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Is there a way to run IG without flyers and have a good all round army , that can be played at 1500pts without the use of FW units to do anti tank or is that impossible . I slowly selling my IG collection to fuel WM and the first things that sold were of course the flyers. Now am wondering about IG without flyers , how do they deal with stuff like tau broadsides or high av armies and stuff like broadsides . normal lascannons in teams seem to be too few and with too low BS , veterans are nice but they wont be able to live long enough to get in range . So has anyone played against or with a good 1500 IG no flyer army?

The reason IG flyers are so brilliant is their points cost. What you get for a minimal amount of points really makes the flyer shine. You can play without flyers but until the new codex comes out and adjusts some things a lot of people are going to be telling you that your doing yourself a disservice by not playing the best possible units for the points cost in the dex that you have.

Well you are left with artillery or plane old guardsmen with good special weapons everywhere. That is about it.

I field an army of artillery but I have to use flyers to keep enemy air away.

So it is impossible . That is what I thought. with low armor and vunerability to drakes and even the most basic weapons IG units dont live long enough on our tables . Kind of a sad to have 1450pts of models that you can not longer use , because you sold 3 flyers. I hope the new IG dex will come out soon and make vendettas suck and give IG powerful ground troops.

cheap fortification would be fun , 20-30 pts cheap bunkers with a hvy weapon or something like that or some sort of immunity to drop pods. Tau have it great with all those interceptors .

I doubt IG will ever have powerful ground troops per say. They will have units that sync well with everything else and their tanks but I do not see them becoming mini space marines.

Makumba wrote:
Kind of a sad to have 1450pts of models that you can not longer use , because you sold 3 flyers.

Then just buy three more Vendettas again and play your army.

As for the OP, no, IG isn't really viable without flyers. You can win in a casual metagame as long as nobody brings flyer-heavy lists, but you're going to be at a severe disadvantage if people don't bring special lists to give you a chance.

I just sold vendettas because I needed cash for WM . My friends switched to WM , so I dont realy have many people to play against . WM isnt going good for me and I wanted to do something durning summer , else it is 2 months of watching TV at home .
But you are right I never saw people here play bad armies , so the chance of the not bringing flyers is rather slim.

Just hoped I was missing something and IG is more flexible as an army like meq or tau.

Guard can most definitively stomp heretics & Xenos alike without flyers. I do so myself. But it is going to be a hard fought win that is but very much doable

I just recently played a game with my cousin. He has the new tau codex and picked up some their new units or units he did not have (pathfinders, riptide, tau bomber). We played around 2000 points I think, if I remember correctly. He brought everything he could, fire warriors, pathfinders, riptide, crisis suits, broadside, piranha, 2 hammerheads (1 w/ their new character), a few kroot.

I used mostly veteran squads w/ lascannons+GL, an Infantry Blob and pcs w/ hb and gl, 2 squads of 10 Ratlings each, 2 devil dogs, 2 LR Exterminators, 2 Autocannon Armored Sentinels, 2 armored sentinels w/ ML and Lascannon, HQ w/ MOO and officer of the fleet, and the manticore. I did use a FW heavy mortar, it performed alright.

Anyway that was a force I just threw together and it performed pretty well. I lost the game but it was a very close one. In the beginning it looked like I would win, then it looked like he would win, and back and forth until the last turn. Both of our armies were battered pretty hard. Very few troops left any where except for a couple of fire warriors, Riptide w/ half its wounds, 1 crisis suit and an immobilized hammerhead. I had my heavy mortar, part of my HQ, some retreating ratlings, the LC Sentinel and ML Sentinel minus the ML. and just a couple of vets leftover.

Pretty exciting game but I probably would have done better with a different LR. But I have been finding the Armored Sentinels to be working well whenever I play his tau. I don't know about the new edition, that was our first game though but I deviated from what I normally use because I wanted to try something new from the codex. But I have never used fliers, not yet anyway.

 Trondheim wrote:
Guard can most definitively stomp heretics & Xenos alike without flyers. I do so myself. But it is going to be a hard fought win that is but very much doable

Can you give an example list ?

You could also agree with your opponents not to use flyers.

I played a teams battle the other weekend. The guard player took no flyers and stomped my orks and BT allies.

The guards DA team mate didnt really do anything. 3x3 teams of autocannons, 3x3 teams of mortars, 2 manticores, a few squads of vets I think and a command platoon.

