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Hi guys,
been looking at which army to choose for over a month and I have a question about the IG.
What I like it the sort of desperate feel they have, sort of like russians in the battle of Stalingrad, where the Commisairs had to share some bullets to keep the 'morale' up.
I like to see a lot of banners and all that kind of 'Stalingrad' fluff.

About playstyle I presume its an expensive army to collect ? That may be my drawback, as i dont want to invest a lot of money into something Im not sure Ill enjoy later.
I was thinking a Battleforce + some additional boxes for starters.

Guard are a fun army, you could do them as you said with masses of infantry with commissars and you can get an army for a dcent price comapred to other armies.

I did some pricing and worked out 2000 points is £312 if you paid GW prices and didn't go elsewhere, so you could do it alot cheaper... (The prices in this post include the codex also)

To do a 1k point list (With some units spare) you can do it for £211.

Fullbreakdown is here on my blog: http://blobguard.blogspot.com/2012/01/blob-guard-list-on-cheapish.html

incase you want to nosey at what I used to make the list. But again thats full GW retail, depending on who delivers to your country you could do it much cheaper. and then build form the all infantry into vehicles and mixed arms.

The price kicker is the tanks,

Guard armies need a lot of them, and they cost.


The army itself is very cool though

The cost of tanks (LRBT and Chimmies) can be crippling, but that said you can use the Sentinel as a base to build things on to get a unique look and feel. I've converted three of them into LRBT and most folks like the look of them. Next on the Sentinel convertion list is to make some Fire Ants, Fire support Sentinels and some Hyda types.
All you need is some plas-card, some imganation and a well stoked bits box

Also depends on your list. An infantry-heavy army requires you to field dozens and possibly hundreds (depending on how many conscripts you like to waste ) of models in higher point games, and that's still $25 American for only ten. Nice thing about Guard, however, is the versatility. Fill out your list with extreme upgrades and you won't need to have more infantry. A Veteran squad can cost 90 points for no upgrades or over 200 if you furnish them well, and the same goes for tanks (though typically it IS a good idea to have numbers of tanks so your highest costing unis don't get blown up in a turn or 2 of close combat).

All in all, it would be best to think about yur play style specifically and perhaps draw up a mock list and post it to get advice on where to buy and what to convert. Though it is the strong point, IG doesn't HAVE to have a bunch of tanks. Sentinels, Valkyries, and Chimeras can all be used just as effectively as an armoured division if utilized correctly.

Hmm Ill have to think about this...Id appreciate more input

Guard are pretty versatile, one of the few lists that doesn't really work (against MEQ anyway) is blobs. Fielding as many men as you can against Marines or their equivilents will result in you taking half an hour each movement phase and them all dying anyway.
Tanks work though.

Pure infinity Guard can be fun, the key is to supplement the lack of heavy armor with special weapons and heavy weapons. There are also several special charters in the book that improve infantry platoons, and one who is almost ripped right from the WW2-era Red Army!

The Mad Tanker wrote:Pure infinity Guard can be fun, the key is to supplement the lack of heavy armor with special weapons and heavy weapons. There are also several special charters in the book that improve infantry platoons, and one who is almost ripped right from the WW2-era Red Army!

Yarrick ?

Guard a good army, perhaps not the absolute best for new players. The army style you're thinking of involves a large number of models. You're going to spend more time and money assembling your force than normal. If you like battle tanks they're actually one of the better buys available to you in terms of points cost for a given amount of money spent, nearly 4 points per € compared to 2-2,5 points per € for most other units. To make Guard more expensive you buy lots of transports.

If you use all of the infantry the battleforce is a deal even if you throw the Sentinels away. What is your budget and goal to start with?

Metal_days wrote:

The Mad Tanker wrote:Pure infinity Guard can be fun, the key is to supplement the lack of heavy armor with special weapons and heavy weapons. There are also several special charters in the book that improve infantry platoons, and one who is almost ripped right from the WW2-era Red Army!

Yarrick ?

The dude who lets you send in infinite amounts of conscripts. He's not very useful, but I can imagine it being fun bringing 40 conscripts on to the table every turn.

Joey wrote:

Metal_days wrote:

The Mad Tanker wrote:Pure infinity Guard can be fun, the key is to supplement the lack of heavy armor with special weapons and heavy weapons. There are also several special charters in the book that improve infantry platoons, and one who is almost ripped right from the WW2-era Red Army!

Yarrick ?

The dude who lets you send in infinite amounts of conscripts. He's not very useful, but I can imagine it being fun bringing 40 conscripts on to the table every turn.

Well I guess my aim is to buy a Cadian battleforce and go for building a 500 points army to actually see if I want to continue in this hobby...suggestions ?

