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This may or may not be the best place for this but here goes anyway (there's def tactical advice needed).

I currently own a battalion box (that I'm making into a CCS and two vet squads), a commissar and a chimera. I am planning to spend £300 to upgrade my guard army. The question is: What do I buy?

I'm already planning on two more battalions and two chimeras to make another vet squad, get all thre vets into Chimeras and then turning the rest of the guys into a platoon with heavy weapon support. Two battalions will also give me a squad of three sentinels. My only other must buy is the gunship. That means I'll be spending approx £180. With £120 left to spend, what should I buy?

I love all the tanks so I really need advice as which work best.

Vendettas and Russes are practically a must-have in both Mech and Foot Guard armies, and with magnets you can switch between turrets and/or sponsons so you don't have to buy that many.

I think the first thing you wanna do is figure out how you want to play your army. Do you like static gunline, parking lot with lots of chimeras, mobile foot units running across the board, flyer-delivered veteran units, stormtrooper based deep strike/infiltrate army etc.

There's great variety, but for starters i'd say go for the style of play you want, and build accordingly. IG offers a great variety of different choices, and can add your own flavour to it by choosing not-so-often-used stuff if you want without breaking up its effectivity.

It also depends on if you want a WAAC army, a fun and fluff-themed army, or a cool looking army, or any combination of those

I'd say run some numbers on different themes and army lists that you think YOU would have fun playing, post them here on dakka in the army lists section and it won't take long before experienced players start hammering out a good army

If you have 3 Battle force boxes your set on infintry as you are planning on doing these models can become either Vets, or basic infintry of a variaty of sorts depending on how you feel. A Russ or Demolisher is a good addition to almost any army, With 6th eds change to blast templates a Manticore can rain unholy death over just about anything adding in your artillery support,

Yeah look into russes, they are amazing this edition and worth every point. Especially look at the Demolisher, Exterminator, and the Vanilla russ. The Punisher is hilarious and fun to use, but not really as effective as other, cheaper tanks. The rest are usually too specialized, too expensive, or both, to be truly effective in most lists.

Proxy a couple sometime, they go with almost any list you can imagine. Just make sure to keep melee units away from them and they will serve you well.

in addition.

If you do buy a Russ or Demolisher kit look into getting some rare earth magnets, picked up at some hobby stores or a lot of internet sights fairly cheap, such as amazingmagnets.com that way you can build the tank and very easily magnetize the gun on the turret allowing you to have all the different varients it offers.

As you yourself note, the correct place to start is with a CCS, 3 vet squads armed to the teeth with high strength, low AP weapons, and 4 chimeras to put them all in.

After that, there are a few generic pieces of advice I can give to new guard players figuring out what support options to take.

- The support options should support the core units, not the other way around. I'd play a few low point games with just troops and an HQ. Your particular meta and your particular play style and your particular troops configuration will likely all combine to cause your core units to have slightly different problems than other people. Until you know what your core units need, it doesn't make a lot of sense to think about how to support them.

- Limit the number of different types of units you have. Guard untis are generally cheap and flimsy. This means that you need redundancy more than other armies. This means guard is a spam army. This means that if you're going to take 1 of something, you're going to take 3 of something.

It's easy to get wowed by all the different options, but you'll generally be better off sticking to the roughly one that best supports your core units. For example, a 1250 list might look like a CCS and 3 vet squads all in chimeras and then 3 more vet squads each in a vendetta. That there are only 4 different units (well, practically speaking, 3), is how you make a lean and well-toned guard list. Taking one of everything is just going to get you into trouble.

- There are no auto-includes, and everything in the codex can be made to work, supported properly. If there's something that you really, really want to have, then throw it in there. With the weakest options, you may want to limit it do, say, one of them, but there is nothing that is so bad anymore that you should never consider it (especially since 6th ed made some of our most worthless units less worthless). That said, if you're going to take rough riders or vanquishers... it's going to be tough.

Conversely, a guard army does not need vendettas to win, or even to be competitive. Don't let anybody tell you otherwise. If there are good units that you also think are cool, then take them because they're cool. Dont' get roped into thinking that they're the only way to be good.

Thanks for replies, much appreciated. I just wanted to make sure I wasn't going to buy a load of stuff that I was never going to be able to use.

Just to let you know I think I'm going to get:
Two battalions
Two Chimeras
Valkyrie
Two Leman Russ
Leman Russ Demolisher
Manticore.

If I can squeeze some extra bits in there I definitely will. Thanks again.

By two batallions you mean battleforce correct? If so, yes this would probably be a solid start to a IG army. Everything on that list will serve a purpose and can be a solid unit. younll probably need some more infantry next, but for now that would be more than enough to get going.

I would swap out the two standard russes and get 2-3 demolisher kits instead. Its pretty easy to make a russ turret out of plasticard tubing, and itll give you a ton of options down the road.

