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Hey guys,

So I've been playing Orks since the 3rd edition. Recently was able to acquire an entire IG army for very cheap, so figured I'd give it a shot with a new army.

Anyway, here's what I've got!

---HQ---

Colonel Iron Hand Straken (have to make him a command squad, what's good?)

Lord Commissar with Plasma Pistol and Power Axe

---Elites---

Stormtrooper Squad x 10
-Sergeant w/ Bolter & Plasma Pistol
-Plasma Rifle
-Grenade Launcher

---Troops---

Infantry Platoon "Burners"

Cmd Squad
-Platoon Leader with Power fist and Bolter
-Two flamers
-Medic
-Vox caster

Infantry Squad x 2
-Flamer
-Heavy Flamer
-Vox caster

Infantry Platoon "Boomers"

Cmd Squad
-Platoon Leader with Bolter
-Plasma Rifle
-Grenade Luancher
-Melta Gun
-Vox Caster

Infantry Squad x 2
-Missile Launcher
-Grenade Launcher
-Vox Caster

Now here's where the list gets a little funny. He has a bunch of models that are converted conscripts plus a heavy weapons squad of 3 heavy bolters and a couple left over special weapons. I can either field them as conscripts (which I think is a pretty cool idea) and the heavy weapons squad OR Have another infantry platoon, Two squads of guardsmen with Heavy bolters and flamer plus cmd squad with heavy bolter.

I also have 6 mortars on bases with no guardsmen (east to add two guys) and 36 more guardmen with lasguns on the way, PLUS I have a Cadian command sprue to work with.

How should I use this list? How should I go about expanding the army? Make veterans? More Infantry squads?

Any general tips for fielding the guard?

Thanks so much for helping me out!

Warzone303 wrote:
Colonel Iron Hand Straken (have to make him a command squad, what's good?)

4x melta guns or 4x plasma guns and drop Straken.

Stormtrooper Squad x 10
-Sergeant w/ Bolter & Plasma Pistol
-Plasma Rifle
-Grenade Launcher

Grenade launchers suck and are a waste of BS 4. Replace it with another plasma gun, or replace both with melta guns. And replace the bolter with another plasma pistol or keep the standard gun.
---Troops---

Cmd Squad
-Platoon Leader with Power fist and Bolter
-Two flamers
-Medic
-Vox caster

Dump the vox and medic, add two more flamers. PCS are best as suicide flamer squads, trying to keep them alive is just a waste of points.

Infantry Squad x 2
-Flamer
-Heavy Flamer
-Vox caster

Not legal. Infantry squads can't take heavy flamers.

Cmd Squad
-Platoon Leader with Bolter
-Plasma Rifle
-Grenade Luancher
-Melta Gun
-Vox Caster

Never mix weapons, and it's probably a bad idea to waste plasma guns on a BS 3 unit. Dump the vox and add 4x melta guns.

How should I use this list? How should I go about expanding the army? Make veterans? More Infantry squads?

More tanks. You have a decent start to an infantry blob to hold your "home" objectives, but you're severely lacking in firepower. Add Vendettas, Leman Russes, etc.

Any general tips for fielding the guard?

Tanks and Vendettas are your friends. Bring as many as you can.

First post? Awesome! Welcome to dakka. Looking at the list, right off the bat I'd say that it's a fairly scattered list that needs to be focused and have a lot of the fat (junk) trimmed off of it.

Imperial Guard are very very good at getting a lot of bodies (both infantry and vehicles) on the field and laying down a lot of firepower. However with too many upgrades you really start hurting yourself. Keep the guard cheap!

Also there are a few illegal things in the list that you aren't allowed to field.

Warzone303 wrote:

Colonel Iron Hand Straken (have to make him a command squad, what's good?)

Straken really goes well with large infantry blobs to boost their CC ability.....however CC took a huge hit in 6th edition. If you want to use him, I'd suggest plop him in a chimera for protection and give the squad assault weapons (melta or flamer preferred...probably melta) and march him along with two largish blobs.

Some Veterans (or allied marines) along with as tougher support with special weapons could be useful.


If you don't like Straken, just use him as a regular company commander.

Lord Commissar with Plasma Pistol and Power Axe

Good for keeping heavy weapon squads in line by giving them high leadership. I honestly just prefer regular commissars in squads otherwise.

Stormtrooper Squad x 10
-Sergeant w/ Bolter & Plasma Pistol
-Plasma Rifle
-Grenade Launcher

Too many upgrades. Only thing you should take are two special weapons (plasma or melta). I'd also suggestion only taking 5-man squads....probably give them chimeras unless you plan to DS.

Infantry Platoon "Burners"

Cmd Squad
-Platoon Leader with Power fist and Bolter
-Two flamers
-Medic
-Vox caster

Ditch the powerfist and bolter. Ditch the medic. Ditch the Vox. Fill in for more special weapons (flamers or melta are good, I'd just suggest taking all of the same weapon).

Infantry Squad x 2
-Flamer
-Heavy Flamer
-Vox caster

If they are blobbing up, you only need one vox as a heads up....but I really don't think voxes are super useful so I'd get rid of them. A commissar (or even one for each squad) is a good way to keep a blob in line.

Heavy Flamer is illegal. Only Veterans can take them....even then they are WAAAAAAAAAAY too expensive. Heavy Flamers should be on vehicle, never on guardsmen.

