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Hey all, so I was wondering, how come everybody seems to think that AM / IG are squishy. Think about it, it have some veteran squads worth over the points of a space marine tactical squad, we have tanks that imo are generally better than other races and there are many of them to choose from. And in my recent experiences, there are few that can actually defeat my guard army. But that's only because they are something OP like Eldar or Tau, but even so i seem to get a fair fight atleast out of every game and by far it i think that IG is one of the best armies. The only reason that IG could be squishy is because of the elysian tauros vehicles, or the conscripts and guardsmen, but generally people dont use them as much as veterans as they are less effective.

So yes, i think that IG is quite a rough and tough army. Except in close-combat, but that never really matters anyway because i always just blow them up after the combat or before they even get into combat. So why is it that people always think of guard as a squishy swarm army like some ork armies, or some tyranid armies?

Besides not playing against eldar and tau, how offten do you play against tyranids, grav sm , necrons or even some of the weaker armies like GK ?

I Play in a competitive and also in a fun environment.
Guard is Not " squishy" but pure guard without allied imperial knights is an Army Thats just not very top Tier.
The fact no one in your meta gets into Combat with you doesnt mean Combat is Not important.
Maybe Play against me ?
30 assault marines and sanguinary guard in your Face and in close combat turn one?
Very likely and then assault does matter.
Also guard has some good cc possibilitis like blobguard with priest etc.
Also Most of the Tanks are rather meh.
Different pask variants are ok but for example the standart russ?
Not so

The main good old human is squishy no matter how you look at it.
The "bubble-wrap" for tanks of conscripts does not dispel that very well.
Veterans tended to be plasma with grenadier option in a Chimera for a little less squish.
The continuing need to publish open top vehicles is not helping dispel that either.
There are lots of options to play with.
The horde imperial guard is a lot of fun, not terribly competitive but man, they die by the bucketful!

I think that Guard are squishy, because my army is full of [S8 AP1, S4 AP5 and S5 AP4] Ignores Cover. Point... and delete.

i understand all of your points, however, i have played against space marines, blood angels and orks too recently, each time ive won. The last time i lost was about 7 weeks or 8 weeks ago against a tau army and an eldar army. but that was only a marginal defeat. anyway, i have squads of veterans worth more than 10 space marines, or 12 tau fire-warriors, a big blob of orks, and they seem to survive, they even last a fair while in cc if i put a commissar and power sword and lord commissar with them.

To take it further, furyou miko may have " army is full of [S8 AP1, S4 AP5 and S5 AP4] Ignores Cover. Point... and delete. " however, they are very expensive and generally only kill maybe 1 tank and 2-3 vet units before ive took out a flyer, 3 of his expensive units and a few tanks.

I just dont feel squishy unless im using conscripts or elysian tauros vehicles or sentinels, or just a swarm army, but personally swarm armies do not work for me and i lose, so....

... firstly, it's 'her', and secondly, expensive units?

Sisters are cheaper than Marines :p how on earth are your Veterans surviving in combat? My infantry are basically Veterans with a 3+/6++ and Preferred Enemy, and they they die fairly swiftly. I think I'd like to play against you some time, see how you do it.

I mean, I see Guard as squishy, but arguably one of the best armies out there if played correctly.

Then again, I see pretty much every army as squishy, cuz I play Crons. =P

The only thing thats really tough in IG is LR and LR are actually pretty bad in this edition because they nerfed the best LR to the ground (the demoloisher and the battle tank.) Veterns in chimeras just end up being really expensive gun boats that you cant advance cause 10 side armor. The only unit they have that is really good (the wyveren) is just a chimera! easy to kill.

