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I'm looking to finally pick up an ally for my IG army to help it's weakness. Allies are suppose to be there to really help out in whatever your armies greatest weakness is but I'm having a hard time deciding what that is...in my 1500 list I have: (All Chims are Multi-Laser + HF Hull)

CCS 3x Plas/Chim
Infantry Platoon:
PCS: 3 Melta/Chim
IS: AC/Flamer
IS: AC/Flamer
IS: AC/Flamer/Chim (for SWS)
IS: AC/Flamer/Chim (for SWS)
SWS: 3 Melta
SWS: 3 Melta
2x Vet Squad: 3 Plas/Chim
2x Vendetta
1x LRBT
2x Griffons

Thats 70+ troops, 8 scoring units, 9 AV12, 1 AV14 and so much Ordnance/AP3/AP2/AP1 firepower that I feel comfortable enough dealing with most anything across the table.

I'm having a hard time picking an ally that would really help my weakness because I'm having a hard time thinking about what we have a hard time dealing with. Most things I can take care of with proper deployment, movement and average shooting.

What do you guys think IG's biggest weakness is (in a list similar to mine) and what ally would be best to take to help out with that weakness/why?

I would dump the flamers for plasma guns, then go with Space Wolf Allies. You can run a Rune Priest with Prescience to give your blob twin-linked. Think about that with Overwatch... He also adds ATSKNF. A sneaky trick is to also take a Wolf Priest, who gives them Fearless. Nasty. SW can take two HW for each force org slot. You can then add a couple of Grey Hunter packs to give your troops a bit more oomph for moving across the board and taking objectives.

Other than that, I could make some suggestions for your IG list, but you didn't ask for those.

I feel like IG suffer for strong characters, melee, and saves, meaning any flavor power armored force would work... Some better than others, but that's plenty (when including SoB, GK, SM, CSM, and chapters) to pick one you like the most.

SW are generally considered the best for pure power b/c of the already mentioned combo (plus SW are good already).

I was running "Imperial Wolves" (Guard with Space wolf allies) found it to be fun, 2 Librarians (1 with gunline 1 with jetpack DS with Stormtroopers) and 2 grey hunter squads.
if you do this make sure to use LL and Jaws on your second priest (tears Necrons and slow CSM apart pretty good)
I ran with a squadroned Basilisk unit and Prescienced them, worked pretty well for "out of range stuff"

enjoyed it but ran into roadblocks against higher toughness lists (it was really fun though, regular Space Marines dissappeared)

Now i am running with Coteaz and 2 units of GK henchmen
Coteaz manning the quad gun along with bolter bots and storm bolter acolytes works wonders.

i also ran with Blood Angels (Blood guard) and that was enjoyable as well. (outflanking Baal along with Death Company unit for behind enemy lines shenanigans)

I have my IG supporting each of my SM armies, so I have a wide choice of allies. Main ones though are my DA for support in the gunline as well as a combat element or GK for combat.

To be completely honest, almost every time I've taken allies with my guard, I've thought "man, I should've just taken more guard stuff."

I know that allies can add certain things to our army, but most of the time, I just feel like we're better off just spending those points towards things already in our codex. For example, most of the time I don't NEED a close combat deathstar unit if I play right and use target priority.

Guard make great allies though, but I'm not exactly sure if they need allies themselves. Unless you're trying to go for insanely broken combos like GK/IG, SW/IG, or Necron/IG, you might be able to come up with something, but for the average gamer in all but the most cut throat of enviornments, I'd rather just have more guardsmen and tanks.

As a guy at my store elegantly put it, "Why would I try to ally in pyskers when I can just have my Leman Russ cast battlecannon every turn?"

 MrMoustaffa wrote:


As a guy at my store elegantly put it, "Why would I try to ally in pyskers when I can just have my Leman Russ cast battlecannon every turn?"

Nah, you've got it wrong. It's

"I already have physic powers, they're called orders. "

 kestril wrote:

 MrMoustaffa wrote:


As a guy at my store elegantly put it, "Why would I try to ally in pyskers when I can just have my Leman Russ cast battlecannon every turn?"

Nah, you've got it wrong. It's

"I already have physic powers, they're called orders. "

and they cannot be countered

NOBODY DENIES FIRST RANK FIRE SECOND RANK FIRE!!! *laughs evilly*

But yeah, in all seriousness, other than a close combat death star, what do you REALLY need in your IG army that our codex itself can't provide for you?

Cheap infantry? Got that. Hell, we can have endlessly respawning waves of conscripts that literally cannot be shut down. We can take more infantry than even orks or nids if you're really deadset on doing so.

Want some tanks? How many? We can fill the board in as many tanks as we feel like. Heck, our DEDICATED TRANSPORT is essentially a light tank, and turns into a literal pillbox on treads when you throw vets in it.

Need a flyer? We have the most undercosted flying tank in the game. You may as well bolt wings to a leman russ, because that's what a vendetta is compared to other flyers.

Need blasts? Son, we got so many pie plates you'd think we're crazy. And we got all kinds. Plasma templates, battlecannon templates, demolisher templates, Manticore templates (1d3 S10 large blasts PER VOLLEY) and even Deathstrike templates, where we essentially go "hey, we miss apocalypse, so we figured we'd bring it with us to a normal game"

Need melta/plasma? We can bring more than any other army in the game. And we can stuff them in metal boxes or paradrop them into your deployment via vendettas or stormtroopers rerolling deepstrike.

Need a hitman? We have the best one in the game, who is literally Rambo in 40k, and never scatters.

I can keep this up all day.

What I'm trying to get at is that IG can do just fine on it's own I feel. Unless you really really want to use some sort of unit for fluff reasons, I don't see how the IG codex can't handle that role/threat on its own. I mean, I use ork allies all the time, but that's only because I want to get my orks on the table when someone asks for larger games. I don't bring them because they make my IG list scary. I can make a far meaner IG list without them to be honest.

 MrMoustaffa wrote:
I mean, I use ork allies all the time, but that's only because I want to get my orks on the table when someone asks for larger games. I don't bring them because they make my IG list scary. I can make a far meaner IG list without them to be honest.

Orkz are more fun than any other army. It is well known that playing a losing ork force is more fun that a winning IG force so including them is an obvious choice.

 Exergy wrote:

 MrMoustaffa wrote:
I mean, I use ork allies all the time, but that's only because I want to get my orks on the table when someone asks for larger games. I don't bring them because they make my IG list scary. I can make a far meaner IG list without them to be honest.

Orkz are more fun than any other army. It is well known that playing a losing ork force is more fun that a winning IG force so including them is an obvious choice.

Exactly! I only bring the guardsmen so the ladz can learn how it's done from the boyz. Plus, gets em motivated to stick around and fight.

My guardsmen never run away from a fight now that they've started fighting alongside orks

The two major weaknesses of the IG are cost efficient CC units and tough troop choices that can hold objectives.

Allies can neatly fill those roles provided that they are reasonably cost efficient.

I like running a Rune Priest with codex powers like Living lightning. Put him in a blob squad with auto cannons and your looking at a ton of STR 7 attacks.

Or give him prescience and let him make your favorite LR or Manticore twin linked.

Grey Hunters can fill the same role Vets in chimeras can except they are rock solid CC units and more survivable.

Yea Ive thought of blood angel allies for the close combat jump fluff but i just cant figure out what to put in to fill that roll. anytime i do i just think man i shoulda taken more guard because we can have massed numbers of troops and planes and tanks and just craziness if we stick with our codex. Im still gunna keep blood angels in mind and try to find a good list to throw in with the guard.