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Hi all. New to the game, new to IG, and I'm looking to put together a 500pt. starter army. I've come up with a list, but wanted to get some opinons, since I have the awesome resource of DakkaDakka at my finger tips.
why 500? because I teach as a school where the boys have just discovered 40k, and all we currently have is the Black Reach starter set. I am looking to slowly build equal sized armies of the different factions to use as sample armies for future inducteees. I've talked the kinds into starting small -- 500 points, until they get thang of the game, and thye've been picking up their own stuff. The boys have chosen Space Wolves, Chaos(Thousand Sons), Dark Eldar, Necorns, and Tau. The IG forces will be for me.

Here's what I was thinking:

Company Comand -- PowerFist commander, Standard Bearer, and Heavy Flamer

2 Penal Legion Squads -- (this is kind of set, as the fluff I've been thinking up revolves around a prison world)

2 Armored Sentinals -- are these any good at tank busting? They kids don'thave any yet, but they are looking as heavy support for their first upgrades....

Devil Dog -- I figured this should be good for crowd control, and still hold it's own in a vehicle battle.

My ideas for expansion beyond 500pts. would involve adding a proper infantry unit to each penal legion and trun them into platoons, drop in a comissar, and maybe add some more mech. but that would be down the road. I just need something to get rolling.

Sounds like fun. Here are a few suggestions:

Drop the power fist on the Company Commander. You don't want him in close combat. You also don't need the standard bearer or the heavy flamer. Use the points to add a Lascannon team and two grenade launchers. This will be your firebase, and the cool part is you can give orders to the unit itself.

Penal legions are entertaining, and if they are part of your fluff then you should use them. They can't take any upgrades, and can't combine, so they have definite disadvantages. They can take orders.

Sentinels are not good at tank busting. If you are still shopping, buy a Valkyrie and build it as a Vendetta. That is some tank busting.

Devil Dog is a pretty weak tank, because most tanks will outrange it. If you can, buy a Leman Russ.

I would suggest buying the Cadian Battleforce, a Leman Russ, and a Valkyrie/Vendetta. Depending on where you buy it, around $200. Totally expandable as well.

Good luck.

BB

Well, since you're essentially building all the lists, there are a few things to make assumptions towards.

If none of the armies you've made for the kids have armor above AV12 (in 500 pts, this is a very good possibility) then yeah, sentinels can be great light-armor busters. Autocannons are a blast on them, but I'd drop the up-armor and get HK missiles for them (Outflanking with HK's is pretty fun)

Devil Dog is meh, but a Hellhound is a really fun unit that the kids will enjoy having to play against (It really turns certain playstyles on their head)

For company command I'd take an autocannon and two plasmaguns (if you can afford them) as PG's seem good for competing with the vehicles you're playing against.

As BB above said, the Cadian battleforce is your best bet, plus a Sentinel and a Hellhound. reasonably priced for a fun army to play

Well, there are some 64k questions to ask yourself... like do you want to do foot or mech longterm. So far, you seem to be leaning toward foot.

The next question is figuring out your play style. Do you want to attack or defend? Your picks lend to say your an aggressive player, as all those picks are attacker picks. Those two questions alone can go a long way to determinding your list.

Obviously the Third question is how important fluff is to you. That has somewhat been answered by the Penal squads. Just be aware that fluff choices might not be the best choice for efficency. That is the choice you as the player has to make.

The thing to build around is what you /have/ to take first... your troops and HQ. In the current edition of 40k, 2/3s of the games are objective games... taking and holding objectives. This means you need scoring units, which are troop choices. Don't skimp on your troops for other units just because they are big and shiney.

A CCS is a good, solid choice for a HQ. They are all Vets, so have that important BS 4 for good special weapon selections or heavy weapon selections. But they are Guardsmen, so have poor armor, poor physical stats, and are a 5 man squad to boot. That is usally to small of a number to be effective in close combat. You can use them as a effective 'follow-up' unit

I will disagree with beerbeard on the Regimental Standard, specially on a 'generic' CCS. You have a 12" Order Range, so you might as well give your infantry in 12" a re-roll for morale & pinning checks, specially if your moving up with them.

To me, Orders are one of the most important features for foot guard. They just make them better, and that makes them competitive. Read the Order rules and read the Orders. I think in the long term, you should take a hard look at Creed or Straken.