I guess you play against Realy Bad Players and because of this are very...overdrawn selfconfidence.
For example.
Last Year i played 63 games which were over 1500 points, most of them where about 1750 points.
I played Necrons most of the time.
22 were against an imperial guard player 14 regular guard,8 against a dkok siege List.
I won 14 games against regular guard which Means all, the guard player is an experienced torunament player.
I lost 6 games vs the siege List and 2 drawn.
Only because you Win with certain Units doesnt mean they are not squishy.
Veterans for example die in Combat like flies to assault marines, sternguard, and every other dedicated cc Unit.

 blood ravens addiction wrote:
Hey all, so I was wondering, how come everybody seems to think that AM / IG are squishy. Think about it, it have some veteran squads worth over the points of a space marine tactical squad, we have tanks that imo are generally better than other races and there are many of them to choose from. And in my recent experiences, there are few that can actually defeat my guard army. But that's only because they are something OP like Eldar or Tau, but even so i seem to get a fair fight atleast out of every game and by far it i think that IG is one of the best armies. The only reason that IG could be squishy is because of the elysian tauros vehicles, or the conscripts and guardsmen, but generally people dont use them as much as veterans as they are less effective.

So yes, i think that IG is quite a rough and tough army. Except in close-combat, but that never really matters anyway because i always just blow them up after the combat or before they even get into combat. So why is it that people always think of guard as a squishy swarm army like some ork armies, or some tyranid armies?

Here are some issues.

First, guardsmen *are* squishy, T3 5+sv infantry are squishy no matter what, and with the increasing prevalence of ignores cover weaponry, they're even more squishy. Even with camo-cloaks and carapace, they're not terribly hard to remove from the table.

On top of that, unfortunately IG tanks aren't really better than other races. Chimeras are thoroughly mediocre. Hellhounds & variants are very expensive for what they do, they could easily do with being 30pts cheaper across the board, there's no reason they need to cost nearly as much as Trilas predators or come in as much as many Leman Russ tanks. Basilisks have an absurdly huge minimum range and are only 25pts less than an AV14 LRBT. Some Leman Russ variants are pretty good, but not all. Vanquishers suffer hugely due to being BS3 with low rates of fire and no AP1 (thus they have a hard time exploding anything, and lack enough volume of fire to HP stuff out quickly). LRBT's and Demolishers get stuck only being able to snapfire sponson and hull weapons, and they're *very* expensive just for the pieplate. Executioners, if fully kitted, will on average kill themselves over the course of a 6 turn game.

Given the amount of pinpoint-melta insertion and increasing availability of HP stripping weapons that don't care about AV (Gauss, Haywire, etc), even Leman Russ tanks aren't all that impressive.

Additionally, IG tanks are almost all universally rear armor 10, and with the way CC and tanks works, usually that means if anything but extremely weak or depleted units get into base contact, they are effectively auto-killed, doens't matter if it's a 200pt kitted Leman Russ or a 65pt Chimera.

Skimmers are the big resilient units in 7th edition, not tracked tanks or walkers. The on-demand JInk save (often for up to 3+) makes a huge difference, particularly when often armed with lots of Twin-Linked weapons.to mitigate snapshot restrictions.


IG have lots of issues in this edition, the new AM book didn't really fix any of the big problems with the last book, it just jiggled some stuff about slightly in largely random ways. I don't think IG placed anywhere near the top at Adepticon, I think the top IG army with IG as it's "primary" detachment at the LVO placed 70th.

Well we covered squishy.
How about not as much:

I think 3 armored plasma walkers are a deal and "reasonable", templates help with the aim.
Veterans we talked about so some options there.
The Storm Trooper dudes can deep strike in 5 man suicide or objective grabbing squads.
Conscripts cheap and cheerful, never leave home without the priest for survivability.
The Wyvern is the latest newer release hotness so it can sit in the back and drop a ton of hits.
The munitions command squad guy is a cheap means of dropping good artillery.
Primaris psychers can help with some shooting issues.
The Valkyrie is not the deal it was but hard to say no to 3 twin linked lascannons.
Exterminator tank with lascannon hull weapon I usually field, sometimes with sponsons.
A couple squads with AC and a command squad for orders is ok.

I am tapped out of ideas past this.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
... firstly, it's 'her', and secondly, expensive units?

Sisters are cheaper than Marines :p how on earth are your Veterans surviving in combat? My infantry are basically Veterans with a 3+/6++ and Preferred Enemy, and they they die fairly swiftly. I think I'd like to play against you some time, see how you do it.

