Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Much is said about the cheesiness of Eldar, Tau and Space Marines as they are right now. I don't play any of these armies. In fact, I have no interest in powergaming whatsoever - I collect the units that I like - but I am curious, are there any cheese builds that you can construct with just Imperial Guard units? As IG players, what are our options when it comes to munchkinnery? Do cheesy IG armies exist, or is it simply not possible to create a list on the same munchkin level as Eldar, Tau and SM?

Generally no. IG's main strength before was weight of bodies or masses of vehicles. Massed infantry hasn't been powerful for a while and Vehicles are not very strong this edition due to hull points (they're essentially naked Monstrous Creatures).

If you want something that might scare your opponents though, look at the Super Heavy Company formation from Mont'Ka. 3 Super-heavy tanks with no strings attached and can be fielded in any combination, with further bonuses.

This isn't cheese, but it is something that will scare people. if your opponent brought a lot of anti-tank though, he will probably laugh you off the board. If IG had access to basic grav guns, then maybe they'll be considered cheese.

Psycana + Emperror's wrath + VSG.

Hide behind the vsg, spam 2-3 units of daemons every turn and maul the enemy with ignore cover blasts. You're kinda like renegade guard but with priests and comissars.

Can't kill the enemy? Then make sure they won't kill you! Here's an 1850 point list that is almost entirely conscripts + wyverns. It'll murderise many infantry builds, and anything with lots of tough models the plan is just to survive and score objectives. I think it'd be considered pretty cheesy

There's over 250 guardsmen on the table (210 fearless + obsec...) plus a small amount of summoning power. Hope for a thirster to bring some vehicle-killing to the table!

Guard CAD containing 3 infantry platoons

CCS with MOO 80pts
CCS with MOO 80pts
6 Priests 150pts

PCS with Autocannon 40pts
PCS with Autocannon 40pts
PCS with Autocannon 40pts

2 Combined infantry squads - containing 2 autocannons and 2 bolters 122pts (priest here)
2 Combined infantry squads - containing 2 autocannons and 2 bolters 122pts (priest here)
2 Combined infantry squads - containing 2 autocannons and 2 bolters 122pts (priest here)
50 Conscripts 150pts (priest here)
50 Conscripts 150pts (priest here)
50 Conscripts 150pts (priest here)

2 Wyverns 130pts
2 Wyverns 130pts
Wyvern 65pts

Psykana division 255pts

Primaris
3 squads of wyrdvanes
comissar

The above is exactly why I switched the direction of my AM force. That would take forever to set up and be very boring to play. It is funny and your opponents would hate you, presumably even more in a tournament setting.

The Psykana division plus VSG definitely seems to me like the cheesiest thing we can bring. I'm convinced we'll see a list featuring that and Emperor's Wrath at a tournament sometime soon.

Those formations are strong as hell, and set up a serious rock and a hard place for your opponent.

SwampRats45MK wrote:
The above is exactly why I switched the direction of my AM force. That would take forever to set up and be very boring to play. It is funny and your opponents would hate you, presumably even more in a tournament setting.

Yeah it'd be pretty grim to play or be play against (and I say that as a horde guard player). Its fun to theorise just how nasty IG could be though if time and model count weren't an issue...

Actually, if you want to powergame paint over all the aquilas on your Guardsmen and use them as Renegades. Then spam artillery batteries and bodies to protect them.

That would be ultimate road block..

There's too many bodies to kill.
Looking at 30 kills a turn min to wipe that out.

Haha, just 30? I suppose if the game goes to seven turns, and you manage to knock out some of the priests that might do it (provided there's no overkill and the guard don't manage to summon stuff)

In a way I see horde lists like this as a good counter balance to things that guard just can't effectively engage. Sure my overpriced lascannons will never do enough to effectively get rid of riptides/wraithknights/stormsurges/ghostkeels/invisible deathstars, but provided there are enough bodies on the table, there should be plenty of obsec troops left at the end of the game to score objectives. In this way I believe even lowly IG can compete with the top tier armies - eldar, SM and tau. I wouldn't feel too bad about bringing this sort of stupidity to a highly competitive tournament provided I thought I could get the game finished within the time allowed with efficient play, movement trays etc.

True, even a ultra killy wolf star vs fearless blob I grinding through. One rank at a time. D cannon no blast lol!

Again though vindicare could remove your fearless blob leaders.
Make more prone to deathstars.

We don't have straight up cheese lists but we do have some cheesy formations.
The militarum tempestus hellrain brigade is constantly respawning melta/plasma militarum tempestus with better orders for melta vet type units with fast battlecannon or missle launching transports.
Emporer wrath artillery is an amazing amount of str9/10 ap3/4 ignores cover, twinlinked large blasts of death.
The Paykana division but that's demon summoning not guard units.
Forgeworld armoured battle group is still a good force with its bs4 twinlinked str8 ap2 Insta death small blast vanquisher command tank.

You can try hellrain x3 with emporer wraith formation.
Giving you 6 melta/plasma vet type units 3 of them constantly respawn w deepstrike and 6 battle cannons. They have the orders to rend, twinlink, fleet, etc.
They pressure your opponents as you hit them with 2x ignore cover twin linked basilisks and manticores with a chimera ccs with unfailable orders and techpreist.

If you allow FW, then renegades can do dirty things with artillery, respawning troops and cheap spawn.

As others have said, Artillery formation and Volkov's cane is pretty lulzy, but infantry and high AV tanks (and just tanks in general) aren't worth spit in 7th, so IG are pretty out of luck.