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My friend is going to his first GT and he wants to bring his Imperial Guard. I'm not super used to playing them or playing against them, so I don't really know what advice to give him on his list. I'm hoping y'all can help me with that.

Astra Militarum CAD

HQ
Tank Commander – Leman Russ Vanquisher (Camo Netting, Lascannon) – 160 Points
Tank Commander Escort – Leman Russ Executioner (Plasma Sponsons) – 185 Points

Elites
Tempestus Scions – 9 Scions, Vox Caster, Taurox – 203 Points

Troops
Veteran Squad – 10 Veterans, 2 Meltaguns, Heavy Flamer, Vox Caster, Carapace Armor, Chimera (w/Dozer Blade) – 180 Points
Veteran Squad – 10 Veterans, 2 Meltaguns, Heavy Flamer, Vox Caster, Carapace Armor, Chimera (w/Dozer Blade) – 180 Points

Heavy Support
Leman Russ Eradicator - Dozer Blade – 125 Points
Leman Russ Eradicator - Dozer Blade – 125 Points

Emperor’s Wrath Formation
Basilisk – 125 Points
Basilisk – 125 Points
Manticore – 170 Points
Enginseer – 40 Points
Company Command Squad – Lascannon Team, Medpak, Sniper Rifle, Master of Ordinance, Chimera (w/ Camo Netting) – 200 Points

As far as I know, the plan is to castle the Wrath formation in the far corner to rain hell. The russes get their flanks guarded by the vets and scions.

He has other stuff to bring to bear if needed. More chimeras, Russes, Wyverns, Infantry platoons, and Valkyries. Any help on making this list competitive would be appreciated. Thanks!

The Vanq with Tank Commander, lascannon and camo adds up to 190 points. 135 + 30 + 10 + 15.


Now... as for the rest of my advice, take it with a giant grain of salt, because I'm not a tourney player, and my IG has a rather lackluster track record even in casual games.

Seems a bit of a waste to me to field a 9-man unit of Scions without special weapons. I would also deep-strike them instead of sending them in a Taurox, unless vehicles are considered an important thematic component of this army.

Why do some units have vox-casters? Those only work if the ordering unit also has one, and the only order-giving unit is the company command squad that stays waaaaay back there with the artillery.

I don't usually bother giving a Chimera to a company command squad that stays at the back. I give them camo and carapace and put them in cover. Not sure the med pack is all that useful, as any gunfire reaching that far behind your lines is likely to be S6+. And if any serious close combat unit gets deep-striked to deal with the whole Emperor's Wrath formation, your CCS is not going to save anyone regardless of how it's geared up. (I approve of the Master of Ordnance. Absolutely love this guy.)

How are the Chimeras armed? I like giving them a heavy flamer as a hull weapon, but I'm aware it's hard to modify a model accordingly, and tournaments are probably less tolerant of "counts as".

Personally, for veterans in Chimeras, I favor plasma over melta. I count on my long-range gunfire to deal with vehicles; this army has a Vanq, a Manticore and two Basilisks, which are excellent for that purpose.

If there are any leftover points after some modifications, I recommend giving a lascannon to the Leman Russ Executioner, for an all-AP2 vehicle.

.

-Guardsman- wrote:
The Vanq with Tank Commander, lascannon and camo adds up to 190 points. 135 + 30 + 10 + 15.

I’ll check on th

Seems a bit of a waste to me to field a 9-man unit of Scions without special weapons. I would also deep-strike them instead of sending them in a Taurox, unless vehicles are considered an important thematic component of this army.

He likes having a very mobile list, hence the vehicles. How would you recommend kitting them if they do deep strike? Meltacide?

Why do some units have vox-casters? Those only work if the ordering unit also has one, and the only order-giving unit is the company command squad that stays waaaaay back there with the artillery.

The emperors wrath formation lets units with vox casters use them as LOS for the basilisks I believe.