You can also look at getting several of the pack of 5 guardsmen to add some bodies on a budget.

seanm222 wrote:
I would swap out the two standard russes and get 2-3 demolisher kits instead. Its pretty easy to make a russ turret out of plasticard tubing, and itll give you a ton of options down the road.

You can also look at getting several of the pack of 5 guardsmen to add some bodies on a budget.

That's a good idea. I never thought of that.

As for the 5 guardsmen boxes though. They are hideous, and only come in one pose. I wouldn't buy them ever. I'd rather buy 10 man boxes at $30 a piece

They're fine for blobs. You can kit-bash sargents very easily, you're essentially paying £12 for 10 men, which is sweet. Especially since you don't need the special weapons that you get in the infantry packs.

Sorry to interrupt, I've only played one game of 6th, but what makes russes so good this edition? I thought the demolisher had a kind of a short range to be as effective. Wouldn't a hydra be a good pick?

Use as many vendettas and valkyries as you can squeeze into your list.

Russes are good because they're very durable and pack a lot of firepower. Not as much as artillery, but a russ has a good chance of living to the end of the match, unlike an artillery piece.

Russes are better in 6th because their large blasts can now hit enemy vehicles without the need to have the center of the blast over it. And with the changes to glance, russes are going to fire more often then before.

 MrMoustaffa wrote:
Russes are good because they're very durable and pack a lot of firepower. Not as much as artillery, but a russ has a good chance of living to the end of the match, unlike an artillery piece.

Well I guess i'm lucky my 4 artillery pieces last all game most of the time

But yeah, get russes too, i'm thinking of trying mine out again...

Silver_skates wrote:
Thanks for replies, much appreciated. I just wanted to make sure I wasn't going to buy a load of stuff that I was never going to be able to use.

Just to let you know I think I'm going to get:
Two battalions
Two Chimeras
Valkyrie
Two Leman Russ
Leman Russ Demolisher
Manticore.

If I can squeeze some extra bits in there I definitely will. Thanks again.

When you get that Valkyrie make sure to get some Lascannon bits to convert it to a Vendetta. That's the best way to run that flyer right now and arguably the best anti-flyer flying unit in the game. I don't like Valkyries too much.

Pretty much what everyone said is good.

Core IG units IMHO are:
Veterans with 3x Special weapons each inside Chimeras with Hull Heavy Flamers (meltas or plasmas, my preference is plasmas all around and 1 squad of meltas)
CCS with 3-4x Special weapons (same preference as above)
Leman Russ Battle Tanks or Demolishers
Vendettas

Good luck!

you could use the infantry in a slowly advancing rifle line, though it is vulnerable against armour and fast attack so i would get some heavy support in the form of either hydras or leman russ executioners

I have found that the LRBT is better in 6th than before. Yes, you get to fire more often then before. To me, squadron rules improved, and therefore, the squad of two basic tanks with lascannons can realy put a hurt on other units. I have started to use the manticore, and, I have found it to be a good unit, even though somewhat limited on its role.

The hydra, is useless and even if fliers are fielded against you. I played one game where my hydra was left alone, not even fired at, and the other guy kept his storm talon out sight the entire time, taking out other units that I had.

My favorite tanks in 6th:
1. LRBT w/ lascannon
2. Exterminator with heavy bolter sponsons and lascannon
3. Demolisher (outift however you want)
4. Manticore

Hydras aren't THAT bad. A pair of them in a squad will still put down 2 or thee autocannon hits per turn of snapfiring against ground targets, plus the occasional snapfire heavy bolter hit (that's my only real complaint - why do the heavy bolters have to snap fire at ground targets too?).

Plus, 150 points isn't too much to hide some AV12 somewhere to give a little security against fliers. They're not right for their ludicrous spamming anymore, but they didn't drop from awesome to worthless, they dropped from awesome to great in their niche, okay enough against other stuff. Competence is hardly an insult, though.

These are all good bits of advice...I would just reiterate that those little snap together guardsmen are fine to get because you can easily mix them into your larger squads and they won't even notice the limited pose. They are also better looking than the leg pose that is meant to be either running forward slighly or standing with a lean which are a pain to glue down!

I really have found favor with the executioner, yes its 245 fully plasma'd, but it almost always evaporates whatever its shooting at. Tactical squad on objective, gone. Termies running at you, poof. Lootas in building, history.

You will always want HS maxed out. An infantry platoon is worth considering, they are 50 pts a squad and can blob if needed. I find a platoon blobbed into 2 20 man squads is incredibly durable and can hold objectives with the best of them

ratlings are a must so they can pick out squad leaders

other wise, do what you like. Guard are flexible like that.

with reply to the cost of gardsmen and getting the five man sets the far cheapest way to build up squads for blobs is ebay. loads of just primed squads and quite easy to get a whole blob for the price of a squad box.

or look for other companies for the infantry, i got a pack of 52 infantry for £21