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I have made the foolish decision to finally embark on collecting Imperial Guard after 20+ years and I am looking for people to share with me some tips, lessons they learned, workaround etc. I’m not talking about tactics (although feel free) but rather the goal of collecting and modelling an army. Eg;

Best practice when building troops
Ways to magnetise tanks / get the most out of kits
Alternative models for those only in metal (astropaths come to mind, the AOS 5 pack of wizards seems good)
What to buy and why (I see for example it’s better to buy genestealer cult troops instead as you get an extra heavy weapon)

I’m short, what should a newbie to the guard be doing?

Don’t get me wrong, I have played against them many times but not many in my area play the, and even then, not as a primary army so lists were very limited.

Unless you are playing at a place that outright requires Games Workshop models, there are plenty of 3rd party options that fit 40k very well (Wargames Atlantic, Victoria Miniatures, etc), or places that sell varied heads (Statuesque) to make your models more unique/different.

In terms of best practices when building troops, the big thing is to not overwhelm yourself. It is tempting to just buy up 100 troopers in one go, but then it ends up feeling like a grind actually building and painting them in one go. With magnetizing, there are plenty of guides over on Bolter and Chainsword that have step by step setups. Long story short though, yes, definitely magnetize your tanks so you can swap between loadouts - it adds a bit of extra time and work when building but gives you much more flexibility with your lists and when GW decides to randomly nerf something into the ground.

If going GW models, best immediate bet is probably the X Defense Force - Cadian or Catachan depending on preference, or the new Xmas bundle. Gives you 2 squads of Troopers, a Command Squad which is the only way to get most special weapons, 3 Heavy Weapons Teams, a chimera, and then depending on the set, either a Leman Russ or a Hydra + Sentinel, all at a discount. If you absolutely love the Commissar, the Start Collecting set is passable too as it gets you some models at a discount. Important note, save your bits - and if you are creative you can use basically all of the heavy weapons in the HWT boxes by putting them on normal models etc if you are willing to shell out a tiny bit on ebay for more bases.

Also, find a look that you like. Cadians are the easiest and are easy to do minor swaps with, but of official models there is still Catachan and the metal Steel Legion squad. You can also base it off of other models in GW range, like Skitari, Genestealer Cultists, a range of fantasy miniatures, etc with minor modifications. Guard is also one of the easiest armies to get 3rd party items from, and I know at least some of Wargames Atlantic kits are compatible with the Cadian kit with just minor work to fit things.

Humble82 wrote:
I have made the foolish decision to finally embark on collecting Imperial Guard after 20+ years and I am looking for people to share with me some tips, lessons they learned, workaround etc. I’m not talking about tactics (although feel free) but rather the goal of collecting and modelling an army. Eg;

Best practice when building troops
Ways to magnetise tanks / get the most out of kits
Alternative models for those only in metal (astropaths come to mind, the AOS 5 pack of wizards seems good)
What to buy and why (I see for example it’s better to buy genestealer cult troops instead as you get an extra heavy weapon)

I’m short, what should a newbie to the guard be doing?

Don’t get me wrong, I have played against them many times but not many in my area play the, and even then, not as a primary army so lists were very limited.

I just build the stuff. Building Guardsmen isn't hard, paint as you assemble and it's a little easier.

Leman Russ tanks are easy to make weapon-swappable, since the hull guns just kind of stick in slots. I made my first tanks flexible, but then I observed that I always ran them the same way anyway and usually just bought more tanks [you will have a lot of tanks] so it wasn't really worth magnetizing it.

Find a scheme and painting techniques to make painting them easier, as you'll be painting lots of models.

Were I to start again now, I'd go for a white and Blue scheme, which is easy to accomplish with the new off-white spray paints and Contrast paints.

Other things that work:
Zenithal Priming + Contrast
For clothing: base color + dark wash + drybrush 1st highlight + lighter wash + brighter drybrush
Contrast skin colors on a white or off white base make quick and decent looking skin.
Unless you're a madman like myself, don't paint eyes, just say they're all squinting
Bright lights help when washing/highlighting metal bits. Hobby Cheating has a good amount of videos on how to (very quickly and easily) paint True-Metal Metal.

For collecting, if going for official models, plastic Cadians are the easiest to find on eBay and the overall resale market, but everything else is easy enough to find as there are and have been lots and lots of Guard players. Given the time of year and current events, I'd wager now is an excellent time to buy.

If you get any metal models, prime with something like Rust-Oleum or Krylon primers first, then spray your base color. The GW sprays work...good enough for light use, but the primers I mentioned are far more durable.