I'm sorry about the gender mix...
but yeah, i'd love to give you a game some day

Also, i generally shoot up a unit before it gets to me. Say 10 assault marines. I would kill atleast 2-3 of them normally and then about 5-6 if it's got "first rank fire, second rank fire" and lotsa upgrades. Then i would chew them down in combat, only losing about 3-6 vets, then do the same with another squad of 5 vanguard veterans, kill a few then lose a few in combat untill i or they are dead. I think that your'e maybe drawing too much attention to your basic troops when they're doing their main job. What you need to do is do their job at the same time that a bigger unit does their job, maybe even more, if they die really quickly then you shouldn't charge them. But my vets survive because i know how to "take a punch" . by this i mean weather them down when they get to me with lasfire and special weps, then with overwatch, then charge in more than one unit if there are enough left. And if i lose a unit, oh well, they're really cheap so as soon as one dies, another takes it's place.

 Vaktathi wrote:

 blood ravens addiction wrote:
Hey all, so I was wondering, how come everybody seems to think that AM / IG are squishy. Think about it, it have some veteran squads worth over the points of a space marine tactical squad, we have tanks that imo are generally better than other races and there are many of them to choose from. And in my recent experiences, there are few that can actually defeat my guard army. But that's only because they are something OP like Eldar or Tau, but even so i seem to get a fair fight atleast out of every game and by far it i think that IG is one of the best armies. The only reason that IG could be squishy is because of the elysian tauros vehicles, or the conscripts and guardsmen, but generally people dont use them as much as veterans as they are less effective.

So yes, i think that IG is quite a rough and tough army. Except in close-combat, but that never really matters anyway because i always just blow them up after the combat or before they even get into combat. So why is it that people always think of guard as a squishy swarm army like some ork armies, or some tyranid armies?

Here are some issues.

First, guardsmen *are* squishy, T3 5+sv infantry are squishy no matter what, and with the increasing prevalence of ignores cover weaponry, they're even more squishy. Even with camo-cloaks and carapace, they're not terribly hard to remove from the table.

On top of that, unfortunately IG tanks aren't really better than other races. Chimeras are thoroughly mediocre. Hellhounds & variants are very expensive for what they do, they could easily do with being 30pts cheaper across the board, there's no reason they need to cost nearly as much as Trilas predators or come in as much as many Leman Russ tanks. Basilisks have an absurdly huge minimum range and are only 25pts less than an AV14 LRBT. Some Leman Russ variants are pretty good, but not all. Vanquishers suffer hugely due to being BS3 with low rates of fire and no AP1 (thus they have a hard time exploding anything, and lack enough volume of fire to HP stuff out quickly). LRBT's and Demolishers get stuck only being able to snapfire sponson and hull weapons, and they're *very* expensive just for the pieplate. Executioners, if fully kitted, will on average kill themselves over the course of a 6 turn game.

Given the amount of pinpoint-melta insertion and increasing availability of HP stripping weapons that don't care about AV (Gauss, Haywire, etc), even Leman Russ tanks aren't all that impressive.

Additionally, IG tanks are almost all universally rear armor 10, and with the way CC and tanks works, usually that means if anything but extremely weak or depleted units get into base contact, they are effectively auto-killed, doens't matter if it's a 200pt kitted Leman Russ or a 65pt Chimera.

Skimmers are the big resilient units in 7th edition, not tracked tanks or walkers. The on-demand JInk save (often for up to 3+) makes a huge difference, particularly when often armed with lots of Twin-Linked weapons.to mitigate snapshot restrictions.


IG have lots of issues in this edition, the new AM book didn't really fix any of the big problems with the last book, it just jiggled some stuff about slightly in largely random ways. I don't think IG placed anywhere near the top at Adepticon, I think the top IG army with IG as it's "primary" detachment at the LVO placed 70th.

I understand what you mean.
however:
. guardsmen are squishy, vets are not as you cannot get to them, and when you do they weather you down with a few squads, espescially in small points games, plus they are only slightly worse than space marines, they have 4+ save with carapace, 1 less initiative, 1 less strength and toughness, they can have way more special/heavy weps and can have a commissar join squad. Yet they manage to kill more than 1 squad of space marines on their own, or fire warriors, or dire avengers.

