Overview; This army focuses on out shooting the opponent most time excluding any CC element. Lots of High Str Low ap shooting. Lots of tanks or lots of bodies or sometimes more of each then you brought. In a competitive IG build you are all but guaranteed to see 2-4 flyers, tough and hard hitting flyers.

Strengths; IG thrives on shooting, if they can shoot you off the board they don’t have to worry about being assaulted. Strongest range for the IG army will depend on build, but most will prefer to keep you > 18” away to minimize assaults. Redundancy, most IG armies will have 2-3 of any give selection. Resilient, the trooper is weak, but the army can usually win a war of attrition through bodies/vehicles, it’s not the best at it but there aren’t many better. Air superiority, guard can bring a surprising amount of AA and fliers. If the guard player wants the skies he will take them and win 9/10 times.

Weaknesses: Close combat, almost any guard unit will fold quickly to any reasonably competent melee unit. The ideal situation is to get a weak charge off and finish the assault in the guard player’s assault phase. Rear armor, the ability to outflank or deepstrike into a position where you can target the vulnerable armor of the tanks is not only a benefit to you but, your IG opponent will be forced to worry about it or lose tanks. Tanks hugging a board edge for protection are probably out of position. Mobility, Aside from the previously mention fliers most units in the Guard aren’t terribly mobile and can’t move better than a marine. If you have a highly mobile army you can use this to deny range to the slower Guard player. No interceptor; If you aren’t playing with FW rules guard only have the interceptor options form the BRB. This means tactics like Deepstrike and Outflank are more reliable than against say, a Tau army.

Gotchas; There aren’t too many of these in the guard dex. I think that the str 10 pie plates are important to identify if you have t5 MCs you want to live. Also, metla bombs. Guard have access to an entire squad with melta bombs. If your MC charges into 10 vets with bombs it will be looking at the remnants all with 1 Str8 ap1 attack.

Overview: This army focuses on mobility. High amounts of poisoned shots. Decent close combat presence. Decent access to anti armor.

Strengths; Though no longer as mobile as their lighter brethren the Dark Eldar are still pretty freaking fast. Most of their Hvy guns are a 36” range so dancing outside of the opponent’s reach is a viable tactic for DE. High volumes of poison shots melt 3+ MCs as quickly as Marines. Your wraith knight is just a combat squad to a DE army. Good access to lance weapons means that all your tanks are threatened regardless of how tough they are. Close combat, all wytches have a 4++ in close combat so you’re only going to kill have your wounds. Sergeants can either get a 2+ poison weapon or an ap3 poison weapon. Bottom line is, what every toughness boost you have DE reduce it as an army.

Weaknesses; Highly specialized, DE units in general will be good at one thing to the exclusion of others. There troops can be ok generalists most everything else is not. Glass cannon, DE fly around in skimmers made of wet cardboard. Outside of a transport most DE units are mostly GEQ. There are a few exceptions but what you can shoot with the right weapons should die. No air superiority, a DE player will need to try really hard if they want to control the skies. An opponent who has even a modest presence in the combat airspace can take it from the DE player.

Gotchas; Night vision, the entire army has night vision. This means night fight only helps them, never voluntarily choose night fight 1st turn( Immotek is an exception, of course.) Poison, remember this army doesn’t care what your toughness is. Haywire grenades, wytches threaten land raiders in CC. Night shields, DE have access to a vehicle upgrade that subtracts 6” from your range. This means meltas are never in melta range and their 36” guns now out range yours.