And yes, 1 Heavy weapons squad box and two Infantry Squad boxes, combined with 9 more large bases and some creativity, gives you 3 each of your choice of Mortar, Heavy Bolter, Autocannon, Lascannons, and/or Missile teams to use as either whole squads or in whatever infantry squads you want. Use the remaining two models as whatever; make some Company or Platoon Commanders, grab some extra bits and make Astropaths, whatever you want!

One Infantry Squad box and two of the Easy-to-paint 5 man boxes saves a few bucks as opposed to two Infantry Squad boxes.

Command squads have their uses, but the Command Squad box is best used for the Officer(s) and Special Weapons.

Wall of random text:

Assuming you don't plan to run an unpainted army, I think it's important to spend some time up front coming to terms with the level of quality you're going to put into your models. Just enough paint to get by, table quality, or exquisite. I love to make high detail minis, but I had to really govern myself when it came to my approach for guardsmen. I just finished painting 30 easy build Cadians this week. I have the process down kind of industrial, but it can leave you not wanting to touch anything for a long time after. Be realistic about the time you have to work on then, and it can be easy to feel pressured to grind through the first 3 to 6 squads and special weapons so you can get to the table. I put about as much detail into each guardsman as I can tollerate.

There's always the "Cadain or Catachan" question. I mix the models in mine (built it into my fluff). I started largely with Cadians because of the cheap easy build 5 man boxes. Now those guys are my conscripts sometimes, other times not.

There's a template out there I used to help me lay out my strategy for identfying different infantry etc (example: https://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/1086459-Astra%20Militarum%2C%20Calixis%2C%20Fedrid%2C%20Imperial%20Guard%2C%20Markings%2C%20Scintilla.html). This also gets into how fluffy do you want to get. I actually came up with my idea for the army rolling up a random regiment from some of the online guides, and it led me to what I put together.

There's some good guides on getting the most out of a box of guardsmen. Heavy Weapons Teams for example, I used parts from the regular guardsman 10 man box to build out the mortar teams, missile launcher guys standing, and 3 other bases which I can alternate the lascannon and autocannon on fairly well. Leman Russ Tanks, it's a really good idea to magnetize the turrets so you can swap barrel mounts for the different guns. Just when you think "I'll just build it this way because that's what I'm always going to run" something changes in the codex/CA and you want to change. I didn't magnetize the guns on my sentinels and I kind of regret it. Kind of.

Plasma... I went ahead and bought extra plasma guns from games workshop since guard loves plasma, and you only get one plasma gun per command squad box. The problem is they are marine guns and you have to do some customizing to fit them for a regular guy. I eventually came up with a version where I cut a lasgun just right, and the guy holds it across his chest. I should post how I did that eventually. There may be other options, but that's the route I went.

Carrying them all is somethign to think about. If you have something that works, good, otherwise: I'm currently using CRAFTSMAN VERSASTACK 17-in boxes for vehicles, you can fit 9 chimera chassis vehicles neatly inside (for me, 6 chimera, 3 hellhound). Home depot has some nice trays around christmas time that stack I put most of the rest of my models in.

The key to guard is flexibility to deal with changing meta and changing rules. We can put out 270 infantry, or we can go with 60 guard and hella artillery / tanks /flyers. You're generally going to end up wanting to collect a broad pallet of options so you can flesh out different tactics as time goes on. You'll want to be able to field 10 guardsman squads as a minimum, and you'll want to be able to sprinkle in specail weapons / HWTs. I'd probably get at least 2 standard leman russ and 2 demolisher kits to start. Plasma executioners and plasma sponsons are a favorite of mine for cutting through marines and tough stuff. For artillery, the Basilisk has been the mainstay for a lot of people for a long time, but with the game only going 5 rounds now, the issue with the manticore only shooting for 4 rounds is less of an issue. In the long haul you'll probably one 3 of each, but manticores are kind of hot right now. You'll want at least 3 sentinels for the times you want to build a brigade.

If you haven't bought anything, the new Bastion Patrol box coming out, combined with a Start collecting box isn't a bad foundation.

Magnetizing... I go back and forth sometimes on magnetizing special weapons guys. For the most part there's enough torsos and legs to go around, so I usually just opt to build another guy rather than go through the trouble of magnetizing a guardsman (company commaners was a place I had some regret but just ended up building 2 more). Ogryn/bullgryn might be something to magnetize for the future in case points changes or abilities shift what's good. That's a theme. There's lots of videos and web pages that give options, you'll want to look through several as some are better than others. If you're going to magentize make sure to plan ahead in assembly and find a way to remember. I keep building up my chimeras then remembering I want to put a tab of metal behind the hull weapon mount for a magnet to attatch, then have to play some tricks to get a pecie of metal in, rotated, then super glue it.