What I would actually suggest is that you take a long, hard look at Platoons, specially for expansion. They can give you /alot/ of troops, heavy weapons, and have the special 'Combined Squad' rules for the Platoon Infantry Squads (PIS) to form 'power blobs'. Due to the rules that non-independant characters can not be targeted in close or ranged combat, this means your sergeants, commissars, specialw eapons and heavy weapons can not be singled out (unless the attacker has a special rule stating otherwise). You give your sergeants and commissars power weapons and use your lasgun troops as wounds. The commissar is critically important as he makes the unit Stubborn and leadership 9. The neat thing about the 'combined squad' rule is that you only need one commissar for the entire blob, so you can have a 20-50 man unit with one Commissar.

As for support, you need to make some choices. If your advancing your CCS with your troops, Orders may not be an option for something like a Heavy Weapon Squad. You may want to look at Hydras and Vendettas that can do the job without Orders, due to the fact they do not need to take Morale checks.

Some general rules for standard IG lists are the following... these are my top 3...

Lascannons (LCs) and Autocannons (ACs) are the heavy weapons of choice. You use LCs for AV 12+ vehicles and ACs for AV 12 or less vehicles and troops. You will want your LCs either in a HWS (due to the volley of 3 shots at a single target), Vendetta, or with BS 4 troops. The AC can go on any BS 3 troop to effectivily give them a 75% chance of hitting with at least one shot.

Special weapons are the backbone of guard. If you ignore this, your giving away a huge advantage, and this makes it harder for you to win. BS 3 troops should look at melta guns and flamers. Flamers do not care about the ability to hit and melta guns are assault, AP 1, Str 8, and /really/ hurt vehicles. The only drawback is the range, and that is not a bad thing, when you count in you can move 6" and shoot.
Plasma guns and Melta guns should be on BS 4 troops, because they hit 2/3s of the time. This means they hit more often so that makes better use of the points being spent.
Grenade Launchers and Sniper Rifles can have their roles on the battlefield. In a 500pt list, I can see GLs getting alot of use due to the cost, assault, and range. But in the long haul, your just facing things consistantly that laugh at GLs. Sniper Rifles have the Rending rule but are heavy weapons, so static. Read the rule book about the Rending rule. These weapons are great against Monsterious Creatures (MCs) due to the wound on a 2+ (ignoring their Toughness) and the Rending gives you a chance to ignore armor and can even hurt light (AV 10-12) vehicles.

Last must have rule...
A Leman Russ Battle Tank (LRBT) is a anti-infantry vehicle. The only variant that is not is the Vanquisher, and that is /very/ expensive for a BS 3 50-50 shot to hit. A LRBT that does not move is a dead LRBT.

Pointer on vehicles...

Since all Guard vehicles are BS 3, you do not want to depend on them for anti-vehicle fire unless they are packing Twin Linked. The Sentinals, while cheap and somewhat effective with a AC against limited targets at low point levels, do not scale well. Every time you take them, you have to ask 'Could this have been a Vendetta instead?'.
Do not do Squadrons, unless your doing Artillery or Hydras. Read the rules concerning squadrons and you should see what I am talking about.

In my opinion, the best 3 LRBTs to use are Executioners, Demolishers, or the basic LRBT. Be careful of using the Tanks with Infantry that want to attack, as your using the Scatter dice for any blast markers. The scatter dice only have 'Hit' on two sides, so your accracy is now 1 out of 3 shots will hit, the rest scatter. These vehicles do need infantry to screen them from enemy infantry, so don't expect them to last long if you run them out alone. All close combat attacks go off of rear armor, and if they don't move, these hits are auto-hits. Repeat after me... a LRBT that doesn't move is a dead LRBT.

I can go into more, but this has taken me long enough to write. Play and get experience. Get the base rule book and read all the rules concerning your stuff and learn it, specially since your the Guard guy. If you guys have a question, look it up unless someone is 100% on it. Then check it later when your not slowing down game play. Trust me, looking it up during the game takes less time than people going back and forth on it.

Good luck, have fun, and find it amusing that in probably less than a year 6th Ed will come out so you guys can re-learn the rules...again.

Thanks for all of the input guys. I'm really bad at the actual game aspect of warhamer, I'm more of a "ooh I want to feild that because I like the way to looks" kind of guy.

BlkTom wrote:
The next question is figuring out your play style. Do you want to attack or defend? Your picks lend to say your an aggressive player, as all those picks are attacker picks.

I was hoping to buold something of a balacned force, since I don't know what I'm doing, but as a player i tend to be a litle more aggressive, mostly because I don't have the patience to play a defensive game.

BlkTom wrote:
What I would actually suggest is that you take a long, hard look at Platoons, specially for expansion.

The rules on platoons wouldn't help me at this point though right? If I want to have an HQ and 2 Troop choices for the organization chart, I can't have them wrapped up in one platoon because it only counts as a single Troop? (I think I read that correctly?)

