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So if you're building an inrantry-heavy IG gunline, what's the consensus on how to arm the squads? If you have units as follows:

Veterans x3

Infantry Squad x6

Heavy Weapons Squad x3

To make it even more ridiculous, lets limit ourselves to the bits available in the Cadian Shock Troops & Cadian Heavy Weapon Squad box sets.

Here's what I'm thinking:


Veterans x3
Flamer x3

Infantry Squad x6
Lascannon
Grenade Launcher

Heavy Weapons Squad x3
not sure


First off, am I right that squads can split sire in this edition? 'Cause if they can't then I want to arm my Infantry squads differently.

The Vets are my maneuver units. I figure I'll use one as a speed bump to catch deep strikers, and the other two as objective grabbers.

And I'm not sure of the mathhammer of Missile Launcher vs Auto Cannon vs Mortar for the Heavy Weapons Squad.

General train of thought from what I've seen.

You're wasting the good BS on the veterans with flamers, if anything put the flamers on the line troops to absorb charges better.

Your veteran squads should have the lascannons in them to increase the chance to hit, preferably cadian and immobile in a good vantage point. Since they'll be high target priority I like to pair them with 3x cheap specials which compliment the LC range, so 3x sniper or 3x GL

If you're doing ITC style missions you'll want your infantry to be 9 models so likely a plasma gun and mortar HWT. Plasma is really strong this edition and only 7 points for infantry squads.

HWT are almost always taken cheap as you can only have 3 now. Mortars is generally seen as the best bet.

The Cadian Shock Troops box set only comes with Flamers and Grenade Launchers.

So put the Flamers in the Infantry Squads and the Grenade Launchers on the Vets? I guess that makes sense.

Then my Infantry Squads would be purely Lascanon platforms, 10 models with LC & Flamer. And then Mortars in the HWSs...

I'd almost rather have my Infantry Squads be Mortar & Grenade Launcher, and my HWSs be all Lasconon. And then Grenade Launchers on the Vets.

I'd have to buy 9 boxes of Cadian Shock Troops (and 5 boxes of Cadian Heavy Weapon Squad). With two Grenade Launchers in each Cadian Shock Troops I'd have enough to arm all the Infantry Squads and Vet squads with them.

You know, it's killing my that I can't arm my Heavy Weapons Squads with Auto Canons. I just see it as so much more thematic. But I'd be a fool actually DO IT. Lascanons do such a better job of stopping tanks/Dreads/TMCs.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
OK, I just looked up the stats on the Grenade Launcher. SCREW THAT. Lascannons & Grenade Launchers for the Infantry Squads, and Autocannons in the Heavy Weapons Squads

Brutal truth, all special weapons aside from plasma are niche at best, trash at worst. Line infantry NEEDS plasma. Vets have good arguments for snipers or grenade launcher since plasma is such a premium on them. You can buy plasma direct from GW for like $10 a pack, just do it now and thank me later.

For heavy weapons, infantry and vets will want man served tripod weapons, aka your heavy bolters and lascannons. Heavy weapon squads need to be mortars, anything else exposes them to return fire and they die in a stiff breeze.

Again, avoid flamers at all costs, there's nothing in the game that a single flamer is realistically going to stop that wouldn't have been better stopped by having a weapon with actual range shooting in previous turns. Especially not when plasma is the same cost pt for pt for regular men. If I had to choose between GL's and flamers it's GL's all day, every day, not even a contest.

I know that's not fun to hear but that's the best advice I can give you.

I'm going to second what MrMoustaffa said. It's sad, because IG have such a lovely range of weapons, and really only two to three top shelf choices. Everything else is either niche or trash.

the short answer is that if you only every used Mortars and Plasma... you'd still have a damned good army. Both are cheap and do good work. You can get away with running lascannons on Vets and INfantry squads, because they're not super expensive for what you get, and with 10 wounds, they'll survive to shoot. Fun fact: three vet squads with lascannons cost as much as four infantry squads with lascannons. While that's the same number of lascannon hits, the infantry has a ton more wounds, plus obsec, plus the ability to farm CPs.