Happy thing is there's lots of options for customization if you're not focused on staying all GW for all things. I just ordered from Victoria's minatures and Mad Robot. Used heroforge to make a Squat Tank Commander I plan to make. Also, you can sometimes "ebay rescue" old badly painted models if you're willing to do some work on them.

That's about all I can think of at the moment, will post if I think of something else. My favorite youtubers are Auspex Tactics and Mordian Glory for guard talk.

for starters, get the new Christmas boxset or 2, as its a huge savings, almost 50% off retail. if 3rd party is ok, look at Victoria miniatures as they have a sale too. Always use super glue, its forgiving during assembly. clean the mold lines in pieces then assemble/sub assemble. assemble platoons at a time, not boxset, as you will be limited by the variety of bits in 1 boxset. modeling by coolness not power gaming.

get a variety of round magnets 1mm - 5mm wide x 1 mm depth, 200 for larger ones, 500-1k for smaller ones, just before attaching magnets mark 1 side with a marker=positive, keep it universal so weapons can be swapped around throughout your army. record your progress to keep yourself motivated, assembling and painting 100's of men will test your sanity.

link to my collection to help you model yours.
https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/767743.page

Here:
https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/778102.page
I posted a slightly different approach of magnetizing the Leman Russ main weapons. This way you can build an Annihilator pretty simply with the help of two heavy weapons teams lascannons. You can also use the same turret for the Battlecannon and Demolisher variants, as the magnetized part is just a little plastic thingy.

Okay, first thing to learn:

Collect Catachans.


How to assemble and paint them?

You do this while watching the following movies in a row:

Rambo I-IV, Predator, Platoon, Full Metal Jacket & Apocalypse Now.


Alternatively you can listen to songs which were played during the Vietnam War era. Check out YouTube. Example (Surfing Bird):

https://youtu.be/KQEDojPZ7YI

or this one:
https://youtu.be/PfIHNHIKGIw

Strg Alt wrote:Okay, first thing to learn:

Collect Catachans.


How to assemble and paint them?

You do this while watching the following movies in a row:

Rambo I-IV, Predator, Platoon, Full Metal Jacket & Apocalypse Now.


Alternatively you can listen to songs which were played during the Vietnam War era. Check out YouTube. Example (Surfing Bird):

https://youtu.be/KQEDojPZ7YI

or this one:
https://youtu.be/PfIHNHIKGIw

Ha! I love it.

Honestly, watching any appropriate war movie is great for getting one in the spirit of doing IG.

Arcanis161 wrote:
And yes, 1 Heavy weapons squad box and two Infantry Squad boxes, combined with 9 more large bases and some creativity, gives you 3 each of your choice of Mortar, Heavy Bolter, Autocannon, Lascannons, and/or Missile teams to use as either whole squads or in whatever infantry squads you want. Use the remaining two models as whatever; make some Company or Platoon Commanders, grab some extra bits and make Astropaths, whatever you want!

One Infantry Squad box and two of the Easy-to-paint 5 man boxes saves a few bucks as opposed to two Infantry Squad boxes.

This is definitely true.

I usually go with 6 extra large bases and do:
Lascannon + Tripod, 1 kneeling man [gunner] + 1 standing man [spotter]
Mortar + Bipod, 1 kneeling man [loading] + 1 standing man [spotter]
Missile Launcher, 2 standing men [one holding the bazooka, one holding a rocket, which can be achieved by taking a lasgun arm and cutting off the lasgun and putting the missile there]

I would start with about 70 bucks of atlantic wargames deathfields infantry. They are directly useable as imperial gaurd, they are modelled in plastic, each box comes with 24 infantry models and fully 30 pistol and special weapons options. so you can with 2 boxes build a decent battalion with 3 company commanders (pistol) and 12 command squad (maybe all with plasmas) and then 3 x 10 man gaurd squads with a grenade launcher in each.

For 70 bucks, thats a steal, and its in plastic. You can scale that army up fast and there are even other lines of similar armies they sell in the deathfields game product line, so you could do a valhallan/vostroyan looking one pretty easy. If you favor death korps of krieg, buy their "great war (ww1) german infantry and swap in the heads with gas masks to the raumjagers, and you got a ready source of really easily acquired fully plastic krieg infantry stand ins. Each box also has up to 6 guys kneeling, which means you can easily build out a lot of heavy weapons teams from a single box more.
by the time you have spent 140 bucks, you have a huge pile of gaurd infantry like
3 commander
3x4 command squad (4 SW each)
3x6 special weapons squads (3 SW each)
6x10 infantry blobs with 1 sw each.

