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I'm thinking of starting an Imperial Guard army. Bit of a noob, but I want to make an infantry army with mainly foot soldiers, so not heavy on tanks and whatnot.

But what does a 'foot' based army actually consist of? Some example army lists would be great.

I really don't have much clue So not sure exactly what I want, but I want lots of infantry hehe. So fire away with any army lists, help and advice.

Thanks!

The general infantry army has the glorious thing called a 'power blob'. They are used to tarpit, and use a commissar to make the squad so they don't run away if they lose CC. I don't normally play guard, and haven't done for a while, so this is off the top of my head, so the loadouts could be a little iffy, so I am relying on some following up posters to correct it.

Platoon Command Squad
Infantry Squad (Commisar, 2x Power Weapon, Melta Gun, Melta Bombs)
Infantry Squad - (Power Weapon, Melta Gun, Melta Bombs)
Infantry Squad - (Power Weapon, Melta Gun, Melta Bombs)

These fellows can probably help you better than me:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/forums/show/18.page

winnertakesall wrote:The general infantry army has the glorious thing called a 'power blob'. They are used to tarpit, and use a commissar to make the squad so they don't run away if they lose CC. I don't normally play guard, and haven't done for a while, so this is off the top of my head, so the loadouts could be a little iffy, so I am relying on some following up posters to correct it.

Platoon Command Squad
Infantry Squad (Commisar, 2x Power Weapon, Melta Gun, Melta Bombs)
Infantry Squad - (Power Weapon, Melta Gun, Melta Bombs)
Infantry Squad - (Power Weapon, Melta Gun, Melta Bombs)

These fellows can probably help you better than me:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/forums/show/18.page

He hit it pretty well. I too like to use 30 man blobs instead of 20, 40, or 50. But that is also a matter of tastes. What you are going to do with your squads is combine them to make one large one. The normal Infantry Squad consists of nine guardsmen and a sergeant. With this type of play style, it is best that they are used this way:

Your Infantry, contrary to what you may be assuming about guard, are going to be an assault unit. They will be equipped with power weapons on your sergeants as winnertakesall said, an assualt type special weapon, either flamers or meltaguns, and many people like to use meltabombs on their sergeants as well. This makes it so you have a huge unit that can kill litterally anything on the board at a given time with their meltaguns/bombs, and can assault into enemy units with suprising efficiency. The last part of this unit is the commissar. You can buy a commissar for every squad if you would like, but it's normally seen as a bad idea to throw that many points into the unit. Your commissars will have power weapons as well, and with their stubborn, they will keep the unit from running. If that fails, they will kill a sergeant for a re-roll. Effectively making it pretty rare for a unit to break and fall back.

So now that that's out of the way, how many units do you want? I use between 2 and 4 30 man units of infantry. It gives you a heck of a lot of bodies- perfect for what you are looking for- and a lot of tactical flexibility. And by flexibility I mean it's going to be super hard for your opponent to take out 4 seperate massive stubborn LD 9 units.

With the platoon, you gain access to the heavy weapons squads. These can be outfitted any which way. What's more, one single heavy weapons squad box can make you 3 mortar teams, 3 missle launcher teams, and 3 lascannon/autocannon/heavy bolter teams. This is where your AT will come from in an Infantry heavy list.

Now what else can you add? Well many people like to use Straken as a HQ choice, both because of the 12" furious charge bubble and the fact he is very effective in close combat himself. You can bring 0-5 Priests in your army as well. These guys are great. Their special rule they confer to the squad is great, and they aren't half bad in combat with an evicierator as well.

But as is true with any army, practice makes perfect. We can only help you so much. I think the best way to figure this out is to play a couple games to see the way that you really enjoy playing. Good luck!

All that has been said is great advice, some other stuff to consider:

Heavy Weapon Teams in the blobs themselves. This give them much more stay around power as well as provides blobs with some range and tactical options.

Another thing to consider is fire support. Those blobs need long range fire power. Either with Heavy Weapon Squads, as was mentioned, heavy weapon teams in the blobs that are staying a little behind, or your heavy support choices. Of those, you can either bring artillery, hydras, or LR's.

Many recommend the Manticore (i personally am not a huge fan). Other options are artillery pieces in which case youd want to throw a griffon in there for re-rollability. Go read up on multiple barrage in the RB.

Another option, whch I go with, is Leman Russes. These are solid AV 14 hulls that most have a problem breaching, especially when you bring 2 or more. In a foot list, having the LR's makes majority of your opponents S7 weaponry worthless.

