mind one or two but they're expensive and I don't really enjoy painting vehicles.

It is a big investment, but I feel the payoff is also big. I've got 375pts worth of HWS in there, representing alot of my anti-vehicle firepower. I can't have them running away because the enemy sneezed in their direction. At smaller point levels I wing it with the regimental standard, but once I have 4 HWS i bring the lord. He's there to keep them in line, but I also have lost count the number of times the ld10 has made the difference between an order going off, or just regular shots.

If you want to do foot guard lists, you're going to need to bring commissars. It's the difference between constantly failing pinning checks and orders and fleeing the field at the first whiff of close combat, and being tough as nails.

If you're sick of your platoons losing horribly at close combat then, once you've added the commissars, spend the points to throw around some power weapons.

If you want shooty, the only way I can all that seriously consider it is if you're bringing sufficient armor-ignoring stuff. Basically, you need power weapons, except in shooting. This more or less means plasma guns and plasma pistols. Consider something like...

PIS, plasma gun, plasma pistol, commissar with power weapon.
PIS, plasma gun, plasma pistol
PIS, plasma gun, plasma pistol

It's over 250 points, but with Bring it Down and First Rank Fire, you can make a TERRIBLE mess of stuff at 12" That which you don't kill off in a fusilade of plasma and lasfire, will probably be dropped through pure attrition if they charge you the next turn, or they'll just be wiped out straight away the next turn by more lasguns/plasma if they don't.

The only loss here is anti heavy vehicle, for which you're either going to need meltabombs or perhaps lascannons (that makes a pretty dang expensive unit, though), or rely on other stuff in your army to handle the predetors, land raiders, et al.

And yes, infantry guard lists can be plenty competitive. They tend to do VERY well against lists that are designed to counter MSU spam. They may get all smug about how many plazorbacks they have, and then you show up with this:



... at which point they crap themselves.

The only problem is that this kind of a list is difficult to make work properly in tournament settings that have incredibly low time:points ratios, as careful movement and use of terrain can sometimes be required. But if you're not bound by time and terrain, then yeah, you can do fine. Just click on the Foleran First link in my sig to see some battle reports.

+1 to what Ailaros said. Read his battle reports and you'll see the truth of it. After deciding to play guard and reading many of those reports I also went for a foot heavy guard. Out of the 18 guard vehicles i have, 12 are still unassembled because I spend all my time making more men. A lot of strategy and tactics are required to play foot guard well though, since you have to be able to judge when you need to send your men running for that far off objective, when you can step out of cover and how you can get the most out of cover, but stay the course and you'll be well served despite what you might think it's the kind of army that can require very nuanced play, even if you're the only person who notices it. I've played my new guard army as all foot/mainly foot gunlines 8 times now and have only lost twice. Had either of those games gone on a single more turn then 90% likely they would have been at least draws simply because of the staying power of 115-145 men. I've blown out my opponants 3 times and haven't had the same happen to me yet. Not because I'm the best, but because I bring enough men to win my war of attrition. After 40 assault marines eat 1-2 rounds of lasgun fire and then hit 2 blobs of 20 (without power weapons <silly me&gt and are counter charged by a blob of 40 guardsmen armed with power weapons, there's nothing left but many dead bodies and a few live guardsmen wiping the blood, guts and power armour bits off their swords and buttstocks.

The greatest power of the Imperial Army is the lasgun and flamer. Lasguns FRF/SRF can put out just a stupid amount of shots over two turns and you don't need great luck for that to turn into kills, and a few close range flamers (which A. don't roll to hit, and B. are plentiful in combined guard squads and Platoon Command squads) can soften anyone up. Even the kind of games that I was scared of, like kill points, turned out to be much less of a problem in reality. My last kill point game was a 7-3 victory. 40 Assualt marines, a librarian and 2 FNP givers add up to seven, while 75-80 guardsmen and a 5 man storm trooper squad was only 3. I laughed at that pic Ailaros posted even harder than I would have normaly because I just played that game. As for being competative, I finaly got my guard out to a tourney and wouldn't you know the humble foot soldier fared better than my 2 leman russes or basilisk. If I was smart I would have left them at home and brought more men!!! Had I had a bit more experience and played my army smarter I would have placed second alone instead of 2 points behind the multiplayer tie for second, but you can't fault my men for that. The commissars have informed me I'll get one more chance to do the emperor proud before I'm forcibly removed from command.

Cheers for the advice, everyone.
i will try a couple of plasma/power blobs today with lascannon HWT, a couple of manticores and a demolisher.
It's clear i need a lot more infantry squads...


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Went very well. They didn't get any shots off, but they managed to wipe out a unit of Death Company with some help from Platoon Command Power Fists, and the lascannon HWTs (twin-linked) managed to take out a fair few tanks.
All in all a resounding victory.