. Hellhound variants are terrible, i agree, basilisks i'm not a fan of either. However, medusas and griffons can be very efffective, against everything. Also, LM demolishers are still very much effective against the best or worst lists and players, depending on how you use them. Personally, i use them as cover for my vet squads while they destroy a few tanks and squads, then once they're dead, the vets can finish them off. It is true that they do get beat up in CC, but you shouldnt get them in CC anyway. When they do,move the lemans back and shoot, and use your vets to help.

.i have nothing to say about the skimmers, you are completely right.

. that may be true about the LVO, but that could just be significance, plus that is at something serious, when your'e having a friendly campaign with a bit of competition at your FLGS or GW however, it is very effective and there are many ways to win by cheesy-ness or skill, espescially when your'e up against an army that you know.

My main point of this is to exclude the eldar because they are the most OP. But generally, the point is also that people reject guard and say "they're too squishy, and they aren't a very fun or variated army" even though they obviously are.

I don't think you know what "squishy" means.

"Squishy" and "tanky" are relative terms usually used in gaming to describe the durability of a character.

In Dungeons and Dragons terms, a Warrior is "tanky" while a Mage is "squishy" but the Mage has the ability to deal damage at range and with large area of effects.

Same holds true for Guard, with the exception of the front armor of its tanks. Compared to a Space Marine (T4 3+) a Guardsman (T3 5+) is very squishy.

It's not really an insult to the army, just what it is. Guard is Squishy/Shooty/Cheap, whereas Orks are Tanky/Melee/Cheap and Tau are Squishy/Shooty/Expensive. An army can be squishy and top tier in terms of game balance (Eldar) and tanky and low tier (dark angels)


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Medusas and griffons are effective at not existing I believe. They're not actually in the codex anymore yeah?

Also, a Vet squad is not itself tanky. Let's assume you bought them the 30pt 4+ armor upgrade. There's 10 of them in their chimera, the chimera explodes.

3+ to wound means 6.6666 wounds, 3.333 models dead on average. Approximately 33 points gone.

Now, a space marine Rhino explodes. 5 wounds, 1.66 unsaved means 24 points gone.

The SMs are more durable for their weight in points. The Guardsmen are more offensively capable because you can bring more of them. Squishy, more offense. That's the trade-off.

the_scotsman wrote:
Medusas and griffons are effective at not existing I believe. They're not actually in the codex anymore yeah?

The Medusa and Griffon are not in the codex proper, but still exist in FW publications. The new Wyvern fulfills a similar role to the Griffon, however.

the_scotsman wrote:
Also, a Vet squad is not itself tanky. Let's assume you bought them the 30pt 4+ armor upgrade. There's 10 of them in their chimera, the chimera explodes.

3+ to wound means 6.6666 wounds, 3.333 models dead on average. Approximately 33 points gone.

Now, a space marine Rhino explodes. 5 wounds, 1.66 unsaved means 24 points gone.

The SMs are more durable for their weight in points. The Guardsmen are more offensively capable because you can bring more of them. Squishy, more offense. That's the trade-off.

Minor correction- the Grenadiers doctrine for Vets is now only 15 points. Also, Vets are offensively more capable than most Marine infantry due to be able to bring three special weapons, instead of only one.

the_scotsman wrote:
I don't think you know what "squishy" means.

"Squishy" and "tanky" are relative terms usually used in gaming to describe the durability of a character.

In Dungeons and Dragons terms, a Warrior is "tanky" while a Mage is "squishy" but the Mage has the ability to deal damage at range and with large area of effects.

Same holds true for Guard, with the exception of the front armor of its tanks. Compared to a Space Marine (T4 3+) a Guardsman (T3 5+) is very squishy.

It's not really an insult to the army, just what it is. Guard is Squishy/Shooty/Cheap, whereas Orks are Tanky/Melee/Cheap and Tau are Squishy/Shooty/Expensive. An army can be squishy and top tier in terms of game balance (Eldar) and tanky and low tier (dark angels)


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Medusas and griffons are effective at not existing I believe. They're not actually in the codex anymore yeah?