I play mech guard, but I always wanted to try an outflanking blob guard list, it sounds like fun.

HQ:
Lord Castellan Creed CCS w/4 meltaguns and an astropath in a Vendetta (340 POINTS)

TROOPS:
PCS w/Al'Rahem and 4 flamers in a Chimera (175 POINTS)

5 Infantry Squads Blobbed w/5 meltaguns, a commissar and 6 power weapons (395 POINTS)

PCS w/4 flamers in a Vendetta (180 POINTS)

5 Infantry Squads Blobbed w/5 meltaguns, a commissar and 6 power weapons (395 POINTS)

TOTAL: 1485

You still have 15 points to do something with, maybe get some plasmaguns somewhere. You have 117 infantry models, a transport and 2 aircraft, Vendettas can outflank normally, Al'Rahem lets his PCS and his infantry squads outflank, and Creed will let your last blob outflank. So once the Vendetta's get on the board they just drop their cargo so the cargo can give orders, and with 14 melta guns and 6 twin linked lascannons you're pretty fair off in the AT department. Of course now everyone can tell you why this list sucks lol.

The funniest thing is playing a blob list, losing 15 guys, and then making a point of remaining completely unphased (Necron joke there, geddit?) when you opponent expects you to be frustrated.

^ Agreed, 15 guardsmen in one turn is no big accomplishment when you field over 100.

I do enjoy playing my blobs.

"Well guard sucks in h2h, so ill just charge my wyches into that squad there.". Charges in and see that squad has 30 men and 4 power weapons with counter attack. The look on their face is priceless.

winnertakesall wrote:The funniest thing is playing a blob list, losing 15 guys, and then making a point of remaining completely unphased (Necron joke there, geddit?) when you opponent expects you to be frustrated.

I love doing that. "Oh no, I lost 15 guardsmen, I wonder how the other 120 will ever cope with such a devestating loss"

Go read some of Ailaros's battle reports, I've seen games he's won on there where he's had barely 20 left at the end of the game...

As for playing horde infantry, get ready to buy a TON of guardsmen. An average 1,000 pt list can hold a hundred guardsmen, and you can fit a lot more in if you decide to drop certain upgrades. Also, make sure that you read your codex and get familiar with it, as the infantry platoons are extremely customizable and can be outfitted to handle almost anything. The best way I heard it described was to think of it as a force organization chart in your force organization chart, so you can write your list while you write your list. Want your platoon to kill MC? Give em meltaguns and lascannons, and laugh as they grind down anything in sight. Worried about dreadnaughts charging into your lines? Throw in some meltabombs. Want to pop transports before you charge in? You can buy autocannons so you can pick them off turn one.

Also, make sure you read up on how orders work, as well as what they do and who can issue what, as they really help make your infantry shine as well. With orders, you can twin link weapons against MC and vehicles, force your enemy to reroll cover saves, have your lasguns fire more per turn, get improved coversaves, have almost guaranteed 6" run rolls, and lots more. They make guardsmen much better, and used at the right time, can really boost their effectiveness.

Here's just a sample list I grabbed from my folder to give you an idea for what a list might look like at a 1,000pts. As you can see, that's 94 guardsmen right there (if you count HWT's as 2) and that's with several unnecessary upgrades. If you cleaned this list up a little and optimized it, you could easily have over a 100. A cool thing about platoons is that you decide how they're "blobbed" at deployment. In my list, I set up 1st platoon so that I can deploy it either as two 20 man blobs, or one giant 40 man blob, depending on what I'm up against. You could even decide to deploy them all separately, or run them as a 10 man and a 30. This gives you an insane amount of flexibility that few armies can match, and lets you deploy in whatever manner you see fit. With regimental standards, you can deploy them all seperately, and keep them around much longer with rerollable LD checks (shame they don't let you reroll orders though...)

Buy alot of battleforces, its the best value, you need everything but the sentinels, and even then they can be used or sold.

MrMoustaffa wrote:Go read some of Ailaros's battle reports, I've seen games he's won on there where he's had barely 20 left at the end of the game...

Yes, I believe 20 models left over was the fewest models I've had in a game that I've won. Probably the best example of this principle is in this game. I started out with 109 infantry models and 3 vehicles. At the end, I had 2 infantry models.

... on my objective...

...the game was a draw.