Infantry Platoon "Boomers"

Cmd Squad
-Platoon Leader with Bolter
-Plasma Rifle
-Grenade Luancher
-Melta Gun
-Vox Caster

Waaaaaay to scattered. Always take all of the same weapon (an exception can be made for x3 melta + x1 flamer). Ditch the bolter and vox.

Close-range weapons benefit from being in a chimera (more survivable).

Infantry Squad x 2
-Missile Launcher
-Grenade Launcher
-Vox Caster

Decent for a defense, I guess, but I find autocannons much much useful than missiles (more shots, because gaurd can't aim). With Straken, I'd suggest two 30- or 40-man blobs backed up by heavy weapon squads and some mobile veterans.

Now here's where the list gets a little funny. He has a bunch of models that are converted conscripts plus a heavy weapons squad of 3 heavy bolters and a couple left over special weapons. I can either field them as conscripts (which I think is a pretty cool idea) and the heavy weapons squad OR Have another infantry platoon, Two squads of guardsmen with Heavy bolters and flamer plus cmd squad with heavy bolter.

Meh. Heavy bolters aren't that useful honestly. I'd rather just take more autocannons. Conscripts are rather terrible. Regular guardsmen are much more useful for barely any extra cost.

I also have 6 mortars on bases with no guardsmen (east to add two guys) and 36 more guardmen with lasguns on the way, PLUS I have a Cadian command sprue to work with.

Meh on the mortars as well. More guardsmen is always good, though!

Any general tips for fielding the guard?

Always take at least three units that can do the same job (doesn't have to be the exact same unit) because:

1. The first unit will die.
2. The second unit will miss.
3. The third unit will finally get the job done.

Warzone303 wrote:
Any general tips for fielding the guard?

To add a couple more:

1) IG win by bringing efficient shooting. We don't have any fancy tricks or complex strategies, but we do have the best firepower per point and the ability to apply it anywhere on the table. This means that if you're ever considering an upgrade that isn't a gun it's probably better to bring more guns instead. Keep your units cheap and brutally efficient.

2) Your stuff is going to die. We have tons of firepower, but not much durability. While this doesn't mean you should ignore losses entirely and do stupid things with your units it does mean that you should expect to take heavy losses. Bring redundant units, and be psychologically prepared to remove models by the handful and keep fighting. If you're the kind of person who is going to ragequit a game when your 150 point plasma vet squad gets wiped off the table in a single round of shooting you're playing the wrong army.

Keep the vox, giving orders to units waaay across the battlefield is priceless, especially FRFSRF and Bring it Down! These can turn the tide of battle when transports/CC units are closing in on you.

 hdbbstephen wrote:
Keep the vox, giving orders to units waaay across the battlefield is priceless, especially FRFSRF and Bring it Down! These can turn the tide of battle when transports/CC units are closing in on you.

Except there's one little problem with that plan: you can't take a vox on HWS, which are the unit you actually care about giving orders to. I'd rather have an extra gun on the command squad than waste an upgrade slot (and points) on making it a bit more likely that I get FRFSRF.

What do you mean way accross the battlefield? A CCS has a 12' range when issuing orders, the vox just lets you reroll the leadership test if failed. Unless your talking about taking creed then you could get party accross the field lol. Personally I would just take another CCS instead of vox's

 hdbbstephen wrote:
Keep the vox, giving orders to units waaay across the battlefield is priceless, especially FRFSRF and Bring it Down! These can turn the tide of battle when transports/CC units are closing in on you.

While very useful, you really shouldn't depend on orders. They are good and help out a lot, but they don't make or break a game.

If you run into a situation where failing an order loses you the game....then something has already gone horribly wrong.

Spending 35-55 points on a vox network when the same can get you a ton more guns is kinda a waste. And they don't extend you order range at all, either.

I'd rather have more guns/squads/tanks than take voxes.

Right, so the setup is somewhat poor and not always legal, but that's going to be fixable.

As for expanding, I see an army that has a choppy CCS, stormtroopers, a minimum contingency of troops, and a bunch of conscripts. That sounds a lot like what I'm fielding at the moment.

If you want to expand in the same direction, I'd get more stormtroopers (and with better weapons), and a model to represent chenkov (you could probably use the lord commissar model), so that you can give conscripts send in the next wave.

The basic strategy is to have invincible scoring units on your own objectives (respawning conscripts), and you have units that can pop up in your opponent's deployment zone and screw up your opponent's ability to hold his own. It's been a pretty strong combo in the few games I've played with them so far. I'll direct you to this game (tactical) and this game (tactical) as examples of how this strategy can work.

Otherwise, there are a lot of ways that you can go with your guardsmen at the moment. You can call them all veterans and put them in chimeras if you want a different troops choice. You can take a bunch of tanks or artillery and make a gunline. It's rather up to you.

Crap.

@tankboy145 & nungunz: Sorry about that. I was wrong.

I just went thru my new IG codex again (copyright 2008), and it appears that the Vox is not just a re-named Comm-link (from Codex copyright 1999), which is what I thought it was...I haven't played in a while and with the 5th edition IG codex it appears that once again GW changes things that I had learned and "memorized", so of course I conflated them.

This kind of thing chaps my hide. (Like being able to kill models that aren't under a flamer template, that's BS in my book.)