I don't usually bother giving a Chimera to a company command squad that stays at the back. Usually I give them camo and carapace and put them in cover. Not sure the med pack is that useful, as any gunfire reaching that far behind your lines is likely to be S6+. And if any serious close combat unit gets deep-striked to deal with the whole Emperor's Wrath formation, your CCS is not going to save anyone.

That’s a great point. I’ll bring that up to him. I imagine he wants the vehicle to add a layer of protection to the squad that enemies have to crack through.

How are the Chimeras armed? I like giving them a heavy flamer as a hull weapon, but I'm aware it's hard to modify a model accordingly, and tournaments are probably less tolerant of "counts as".

They are all armed stock with multilasers

Personally, for veterans in Chimeras, I favor plasma over melta. I count on my long-range gunfire to deal with vehicles; this army has a Vanq, a Manticore and two Basilisks, which are excellent for that purpose.

I’ll bring that up to him. He seems concerned about not having enough AT with his lists, so if there is enough in other places, plasma would be a good call.

If there are any leftover points after some modifications, I recommend giving a lascannon to the Leman Russ Executioner, for an all-AP2 vehicle.

I agree totally. Thanks for the advice!

-Guardsman- wrote:
I don't usually bother giving a Chimera to a company command squad that stays at the back. I give them camo and carapace and put them in cover.

The CCS for the Emperor's wrath arty company has to be in a chimera I'm afraid

Malaur wrote:
How would you recommend kitting them if they do deep strike? Meltacide?

That's an option. Plasma is another. Or you can go 100% anti-infantry with flamers or hot-shot volley guns, since the Scions' nifty S3-AP3 hot-shot lasguns are wasted on vehicles.

I’ll bring that up to him. He seems concerned about not having enough AT with his lists, so if there is enough in other places, plasma would be a good call.

Well, like I said, I'm not a tournament player... I don't know how many tanks you can usually expect to face. The thing with dedicated anti-tank like melta is, take too much and you struggle against hordes. Manticores, Basilisks and plasma weapons are much more versatile. The Manticore's D3 S10 Ordnance pie-plates are no joke.

 edbradders wrote:
The CCS for the Emperor's wrath arty company has to be in a chimera I'm afraid

Aaah, okay, didn't know that. I'm not too familiar with IG formations, since the IG codex predates them.


.

So my friend Maluar was kind enough to post this here for advice, but instead of troubling him further an relaying my responses, I opted to just make an account and respond directly. Just bear with me a bit because I'm still fairly new to the game and the system and my experience thus far has been far from "competitive". Also, I don't usually spend time on forums, expect immediate and frequent breeches in etiquette.

My previous lists have been blob-guard and blob with an armored elements. While my blob can usually dispatch lightly armored infantry, anything more complex than that just destroys it.

The look of horror on my face as a group of Necrons cross the map out of cover at a casual march as a static 30-man blob first-rank/ second-ranked from cover without killing ANY of them. I rolled over 100 d6 and wasn't able to kill ANY of them. The blob + Yarrick died to a man and I vowed that wouldn't happen again.

Then feeling useless as Orks in their battle-wagons roll on towards Yarrick and his blob. My Eradicators and lasguns useless against his AV 14 front-armor. He advanced with impunity until he decided to get out of his boxes and fight like an Ork.

This list I'm running with a theme of the Armageddon Steel Legion. (Hence all the trucks)
My Chimeras are outfitted with a dozer-blade, Multi-Laz turret and heavy bolter in the hull.
I like the Heavy bolter because of its range. I figure people usually don't give me the opportunity to hit more than three models with the flamer at a time anyway, at least with the heavy bolter I can hit them while they're further away.

I gave my Vets Melta instead of plasma mostly because I'm afraid they'll accidentally kill themselves. I want them to take objectives and if need be direct-attack anything that I can't get LOS with my artillery. Throw my Melta out the top-hatch and give my Artillery LOS with my Vox.

I pumped up my Scions to a full squad but stuck them with hot-shot laz because I want THEM to be my new gun-line. Mostly they're in a Taurox because the damn thing looks cool. I'm hoping their BS 4 and their AP3 can keep the Orcs, Necrons or scout Marines out of my back-field while the other elements do their thing. They do have their wheels though if I decide to send them somewhere else, the best laid plans never survive contact with the enemy.