I think that was the basics of his list. I had a Dakkajet.... it took out 3 teams of mortars than got shot down... only to land on newly arrived RW, killing 3 of them I think.

 Flinty wrote:
You could also agree with your opponents not to use flyers.

That is not how people play w40k . If it is in a codex there is no "not allowed" .

I think that was the basics of his list. I had a Dakkajet.... it took out 3 teams of mortars than got shot down... only to land on newly arrived RW, killing 3 of them I think.

Bit unlucky to get dakka jets coming in one after another . how many points were you playing. Do you think the game would look different , if it was just IG vs orks , I dont realy have much expiriance with orks as few people play them here.

Makumba wrote:Is there a way to run IG without flyers and have a good all round army , that can be played at 1500pts without the use of FW units to do anti tank or is that impossible.

Yes, there are many, many ways to play guard that don't include one specific unit from the codex. You can do things with mechvets, and stormtrooper spam, and artillery, and sponson-heavy russes.

Heck, I've been having fun and beating faces by running a bunch of hellhound-chassised vehicles in a super-mobile medium vehicle guard army, and those things compete for slots with vendettas.

You don't need fliers to play guard, much less to win with them. You have an ENTIRE CODEX worth of options at your disposal. Getting sucked into the trap of there being only one viable unit means that you should actually spend time without it to expand your horizons outside of just page 101 of the codex.

All the people I could play run 2-3 flyers either from their own codex or ally in IG or necron or chaos . I cant spam Lemmans and hope to table my opponent turn 1 , because there are too many night fight scenarios . Landing pads are also a problem , specialy as I dont own one myself. I dont own any chimeras , but av12 that isnt a flyer doesnt seem to live long enough on tables this days . necrons have tons of str 7 shoting , same with tau and meq just run drop pods , which are already devastating against my lemman russes and those have a higher av. I always used vendettas as anti flyer and anti tank support , which could double up as late objective grabers or at least troop survival support.

It is nice that you tell me to explore and all. But I dont have the money to buy and check what may work . Specialy when my friends no longer play w40k and all my games would be against strangers .

 Ailaros wrote:
You can do things with mechvets, and stormtrooper spam, and artillery, and sponson-heavy russes.

You can "do things" with other units, but the simple fact is that if you want to win against top-tier lists you're at a huge disadvantage if you don't take Vendettas and/or Vultures. And this is especially true if you're also rejecting FW units, which are your only other viable option for skyfire/AA duality.

Makumba wrote:
I dont own any chimeras

Yeah, definitely not a viable plan. Pure foot IG doesn't work, if you aren't going to have Vendettas to deliver troops to objectives you at least need Chimeras. Without either you're going to find it difficult, if not impossible, to get out of your own deployment zone without dying.

I still don't get why the Hydra, which has been the posterboy imperial anti-air unit since waaaay back when Apocalypse was hip and new, heck maybe even epic if my Vodka fogged memory serves, doesn't get interceptor. It seems like one hell of an oversight.

 Kain wrote:
I still don't get why the Hydra, which has been the posterboy imperial anti-air unit since waaaay back when Apocalypse was hip and new, heck maybe even epic if my Vodka fogged memory serves, doesn't get interceptor. It seems like one hell of an oversight.

Because GW doesn't sell a plastic Hydra kit. Once they decide to release one ($100 each) they will errata the Hydra to have super-interceptor, which lets it shoot once at every unit arriving from reserve each turn and then shoot everything in your opponent's army just because you can. Oh, and it will be re-priced to 50 points to compensate for these new improvements.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Kain wrote:
I still don't get why the Hydra, which has been the posterboy imperial anti-air unit since waaaay back when Apocalypse was hip and new, heck maybe even epic if my Vodka fogged memory serves, doesn't get interceptor. It seems like one hell of an oversight.

Because GW doesn't sell a plastic Hydra kit. Once they decide to release one ($100 each) they will errata the Hydra to have super-interceptor, which lets it shoot once at every unit arriving from reserve each turn and then shoot everything in your opponent's army just because you can. Oh, and it will be re-priced to 50 points to compensate for these new improvements.

And of course, one version of it will walk on mechanical spider legs with like...three Hydra cannons. Because everyone gets a big honking death walker these days. It's the new Metal boxes.

Makumb wrote:... because there are too many night fight scenarios... I dont own any chimeras... av12 that isnt a flyer doesnt seem to live long enough on tables this days...

