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I think posting a commandments style IG primer would be very useful on Dakka.  IG is not an easy army to play in v4, and there are as many or more mistakes possible with it as with Eldar.  Also, an all mortar army can be suprisingly effective.  You can pack a LOT of mortars into 1850, and mortar HW squads actually work.  That having been said, suprisingly effective means better than totally sucking.  When I fielded it I expected to get destroyed.

Here's a starting point, I'd like feedback.  If it looks good enough for a stickie, I'll repost in a clean thread.

#1 Thou shalt not waste the Emperor?s credits. Remember that thou are commanding the most fragile basic unit in the game.

Guard are T3/5+, and at the end of the day you will remain at best a T3/4+ army. This means that a 4 Heavy Bolter Devastator squad will essentially annihilate any unit it can draw LOS to. Don?t take any upgrade that you aren?t prepared to watch evaporate as soon as your opponent picks up the dice for his shooting phase. The best course of action is to individually justify every single item taken from the armory.

#2 Thou shalt not forget the purpose of thine units. Officers lead, Guardsmen die.

Your officer?s leadership bubble is critical to dealing with the low average IG leadership. Your opponent knows this as well as you do and as such command squads are #2 on their infantry target list, right behind heavy weapons squads. Hide them, and know that if your opponent can LOS/Range them they will die. Some will even send suicide units to kill that HQ and its LD10 bubble. This also means that upgrades here are very often wasted, as Command Squads are the most fragile unit in the army. They are still critical, as without that leadership bubble IG are even easier to kill than normal.

#3 Thou shalt not loose thine understanding of the Logic of Numbers. Two is more than twice as good as one, four more than twice as good as two.

Also known as ?Everything counts in large amounts? and ?Quantity has a quality all its own.? First, the more of a unit you have the more likely your opponent won?t have enough guns to deal with it all. 3 Russ hulls and 5 chimera hulls, or 100% infantry, is much more dangerous than a Russ, 2 chimera hulls, and a bunch of infantry. Second, identical units matter. If you have a bunch of units that are functionally similar yet each is upgraded slightly, your opponent will just shoot the most expensive one first and run down the list.

#4 Thou shalt not take special weapons other than plasma.

It?s difficult to go wrong with a plasma gun. Suicide deepstrikers can get some use from meltaguns, and a handful of grenade launchers or flamers in an otherwise template-less army can force hordes to spread out a bit, but in the end plasma kills everything.

#5 Thou shalt not forget that melee combat is a cancer. Excise it.

IG armies in general fall to CC, killing units and closing fire lanes. Rough Riders aren?t a bad countercharge unit, and most things can be killed by begin dogpiled by line squads, but always remember that you want to shoot as much as possible. Understand where you will be attacked in CC, and if you should deal with it by way of countercharge or opening the gap.

#6 Thou shalt not field heavy weapons squads.

Any competent opponent will almost uniformly shoot them first, and continue shooting them until dead. Too many points and too much firepower on too few wounds. If you must field them, stick to HB only squads, and take provisions to block LOS with vehicles and terrain. And be prepared to watch them die without doing anything.

#7 Thou shalt not forget that thine strength lies in the platoon and armor plate.

Anything that isn?t a line squad, command squad, or a vehicle is probably going to be a waste of points without a clear and easy to implement plan for using them. This specifically includes all elites choices, Rough Riders, Sentinels, and Advisors. This is not to say that you can?t come up with a plan that makes them good, just that taking them without such a plan is a waste. Furthermore, most of those choices are simply innately useless or so stupidly hard to use that it isn?t worth it.

#8 Thou shalt not forget that blast templates are mostly useless, and that guardsmen are BS3.

Missile Launchers are bad. Grenade Launchers are bad. Plasma Cannons are bad. Multimeltas are simply horrible. Flamers are highly situational.  You need every hit to count against armor, and every shot you can get for everything else. This means Heavy Bolters for killing hordes, Lascannons for killing power armor and vehicles, a few autocannons for killing armor 12 skimmers.

#9 Thou shalt not forget that battlecannons cannot kill vehicles.