Autocannons used to be a niche choice. Three in a heavy weapon squad are only 54 points, and they do yeoman's work against two wound models, such as bikes, primaris, terminators, etc. However... thanks to the rule of three, any HWS not running mortars is just pissing points away. It's the best 33pts you can spend in 40k, so don't be a hero. In infantry squads, you wish you had lascannons most of the time when you shoot autocannons, so just go big there.

Snipers can be nice little niche choices on rear units. They're cheap and have good range. don't' expect much, and always keep in mind that if you run a lot of officers, snipers don't benefit from FRF!SRF!

Meltas are fine, they just cost more than plasmas, despite only being better in narrow windows (within 6"). Not worth the 50% kicker over plasma.

Grenade Launchers are cheap, I suppose, but on infantry squads, the 2 points is totally worth the advantages of plasma. On vets...plasma gets so pricey that you can kind of talk yourself into grenade launchers. I'm not overly bullish on vet squads, so YMMV.

Flamers look good on paper, but then you realize that you have a short range weapon that does 3.5 hits at S4. That's not great. It's the same cost as plasma, which is ridiculous, and they aren't nearly as good a charge deterrent as before, since they need to have range.

Heavy bolters are fine, especially if you play ITC and want to avoid having 10 man units. As a heavy wepaon squad, mortars are better in every meaningful way, and the rule of three precludes taking both. I actually like them, they just dont' have a great place in the army.

Missile Launchers pay a huge premium for flexibility. Guard don't need frag missiles, we hav mortarts for that. In the end, you have one less S and AP of the lascannon for the same price. Leave on the shelf.

I'm not gonna lie, I'm having a hard time committing to an army where I can't make a viable Matched Play, All-Comers army list with the bits that come in the box.

I may have to go back to Space Marines. Or worse, Xenos....

https://www.games-workshop.com/en-US/Imperial-Guard-Cadian-with-Plasma-Gun-and-Meltagun

https://www.games-workshop.com/en-US/Steel-Legion-Plasma-Gun

Alternatively, get some blue stuff and milliput from greenstuff world and start mass casting one of these.

https://m.ebay.com/itm/40K-IG-Cadian-Command-Plasma-Gun-Bits/192524062328?hash=item2cd3540e78:g:MXAAAOSw2QJa45Fo

phydaux wrote:
I'm not gonna lie, I'm having a hard time committing to an army where I can't make a viable Matched Play, All-Comers army list with the bits that come in the box.

I have a bad news for you: WH40k is a hobby that requires some effort and out-of-the-box thinking regardless of your army. I can tell it from personal experience (I've played Blood Angels, Dark Angels, Imperial Guard, AdMechs, CSM, TS, Daemons and Custodes through my Warhammer life).

phydaux wrote:
I'm not gonna lie, I'm having a hard time committing to an army where I can't make a viable Matched Play, All-Comers army list with the bits that come in the box.

I may have to go back to Space Marines. Or worse, Xenos....

Guard is sadly not the army for that if you go Infantry.
Most of the Guard boxes are starting to get on the older side, tho they are still perfectly good kits that look nice, which means they lack options in the box compared to new kits where all weapon options are in the box.

Things like the new Primaris Marines are much better for this, tho they viability depends on how competitive you want to get I guess.

This might be one of the better options price wise if you need a ton of plasma.

https://victoriaminiatures.com/collections/weapons/products/plasma-rifle-x5

You might consider not arming them.

Martel732 wrote:
You might consider not arming them.

In league play my FLAGS dings you if you're not WYSIWYG.

phydaux wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
You might consider not arming them.

In league play my FLAGS dings you if you're not WYSIWYG.

I think he means running them with no special or heavy weapons. That's absolutely a thing some players do but primarily that's something you do when you run a ton of tanks or artillery. Pure infantry guard needs that extra firepower, whereas mechanized honestly just want just lasuns for anti horde and board control.

