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Or have they dropped down to middle tier?

I would argue that they are still top tier...I have stayed competitive against all of the current books. Plus, let's face it, guard are still able to have an answer to any situation at a cheap cost. We still boast one of the top fliers in the game and few armies come prepared to face an AV12 wall anymore...I have had great success with 5 chimeras, 2 hydras, 2 lemans, and a manticore recently for 1750.

Guard have the swiss army knife of codexes. Anything anyone else can come up with they have a counter for.

In my opinion, other codices have advanced to a point where guard needs allies to function truly competitively.

No.

They arguably stopped being a top tier army when 6th ed dropped, and they've definitely stopped being a top tier army since new tau and new eldar.

You can tell an army isn't top tier anymore when the vapid internet lemmings can't figure out how to play the army other than in one way (or use that one unit), or are "forced" to reach out to forgeworld to "fix" their army. Or allies for that matter.

Guard aren't a weak codex, of course, but the idea of a guard army blowing everyone else off the table like a leafblower is an idea about two... maybe three years out of date. It was more of a blip than a sustained trend.

Anyways, mechvets are still good, as are new heavy russes, and vendettas haven't been completely countered yet. That said, playing guard with the best units is now more playing the game on medium difficulty mode, and playing foot guard is now certainly playing the game on hard mode. People who don't want to have to work to win have moved on to tau or tautau or taudar for a reason.

Guard still look awesome, though, and are fun to play, but that's of course, outside the scope of this discussion.

Guard are as good as your wallet will let them be. They are good. Look good and pack firepower that will shatter the earth itself. But your wallet will be put through Commorogh and Detroit.


Unless your rich.

If you go anti meta, they can do this like no one else. 9 russes, of which 6 are normal. A vendetta for anti air and the rest filled up with normal guardsmen. Nobody is going too handle that.

littlehorus wrote:
If you go anti meta, they can do this like no one else. 9 russes, of which 6 are normal. A vendetta for anti air and the rest filled up with normal guardsmen. Nobody is going too handle that.

This isn't "anti-meta" it's just a bad list. Spamming squadrons of basic LRBTs is just a good way to throw away 900+ points.

The basic codex by itself? No. Armor has taken an absolute beating, particularly medium tracked armor, requiring fewer shots with most weapons on average than ever before to ensure destruction, while everything and its dead mother is coming out with ways to ignore cover (the poor guardsmens only defense) and/or greatly enhance their own cover (much negating IG fire) and other such things. Are they screwed? No. Are they top tier? No. They make *excellent* allies however, which is why you see them so often in that capacity.

With Imperial Armour units (as many more events are allowing these, particularly in the US and US West Coast)...that's a different story, as the additional flyer options, artillery units, and other units take great advantage of the 6E rules and work much better.


Much of the problem is that a good 60% of the IG codex is..junk, stuff like sentinels, ogryn, LR Vanquishers, Deathstrikes, Penal Legion, etc or has some sort of crippling flaw like HWT's being vulnerable to S6 insta-death and almost all of the IG medium armor being absurdly overcosted with respect to 6E vehicle rules.

Guard doesn't have enough buffs/debuffs to be top tier in 6th ed, that said its still an excellent army, and certainly up there. I think guard were great in 6th right up until Tau came out, which coincided with the time I stopped playing 40k for a while.

I would say that Tau and their bag of tricks have outstripped the guard. They have more interceptor (negating our vendettas), and they can spam line of sight and cover ignoring fire in abundance.....The only way i can think to plug the holes in IG is utilizing DA for their powerfield generators.

Guard, Nercons and GK are still top teir. That won't change until their codexes get updated.

As long as we get the AP 3 pie-plate-pocalypse, then I'm happy! . But unfortunately, the hammer of the emperor no longer deserves its title until (hopefully) it gets a new, 6ed oriented codex.

juraigamer wrote:Guard, Nercons and GK are still top teir. That won't change until their codexes get updated.

So Guard, Necron, GK, Tau, and Eldar are all top tier? Throw in 2++ FMC demon spamming, and you're up to nearly half the armies being top tier. I guess it's a good thing that 40k has such balanced armies now.