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I’m putting together an entirely infantry based IG 1500pt army for a friendly campaign at my local club and looking for comments. I usually play CSM but looking for a change, and set myself the challenge of not using any vehicles at all. From memory, and I may have missed stuff, the full list is something like:

HQ - CCS with Creed and Kell, 2 bodyguards, Master of Ordinance, 3 Snipers and Camo Cloaks

Elite – Psyker battle squad with 9 psykers.

Platoon 1
PCS with 4 Meltas
2*10 Infantry Squads

2*HWS with Lascannons
1*HWS with Autocannon

Platoon 2
PCS with 4 Grenade Launchers
2*10 Infantry Squads

2*HWS with Missile Launchers
1*HWS with Mortars

Platoon 3
PCS with 4 Flamers
1*20 Infantry Squad, Power Weapon for 1 Sergeant, 1 Priest with Eviscerator

My thinking is that the in general, the HWS will deploy at the back, HQ next, 20 man squad around that, then the 3 PCSs, then the 10 men squads to around the outside facing whatever nasties are trying to kill, enslave or eat my army. I’d try and keep everything closeish to stop deep strikes and outflanking (9 HWS in total should take up quite a bit of land area). The general strategy would be to use HWS to take out things at range (supported by Creeds ‘Bring it Down’ orders to bring down vehicles), while the 10 man squads slow things down as they approach. Once things get close the idea with the 20 man squad is that with Creels Cadia command giving furious charge, the priest giving hit rerolls and the eviscerator and power weapon, the squad should be able to put in a respectable showing in close combat in a countercharge, but no idea if it would work in practice very often? The psykers are partly just a bit of fun – I quite like the idea of reducing enemy units leaderships to 2 then using mortars and snipers to try and pin them.

I know the army has horrible mobility and will struggle to move to capture objectives. My main plan is to try and kill everything at range, or at least everything that can hold an objective.

I’m mostly likely to be playing against Marine, Chaos and Elder (both types), but I want to stay quite flexible to take on other armies as necessary. The campaign’s mostly just for fun so I’m not too bothered about having the worlds most competitive list, but at the same time I want to win at least some games…

Just looking for any general comments on tactics using the army, or any suggestions of changes (although I’d rather not make any massive changes). And I really am sure about the ‘no vehicles’ rule I’ve set myself so not really looking for replies along the lines of ‘You really need a Valkerie in there’ or whatever. And vehicles does include Sentinels, even although a do have three sitting there looking sad at being left out. I’ll flesh out the force with some vehicles at some future date – for now its foot soldiers or nothing!

I wouldn't have snipers in the company command squad, I would just get a separate special weapons squad for that. Speaking of special weapons squad's.
Your platoon command squad's fufil the role of most special weapons.
The one part of your tactics that might mess you over is that some flamers or blast weapons will wipe out huge chunks of your army (even for imperial guard).
But other than that, I really like seeing infantry guard armies and I like Creed.
Good luck with your campaign.

I'm not massively attached to the snipers - they just seemed a cheap option to fill out the CCS which is going to spend most of it's time stationary anyway and which might get lucky and pin things getting close. Any suggestions of alternatives to fill in the slot for the three vets at around the same point?

I see that template and blast weapons will be a problem. One reason for going for this list is that most people in the club seem to play elite style armies that focus on meltas and lascannons, neither of which aren't much of a threat to this list - can see that changing tho. I'll probably just try and spread out the distance between troops as much as possible and see how that goes.

I was toying with the idea of mixing things up and including a second CCS with 4 meltas (if I merge two platoons and upgrade the PCS to the CCS it's not that much of a points jump). It would give an extra couple of orders when things are at range, and any vehicles/ MC that gets close would probably have a bad day against a unit with 4WS meltas and'Bring it Down' ordered to itself. Any thoughts?

Merging two platoons is a good idea.
Whether I would include another company command squad or not I don't know, but I would try and include more infantry (sounds insane with the amount you have but when your doing foot guard, neccesary).
One character I think this army could really use is Bastonne.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
If you are making your enemies leadership 2 though, I would include a special weapons squad or two with snipers, either that or ratlings.
If your not versing much blast, then I would keep the squads together, that can be decided at the start of each game after seeing what your opponent has.

How do you feel about rough riders? They can add some speed and counter assualt to a foot list.

HWS I would run auto/las only. ML is only 1 shot at BS3 and mortar just gives some anti-horde shooting that is often as easy to deal with using lasguns and FRFSRF.

If you are running lots of HWS then having them babysat by a Lord Comm is good. You do not necessarily need to spin for Kell as well then. As well as orders, LC gives the teams his leadership for other morale checks.

I would trim down to 2 infantry squads rather than 3 - possibly putting at least one up to 30 men and giving them more power weapons and certainly a Commissar in each one. They really make them much more resilient in CC. Priest is perhaps optional at 1,500.

Rather than snipers in the CCS I would put say melta and then take a ratling squad if you want snipers. MOO also an extra at 1,500 and maybe one to save for 1,750 points. You need to get those infantry squads properly tooled.

Hi there! I am a very new to guard and have been collecting an army since early last year after alot of research into what I should be looking at and I am also a fan of infantry lists (even though I have plenty of tanks but footlists are pretty cool). Therefore, take what I say with a pinch of salt but personally I would like to see some commissars in your list just so that your guys remain stubborn and not run away after a round of shooting as they would be then a useful bubble wrap unit against units that are trying to get to your precious HWS. I won't upgrade the commissars with anything really except perhaps a power weapon. Also, from my own experience throwing in a meltabomb or two could be quite useful as they could deal with space marine dreadnoughts that could ruin your day, I know you have a priest with an eviscerator that counts as a power fist but just in case.....

Plenty of firepower but one question is this meant to be a horde army or just a footlist? Just wanted to know as my army numbers ~150 infantry at 1500 points but then again I need loads of models so that at least I survive for some time hehe. Hope my comments help.

HQ - CCS with Creed and Kell, 2 bodyguards, Master of Ordinance, 3 Snipers and Camo Cloaks

good

Elite – Psyker battle squad with 9 psykers.

unstable unit

2*HWS with Lascannons
1*HWS with Autocannon

it better to put HWT into infantry squads, they will be alive longer

2*HWS with Missile Launchers
1*HWS with Mortars

same, also ML and Mortar are weak weapons

Platoon 3
PCS with 4 Flamers
1*20 Infantry Squad, Power Weapon for 1 Sergeant, 1 Priest with Eviscerator

What they will do? For hth you need comissar, ogryns, penal legion, straken

I suggest this:
CCS, Kell, ordnance master, standart, bodyguard, cloak, HWT HB - 230
Marbo - 65
6 Ogryn - 250
Veteran squad, HWT HB, 3 plasma, forward sentries - 155
Penal Platoon - 80
platoon - 415
pcs standart, power fist, melta bomb, HWT lascannon
inf squad, power weapon, melta bomb, melta, HWT lascannon
inf squad, power weapon, melta bomb, melta, HWT lascannon
inf squad, comissar, power weapon, melta bomb, melta, HWT lascannon
--
10 Riders, Kamir, 2 melta - 165
10 Riders, 2 melta - 125