Metal_days wrote:

Joey wrote:

Metal_days wrote:

The Mad Tanker wrote:Pure infinity Guard can be fun, the key is to supplement the lack of heavy armor with special weapons and heavy weapons. There are also several special charters in the book that improve infantry platoons, and one who is almost ripped right from the WW2-era Red Army!

Yarrick ?

The dude who lets you send in infinite amounts of conscripts. He's not very useful, but I can imagine it being fun bringing 40 conscripts on to the table every turn.

Well I guess my aim is to buy a Cadian battleforce and go for building a 500 points army to actually see if I want to continue in this hobby...suggestions ?

As a source, sure. You get two squads, assuming you're going to veterans then all you need is another squad and a Leman Russ and you have a decent force. You'll probably want special weapons on the veteran squads, you can get 5 of these (melta or plasma) from GW for £8.50. Apparently you can get them cheaper online but the sites all look pretty tacky to me so YMMV.
The sentinal isn't as bad as a lot of people will make out. Stick the plasma gun on it (assuming you get this in the boxed set) and call it an armoured sentinal and it'll do fine in any list.
With special weapons for the veterans and command squad, and a Leman Russ or two, you can expend steadily, alternating between a veteran squad with transport and a Heavy Support/Elite/Fast Attack choice.

Joey wrote:

Metal_days wrote:

Joey wrote:

Metal_days wrote:

The Mad Tanker wrote:Pure infinity Guard can be fun, the key is to supplement the lack of heavy armor with special weapons and heavy weapons. There are also several special charters in the book that improve infantry platoons, and one who is almost ripped right from the WW2-era Red Army!

Yarrick ?

The dude who lets you send in infinite amounts of conscripts. He's not very useful, but I can imagine it being fun bringing 40 conscripts on to the table every turn.

Well I guess my aim is to buy a Cadian battleforce and go for building a 500 points army to actually see if I want to continue in this hobby...suggestions ?

As a source, sure. You get two squads, assuming you're going to veterans then all you need is another squad and a Leman Russ and you have a decent force. You'll probably want special weapons on the veteran squads, you can get 5 of these (melta or plasma) from GW for £8.50. Apparently you can get them cheaper online but the sites all look pretty tacky to me so YMMV.
The sentinal isn't as bad as a lot of people will make out. Stick the plasma gun on it (assuming you get this in the boxed set) and call it an armoured sentinal and it'll do fine in any list.
With special weapons for the veterans and command squad, and a Leman Russ or two, you can expend steadily, alternating between a veteran squad with transport and a Heavy Support/Elite/Fast Attack choice.

Thanks ! So are you saying Battleforce + one more box of troops + Leeman Russ / Chimera and it should be usable ?

Yeah if you get the Leman Russ first rather than chimera, two if you can. Either normal battle cannon or demolisher, I prefer the demolisher myself but you can't really go wrong with the normal one either.
Then alternate between troops and tanks and it'll remain competative as you grow it, rather than certain armies that are rubbish at low levels before become strong at 2000 points.

As mentioned, guard isn't the cheapest army, but it's not THE most expensive army either. I think the biggest cost to fielding a guard army isn't the money, it's the time. The amount of time it takes to assemble (and convert if that's your style), and paint ALL those guardsmen and/or ALL those vehicles can be pretty daunting. Unlike most other armies, there aren't really any deathstar options that can absorb a lot of points on a very small number of models letting you start getting games in not long after you start buying stuff.

As for a guard army in general, I like them. Lots of options, multiple competitive playstyles, a handful of loltastic units that can actually do stuff. Pretty much everything I look for in an army, gaming-wise. Plus, their fluff isn't bad either. What I personally like with my predominantly foot lists is exactly what you've been talking about. You bring 120 models to a 1500 point game, and all but 6 get horribly slaughtered, but you still win the game regardless. I once had a capture and control game where in the end I only had two models left on the board, but that was good enough for a draw. That may not be much if you only had 15 infantry models (hello, grey knights), but out of triple digits, that somehow feels much more epic.

As for where to begin, once you've got some idea what your list is going to look like, you've got to start with at least 3 boxes of infantry, and then either three chimeras (if you're doing mech), or three more boxes of guardsmen (if you're going foot). Once you have a color scheme that looks good on your troops (and vehicles), and you've got your basic troops and HQ choices, only then should you start shelling out cash for support units. Trying to get around painting a dozen chimeras or 4 dozen guardsmen by loading up on HS choices will only see you lose a lot of games early on. Cheaters never prosper, as they say.

I'd recommend 2x Batteforces to begin with, a couple of chimeras and a leman Russ, then you can build it from there as you wish.