The coolest moment I've had playing this game so far is when my blob gun-line and my eradicators nearly tabled an opponent. At the end of my first round all he had left was an immobilized Rhino and a single marine. It was a good feeling, and this list is an attempt to replicate it.

Do you ever run the blobs defensively? If you put a 30 man blob around your wrath formation it could buy some more time to shoot against melee armies.

Also If you want to field the Vanquisher as a tank commander you should definitely upgrade him to Pask. Him in a Vanq will rarely miss and has a higher chance to blow up armor. Plus preferred enemy to him and his unit.

Also which Tournament? Im also in Jersey.

Rock The 40K wrote:
Do you ever run the blobs defensively? If you put a 30 man blob around your wrath formation it could buy some more time to shoot against melee armies.

I might do that, I could also drop an Aegis Defense Line and set a Commissar up on gun-duty.
I think I'm going to end up dropping my Tempestors all-together, as I don't see them adding any particular element to this list.

Rock The 40K wrote:
Also If you want to field the Vanquisher as a tank commander you should definitely upgrade him to Pask. Him in a Vanq will rarely miss and has a higher chance to blow up armor. Plus preferred enemy to him and his unit.

I totally intend to do this! Love Pask!

Rock The 40K wrote:
Also which Tournament? Im also in Jersey.

http://www.battleforsalvation.com/grand-tournament/
It's in the Palisades Mall. 10/7 - 10/9

Alright... so I here goes. I am better at telling what I would do and explaining why, backed up by past experience, than give advice like "you should do this or that". So below is what I would do.

I would...

-replace the tank commander with a CCS in chimera with vox and 2 melta guns to have them move forward with the other vets in chimeras.
-replace the tank commander's escort with a vendettas so that you have some kind of answer to flyers.
-replace the scions and 1 Leman Russ Eradicator with a 50 man infantry blob with a vox and a priest for fearless. Have the blob babysit your artillery and objectives in your backfield. Be sure to spread them out far and wide for those pesky deepstrikers.
-replace 1 of the basilisks with a squadron of 2 wyverns to give more variety of long range anti infantry, especially since your CCS only has 2 orders to issue. You can place the wyverns elsewhere to make your enemies split their forces.
-replace the medipack in the CCS with Volkov's Cane. Just read what it does and you'll understand why this is an auto-include for the Emperor's Wrath Artillery formation.
-replace the dozer blades on the chimeras and remaining Leman Russ for 3 flamers for the blob. It's only a 1 in 6 chance of immobilizing yourself and that's only if you're going through terrain. I have rarely had this be an issue.
-replace the carapace armor on the vets with heavy flamers to discourage assaulter

There's my two cents. Obviously if you don't have to models to make some of these changes that's a different story, but IMO the changes above would make the army more competitive.

The main thing I've noticed was with your command Russes. Unless you take Pask or get lucky and have the Preferred Enemy warlord trait, you are going to have a very bad time rolling 5 Get Hot dice every time you want to fire your Executioner. You may even do more hull points to yourself than the enemy. I wish the main gun didn't have to roll for it, like the 5e codex, but not much we can do about that. I'd change up the variant you are using or at least drop the plasma cannons to something safer. 3 sets of heavy bolters still do plenty of damage, all things considered, just less so to yourself.

Another thing I notice that other people have probably already suggested is the lack of low S spam. Aka one of the two Eradicators turns into a pair of Wyverns. 8 twin-linked small blasts with shred. That's going to be a lot of wounds. Not totally necessary but a very strong unit from the IG codex (though I'm sure most IG players already lecture/have been lectured about the strength of Wyverns )

 KommissarKiln wrote:
The main thing I've noticed was with your command Russes. Unless you take Pask or get lucky and have the Preferred Enemy warlord trait, you are going to have a very bad time rolling 5 Get Hot dice every time you want to fire your Executioner. You may even do more hull points to yourself than the enemy. I wish the main gun didn't have to roll for it, like the 5e codex, but not much we can do about that. I'd change up the variant you are using or at least drop the plasma cannons to something safer. 3 sets of heavy bolters still do plenty of damage, all things considered, just less so to yourself.