Seriosuly, that's a good price for a good start into gaurd -- then you can add all sorts of armor to taste. Another box of the deathfields types, and swap a few models around, and pick up a box of actual GW heavy weapon team, and you can build out a huge numebr of HWTs pretty quick. 3 heavy bolter teams, 3 mortar, 3 lascannon, 3 missle launcher, 3 autocannon ... That would be exactly enough to stick one HWT in each of the six 10 man squads, and have 3 x 3 HWT (so 3 support squads) leftover. (You have to plan this in advance by making some of the guys in the 10 man squads as kneeling models when you assemble them, and maybe glue their arms on with crazy glue so you can pop them off to tailor the HWT look.)

Viola, 1002 points of gaurd, and for damn cheap, too. That's definitely enough to soup in gaurd as obsec and screen with another 1000 point army, or to then go out and buy 2 tank commanders and 2 manticores and a leman russ, and just set up an armored spearhead to join them.
Something like 220 bucks, I suspect.
Tank commander with 2 multimelta, demolisher, and lascannon
tank commander with 2 multimelta, demolisher, and lascannon
manticore with hunterkiller and heavy bolter
manticore with hunterkiller and heavy bolter
lemanruss battle tank with 2 multimelta, demolsiher, and lascannon.

Taht would get oyu playing, its 1000 points on the nose, I reckon you could remove 1 special weapon from 1 gaurd unit in the gaurd blob detachment.

write a story in your head...... model your regiment on it.

The single best thing about the guard is the narrative you build around your regular humans on one of a billion worlds ending up on the front line of whatever war you are fighting.

They aren't elite at anything really... but they are all yours.

From a modelling perspective get used to painting infantry, however you decide to go, you will be painting infantry. Even a mech list will often have 60 dudes/dudettes.

I like the necromunda sculpts, so building an army from gangs. Seemed like a good idea at the time

I can also wholeheartedly recommend the contrast "skin colors". The results are really good for human skin and its so much easier and faster, especially when doing scores of infantry. I have Darkoath Flesh and Fireslayer Flesh and love them. Also note that by applying one or two layers, or just a very thin one you can geh some variation in skin tone

1. Vary the gloves your soldiers have -- In the field, everyone running around the woods tends to do it with solid gloves that are usually brown or black. But in gaurd, who knows, maybe their insane emperor demands whitegloving it of the ones who want to show they can keep their white gloves free of dirt while fighting the messy that is chaos.

Similarly vary the heads.
Also, any kit of scions you can find someone has, offer to borrow a bunch of the not closed heads they come with. Scion kits have two entirely different sets of heads, one with little berret style hats and one with closed spaceman helmets.

Even a few of these make excellent officer and sargent heads for a large gaurd force, or perhaps differentiate the veterans from normal infantry.

I confess, if I were about building a gaurd army now, it would be so much cooler than what I actually have that this thread makes me .. .grr ... must ... resist.

I am building a force out of metals, and I have 20 Cadians, 20 Steel Legion and 10 Catachans. My plan is to use the different model types to represent different parts of the army of a Hive World.
The Cadians are the proper Hive Defense Force with spiffy equipment and a professional attitude.
The Steel Legion are Ash Waste Rangers, rough and ready but tough as nails. Will be giving them some appropriately weathered transports.
Catachans are the conscripted dock workers. Will be giving them a white vest and orange trousers look to make them look a bit penal legion-y in case I want to make them represent conscripted Hive Gangers.
Also looking to use some Necromunda minis for that use, and the new Slave Ogryns as suitably grimdark Ogryns and Bullgryns.

I think the prospect of painting 100 of the same dudes would really tire me out, so I have broken them into these different themed groups to make it more fun and given myself a little story about each group to keep my interest up. I love all the different regiments there used to be and that element of the Gaunts Ghosts novels was always the most appealing to me, I think it is crazy that GW got rid of all the great variety there used to be in Guard Regiments. Imagine if we still had Mordians, Tallarn, Valhallans, Vostoroyans and the full Steel Legion range, there would be so many cool armies...

Pain

Find an easy to obtain spray can range, pick two colours and stick with these throughout painting all the armour. I use Halfords grey primer and GW Zandri dust as my two colours, then use splinter pattern camo using frog tape to mask it (This is all picked up from a youtube guide so my thanks to the original creator) You can do a tank to a basic level in a couple of hours, then go as in detail as you want whenever you're in the mood.
For troops I likewise paint to a basic level pretty quickly, then go back to it and do the details.
I think the key is unity of colours.

If you won't want to use magnets, a Leman Russ is still fairly easy to do most of the options.
You can just not glue in any of the hull/sponson weapons, and they'll happily pop in and out from just friction alone.
Magnetising the turret gun of the standard kit can be a bit fiddly (although I've not actually tried, and haven't got the demolisher kit), but if you go for the standard cannon, just don't glue in any barrel extension.
Just the stub makes a pretty effective demolisher cannon, the short extension is the battle cannon, and the long extension is the vanquisher - all without a single magnet.