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Hey,

I'm thinking of starting Imperial Guard as a brand new army. I've become tired of MEQ, and I want a competitive army.

So, can I get some suggestions? I like the look of the vehicle (ESPECIALLY Valkyrie and Sentinel) models quite a bit.

So, can I get a bit of advice?

Thanks in advance,

BBB

I think this is the 6th thread this week about new guard players.

Like with ALL guard makeups you need to determine what Identity you want to play.

Competitive Guard lists are generally footy (horde) with lots of HWS or they are Armored using lots of tanks and vets in chimeras with special weapons.

I personally find Vendettas and Valks very useless in my lists because they get shot down quote easily. To me $66 isnt worth something being destroyed in the first turn.

I find sentinels to be the same, most guard Aarmies that I know do not use them but you will find some that do.

I personally play mechanized with Chimera Vets, Leman Russ's and Hellhounds.

Yeah, I do quite like Sentinels and such.

Could I make a footy list with a ton of Sentinels? Would it be viable?

BlapBlapBlap wrote:Yeah, I do quite like Sentinels and such.

Could I make a footy list with a ton of Sentinels? Would it be viable?

Honestly probably not. Well you could but I wouldn't expect to win very much. In my opinion Sentinels are very expensive and have very limited use. I wouldnt bring more than a single squadron to a fight and a single squadron would be able to work with both footy and mech lists.

I've heard of people bringing AirCav lists and 4-6 Vendettas/Valkyries. There might be a few lists i the 40k lists section if you just do a search for AirCav. Howver I have no idea how effective the are. You might want to bring some with rocket pods to handle blobs of enemy infantry as you will have mostly AT.

I read a list yesterday about a Senital specific build. I'll try and find it for you.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Found it:

This was posted by Ribon Fox.

Ribon Fox wrote:Ah the old "is it point worth or not?" Sentinel question.
For me yes. I love the old iron chicken. So much you can do with it. I tend to use mine as fire support units for my foot vets or as escorts for the heavyer stuff. A get the odd look when I pull them out of their case (I run 4 Armoured in 2x2 formation) but that soon changes when they ignor them and go after my other big bits and the Sentinels are dry humping their armys leg.

Need to breach a line? No problems with a squad of two armoured sentinels (heavy flamer or multi-laser) backed up with a squad of flamer of grenader vets.
Need to take down hords or light to medium armour at range? The sentinel squad with auto-cannons should do the trick.
Need some thing to tarpit that nasty squad over there? Send in the sentinels to slow'em down.
Need some thing that looks cool? That will be the sentinels

Also the Sentinel can make an awesome base for bigger heavy Sentinels, You can make a Sentinel into a LRBT Just look at what I tend to field.

Spoiler:

It really depends on your budget, the models can get crazy expensive depending on which direction you go. If you like Sentinels, you could buy a Battleforce box(es) since they come with a command squad, 2 infantry squads, a heavy weapon squad, and a sentinel. If you buy two (or even three!) of these, plus several Chimeras that you proxy/convert into whatever Chimera hulled vehicle you want at the time, you can have a pretty good foot army.

I'm pretty sure its cheaper to buy the Battleforce than the individual models. The command squad sprue gives you pieces to make useful guys (plasma gun, melta gun, bits for additional sergeants, etc) plus all the heavy weapon teams.

With the heavy weapon teams you can buy additional large bases and use spare guardsmen and creative conversions to make more with what you have. Since every sprue gives you the potential to make 1 of any weapon, might as well get your money's worth and buy a few more bucks in bases/bits/guardsmen to go from having 3 heavy weapon teams to potentially 12.

Blob squad-based guard armies are reasonably affordable because they don't rely as heavily on vehicles. If you can get a lot of the guys in bulk it works out pretty well since beyond just bodies on the table all you really need are a couple of comissars, heavy weapon teams (try to have 1 for every 8 guardsmen) and maybe a couple of tanks.

BlapBlapBlap wrote:Hey,

I'm thinking of starting Imperial Guard as a brand new army. I've become tired of MEQ, and I want a competitive army.

So, can I get some suggestions? I like the look of the vehicle (ESPECIALLY Valkyrie and Sentinel) models quite a bit.

So, can I get a bit of advice?

Thanks in advance,

BBB

Sentinels and Vendettas and Valkyries share the same Fast Attack Slot, so whatever you decide on is really going to suck up your Fast Attack quite fast.

Scout/Armored Sentinels are largely support units. Regardless of weapon, they are often supporting the infantry; whether stunning enemy transports to prevent them from getting to your blob line or picking at enemy heavy weapons from stunning your Chimeras. It depends on what you want to do with your list.

Vendettas is an undercosted powerhouse. With three twin-linked Las Cannons, it can pretty much Outflank and Alpha Strike anything on the table.

Valkyries are mobile Chimeras with better armaments.

I'm not a competitive player but i've been reading forums for a while and claiming that competitive players use HWSs and that Vendettas are no good is pretty much the opposite of what i've been reading.

Also Ribbon Fox is clearly insane! Armoured sentinels are decidedly over priced outside of being able to tarpit a horde that can't damage AV12 but that is a very specific role.

As for Scout Sentinels if you really want them in your list they aren't the worst unit to take if you are not using you Fast Attack slots for Vendettas. There is many a topic about Sentinels i'm sure you'll be interested in reading.

Here's a couple:
The Imperial Guard Sentinel
What's the best Sentinels and weapons?

