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Just curious here, I have a Imperial Guard/Astra militarum army I dont use much and my most common opponent plays Chaos Daemons and struggle against tanks, So I was curious if it is possible to make a viable IG list that uses some tanks and artillery, But without spamming them?

Yes, it is.

I couldn't tell you how, since you want some tanks, and I play with none at all, but it is possible.

Sorry to be the spoilsport, but under current rules the astra militarum are not exactly viable with tanks or without.

Merellin wrote:
Just curious here, I have a Imperial Guard/Astra militarum army I dont use much and my most common opponent plays Chaos Daemons and struggle against tanks, So I was curious if it is possible to make a viable IG list that uses some tanks and artillery, But without spamming them?

Anything can be viable depending on your meta. What's your opponent running?

yes, Forgeworld artillery batteries, Thuddguns are godly. As are Earthshakers and medusas.

Unless you are running mass IA artillery spam, no.
That said even with tanks the IG are not viable.

 master of ordinance wrote:
Unless you are running mass IA artillery spam, no.
That said even with tanks the IG are not viable.

Again, that depends upon his meta, doesn't it?

If he's playing against a friend of his, it really depends upon the skill level and army composition of his friend.

 BoomWolf wrote:
Sorry to be the spoilsport, but under current rules the astra militarum are not exactly viable with tanks or without.

Ask a player of any faction if their army is currently viable, and the answer will always be no.

Straight codex alone? No.

With FW artiller batteries? Kinda? Probably about in par with tank armies.

But either way, you're not going to get IG in any form thats going to be any better than mediocre.

 Vaktathi wrote:
Straight codex alone? No.

With FW artiller batteries? Kinda? Probably about in par with tank armies.

But either way, you're not going to get IG in any form thats going to be any better than mediocre.

What if his opponent's army is mediocre or worse? What if his opponent has a decent army, but is terrible at playing it?

IG infantry backed up by divination psykers appears to be better than tank spam to me. Of course, you'll still have Wyverns and such.

Yes.

Absolutely yes.

Footslogging IG can lasgun spam most anything to death. Even it out with heavy weapon squads and you have enough firepower in enough numbers to lay waste.

Well, My most common opponent is Chaos Daemons, And ocasionaly Chaos Marines, Or Daemons with Chaos Marine allies. Bringing tank spam or artillery spam against him just seems super mean since his daemons dont have much anti-tank. And massed artillery just destroys his entire army before they get close. I prefer close even matches over one sided slaughterfests.

Merellin wrote:
Well, My most common opponent is Chaos Daemons, And ocasionaly Chaos Marines, Or Daemons with Chaos Marine allies. Bringing tank spam or artillery spam against him just seems super mean since his daemons dont have much anti-tank. And massed artillery just destroys his entire army before they get close. I prefer close even matches over one sided slaughterfests.

Yeah. If he's playing chaos space marines and demons, you shouldn't be asking what's "viable." Just take whatever you think would be fun to play against him.

Merellin wrote:
Well, My most common opponent is Chaos Daemons, And ocasionaly Chaos Marines, Or Daemons with Chaos Marine allies. Bringing tank spam or artillery spam against him just seems super mean since his daemons dont have much anti-tank. And massed artillery just destroys his entire army before they get close. I prefer close even matches over one sided slaughterfests.

CSM's are also pretty bad, they and IG are typically pretty close in terms if power level, theres not much you should need to tone down with IG when fightings CSM's. I might suggest bringing different versions of tanks if your opponent is just frtting routinely creamed.

Daemons have ways of dealing with tanks, and usually have far more tricks and shennannigans they can pull than IG do, particularly in psychic powers, summoning more Daemons, rerollable invul saves, etc.

Traditio wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
Straight codex alone? No.

With FW artiller batteries? Kinda? Probably about in par with tank armies.

But either way, you're not going to get IG in any form thats going to be any better than mediocre.

What if his opponent's army is mediocre or worse? What if his opponent has a decent army, but is terrible at playing it?

I'm assuming opponents of roughly equal skill, and that people are running army lists that have at least some competitive ability to them, or the question would be largely moot to begin with I would think.

 xXWeaponPrimeXx wrote:
Yes.

Absolutely yes.

Footslogging IG can lasgun spam most anything to death.

Having played IG through 4 or 5 editions...this is not true and really never has been true. Some things...sure, others..not so much. You come up against something like Wraiths, TWC's, supported SM bikers, or basically anything Neceon, you can shoot lasguns all day and not do squat. A unit of 6 Wraiths with Decurion RP is going to take nearly 900 Lasgun shots to kill, same thing with a TWC deathstar sporting Endurance or the like, you just cannot build or coordinate any IG army to focus that much lasgun fire, and even more mundane stuff like SM's require an inordinate concentration of fire to kill with lasguns. I think I can count on one hand the number of wounds I inflicted on things with lasguns in my last 5 games

Even it out with heavy weapon squads and you have enough firepower in enough numbers to lay waste.