 MrMoustaffa wrote:
I think he means running them with no special or heavy weapons. That's absolutely a thing some players do

Really? I know in the Fluff it's "Enough Lasguns and you can kill ANTTHING" but I wouldn't expect that to actually work on the table top. In previous editions it kinda made sense to give Squads a Heavy and no Special, but now that units can split fire it really doesn't.

 MrMoustaffa wrote:
but primarily that's something you do when you run a ton of tanks or artillery. Pure infantry guard needs that extra firepower, whereas mechanized honestly just want just lasuns for anti horde and board control.

Well, every IG army starts with a Russ, a Demolisher, and a Basalisk.

The thing is, six Squads, three Vets, and three HWTs are less than 850 points. When you're gearing up to 2 thousand points, it doesn't make sense to NOT include them.

Because "Boys Before Toys."

Yes, I mean naked squads. 40 points per squad. They're just there to die, really.

Martel732 wrote:
Yes, I mean naked squads. 40 points per squad. They're just there to die, really.

LOL. That's IG infantry in a nut shell.

Back when I played Marines I used to cringe for every Marine I had to remove from the table. That's part of the reason I want to play Guard - Guardsmen die and it's no great loss.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I JUST realized something - Armored Sentinels only have 6 Wounds. That means that regular infantry blocks LOS to sentinels.

And this edition I don't take a wound on a 1 if I walk through difficult terrain (I lost WAY too many Attack Bikes that way).

I'm starting to REALLY like Guard right now.

 MrMoustaffa wrote:

phydaux wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
You might consider not arming them.

In league play my FLAGS dings you if you're not WYSIWYG.

I think he means running them with no special or heavy weapons. That's absolutely a thing some players do but primarily that's something you do when you run a ton of tanks or artillery. Pure infantry guard needs that extra firepower, whereas mechanized honestly just want just lasuns for anti horde and board control.

Dunno. 5 pts for some extra firepower doesn\t seem that bad for heavy weapon. Specials are bit more expensive.

Oh and if he\s playing with ITC rules heavy weapon team is pretty much essential.

Why is that?

Martel732 wrote:
Why is that?

The ITC part? Infantry squad is 10 models. Infantry squad with heavy weapon is 9 models. 10 models is cut point for ITC secondary missions. With 9 model squads you give up less secondaries thus making it harder for opponent to score VP's.

(other cut off is 20 models and was it 30 also. If so you would see ork squads of 19 or 29. Not sure about 30. Been a while since checked that one)

And obviously 10 strong marine squads etc takes a hit in popularity with that scenario.

The one thing about ITC scenario I really dislike but alas no matter scenario something can be gamed on.

tneva82 wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Why is that?

The ITC part? Infantry squad is 10 models. Infantry squad with heavy weapon is 9 models. 10 models is cut point for ITC secondary missions. With 9 model squads you give up less secondaries thus making it harder for opponent to score VP's.

(other cut off is 20 models and was it 30 also. If so you would see ork squads of 19 or 29. Not sure about 30. Been a while since checked that one)

And obviously 10 strong marine squads etc takes a hit in popularity with that scenario.

The one thing about ITC scenario I really dislike but alas no matter scenario something can be gamed on.

The combined arms missions have no such shenanigans.

Here's a question for you guys - Where do you put your Lasconnons?

I'm planing on taking six Infantry Squads and putting a Lascannon in each. Six Lascannons just doesn't seem like ENOUGH in my mind. The LCs are the only thing that will reliably stop transports, tanks, Dreads, TMCs, and anything else that's T8 SV3.

Where do you put them?

Not much places besides infantry squad. Veterans are pricey for that. Second place would be leman russes but those will be expensive single models.

HWS's with lascannons are royal waste of points.

tneva82 wrote:
Not much places besides infantry squad. Veterans are pricey for that. Second place would be leman russes but those will be expensive single models.

HWS's with lascannons are royal waste of points.

They are really bad if you go second for sure.