Also, a Vet squad is not itself tanky. Let's assume you bought them the 30pt 4+ armor upgrade. There's 10 of them in their chimera, the chimera explodes.

3+ to wound means 6.6666 wounds, 3.333 models dead on average. Approximately 33 points gone.

Now, a space marine Rhino explodes. 5 wounds, 1.66 unsaved means 24 points gone.

The SMs are more durable for their weight in points. The Guardsmen are more offensively capable because you can bring more of them. Squishy, more offense. That's the trade-off.

agreed. the guard's basic meta is "ohh you killed a squad of my troops? that's ok I have hundreds more where they came from"

BrianDavion wrote:
the guard's basic meta is "ohh you killed a squad of my troops? that's ok I have hundreds more where they came from"

That's a very good way to describe it. IG is squishy in the sense that you can easily tank the S3 hits from and then kill a basic squad, but there's always more and every single one of them is shooting at you. A proper IG force can provide most other armies with so many targets that they simply can't kill everything before the game ends. Not to mention they also have hard-hitting units to mix in with the rank-and-file that are taking the hits.

 blood ravens addiction wrote:

 Furyou Miko wrote:
...
Also, i generally shoot up a unit before it gets to me. Say 10 assault marines. I would kill atleast 2-3 of them normally and then about 5-6 if it's got "first rank fire, second rank fire" and lotsa upgrades. Then i would chew them down in combat, only losing about 3-6 vets, then do the same with another squad of 5 vanguard veterans, kill a few then lose a few in combat untill i or they are dead. I think that your'e maybe drawing too much attention to your basic troops when they're doing their main job. What you need to do is do their job at the same time that a bigger unit does their job, maybe even more, if they die really quickly then you shouldn't charge them. But my vets survive because i know how to "take a punch" . by this i mean weather them down when they get to me with lasfire and special weps, then with overwatch, then charge in more than one unit if there are enough left. And if i lose a unit, oh well, they're really cheap so as soon as one dies, another takes it's place.

sorry but you talk bs.
you dont have the chance to shoot the marines ;-P
Turn 1, 3 Stormravens come in, dropping 3 tacs in rapid fire range.
turn 2 assault marines and other cc units come in and deepstrike accurately right in front of your oh so holy vets.
no scatter etc.
cause of special rule they can charge the turn they arrive from deepstrike.
10 assault marines are... 30 attacks at initiative 5, strength 5+ 3 attacks at initiative 1 strength 8/10.
maybe i loose 1-2 marines to overwatch when things go bad.
then your vets are dead.
death company and sanguinary guard do the job even better.
no way to shot at them....
;-)

blood ravens addiction wrote:
Also, i generally shoot up a unit before it gets to me. Say 10 assault marines. I would kill atleast 2-3 of them normally and then about 5-6 if it's got "first rank fire, second rank fire" and lotsa upgrades. Then i would chew them down in combat, only losing about 3-6 vets, then do the same with another squad of 5 vanguard veterans, kill a few then lose a few in combat untill i or they are dead. I think that your'e maybe drawing too much attention to your basic troops when they're doing their main job. What you need to do is do their job at the same time that a bigger unit does their job, maybe even more, if they die really quickly then you shouldn't charge them. But my vets survive because i know how to "take a punch" . by this i mean weather them down when they get to me with lasfire and special weps, then with overwatch, then charge in more than one unit if there are enough left. And if i lose a unit, oh well, they're really cheap so as soon as one dies, another takes it's place.

