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Hey guys,

So as I mentioned in another thread, I'm thinking of selling my Tyranids and getting Imperial guard. Thing is , I want to do this army right. I don't want to purchase a bunch of models I'm not going to need, or ever use. I want to aim at getting a solid 2000 point list and I'm thinking of having a mix of infantry and tanks.

Was wondering if anybody could give me any suggestions on the best way of starting this and reaching that goal?

When I started grey knights, i went for the crowe list and bought 2x rhinos, 20x purifiers, 2x rhinos, and 2x dreadnoughts.

Then I wanted to play around with paladins so I bought 15 terminators, draigo, land raider crusader, and a librarian.

Next I wanted to play around with a mobile army and strike squads so I bought 20x strike squads, 20x interceptors, and a storm raven.

... well you can see where this is going , I've tossed enough money into Grey Knights and they aren't even my primary army, I just really liked the models and I didn't have a space marine chapter so that filled that niche.

With Imperial guard I'm looking for the best place to start, and how to reach a very competitive 2000 point list. Is the battleforce a good place to start, or is it a bit lackluster?

Thanks dakka dakka!

Well the battle force will give you the basics, whether your running around with mech or foot as it will give you the basic force organisation chart. with veterans ir 1 basic platoon. If your going mech get rid of the heavy weapon squad and sentinel and you'll prob then have enough for a chimera or two depending how much you scam the kid for. So it is a good deal, for foot and mech as in australia you save 22%.( compared to buying everything separately that's in the box)

Well competitive guard tends toward leaf blower lists. You get a sentinel in a battleforce box, which I've never seen used in a serious competitive list before. You also get a heavy weapons squad, which has no real place is a leaf blower list either.

You could certainly use them if you wanted to, but competitive guard from all I've seen focus on Vets, Chimeras, Lemans, and Manticores.

Edit - Whoops, as Fotta say vendettas a pretty popular too.

Straight up no, lol. If you're the type who enjoys those kind of grey knight lists, you'll never use a sentinel. Probably not the heavy weapons teams either. Start with infantry squads, chimeras, and vendettas. You'll use those in most competitive armies.

What exactly is the leaf blower list? I've googled it and it's shown me a handful of different builds, while similar, some are more focused on chimeras , others are more focused on valkyries.

well i think tau is worth the most cash

The battleforces will prove their worth to you, adding up the cost its les sthan buying the other parts seperate so the Senteniel is free really.

Buying three battleforces gives you enough men to do a company command squad, 2 platoon command squads and 4 troop squads. if you look on ebay for meltagunners you can make them into vets, and the heavy weapon teams from the battleforce can be uses (either autocannon or lascannon) if you want to take platoons and keep them inside the chimeras as gun bunkers.

Add in 4-5 chimeras (I like 8 in my lists) and you have a solid core with some weapon options for making your lists around.

You can even build meltas form the grenade launcher with the magazine trimmed off and th flamer nozzle on the end slightly rounded like I did, meaning you don't have to spend a fortune on melta/plasma gun 2 packs.

Add in a manticore and if you wish it russes nd you'll have a solid core army with options you ca swap for fun games or higher point levels.

The senteniels can have a place fi you fill up the rest of the FOC and taking them as autocannon scout senteniels with hunter killer missiles gives you a cheap outflanking anti tank force to harass enemy with.

No matter what direction you go, you will need the men, so the battleforce box sets are always going to be good. I personally like the Cadian one, as I use my guys as both guardsmen and henchmen for my Inquisitional forces. In any case, even mech forces benefit greatly from having at least one descently sized blob squad to protect them, so you can't really go wrong with the battalion box.

The Lascannons from the heavy weapons squads, combined with the sentinels Lascannon are hugely useful from the perspective of making a vendetta on the cheap.



It's also one of the few halfway efficient ways to get Guard infantry. The other is these guys.

I don't think a 'Leafblower' list really is that necessary for a competitive Guard army. The army is good enough, and balanced enough that if you keep in mind the really good (which are, to be fair, undercosted in my opinion) and, avoid the really bad units, you'll have good luck and fun.

Most Efficient Things in The Guard Army.

Valkyrie Vendettas with Lascannons
Hydras
Manticores
Veterans with Melta Guns.
Company Command with Melta Guns
Chimeras
Guardsman Marbo

Least Efficient Guard Units
Stormtroopers
Priests
Ogryns
Ratlings
Leman Russ Punisher
Making really expensive sentinels
(That's mostly it I think???)


Everything else in there has their place really and will fit a lot of playstyles. For example, some swear by 30 Man Guardsmen Units with a Commissar and Power Weapon Sergeants, others really love big Rough Riders units. It's really down to your own personal preference, I think.

Cryage wrote:What exactly is the leaf blower list? I've googled it and it's shown me a handful of different builds, while similar, some are more focused on chimeras , others are more focused on valkyries.

Chime in if I'm wrong here guys, but the name leafblower came from a guy who fielded a ton of chimeltas on the table in a fairly large tourny, and it was so effective at beating his opponent he practically blew them off the table, thus leaf blower. Since then, people generally have started to bring more antimech to the field, because a wall of chimeras with melta guns inside them can really hurt you if you lack the firepower to take them out quickly.

So, leafblower goes something like this

CCS
- 4x Melta
- Chimera
Veterans
- 3x Melta
- Chimera
Veterans
- 3x Melta
- Chimera
Veterans
- 3x Melta
- Chimera
Veterans
- 3x Melta
- Chimera
Veterans
- 3x Melta
- Chimera
Veterans
- 3x Melta
- Chimera
Vendetta
Vendetta
Vendetta
Leman Russ
Leman Russ
Leman Russ

This puts you at 1915 pts. You can remove a leman/vendetta to play in an 1850, or you can add 85 pts to get into a 2000 pt game.

This is a lot of mech to shoot at. I would imagine a list like this is why the newcron scarabs became what they are.

Sweet balls that is a lot of melta haha.

Since ebay seems to hate canadians for their metal melta models, id probably just buy a few orders of these guys

http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Warhammer-40000/Imperial_Guard/Cadian_Shock_Troops/CADIAN-HOSTILE-ENVIRONMENT-TROOPS-MELTA-SQUAD.html

Seems like a decent deal and i love forgeworld stuff

Firstly, ignore this:

Compel wrote:Most Efficient Things in The Guard Army.
Least Efficient Guard Units

You can make a guard army that includes any unit that you want, so long as the rest of your list supports it properly.

Secondly, the battleforce isn't bad, but it's not a good place to start. If you're going to want to build a 2,000 point guard army, you should start with either 12 boxes of infantry, a few meltagun bitz, and some commissars, or you should start with 6 boxes of infantry, at least a dozen plasma gun bitz and either 3 vendettas or 12 chimeras (most will be chimeras proper, but some of them will be converted into chimera-chassis vehicles like manticores, hydras and the like).

Once you have a super stellar 1250+ points of troops and HQ, then you can start to think about where your remaining 750 points will go. Otherwise, you're going to overspend on support units, which is a much, much worse crime than taking priests and stormtroopers.