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I'm really curious what everyone else runs for a guard army in general. Personally, I mostly run mech vets with two 20 man blobs or one 30-40 man blob, except for when I'm running an all vehicle list where I run all mech vets. Tends to do decently well, the blob protects my tanks and hold my side objectives, while the mech vets aim to take out large targets. I usually arm the blob with all flamers and an autocannon or two because why not, and then do a mix of melta and plasma mech vets. Starting to use flamer special weapons squads as well, thinking about using mech vets with heavy flamer 2x flamer though.

Are these generally the advisable choices, or are there other options? I'm afraid of splitting up my platoons too much because they fall apart and retreat rather quickly, and aren't that good at moving up the board, but does this help against certain armies? That and I'm worried about orders, as this'll force me to use more vox and spread officers out a bit more.

Do foot vets, probably with camo, ever do well? I'm thinking flamer or plasma vets shuffling around ruins, but at the same time I'm scared of ignores cover stuff and that they won't be able to put out a ton of firepower.

So again, is the way I do it one of the better choices, or does MSU hold up okay? I don't play too much with tactical objectives, which I think is where they would shine.

I have been playing with 2 Infantry Platoons

I take the Platoon Commands each with 4x Flamers and run them in the Vendettas. They can drop out and hold or contest objectives when needed.

The Infantry Squads all take a Chimera. You can take whatever load out you like. Pre game you can decide to either run them as a blob and have the Chimeras empty or you can run them as seperate squads each in the Chimera.

They don't have the job of dealing lots of damage to my opponent there are a lot of better options in the codex for that. They have the specific role of taking and holding Objectives and that is it. Anything extra they do is just a bonus.

Two 20-man platoons with autocannons/lascannons and attached commissar. And 50 conscripts with a priest each per platoon. I'd say that our blobs are slightly overcosted but conscripts significantly undercosted (particularly when combined with a priest!).

I'll run the CCS with a MOO too and give tank hunters/ignores cover to the blobs and use the PCSs with a single autocannon to dish out FRFSRF or move-move-move to the conscripts.

I've found this to be a really effective little horde for its points cost. 155 men and some good anti-infantry firepower for 824 points. The rest of the army can be more focused on killing enemy heavies and psychic support.


I've been a longtime guard player and I ran exclusively mech vets in 5th edition. I don't really rate them as highly now unfortunately. Their chimeras went up in price and arguably got worse (due to fewer fire points) and vehicles also got easier to kill with the dawn of hull points. I find loading vets up with special weapons just makes them a target, and they will die far easier than their equivalent points of infantry squads/conscripts. I'd only use them if there was a format that restricted how many platoons I could use (I used a unit in a highlander tournament recently).

I really do want to start taking conscript squads, but I sadly only have 90 guardsmen. I can take a small squad of them but at that point not sure how effective a 20-30 man squad of them is.

I recommend using the Armored Fist squads from the Armored Battlegroup list in Imperial Armour. They cost far less than mechvets out of the codex, have a better chimera and you are not forced to take a useless platoon command squad as a tax. With an autocannon, meltagun, meltabomb on sarge, and autocannon on the chimera I think this squad clocks in at 125 points if memory serves me right.

 kingbobbito wrote:
I really do want to start taking conscript squads, but I sadly only have 90 guardsmen. I can take a small squad of them but at that point not sure how effective a 20-30 man squad of them is.

I run 30 man conscript units and they usually soak up fire or get their points back. Either way they serve their purpose. But in my opinion a 40man unit would be perfect.

I usually run 1 blob of 3 infantry squads with vox, commissar, 3 lascannon, and 3 melts guns.

If I have points another blob of 3 infantry squads including vox, commissar, 3 autocannons and 3 grenade launchers.

If I run infantry squads in chimeras I give them flamer, grenade launchers or melta guns and a vox. Usually I stick with the grenade launcher or the melta gun.

For vets I usually run them in chimeras with x3 plasma or melta. Lately I've started swapping 1 special weapon for a heavy flamer so they can cover more areas of fire.

I run a blob with AC's and flamers and drop a priest and Coteaz in there. If something drops close by, the AC's can attempt to pop the transport or just inflict easy wounds to DS'ers, while all the lasguns can generate a decent amount of wounds.

It's also much easier to buff blob squads with orders and psychic powers.