... and what do you do against a wall of AV 13 and AV 11 transports rushing towards you, bringing rapid firing bolters and heavy flamers into range on turn 2 (lasguns only have 24" range, I can cover that in two turns even if you blow up my transports after a single turn of moving). Also, if your Guard are beating Marines in close combat while only outnumbering the Marines 2:1, you are using cooked dice.

 winterwind85 wrote:

 blood ravens addiction wrote:

 Furyou Miko wrote:
...
Also, i generally shoot up a unit before it gets to me. Say 10 assault marines. I would kill atleast 2-3 of them normally and then about 5-6 if it's got "first rank fire, second rank fire" and lotsa upgrades. Then i would chew them down in combat, only losing about 3-6 vets, then do the same with another squad of 5 vanguard veterans, kill a few then lose a few in combat untill i or they are dead. I think that your'e maybe drawing too much attention to your basic troops when they're doing their main job. What you need to do is do their job at the same time that a bigger unit does their job, maybe even more, if they die really quickly then you shouldn't charge them. But my vets survive because i know how to "take a punch" . by this i mean weather them down when they get to me with lasfire and special weps, then with overwatch, then charge in more than one unit if there are enough left. And if i lose a unit, oh well, they're really cheap so as soon as one dies, another takes it's place.

sorry but you talk bs.
you dont have the chance to shoot the marines ;-P
Turn 1, 3 Stormravens come in, dropping 3 tacs in rapid fire range.
turn 2 assault marines and other cc units come in and deepstrike accurately right in front of your oh so holy vets.
no scatter etc.
cause of special rule they can charge the turn they arrive from deepstrike.
10 assault marines are... 30 attacks at initiative 5, strength 5+ 3 attacks at initiative 1 strength 8/10.
maybe i loose 1-2 marines to overwatch when things go bad.
then your vets are dead.
death company and sanguinary guard do the job even better.
no way to shot at them....
;-)

yes, they charge directly at my men, i overwatch kill 1 or 2, then they kill my vets, but i still kill another 1-3 of them, then my next squad or tank blows them up then on the flank my heavy wep lascannons blow up 1 stormraven per turn. Thats what has always happened to me. Even if they do not lose any from the overwatch or from combat, my next squad or tank will demolish them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Furyou Miko wrote:

blood ravens addiction wrote:
Also, i generally shoot up a unit before it gets to me. Say 10 assault marines. I would kill atleast 2-3 of them normally and then about 5-6 if it's got "first rank fire, second rank fire" and lotsa upgrades. Then i would chew them down in combat, only losing about 3-6 vets, then do the same with another squad of 5 vanguard veterans, kill a few then lose a few in combat untill i or they are dead. I think that your'e maybe drawing too much attention to your basic troops when they're doing their main job. What you need to do is do their job at the same time that a bigger unit does their job, maybe even more, if they die really quickly then you shouldn't charge them. But my vets survive because i know how to "take a punch" . by this i mean weather them down when they get to me with lasfire and special weps, then with overwatch, then charge in more than one unit if there are enough left. And if i lose a unit, oh well, they're really cheap so as soon as one dies, another takes it's place.

... and what do you do against a wall of AV 13 and AV 11 transports rushing towards you, bringing rapid firing bolters and heavy flamers into range on turn 2 (lasguns only have 24" range, I can cover that in two turns even if you blow up my transports after a single turn of moving). Also, if your Guard are beating Marines in close combat while only outnumbering the Marines 2:1, you are using cooked dice.

Firstly, i'm not using crooked dice or any special dice or whatever.
secondly, 10 vets standard get charged by 10 tac marines standard, the marines kill 3-4 vets, then vets attack back and kill 2 marines. Then on guards turn they send in another squad of vets to charge in with grenadiers, a power sword sgt and a commissar. The tacs kill another 3, then they all attack back and kill 4-5. the tacs and the first guard squad run away and the second vet squadkills the last marines. THAT is what normally happens.

or

10 assault marines charge 10 standard vets, they kill 8, the 2 vets hit back, kill none and run away and the assault marines catch them, when its the guards turn they will shoot the assault marines to oblivion.

Either way the guard kill more points

Because Guardsmen die like garbage bags full of blood. T3 with a 5+ save is incredibly easy to kill, even with other Guardsmen. Guard as an army aren't super fragile, but their infantry in small numbers definitely is.

 blood ravens addiction wrote:
Firstly, i'm not using crooked dice or any special dice or whatever.
secondly, 10 vets standard get charged by 10 tac marines standard, the marines kill 3-4 vets, then vets attack back and kill 2 marines. Then on guards turn they send in another squad of vets to charge in with grenadiers, a power sword sgt and a commissar. The tacs kill another 3, then they all attack back and kill 4-5. the tacs and the first guard squad run away and the second vet squadkills the last marines. THAT is what normally happens.