The problem with HWS's are legion. They're amongst the most expensive heacy weapons units in the game in terms of points invested vs expected damage output and arent even cheap in an absolute sense, and theyre probably the easisest heavy weapons units in the game to kill at T3 with Ld7, one Shuriken Canno shot getting through forces a break test. They're sadly pretty awful.

For Casual? Yes.

I've got 2, (artillery), running mostly an infantry list and I've actually won most of my games in casual matches.

I have decided to add 3 more vehicles though, Salamanders (so not heavy tanks) just because I think they're cool, not to be more competitive.

Artillery with mech guard is the dominant strat now. LR variants are over costed and easy to kill. The tank spam army is garbage.

For best results, combine earth shaker platforms with wyverns. Grab objectives with throw away taurox and chimera squads. A LR tank commander with punisher pask and a bargin tank is basically the limit to what you should buy for tanks. Everything else is kind of a waste.

Traditio wrote:

 master of ordinance wrote:
Unless you are running mass IA artillery spam, no.
That said even with tanks the IG are not viable.

Again, that depends upon his meta, doesn't it?

If he's playing against a friend of his, it really depends upon the skill level and army composition of his friend.

Meta or no, the Imperial Guard army is regarded as one of the two weakest in the game. It is not about skill either - I am incredibly good with my Guard but almost anyone with a Space Marine or an Eldar or Tau or Necron army will thrash me. It is not even funny to watch as my Guardsmen do almost nothing and are swept off the table. Hell, setting them up s depressing as I know that within a couple of turns I will be packing them up again.
Similarly Lasguns are just not good. I can pour hundreds of shots into even a basic Tactical section and struggle to inflict any damage. Against things with an FNP save or a 2+ save or a Toughness of 5 or more it gets even more laughable. HWT dont help either - hell for the points I invest in them I could get more basic Infantry who will do more in the game.
Our tanks are not good by any stretch of the imagination but they are the best we have.

Without tanks is actually the better way to play IG. Tanks are not very good in this edition. With the advent of grav and things that can charge out of deep strike, tanks are lousy for their points.

As others have said, the best way to go is to get artillery in the way of thudd guns and earth shaker batteries. An industrious hobbyist can create these units without spending a fortune on the actual FW models.

Then you can always go with the route that every one has used to protect their units, a void shield generator.

Stick your horde of cheap dudes in the back field protecting your artillery under the protection of the void shield. Then your only problem is how to grab objectives. For that quandry you can look to the veterans in chimeras formation from the Montka book or for Elysian drop troops. Those guys are only 60 points a squad and come with deep strike. Alternatively you can use allies to help with the mobility problem.

To be fair I think tank spam is their LEAST viable option at the moment.

I really don't think tanks are the way to go. There are more unfavorable rules for tanks than there are for infantry.

The answer is, kinda. IG are in a weird spot right now, but they can function. Mont'ka's Formations made great strides in assisting the Guard in not Tank Spamming. The Emperor's Hammer for instance is great, who wants Ignores Cover Basilisks? The Emperor's Blade Assault Company is good, and the Talon Strike Force makes Sentinels at least passable. Add in the Rampart Detachment from Red Waaagh! and you get some tough beatsticks who support the infantry behind them.

Are they Tournament tier? Not alone. Are they fine in a casual setting. Yes.

Martel732 wrote:
I really don't think tanks are the way to go. There are more unfavorable rules for tanks than there are for infantry.

That is basically the IG problem right now. Firepower has increased dramatically for pretty much every army.

The game is very anti horde army. Multiple armies can muster lots of anti infantry firepower that can easily get past any cover save if one exists. In addition, any vehicle that doesn't have a save of some kind via Jink or some sort of invul is basic worthless. AV basically means pretty much zero now in game. It is easy to glance even AV14 to death and nothing is more frustrating than having your expensive vehicles spend the game shaken and unable to fire.

On the other side of the table jink is out of control. It dramatically increases the staying power of most vehicles. Snap shooting is better than not shooting and most of the jinkers are either twin linked or no ordnance so they still get to shoot.

Chimeras, Taurox, and Leman Russ are all not really worth points and our basic infantry even with buffs like endurance or priests still die in droves to basic weapons. The only way to do better than anyone is to out shoot them with an alpha strike. That is the main reason why the ignore cover earthshaker platform is so effective because it is hard to kill due to the moronic artillery unit rule and it can benefit from the all important ignore cover and tank hunter orders.

Viable without Spam doesn't seem to be possible anymore does it :/

Imo, sure but you would need to in turn spam lots and lots of guardsmen

 Furyou Miko wrote:

 BoomWolf wrote:
Sorry to be the spoilsport, but under current rules the astra militarum are not exactly viable with tanks or without.

Ask a player of any faction if their army is currently viable, and the answer will always be no.

As a tau player, I can say with ease that if any Eldar/Tau/Necron/CodexMarines/Renegades player says so, I'll throw a book on him for his hypocrisy.