It sounds like your problems are more generalized than specific to guard. If you can't handle night fighting, or fliers, or making a mech list work, then the best thing to do is to learn the skills required to make them work. The only answer to your problems isn't vendettas - there are plenty of alternatives. More time playing and practicing new things will help you figure them out, while rushing to a single unit as a crutch isn't going to be as helpful to you over all in the long term.

Makumb wrote:It is nice that you tell me to explore and all. But I dont have the money to buy and check what may work . Specialy when my friends no longer play w40k and all my games would be against strangers .

Then I'll let you explore by proxy.

Click here, to see the nearly 50 games I've played since 6th came out last summer. Dozens of games that explore nearly every main way to play Imperial Guard, and I don't field a single flier that entire time.

I can only hope that it gives you a little inspiration in lieu of a bunch of expensive miniatures purchases.

I went through 12 of your reports in most your using GK , offten calling paladins the MVPs , what ever that is . You and your opponent also seem to use FW units ,we dont use FW here.
I know GK are nice , but how is that suppose to help runing an IG army ?

If you can't handle night fighting, or fliers, or making a mech list work, then the best thing to do is to learn the skills required to make them work. The only answer to your problems isn't vendettas - there are plenty of alternatives.

Now am no veteran , but I did play for a year and I know very well that aside for flyers there are no anti flyer units in the IG dex. I also didnt say that vendettas were my only source of anti tank , they are support. That doesnt have to worry about LoS or cover or getting targeted by opponent anti tank on turn 1 or 2. They can also protect my troops long enough for them score at the end of the game. Am not sure about FW units , but non of the other vehicles in the IG dex can do that.

Sure, the Codex is fine without Vendettas and Valks. Vendettas are just stupidly undercosted.

There are no anti flyer units in the guard codex? Try having a look at your heavy support section.

you definitely don't need flyers to stomp face as guard. The fact that you don't even have chimeras makes me question how seriously you even want to win - don't opt for the cheese option when you've not even tried the bread and butter of any guard list.

 Ailaros wrote:
If you can't handle night fighting, or fliers, or making a mech list work, then the best thing to do is to learn the skills required to make them work.

It's very hard to "learn the skills" if you don't have the models to do it. Dealing with night fighting depends on having searchlights, which usually means Chimeras that the OP doesn't have. Dealing with flyers effectively requires Vendettas or Hydras (or FW units) that the OP doesn't have. Making a mech list requires Chimeras that the OP doesn't have.

I can only hope that it gives you a little inspiration in lieu of a bunch of expensive miniatures purchases.

Except they're going to have to buy more models to make any of your suggestions work, and if you're buying models anyway you might as well buy the best ones. The only reason not to buy Vendettas is if you have weird self-imposed limits about not playing the best lists.

Makumba wrote:
I went through 12 of your reports in most your using GK , offten calling paladins the MVPs , what ever that is . You and your opponent also seem to use FW units ,we dont use FW here.
I know GK are nice , but how is that suppose to help runing an IG army ?

If you can't handle night fighting, or fliers, or making a mech list work, then the best thing to do is to learn the skills required to make them work. The only answer to your problems isn't vendettas - there are plenty of alternatives.

Now am no veteran , but I did play for a year and I know very well that aside for flyers there are no anti flyer units in the IG dex. I also didnt say that vendettas were my only source of anti tank , they are support. That doesn't have to worry about LoS or cover or getting targeted by opponent anti tank on turn 1 or 2. They can also protect my troops long enough for them score at the end of the game. Am not sure about FW units , but non of the other vehicles in the IG dex can do that.

Uh did you read Aliros' stuff? You may want to try rereading it if that was what you got because not a single thing you drew from it is correct.

It sounds like you don't want to get any new models and want to play strictly with what you have. The problem is that we have no idea exactly what you have so none of us can say if you could even put together casual level list or if it is a bunch of vet squads with no transports.

You can play the game to a low tournament standard without flyers and FW. It requires allies though. If you cannot do allies then you could play to lower half tournament bracket with some skill and good tactics but the list needs to be a well thought out affair you are extremely familiar with.

Makumba wrote:aside for flyers there are no anti flyer units in the IG dex.

that

is

not

true.

Over 6th edition, I've taken down many fliers. I've taken them down with meltaguns (most of the time), and with multimeltas. I've taken them down with vanquisher cannons, and quad guns, and primaris psykers. I've taken them down with lascannons and exterminator cannons. I've taken them down by ignoring them and beating my opponent so badly on the ground game that not even fliers could turn around a complete and dismal defeat.