Your numbers are way off, you'd have to be super lucky to be getting results like that consistently. 10 Marines charge 10 vets, that's 20 attacks at 3+ to hit, 3+ to wound, 5+ save, on average that's 6 kills. The 4 remaining vets fight back and are unlikely to kill anything, on average it takes 18 attacks to kill 1 Marine when you need a 4+ to hit, 5+ to wound and 3+ armour save, so 4 vets are unlikely to do anything. The 2nd squad with Commissar and power weaponed sergeant charges in, on average the Commissar and sergeant kill 1.3 marines between them, the rest of the Vets on average kill about 1 Marine, so 8 Marines left alive which fight back and kill another 2 vets. Without the charge bonus the marines won't kill much but neither will the vets.

Overall Vets should stick to what they do best, loading up on special weapons and shooting the marines to death. If close combat ensues it's because you are either using the vets incorrectly or the vets went on a suicide mission to kill something important so their dying was all part of the plan.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 blood ravens addiction wrote:
Firstly, i'm not using crooked dice or any special dice or whatever.
secondly, 10 vets standard get charged by 10 tac marines standard, the marines kill 3-4 vets, then vets attack back and kill 2 marines. Then on guards turn they send in another squad of vets to charge in with grenadiers, a power sword sgt and a commissar. The tacs kill another 3, then they all attack back and kill 4-5. the tacs and the first guard squad run away and the second vet squadkills the last marines. THAT is what normally happens.

Your numbers are way off, you'd have to be super lucky to be getting results like that consistently. 10 Marines charge 10 vets, that's 20 attacks at 3+ to hit, 3+ to wound, 5+ save, on average that's 6 kills. The 4 remaining vets fight back and are unlikely to kill anything, on average it takes 18 attacks to kill 1 Marine when you need a 4+ to hit, 5+ to wound and 3+ armour save, so 4 vets are unlikely to do anything. The 2nd squad with Commissar and power weaponed sergeant charges in, on average the Commissar and sergeant kill 1.3 marines between them, the rest of the Vets on average kill about 1 Marine, so 8 Marines left alive which fight back and kill another 2 vets. Without the charge bonus the marines won't kill much but neither will the vets.

Overall Vets should stick to what they do best, loading up on special weapons and shooting the marines to death. If close combat ensues it's because you are either using the vets incorrectly or the vets went on a suicide mission to kill something important so their dying was all part of the plan.

In fact, just because I enjoy doing math (sometimes...), I'll hammer out some precise numbers.

Tactical Marines, with a Veteran Sergeant, charge; versus 10 IG Vets:

Tacs Attack!

In either case, roughly half of the Veteran squad is wiped by charging Tacs- even with the Grenadiers doctrine. When the Vets fight back, they:

Guardsmen Defend!

So the plucky Guardsmen don't even kill a single Marine in the first round!

Most likely, the Guardsmen then have to take a Leadership test at either -5 and -6 to their Leadership (IIRC, loss of combat imposes a penalty equal to the number of wounds that combat was lost by). Assuming the IG sergeant lives, the Guardsmen test at Ld8-5/-6, for something like Ld3 or [/i]Ld2[/i] (!). Even a best-case scenario of Ld3, you have a 5.6% chance to pass the test. The other 94.4% of the time, the squad fails and is most likely caught in a Sweeping Advance.

Would you look at that, something Tacs can kill in combat...

But wait, a Challenger appears! A squad of IG Veterans rushes into the fray!

Round 2! Fight!

So we see that claimed results are exceptionally high- almost impossibly so. Particularly since Tacs don't run away from combat- thanks to ATSKNF they can't be swept, so even if Tacs did break from combat, they'd not be run down by the remaining Veterans.