Read the rules. Chances are good that you will scatter off anything but the largest vehicles, and the ones you can depend on hitting are all AV14 and thus nearly immune. At best you are usually looking at less than a 50% hit rate on Rhino sized targets, and even worse on walkers, trucks, and land speeders.

#10 Thou shalt not take doctrines that cost points.

Along the same lines as #7, any doctrine that isn?t free is very likely to be a waste of points unless you have a clear and easy to implement plan for using your new abilities. Also like #7, most doctrines are simply a total waste of time.

You know what I like most about Guard? The fact that every one of these 10 commandments can be shown as false. There is nothing true 100% of the time.


#1 Thou shalt not waste the Emperor?s credits. Remember that thou are commanding the most fragile basic unit in the game.

Except that Camoline, and vet sgts can make for some BA line squads, also the abhuman doctrines... All cost points

#2 Thou shalt not forget the purpose of thine units. Officers lead, Guardsmen die.

Except of suicide command squads backed by COD vet sgt squads, in that case, guardsmen lean and officers die.

#3 Thou shalt not loose thine understanding of the Logic of Numbers. Two is more than twice as good as one, four more than twice as good as two.

except for the case of rough riders.... You need one squad.... more is overkill

#4 Thou shalt not take special weapons other than plasma.

Love some plasma but as mentioned meltas in suicide squads are great

#5 Thou shalt not forget that melee combat is a cancer. Excise it.
Melee happens and must be planned for. Some times it is better to feed something one squad at a time than to let it have free reign of your squads


#6 Thou shalt not field heavy weapons squads.
Please see the 14 lascannon 1850 guard army with multiple heavy weapon squads.... You want to hear cries of cheese!


#7 Thou shalt not forget that thine strength lies in the platoon and armor plate.

HEARASY!! Rough Riders are one of the best guard units in the game... Sentinals in a drop army are great as well

#8 Thou shalt not forget that blast templates are mostly useless, and that guardsmen are BS3.

Ok I agree with you here!

#9 Thou shalt not forget that battlecannons cannot kill vehicles.

And here.... However demolisher cannons do kill monoliths quite well.

#10 Thou shalt not take doctrines that cost points.
Please see 1


Do not get me wrong, I think that the 10 listed commandments are generally good advice. But there are always exceptions in the guard army.

foil: The purpose of commandments is to provide guidelines. All of the commandments mentioned are true. Are there exceptions? Yes. Should they even be mentioned to well-intentioned but otherwise clueless potential guard players? No.

You are wrong there Jeff. These are exactly the people that need the mentions. Or else you see an upset newbie with a drop troop army that has no improved comms, or a SAFH army with no counter assualt.

You're right, he is wrong about rough riders. But other than that?

My point is that newbie guard players shouldn't be doing drop troops, or a cameleoline infiltrating army, or anything of the sort. Yes they're playable and even arguably better than the vanilla guard list - but they're also going to require a higher degree of expertise with the guard. A new guard player is going to be better off mastering the basics of the Imperial Guard (have lots of everything, recognize that individual guardsmen are all but useless) before trying out some of the fancier things. Learn to walk before you run etc etc.

My whole point, is that like it or not winning games encourages new players. Guard start off with a handicap and these people should get started with as lean and mean an army as possible. To put a viable IG army togther costs what? 5-6 hundred bucks? Plus countless hours painting? That is a huge investement for "learning the ropes"

Posted By foil7102 on 04/18/2006 1:27 PM
You know what I like most about Guard? The fact that every one of these 10 commandments can be shown as false. There is nothing true 100% of the time.


#1 Thou shalt not waste the Emperor?s credits. Remember that thou are commanding the most fragile basic unit in the game.

Except that Camoline, and vet sgts can make for some BA line squads, also the abhuman doctrines... All cost points

 

Camoline is expensive, and isn't that hard to deal with.  It makes you tougher, true, but is it worth the cost?  You can't pack the entire army into cover all the time and you can't only upgrade certain units, so units outside cover will be killed first.  It also won't save you from CC.  It is useful? Yes, but if you know how to use it you aren't who this document is intended for.  Same with abhumans.  However, this is intended more for armory choices and some of the squad upgrades than doctrines.  I have seen a lot of new players field the Command HQ of DOOOOM and watch it get blown away, and this is intended to prevent that shock until the player understands the game more. 