Of course in the end it all comes down to what you want to play but you did come right out and say you want to be competitive. From what i've read Veteran Squads in Vendettas and Chimeras with Artillery support is one of the best ways to go. There is also the Power Blob option which i'm sure you could fit some Scout Sentinels into

I hope someone who knows more about competitive list building can help you.

Peace Out!
Jonny!

RubberJonny wrote:I'm not a competitive player but i've been reading forums for a while and claiming that competitive players use HWSs and that Vendettas are no good is pretty much the opposite of what i've been reading.!

Not sure what you're talking about here, must be selective reading. Most competitive lists include some type of HWS or HW in general especially footy guard. Some lists vary between 6-12 Heavy Weapon Teams

Vendettas can be good. But 3 twin linked lascannons arent as good as people think. Vendettas are really good tank hunters. Many army lists already have plenty of reliable AT without the vendetta. Like I said earlier, show me a competative AirCav list that someone has actually used.

Sentinels aren't all that bad, 3 of them Outflanking with Autocannons can put the hurt on the rear armor of something that it sitting back. Also, they aren't bad at tarpitting either, especially things like Fire Warriors or Guardsmen. However, I wouldn't rate them as "reliable". I LOVE LOVE LOVE my Vendetta, outflanking that thing always steals the show! Throw your PCS un-upgraded in it for a 30 point upgrade to a capturing unit. Run around the field killing w/e you want, and than last turn ZOOM onto an objective and capture it. Pretty sweet!

I'll go ahead and support the idea of sentinels. They are great and I love my armored sentinel squads. They may not always be the most effective way to use your points, but I think that they are really cool and still can be useful if used right. I got excited with the release of the newest Guard codex and bought three Valkyries, but I got tired of them after a couple games and went back to my sentinels and rough rider squads.

The flyers look pretty cool, and are really competitive, but they are super expensive, get shot down pretty quick, and a little boring to play with in my opinion.

I personally play a foot heavy list with a lot of heavy weapons and hold my own pretty well.

I like lots of guardsmen in blobs and 3 LRBT's. I am also about to throw 3 outflanking sentinels in with AC.

BlapBlapBlap wrote:I'm thinking of starting Imperial Guard as a brand new army. I've become tired of MEQ, and I want a competitive army.

MEq armies are some of the most competitive armies. What about them isn't working for you? What do you see as a guard army's way of fixing the uncompetitiveness of your current army? Guard armies are great, but I'd hate it if you wound up making one for the wrong reasons.

BlapBlapBlap wrote:I like the look of the vehicle (ESPECIALLY Valkyrie and Sentinel) models quite a bit.

Sure, but be warned - the strength of a guard army is in its troops choices (and to a lesser extent HS). If you want a competitive guard army, you're going to be focusing on these two slots before you even think about much else. Really, you should be paying more attention to what kind of troops choice strikes your fancy. Do you want something more akin to a razorspam list? Do you want something more like a green tide? If there isn't a troops choice you can get behind, things are going to be tough for you as a competitive guard player.

It is possible to do an air-cav list with just vets and valks/vendettas, but that's not exactly the most competitive build. If you want to play guard competitively, then you need to gravitate towards what works best, much, much moreso than what looks cool to you.

Ailaros wrote:

BlapBlapBlap wrote:I'm thinking of starting Imperial Guard as a brand new army. I've become tired of MEQ, and I want a competitive army.

MEq armies are some of the most competitive armies. What about them isn't working for you? What do you see as a guard army's way of fixing the uncompetitiveness of your current army? Guard armies are great, but I'd hate it if you wound up making one for the wrong reasons.

It's partially from a P&M side (Power Armour is boring after a while) but mostly because I want a dedicated shooting army, which Marines are pretty awful at.

BlapBlapBlap wrote:I like the look of the vehicle (ESPECIALLY Valkyrie and Sentinel) models quite a bit.

Sure, but be warned - the strength of a guard army is in its troops choices (and to a lesser extent HS). If you want a competitive guard army, you're going to be focusing on these two slots before you even think about much else. Really, you should be paying more attention to what kind of troops choice strikes your fancy. Do you want something more akin to a razorspam list? Do you want something more like a green tide? If there isn't a troops choice you can get behind, things are going to be tough for you as a competitive guard player.

It is possible to do an air-cav list with just vets and valks/vendettas, but that's not exactly the most competitive build. If you want to play guard competitively, then you need to gravitate towards what works best, much, much moreso than what looks cool to you.

Vanilla marines are actually a pretty good shooty army. Once again, I've got to ask what you saw as their deficiencies that you hope to rectify with guard?

I too am curious as to exactly why you want to play as Guard. Do you like them for the fact that they are just simple humans? Or their fluff? (which is perfectly acceptable and the real reason I play with them)

Do you see them as the best shooting army available?

Do you like the models?

Are they fulfilling a niche that you weren't able to play with before? (For example, a Tau player starting a Blood Angel army to have both a shooting army and a CC army)

Or is there some other reason?

Figuring this out will help you a lot more than you probably think

I think he means he wants the big guns that the guard has that SM don't, big tanks, big artillery, and more lascannons than some armies can field models.

Buttons wrote:I think he means he wants the big guns that the guard has that SM don't, big tanks, big artillery, and more lascannons than some armies can field models.

Pretty much. Plus, high model count and P&M opportunities.