Yeah sorry I made a mistake and let the Vets attack first when they charged (getting my rules confused again ). Though you missed out on 1 attack each from the sergeant and Commissar, they are 2 attacks base + 1 for pistol and power weapon and + 1 for the charge.

But either way the result is the same, when they Tacs get the charge the guardsmen are so squishy they just die in droves, when they don't get the charge they both have so few attacks they just chip away at each other. And Tacs are awful in CC, imagine if it were Grey Hunters or something

I feel like this whole thread is similar to when I started playing with my friends, and I concluded that a LRBT was totally broken and OP because my long fang squad fired a Lascannon, a Plasma cannon, a multi melta, AND a missile launcher at it and didn't even glance (hey, that's what the kit came with!) and when it shot back it killed all of them!!!!!!1!!!

It was totally unfair and my 14 year old self would not be convinced otherwise.

 blood ravens addiction wrote:
Hey all, so I was wondering, how come everybody seems to think that AM / IG are squishy. Think about it, it have some veteran squads worth over the points of a space marine tactical squad, we have tanks that imo are generally better than other races and there are many of them to choose from. And in my recent experiences, there are few that can actually defeat my guard army. But that's only because they are something OP like Eldar or Tau, but even so i seem to get a fair fight atleast out of every game and by far it i think that IG is one of the best armies. The only reason that IG could be squishy is because of the elysian tauros vehicles, or the conscripts and guardsmen, but generally people dont use them as much as veterans as they are less effective.

So yes, i think that IG is quite a rough and tough army. Except in close-combat, but that never really matters anyway because i always just blow them up after the combat or before they even get into combat. So why is it that people always think of guard as a squishy swarm army like some ork armies, or some tyranid armies?

From reading this i am not sure how skilled the people you play are.

Guard are immensely squishy, Yesterday in a tournament of a three round event, first was against Demons with 2+ rerollable (2++/4++) invulnerable save and they spawned more demons in every turn, and oh by the way. Were assaulting my parking lot turn 2.

Next game, Eldar/Dark Eldar, 2+ rerollable cover save, spawned demons every turn, assaulting my vehicles by turn 2.

The primary way that Guard can be played is with mass. That's really the only way of doing it. The typical SOP is to ensure that you have at least twice the units that your opponent has. He's got thirty Fire Warriors? cool i've got Thirty Veterans in Chimeras and two Infantry Platoons. Oh you have a pair of Predators? I have two Leman Russ Battle Tanks (insert variant here) . Playing as the Guard is all about being able to sustain 'oh i lost fifteen models to a single template' consistently over multiple turns. The Guard, really more than anyone, depend on a Combine Arm's approach to even hope to be effective in situations.

Guard=Numbers

How effective these number's are, or how many you have precisely are up to you. In the same tournament i went to at 1250 points a guy (IG) brought Three Infantry Platoons with assorted special and heavy weapons, plopped them behind an ADL and out dakkaed a very scary Tau gunline.

For that Tourni i myself had Three Veteran Squads in Chimeras, Two Leman Russ's , a Vulture gunship and an Infantry Platoon (Lord Commie as HQ). And i still got tabled in a little over two turns.

I don't even know what to say. I've never experienced anything but completely rolling over any IG army I go up against. I play CSM/daemons and more recently, necrons.

Dunno.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Yeah sorry I made a mistake and let the Vets attack first when they charged (getting my rules confused again ). Though you missed out on 1 attack each from the sergeant and Commissar, they are 2 attacks base + 1 for pistol and power weapon and + 1 for the charge.

But either way the result is the same, when they Tacs get the charge the guardsmen are so squishy they just die in droves, when they don't get the charge they both have so few attacks they just chip away at each other. And Tacs are awful in CC, imagine if it were Grey Hunters or something

Oops, the derp was with me on that count. Still, as you've mentioned, there's not really any difference in the results. Tacs are only passable in combat on the turn that they charge- and only against T3 opponents with 4+ armor or worse.

I'd also like to additionally throw in that IG is admittedly "durable", insofar as they have an easy time bringing sufficient redundancy to make it fairly irrelevant that multiple squads are wiped out- they've still got plenty more presenting a threat of some kind.