Another thing I notice that other people have probably already suggested is the lack of low S spam. Aka one of the two Eradicators turns into a pair of Wyverns. 8 twin-linked small blasts with shred. That's going to be a lot of wounds. Not totally necessary but a very strong unit from the IG codex (though I'm sure most IG players already lecture/have been lectured about the strength of Wyverns )

I'm curious.. does the GT that this list is playing in rule the PE works for gets hot rolls on plasma blast weapons, or does it use the rough draft FAQ's ruling that PE won't let you reroll the gets hot rolls for them? That may affect the decision to use pask heavily as it's one of his biggest benefits.

The Inqusition offers a lot of force multipliers for IG. An Inquisitor offers stubborn leadership, Liber Herticus several useful USR, the xeno grenades hits the opponent hard and the Psyocculum raises your BS against psykers.

They have the cheapest psykers in the game, multimetas for 10 points and servo skulls to help artillery/block infiltrators.

+1 on the Wyverns. Very effective against almost everything.

Thank you guys for your input. I took a lot of your suggestions, I painted what I could, I made some last minute changes as I ended up not having enough time to paint my Aegis Wall or to finish building a Russ I got a week or so ago. I'll post the list and my assessment of how it performed.

Emperor's Wrath Artillery Company:
1 x Basilisk
1 x Wyvern
1 x Manticore
1 x Enginseer
1 x CCS with Lascannon HWT and a Master of Ord. in a Taurox

Combined Arms Detachment:
Troops:
1 x 30-man Platoon w. PCS
Upgrades: 2 x flamers, 1 x Grenade Launcher, 1 Heavy Bolter HWT
2 x Vet squads in Chmeras,
Upgrades: 2 x Flamers, 1 x Autocanon team, Grenadiers Doctorine, Dozer Blade (Same for both)
HQ:
Knight Commander Pask in a Vanquisher with an escort Executioner (with plasma sponsors), both with hull-mounted Lazcannons and Dozer Blades
Heavy Support:
2 x Leman Russ Battle Tanks with Heavy Bolters in the hull and a Dozer Blades

Results: I got my ass handed to me. I knew that I would, I had fun and learned a lot about how games at this level play out. I had a VERY hard time capturing objectives. Destroying units wasn't a problem, so I selected objectives that revolved around that, but getting my dudes to a place and defending it was nigh impossible. Out-the-gate my vets didn't last too long. I had expected more focus on my artillery, but all of my opponents consistently attacked my mobility, and soon-after they turned their guns on Pask. I had given pause before putting my executioner on this list with plasma sponsors, with fear that it would end up killing its self, but no. It never once lasted long enough to do so.
My artillery wasn't nearly as effective as I'd expected it to be. I could not rely on my basilisk to reliably hit anything. One game I aimed it at the opponent's HQ EVERY TURN and didn't once have good effect on target, and they never once moved them. Master of Ordinance was even less reliable, but at 20 points I can more than accept that. I feel like my problem was my reliance on one kind of unit for each kind of threat. The units aren't reliable enough for that kind of zone-defence. My blob works because of their volume of fire, not their ability to shoot, I need to apply the same mantra to the rest of my list.
Speaking of my blob, they did their job admirably. With out my Aegis wall, they were what separated my artillery batteries from the enemy, They also did well at deep-strike denial. And when the opponent didn't have any deep-strike, they formed a wall of bodies that bogged down anything that attempted to approach my artillery.
Pask spent most of his time trying to kill Imperial, chaos, or renegade knights. It seems like every opponent had a super-heavy and I wasn't once able to bring it down.
Ultimately it was a good learning experience. The list DEFINITELY needs some work, but there are significant mistakes and mis-plays that I won't make in the future.