BlkTom wrote:
'Could this have been a Vendetta instead?'.

Are the Vendettas really key to an IG army?

BlkTom wrote:
Good luck, have fun, and find it amusing that in probably less than a year 6th Ed will come out so you guys can re-learn the rules...again.

Seriously? My one reason for NOT playing 40k all these years was the amazingly swift turn around time on rules editions....

Tallghost wrote: Thanks for all of the input guys. I'm really bad at the actual game aspect of warhamer, I'm more of a "ooh I want to feild that because I like the way to looks" kind of guy.

That can be fun, but also super expensive. I suggest you just play test with friends and test out stuff via proxy a few times, against different enemies to get a proper feel for the units.

Tallghost wrote: I was hoping to buold something of a balacned force, since I don't know what I'm doing, but as a player i tend to be a litle more aggressive, mostly because I don't have the patience to play a defensive game.

Balance usally means being able to deal with most situations. The best balance you can hope for is having support units that can handle being alone while your offence forces move up under covering fire. Because the current game is 2/3ed objectives, your choices are to take the enemies objectives and neutral objectives or hold your own and take and hold the neutral ones.

Tallghost wrote: The rules on platoons wouldn't help me at this point though right? If I want to have an HQ and 2 Troop choices for the organization chart, I can't have them wrapped up in one platoon because it only counts as a single Troop? (I think I read that correctly?)

You did read that correctly. That is why I suggested it for long term. A Platoon can give you Heavy Weapon Squads and combine up the Platoon Infantry Squads to form blobs. Since the platoon is a troop choice, all the units part of it are troops as well, so a Heavy Weapon Squad counts as a troop choice and can claim a home objective while providing you fire support for your attacking units.

Tallghost wrote: Are the Vendettas really key to an IG army?

For Mech Guard, yes. For foot guard, not as much because you can get simular firepower from Heavy Weapon Squads. But Foot can use them as well if you don't properly support your HWSs or even use HWSs. Either way, consistant and reliable long range AT is a must.

Tallghost wrote: Seriously? My one reason for NOT playing 40k all these years was the amazingly swift turn around time on rules editions....

Honest Injun. It is not nearly as bad as the first few years where 3 Editions came out in like 4-5 years. Since then, they have only had 3 editions in 15 years. Even D&D comes out with a new rule system every 5-10 years, as 5th Ed was announced last month since 4th Ed D&D has tanked. The one good thing is that 95% of your stuff should still be avaible and legal with the new edition, you will just have to adjust your tactics.

First of all, because I don't think I've said it,thanks for all of your advice. I'm seriously rethinking the way I want to build this army.
I may start with a penal legion and an infantry squad instead of two PL, that way, when I expand, I can do another PL and Infantry, and have two seperate platoons.

Obviously, you are a big fan of the Leman Russ. But what about the other vehicles? The hellhound and varients seem to be a good choice to back up infantry, or maybe a chimera for my command squad.

I've been told not to bother with artillary unless I'm going to do a whole squadron of them, but I can't hlep but wonder if it would be useful to have a Griffon at the back of my line, balsting away. or does it become too useless once my infantry closes? Maybe HWS are the way to go, since you get more shots at a cheaper cost, and as you said, they can platoon up.

Tallghost,
I have similar plans at the school I teach at. I'll buy AoBR soon and I'll be able to play them with my Necrons.

Keep in mind, AoBR armies aren't exactly 500 points WYSIWYG.

Anpu:
True, but the starter set was nice for the kids to try Orks Vs. Marines.
They all seem to have their sights set on different armies, I just chose 500pts because I don't want them to lay out a huge amount and then regret it, plus 500 feels like some of the kids who can't really afford much won't be left in the dust.
A big bouns is that intwo weeks, a FLGS is having a beginners day, with armies supplied by the store for trial use. We'll see how many have changed their mind after that.

Tallghost wrote:First of all, because I don't think I've said it,thanks for all of your advice. I'm seriously rethinking the way I want to build this army.
I may start with a penal legion and an infantry squad instead of two PL, that way, when I expand, I can do another PL and Infantry, and have two seperate platoons.

Obviously, you are a big fan of the Leman Russ. But what about the other vehicles? The hellhound and varients seem to be a good choice to back up infantry, or maybe a chimera for my command squad.

I've been told not to bother with artillary unless I'm going to do a whole squadron of them, but I can't hlep but wonder if it would be useful to have a Griffon at the back of my line, balsting away. or does it become too useless once my infantry closes? Maybe HWS are the way to go, since you get more shots at a cheaper cost, and as you said, they can platoon up.

No problem Tallghost.

