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Okay, so say your opponent has a beatiful gunline, tau, guard or even Spez mahrins. And your crappy guardsmen keep getting blown out of there fox holes, or they get shot to pieces as they make a herioc charge? Well this has happend to me for sure, but ive devised a way to counter it and say what you will but this actually works every time

So I run 2 Platoons with forty men each, one is my assault platoon and one is my defensive platoon. My defensive platoon runs with two autocannons, 2 vox casters and then just en mass lasguns, they sit in cover in 20 man squads, one each with an autocannon and a vox, with two lascannon or autocannon HWS for support. Their PCS stays behind the gunline to give First rank fire, second rank fire, and also to take out any deepstriking/outflanking nasties(x3 flamer, 1 vox) and the Company command is to give re-rolls to ld with their banner, offer their own support lascannon, and of course to give orders when they are needed. and the grunts just hold the line or any objectives and draw loads of fire power.

In the middle of the board you would see my leman russ battle tank squadren (x2 Leman russ's) with lascannons and camo netting, camping it out throwing pie plates all over the board and then behind them my manticore also with camo netting taking out entrecnhed enemies and heavy vehicles(str 10 ap 4 barrage indirect d3, for those that dont know).

Then we move on to the objective grabbers, my second (assault) platoon. So all 40 men blobbed up, with 2 flamers and 2 gren launchers and one vox. then the PCS with all x3 plasma guns and a vox caster running it up right behind them, giving them move move move to get to the other side of the board, then First rank fire, second rank fire when they get into shooting range. Running up next to the platoon acting as fire support is my hellhound with the Multimelta front attachment, this tank is mainly to draw fire and offer cover, but if it survives it can whipe hoards off the table and take out heavy tanks . Then behind all that is another Leman russ Battle tank or Extecutioner depend on how im feeling that day just for heavy fire support and to top it all off, deepstriking storm troopers with either melta or flamers (depends on who im versing) to sow discord and draw fire, but if they survive they certainly do make their points back

so this is one of my many main strategies, let me know what yous all think thanks

So, the problem with foot guard at the moment (at least, as much as I can tell) is the relative non-viability of infantry platoons as an offensive weapon. It is possible for your opponent to kill more inches of guardsmen than you can advance every turn. It's sort of like putting a pine board into the world's largest power sander...

And that's the problem here. You're relying on 40 guardsmen as your only way of getting anywhere. If your opponent focuses on those guardsmen, you're stuck in your DZ, all chance to take back the initiative mid-game lost.

The trick, at the moment, is to find some way to boost the guardsmen's durability to allow them to be offensive again, or to use some other offensive unit to break the opponent off the objective, and allow your PISs to simple stroll on relatively unopposed.

Well yeh man, that why I have those support elements(leman russ, hellhound, deepstiking stormies) and also if you deploy your units properly like stagger them and deploy them so that you can still advance guys to the front, they take few casualties and make ground at a decent pace, also if need be I can move the middle squadren of LRBT out of the center for some extra support, but thats a last ditch haha

Hammer and anvil deployment is also extremely unforgiving to plans of walking across the table. I agree with Ailaros, walking across the table is not really an option.

Luckily, you can pay 70pts to drop that whole walk across the table - grab Al'Rahem.

Your platoon set-ups could use a lot of improvement as well. In short: HWS are terrible, voxes are not really worth it, grenade launcher is a terrible weapon, squads should always use the special weapon slots and you really need some melta.

I beg to differ, heavy weapon squads are excellent, I swear by them, if you kit them out right they can tackle anything you want, also i believe that meltas are silly in infantry squad as I want to advance as close as i can and shoot them from a safe distance, not 12 inchers away because guardsmen dont survive in combat. also There range is just stupid, I dont belive melats have a place in IF, but hey thats just me, im sure they work for you man

Sounds like your brattle plan is designed for pitched battle. How would you change your deployment in those games?
How would you change your deployment based on missions and objectives?

oooohhhh man I haven't played in awhile against guard outside my mates list, I'd love to dissect that line

HWS' just melt from S6+ shooting. They are instant killed AND they have a terrible ld and have to take ld tests after the first casuality. Including them is a great way to give your opponent the VP for first blood. Their firepower is good for their pts, but their survivability is just so bad that you won't be able to take advantage of it. They are also very static (although they got a slight boost in that regard with 6th), so they need to be deployed with good LOS (which means the enemy will have good LOS on them).