#2 Thou shalt not forget the purpose of thine units. Officers lead, Guardsmen die.

Except of suicide command squads backed by COD vet sgt squads, in that case, guardsmen lean and officers die.

 

Suicide squads die.  And with guardsmen, they have this ugly tendancy to die while accomplishing little.  Meanwhile, you are very template vulnerable and spending 6 points a squad instead of keeping units you have to take anyway alive in hiding. 

#3 Thou shalt not loose thine understanding of the Logic of Numbers. Two is more than twice as good as one, four more than twice as good as two.

except for the case of rough riders.... You need one squad.... more is overkill

 

And if they get shot?  A single land speeder can gut a mid sized RR squad, and considering the RR cost it isn't an entirely bad idea for the SM player. 

#4 Thou shalt not take special weapons other than plasma.

Love some plasma but as mentioned meltas in suicide squads are great

 

There is little melta can accomplish that plasma can't.  The primary advantage is killing Wraithlords, Carnifexes, and instakilling pesky marine characters.  The secondary advantage is manageing to land in the 6inch sweet spot for the melta bonus.  I prefer twice the shots at Str7.  The exception is, of course, land raiders.  Once again, if you are using sucicide drop troop vet squads, you are likely beyond the scope of this post.

#5 Thou shalt not forget that melee combat is a cancer. Excise it.
Melee happens and must be planned for. Some times it is better to feed something one squad at a time than to let it have free reign of your squads

Where did I say it would never happen?  Did I ever imply that?  I said, have a plan to deal with it because it can easily make you lose.

#6 Thou shalt not field heavy weapons squads.
Please see the 14 lascannon 1850 guard army with multiple heavy weapon squads.... You want to hear cries of cheese!

Until they all evaporate under heavy bolter fire on turn 1.  It's hard to set up/screen HW squads, and they are target #1 for a competent opponent.  I've fielded it, and watched it get taken apart by a competent opponent who was tougher and semi-mobile.  He obliterated a sizeable % of my HW squads in his first shooting phase and it was a long slide down from there.  Making them work is hard because they are such good targets.

#7 Thou shalt not forget that thine strength lies in the platoon and armor plate.

HEARASY!! Rough Riders are one of the best guard units in the game... Sentinals in a drop army are great as well

 

Sentinels get one shot.  RR's are a good CC unit ... by guards standards.  When fielded against an opponent who knows what they can do and is threatened by that, they tend to get shot and die.  Did you actually read the notes here, where I said 'you need a plan'?  And it's heresy. 

#8 Thou shalt not forget that blast templates are mostly useless, and that guardsmen are BS3.

Ok I agree with you here!

#9 Thou shalt not forget that battlecannons cannot kill vehicles.

And here.... However demolisher cannons do kill monoliths quite well.

 

What part of battlecannon did you read as demolisher cannon?

#10 Thou shalt not take doctrines that cost points.
Please see 1

 

See comment for #1.


Do not get me wrong, I think that the 10 listed commandments are generally good advice. But there are always exceptions in the guard army.

Perhaps I should have put in a bit more explanation.  The commandments themselves are meant for a new player.  Even if you don't understand anything about the game, you can only go so far wrong during army construction if you follow them.  The italics notes are for people a bit farther along, to explain some basics as to how and why the commandments work.  Take #7.  For somebody who just finished assembling or is planning future purchases, just follow it.  After each game, examine the other choices and try to create a plan on how any particular choice might have been useful.  For RRs, it might be as simple as ' if I had a RR unit that was still alive when the Assault Marines hit, I might have won.  So next time, I'll hide a RR unit behind some trees and try to keep the speeders away from them.'  That's a concrete and easy to impliment plan, as talked about the in notes.  With something like Ogryn or a Seer, tyring to create a workable plan is a lot harder, which will discourage you from fielding them if you follow the note. 

Sigh, sorry about that formatting.  I was not expecting it to look like that.  My replies are in italics.

Sigh..... Please see my last note Grog...

"Do not get me wrong, I think that the 10 listed commandments are generally good advice. But there are always exceptions in the guard army."

On a side note, I disagree with a fair number of your "commandments" Even for a newbie... And an even larger portion of your advice is.....