Ironicly, I run foot Guard with no vehicles at all. The problem with hellhounds and most of their variants is that; A) now every heavy weapon your foe has will have a target to validate it and B) it may not be effective against all foes.... power armor is an example. Seven (plus) codexs are either Marine Codexs or power armor codexs. If it is super hard to effect a marine, you have to question it's worth. For me, I would rather spend 20pts on Camo Cloaks for my CCS to give them a 3+ cover save and have the option to give themselves Orders than spend 55pts for a Chimera that prevents them from giving Orders to themselves. The 'Command Vehicle' rule says they can issue Orders out of a Chimera, but it does not overcome the limit of not being allowed to issue Orders to units /in/ vehicles.

And even though I don't use Artillery in a standard list, I will say that you do not need squadrons of them. Infact, I feel a single Manticore or a Collosus can go a long way if properly supported. My general rule is that if I have units that want to get within 6-12" of the enemy, I do not want to use scatterable artillery. With lists like that (I do Power Blob/Rough Riders/Ogryns), I would rather have direct fire support. There are two routes to this, IMO... vehicle or infantry. If your running Straken or having a generic CCS that is up front, I would go Hydras and Vendettas. If your doing Creed or a generic CCS sitting back, HWSs can give you all of the fire support you need. The non-vehicle list should also have a Lord Commissar (for his Aura of Discipline) to give your core HWSs (like LC HWSs) more staying power.

The Artillery has the same limitations that heavy weapons have... you really want the most versital artillery out there to give you the most bang for your point against as many foes as possible. The Griffon at Str 6 AP 4 means Marines get their armor save against it. That hurts the Griffon IMO. The Basilisk at Str 9 AP 3 is really what your looking for... but the drawback is the Open Topped and 36" indirect fire minimum range. If you fire it Direct (which you can), your really exposing it to alot of return fire making it a risky unit that may not last long. The Collosus has Open topped (but can't fire Direct) and it's blast is only Str 6, but it is AP 3 and ignores cover saves. It just is not as precise as you would really want it. The Manticore is probably the best one, IMO, because it is enclosed, can fire Direct or indirect, has multiple barrage (d3) but it's big limit is 4 shots. The Deathstrike is not a real option due to the random roll to determind when it fires and the one shot.

Plenty of attacking lists use artillery, specially Manticores. As I said above, I don't like to use them, but used carefully and knowing the risks (Murphy's Law...you know when you do get a unit in scatter range, oh it will scatter into your stuff) it can be very effective. I would rather use Artillery in a gunline list or leafblower.

I've started playing guard recently as well. I just bought a basilisk and converted it into a Griffon yesterday, so I'm going to be adding it to my 500 point army and seeing how it performs.

The way I see it is its dirt cheap at 75 points, and is going to be more accurate than any other ordinance that the guard has with its accurate bombardment rule. I've never had problems torrenting space marines to death, and a power blob can polish off any stragglers. The match up that scares my guard most are Orks, and the Griffon is the best way to put a band aide on that match up.

Anyway, the basic list that I've hammered out and playtested seems pretty similar to what you are ultimately going for with your own guard. Mostly foot, with artillery support. I'll post it here and you can take a look at it.

(85) ccs- las cannon, standard bearer

(45) pcs- auto cannon, grenade launcher
(120) Infantry Squad- Commissar, 2 power weapons, flamer, auto cannon
(75) Infantry Squad- power weapon, flamer, auto cannon

(100) Vet Squad- las cannon, 2 sniper rifles

(75) Griffon


total : 500 points.

Some things I've noticed
- the Regimental Standard is really good for foot guard in low point games. Leadership 7 or 8 just isn't good, and you really need your non blob squads to stick around in low point games. re rolling leadership is clutch. Its the same reason embolden is so good in Eldar bike squads, except bubble is always better than squad specific. Also if you play by the INAT faq, it lets you re roll a commissar's leadership 9 stubborn without executing an officer.

- be careful with heavy weapon squads. In my early games I was running a 75 point auto cannon heavy weapon team, and no regimental standard. At leadership 7 they break easily, they take damage easily since they have no ablative wounds, If your enemy doesn't want them shooting, you'll be lucky to get a round off. I found my fire power stayed much more constant with the big guns in the actual squads.

- power blobs are awesome. They are consistantly the only unit in the army that actually does everything. and they do everything well. They can provide firing basis, they can advance and capture objectives, and have even dragged down Kharn in close combat- his Berzerker retinue stayed on the objective. Also don't underestimate a good FRFSRF rapid fire against armies like Dark Eldar.

Finally, BlkTom has a lot more guard experience than I do. I pretty much only have experience in 400-600 point games at this point.