Any unit in the imperial guard codex that can hurt tanks can hurt fliers. Generally, if your opponent brings a lot of fliers, they're not likely bringing that many other vehicles either, so it's no real loss to point the guns up and swat stuff out of the sky. If your opponent was relying on fliers, and you swat them out of the sky, they're generally done for.

Saying that the only way you could possibly shoot down a flier is with a vendetta displays a colossal lack of creativity. If you're applying the same kind of rigid thinking to the rest of the way you play 40k, then vendettas alone aren't going to be a solution to your problems.

 Ailaros wrote:
Saying that the only way you could possibly shoot down a flier is with a vendetta displays a colossal lack of creativity.

No, it's just displaying an understanding of math and knowing the difference between "anti-flyer unit" and "able to roll dice against a flyer". Yes, a Vanquisher can in theory take down a flyer, just like any unit with a gun capable of at least glancing AV 10. The question is whether it is effective at taking down flyers, and the answer is no, it isn't. You're paying a lot of points to hope that you get lucky and hit the flyer, while Vendettas (and other dedicated AA units) give you far better damage against flyers for the same points.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Ailaros wrote:
Saying that the only way you could possibly shoot down a flier is with a vendetta displays a colossal lack of creativity.

No, it's just displaying an understanding of math and knowing the difference between "anti-flyer unit" and "able to roll dice against a flyer". Yes, a Vanquisher can in theory take down a flyer, just like any unit with a gun capable of at least glancing AV 10. The question is whether it is effective at taking down flyers, and the answer is no, it isn't. You're paying a lot of points to hope that you get lucky and hit the flyer, while Vendettas (and other dedicated AA units) give you far better damage against flyers for the same points.

of course, you could save yourself considerable time and money by simply giving.up 40k altogether. If you bring vendettas to your gaming group, people simply won't play against you since you may as well remove all their tanks turn two and three.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Ailaros wrote:
Saying that the only way you could possibly shoot down a flier is with a vendetta displays a colossal lack of creativity.

No, it's just displaying an understanding of math and knowing the difference between "anti-flyer unit" and "able to roll dice against a flyer". Yes, a Vanquisher can in theory take down a flyer, just like any unit with a gun capable of at least glancing AV 10. The question is whether it is effective at taking down flyers, and the answer is no, it isn't. You're paying a lot of points to hope that you get lucky and hit the flyer, while Vendettas (and other dedicated AA units) give you far better damage against flyers for the same points.

So let's say the Vendetta is the best option mathematically. For some people, this might be what they want, to have the most efficient unit in every point slot and thus play as competitively as possible. However the problem we've run into here is not a question of "Ideal circumstances" rather (as I've read it) it's a question of countering fliers while keeping the army style they prefer.

Some people play 40k for the gaming aspect alone, others for fluff, others for a little of both. I think, in the latter two parameters, it's more than acceptable to promote other ways to stop fliers, even if they are not the optimum choice.

And let's not get efficiency and effectiveness confused here. If you've got a pair of mechvets within 24" of a flier, you've got a 1 in 6 chance of picking it clean out of the sky. If they're within 18" of a flier at the beginning of the turn, you're talking about getting into melta range, and those odds increase drastically.

The most efficient thing? No, I wouldn't take melta mechvets as a dedicated anti-flier weapon. That said, if there wasn't anything else near my mechvets to shoot, rather than wasting the time I could stand a decent chance to shoot down a flier, not to mention possibly stun-kill it, or at least strip off some hull points.

That's part of the problem with thinking about things only along the lines of specialist units. Something doesn't have to be 100% the best all the time in order to be effective at something. If I'm shooting something at fliers that isn't the absolute best at shooting fliers, then I'm not "wasting" that unit's firepower, I'm practicing versatility.

Like those vanquishers, for example. In the beginning of the game, they blew up a couple of leman russes. Job done. Turn 2 and 3, the fliers show up. A vanquisher with proper kit has 4 shots, any of which could easily blow up a flier if any of it's shots hits. The vanquishers already did their job. Furthermore, there isn't a whole lot else for them to shoot at. If instead, they blow up a vendetta and cause the scoring unit inside to suffer a horrible death (which they did), then the fact that vanquishers aren't the most efficient anti-aircraft is pointless.

Which, rather is my point. Saying "yes, you can blow up fliers with lots of stuff, but it's inefficient" doesn't really matter in a lot of circumstances. So long as the flier is down, that's all that really matters. Lots of things can take down fliers. That's what matters.