1)Suicide squads always make their points back unless destroyed by the scatter die.... If they did not, you were using them incorrectly.
2)Rough Riders when used correctly are the best value point for point in the game... They should not be overlooked.
3)Heavy weapon Teams have their place in the army. ESPECIALLY when taken with the HQ. 48 inch range guns should never be in heavy bolter range. The only way they should be targeted during the first two turns is if you are not using them correctly.

That is just off of the top of my head, from what you have posted so far...

"except for the case of rough riders.... You need one squad.... more is overkill

And if they get shot? A single land speeder can gut a mid sized RR squad, and considering the RR cost it isn't an entirely bad idea for the SM player. "

I agree with foil on this one. i don't think your example would play out that easily. if you're hiding them correctly,
i think you'd have a greater chance of taking out his speeder first.

Anyone know what Dakka's character limit is? In posts that is.

BYE

#4 Thou shalt not take special weapons other than plasma.

Love some plasma but as mentioned meltas in suicide squads are great

***a four flamer JSO unit is excellent for the scraps of marines that eventually WILL get through your firing lanes. It is a perfection of the Quantity is quality theory. 

#5 Thou shalt not forget that melee combat is a cancer. Excise it.
Melee happens and must be planned for. Some times it is better to feed something one squad at a time than to let it have free reign of your squads

****Agreed, feeding cheap troop squads to expensive enemy units is a time honored tradition in the guard. Who do you think we are-Tau

Anyone know what Dakka's character limit is? In posts that is.

Nope. You can always brake it up into multiple chunks and post it seperately if you have to.

I think this thread needs a "We'll Be Back" roll!

Hmm, well a good place to start would be devising a "take all comers" list for 1500 points. That way the nublings won't be swamped and they can actually have the models within a forseeable amount of time.

yeh, lets get this thread goin

i recently started guard after i dont know what reason, i just like em, but my knowledge only goes so far

so for all those experienced generals out there, please feel free to post or pm me any tactica, like anything, i even have trouble choosing weapon layouts for my troops that i am happy with (cant decide autocannons or Hbs hehe) or post links to good tactica, it will benefit everyone...

a little know didnt hurt no-one

thanks

I had a tactica for HQ choices up on 40k online (it's a little dated, but still pretty aplicable), but the main site is apaprently down.

General IG advice is hard, simply because there are so many different builds (SAFH, all infantry, mech, Drop troops, grenadiers, infiltrating, etc). Assuming you want to build a generic IG army (lots of dudes and lots of tanks) here are a few pointers:

Keep your command HQ cheap: you want LD9 and a re-roll, anything else is a waste

50% of your specials should be plasmas at a low point. 75% is better.

Remember that against their main targets, Lascannons are twice to six times as good as a missile launcher for only 10 pts more.

Autcannons are great against light vehicles, but not very good against anything else.

Plasma goes good with every heavy weapon. Grenade launchers are inferior 99% of the time. If you're a noob, trust me, you're not in the 1% where Grenade Launchers are awesome.

Suicide drop squads (veterans, command sections, remnents, and special weapon squads) are cheap and awesome.

Sentinels aren't as good as they look, and they don't look that good.

Any time you want to take one vehicle at an AV level (either AV14 or 12), take 3. One LRBT or hellhound is going to get rocked. three are a problem for your opponent.

Good squad load outs: las/plas, heavy bolter/Flamer. Useful squads in moderation: AC/plas, Missile/Plas. Bad combinations: anything with mortars, grenade launchers, or meltas.

If you want countercharge, take rough riders.

Polonius wrote:Good squad load outs: las/plas, heavy bolter/Flamer. Useful squads in moderation: AC/plas, Missile/Plas. Bad combinations: anything with mortars, grenade launchers, or meltas.

Just to clarify as I think I know what you mean, but want to make sure that others know, too - Meltas in combination with anything other than more meltas are bad. But massed (like 2-4) meltas in suicide squads are good.

that's exactly correct. I meant meltas in standard squads are generally bad. Meltas in command squads, veterans, remnants, etc. are all better in bulk.

I've got a huge tactica that I wrote after the current Guard Codex came out, but it's before 4th Ed hit, so some of it is out of date.