Jihallah if you read at the bottom, this is only one of several deployment types? im not completely stagnent in my deployments and can mix it up a bit, but yeah i duuno ay it just works haha, so do HWS mine work a charm, and I always keep my Company standard close to them to re-roll those terrible ld tests

Illumini wrote:HWS' just melt from S6+ shooting. They are instant killed AND they have a terrible ld and have to take ld tests after the first casuality. Including them is a great way to give your opponent the VP for first blood. Their firepower is good for their pts, but their survivability is just so bad that you won't be able to take advantage of it. They are also very static (although they got a slight boost in that regard with 6th), so they need to be deployed with good LOS (which means the enemy will have good LOS on them).

*dakkadakkadakkadakkadakka* first blood!

My mate does a similar thing, with the "assault" blob being completely naked most of the time (i.e no special/heavy/power weaps), I harker outflanking squad, and a vendetta. The moving blob, vendetta harker and hellhound really were the pebbles that started an avalanche for his army, as it let him escape his deployment zone.

Anyway, my point was your one of "many" main strats is based only the enemies army type (gunline), without considering the terrain, enemy list, objective, mission deployment...

Here, Take this! It will serve you well

Jake I have to ask: Do you have trouble with deepstriking enemies? Such as the tougher ones such as all kinds of nasty power armored things in drop pods or deep striking. My semi static lines usually take heavy casualties the moment this stuff happens to me.

Yeh man I honestly do, deepstriking badies or even dropoding marines and dreadnaughts are a pain for me. But my lascannons really come into there own there suprisingly they perform well when things pop into the back of my line cos most people usually ignore them and go for my tanks. But my en masse fire power usually saves me, even a Black Templars emperor champion with his awesome close combat retinue didnt last one turn after they got outa there pods yeh Jihallah I know what your saying but this is my deployment for other gun line armies and what can I say it just works okay man, im not even trying to argue with you bro


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oh and another reason I have good luck with my HWS is just cos my oppenents rarely even bother with them, im being serious they have only been wiped out in my games when my opponent closes into them in close combat, its different for everyone really I guess

Illumini wrote:
Luckily, you can pay 70pts to drop that whole walk across the table - grab Al'Rahem.

Thought of that the second I read Ailaros' post. Pretty much use Al'Rahem to start on the other side of the table. Also don't forget the glory of the new power weapons. Guard generally strikes last, so we got a pure boost with I1 axes since we can now wound marines on a 4+ with them. You could also use mauls instead, might be a tad expensive, but 12-15 str 5 AP 4 attacks on the charge is pretty terrifying to anyone. You are pretty much giving your guys a heavy bolter in close combat.

Besides Al'Rahem you could try deepstriking storm troopers simply to distract and terrify the enemy. They can't waste their shots on your platoon when they have 2 BS4 meltaguns in their backfield supported by AP3 lasguns unless they like having all their vehicles die. Also, despite being far from the most efficient unit, Storm Troopers are scary to marines and even Tau, they come out about even in a gunfight with marines, but their AP3 guns simply scare marines, especially when combined with them getting 2 special weapons.

Yeah al'rahem is a good idea for sure I will give him a test run, and ahh haha yeh stormies are up there pretty sure, I use them all the time, your right there a great shock and awe unit

I'd swap the flamer/grenade launchers from the "assault blob" with the plasma in the PCS. The IF will have more bodies to protect the plasma, and the PCS can survive with "meh" weapons like flamers and grenade launchers.

yeah alrighty ill try that instead