Anyways, there's not all that much more I can add to all of the quality advice that's been given. Really, a successful foot guard army is built around combined squads of guys huddling around a commissar. Which upgrades you give them, and how many models per blob is totally up to personal taste. When I started, it was 21-dude blobs with no upgrades except for power weapons and meltabombs with an eviscerator priest thrown in. My current lists still have 21-man blobs, but with no priests or meltabombs, but with meltaguns and lascannons. So long as the rest of your list is able to handle what your blobs can't, you should do just fine.

The most important thing to know about foot guard is that they cost a lot. It will cost a pretty penny now that guard infantry no longer comes at 20 to a box, but more importantly it will cost you time. Any good foot guard list past 1000 points is going to need at least 100 models. Then, over time, your tastes will change, which means that you need to add models by the dozen to outfit your army with new weapons upgrades, etc. By now, I've got probably 160+ infantry models and I still can't field the most competitive lists I want to at 1500 without resorting to vehicles.

Not only does it take a long time to manufacture a foot guard army, but it also takes a lot of time to unpack, deploy, move, and repack. In the end, it's worth it, though. More than once I've had people that otherwise dominate the local gaming circuit absolutely stopped in its tracks by my foot guard horde. That look on their face about turn 2 or 3 where they realise that they just don't have enough bullets to shoot at your guys fast enough to kill enough of your guys before they complete their mission/the game ends is priceless.

... that and causing people's prize toy units to bonk on regular guardsmen in close combat...

Ailaros wrote:

Not only does it take a long time to manufacture a foot guard army, but it also takes a lot of time to unpack, deploy, move, and repack. In the end, it's worth it, though. More than once I've had people that otherwise dominate the local gaming circuit absolutely stopped in its tracks by my foot guard horde. That look on their face about turn 2 or 3 where they realise that they just don't have enough bullets to shoot at your guys fast enough to kill enough of your guys before they complete their mission/the game ends is priceless.

... that and causing people's prize toy units to bonk on regular guardsmen in close combat...

For the love of Gork and mork, this times a thousand. Get something to carry your guys around with before games, and figure out a way to organize all of them. I make a point of the moment I get to the store to begin unpacking guardsmen, even if I don't think I'll be playing that day. I carry them in a cardboard tray that they sell 24 packs of soda in, and then organize all my guardsmen by platoon. That way, if I have a game, I can be setup in a few minutes, instead of over half an hour of unpacking stuff and figuring out where it all goes.

A lot of people I've noticed will paint the bases different colors per platoon, or use number designations. Some guardsmen I bought off of a guy had a neat idea, different colored bars on their helmets based on what platoon they belong to. I can look down while standing, and instantly tell who's who, which is awesome. But once you nail that, it's not much worse than playing a mech army, and having to pull out each squad for when your transports wreck. Just practice moving quickly and accurately, and you'll find that its not too bad at all

Slightly off topic. Ailaros is that pretty much the standard terrain percentage in your batreps? It seems very well open.

MrMoustaffa wrote:A lot of people I've noticed will paint the bases different colors per platoon, or use number designations. Some guardsmen I bought off of a guy had a neat idea, different colored bars on their helmets based on what platoon they belong to.

That would never work for me. When it comes time, despite having my models well-organized in advance, I'm still taking them out by the fistful and throwing them on the board. If I had to make sure that my color-coded guys were in the exact right place, I might never finish deployment. As a courtesy to my opponents, I do have a subtle way of differentiating blobs - by bayonet. I have two 20-man blobs where they have the bayonets on the end of the lasguns and two 20-man blobs where they don't. So long as I stagger them on the board, I can quickly identify who is from what blob, and I don't need to pay attention to individuals when unpacking, as any model without a bayonet could go into ANY squad that doesn't already have them.

The same is true for packing up. If I had to put my miniatures into exactly the right slots in my army foam, I'd never get out of the store before it closed. Instead of reading tiny numbers or undergoing color poisoning, I use the bayonet method in reverse. I take out one of my foams, put in the sergeants, and then fill it up with one class of guardsmen, take out another foam, put in the sergeants, fill it up with the other type.

Yes, the squads get completely jumbled between battles and a guardsman would be lucky if he had the same sergeant twice in a row, but it's just that kind of brutal efficiency in a world of mass numbers that just seems that much more... guard-like.

ObliviousBlueCaboose wrote:Slightly off topic. Ailaros is that pretty much the standard terrain percentage in your batreps? It seems very well open.

yeah, it is (roughly) 25%. The problem is that my opponents always have as much say over where terrain winds up as I do. It didn't take long before my opponents realised that it was to their advantage to make sure that as much of the 25% as possible is as close to the board edge as possible...