BYE

I recently had a battle with my loaded out HQ section, power weapons, plasma weapons, and a Commissar with a Powerfist (simply because I needed the extra Commissar and the only one I had was equiped with a Powerfist). I used them to charge into an assault that I initiated with two standard squads, and they all did rather well. The Power Weapons came in handy dealing with Space Marine level armor. I've just recently started trying to assault with my IG and so far they're not terrible, you just need lots of hits, but I think my opponent's dice are loaded. He never fails his armor saves. Litterally, he never fails his armor saves, even if I hit and wound with 10-15 lasgun rounds, he saves them all. Next time I encounter that kid I'm going to keep a sharp eye on his dice.

Massive pimped out Guard CHQ's do do well in HTH combat... but they're ludicrously expensive and go against everything you should be doing.

I had a squad such as this wipe out a squad of Striking Scoprs before the Scorps could even swing. It was fantastic. Power Weapons, Power Fists, Eviscerators, Force Weapons - tore 'em to shreds I did.

The unit was also 300 points, and involved me taking three different Doctrines just to boost them (Priests, Sanctioned Psykers and Xenos Hunters).

Complete and utter waste.

As I have said in numerous threads, CHQs cost 81 points, no more, no less (unless you're giving them Cameleoline and/or Light Infantry). They hide, they provide Ld9 + Re-Roll Leadership, and that's it.

Gurad don't assault. They counter-assault, and that's a huge difference.

BYE

so far i agree with what has been said here, especially the whole close combat thing though im not too keen on rough riders.

due to the fact i usually play only smaller games (i.e 750-1250) yeah wierd points values but me and mate are bad at organising and a few guys dont have very big armies so sticking to these commandments is fairly hard. Especially the whole tank idea, like no less than 3 im gathering so i guess tips with this stuff in mind would help more. I very oftenly play against orks and chaos, sometimes daemonhunters.

also for HBMC, id be happy to read your tactica and anybody elses for that matter ( HBMC just mentioned he had one) so yeh, you can pm me if you want or just post it, but like you said it might be a bit out dated.

anyways, thanks to the people helping out

What I'd REALLY like to see is a lot of this advice concatenated into the Articles section. A large, main Imperial Guard Tactica would be good alongside a few smaller (or larger!) tacticas by individual posters.

Keeps away from Thread Necromancy this way.

Flagg07 wrote:2) Thou Shalt not mix weapons in Heavy Weapon Squads.

I like!!
However, I will slightly disagree with this one. The one exception, Fire Support squads. A mix of two Heavy bolters and one autocannon works quite well, IMO. You lose one shot but gain slightly better anti-armor capability. Maybe it's just a personal quirk but I like it.

don_mondo wrote:

Flagg07 wrote:2) Thou Shalt not mix weapons in Heavy Weapon Squads.

I like!!
However, I will slightly disagree with this one. The one exception, Fire Support squads. A mix of two Heavy bolters and one autocannon works quite well, IMO. You lose one shot but gain slightly better anti-armor capability. Maybe it's just a personal quirk but I like it.

The key with these "commandments" is that any of them can be broken and be a part of a good or even great IG army. No two IG players build identical armies or even squads (I think I'm the only player to use Missile Launchers and two plasma guns in command squads), so it's important to make sure people know that nothing is written in stone.

don_mondo, why would you not just pay for 3 ACs instead? It'd only be another 10 pts on top of your mixed squad, and it would mean you don't waste 2/3 of those heavy weapons should you need to actually fire at an AV12 vehicle. The loss of shots is almost made up for by the added point of S; against T4, you inflict 2.5 wounds instead of the 3 you would inflict with 3 HBs.

If you mix ACs and HBs, two guns designed for completely different things, you'll be wasting fire every turn.

Don't do it.

BYE

agreed with HBMC, the mixing of heavy weapons always works against the player as usually they are all designed for different battlefield roles. have all HB's for anti infantry, all AC's for light tanks and heavy infantry, and lascannons for all tanks in general.

funny enough though i do use missile launchers instead of lascannons and i know admitting this here is gonna cause a ruckus, but it's just so i can have more, and for modeling purposes.

Quick note: ACs are not any better than HBs against "heavy infantry."