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I'm interested in starting a dkok style guard army, but want to field as small as number of units as possible. Lol. So, I ask how expensive can I, by dishing out upgrades, make a guardsman?

By maxing out stormtroopers, and fielding lots of carapace vets, you can get each guardsman to 10-15ish points, plus special weapons.

You're still looking at 100+ guys non-mechanized though. IG can't really do the whole 'small elite commandos' thing. It's sorta contradictory to thier M-O (except elysians). Spess marines they arent.

 Urien_Rakarth wrote:
I'm interested in starting a dkok style guard army, but want to field as small as number of units as possible. Lol. So, I ask how expensive can I, by dishing out upgrades, make a guardsman?

This idea is doomed to fail.

Guard are supposed to be fielded en masse, and cheap.

Yeah, bloating your guard army is a quick way to a horrible defeat. If you want to field the fewest models possible, take a mech guard army and fill it with russes.

A normal guard army would look like

lord commissar - upgrades
vets - melta/las, chimera
vets - melta/las, chimera
vets - melta/las, chimera

2x russes of some sort
2x russes of some sort
2x russes of some sort

That's a list with only 31 infantry models and 9 vehicles for 1850 points. That's as close to proper low-model-count guard as you can get without becoming absurdly non-competitive.

Are you planning to field FW units? If so you can blow the majority of your points on artillery.

BTW does anybody know if the DKoK pdf army list is still valid or how much did it change from the rules in IA1e2?

I hear ya on the small number of units; the DKoK models are pretty(see REALLY) expensive. I think Ailros has it on the nose, field a mechanized DKoK army as the regular LRBT works fine for a DKoK army. The other options; aka Heavy Artillery are super expensive if you go with the FW model.

 Urien_Rakarth wrote:
I'm interested in starting a dkok style guard army, but want to field as small as number of units as possible. Lol. So, I ask how expensive can I, by dishing out upgrades, make a guardsman?

>Hey guys, I want to make an IG army using as few models as possible
>IG army
>Few units as possible

...

Hi, I can see you're new to the Imperial Guard

Ok, serious time now. IG is really hard to make useable if you're wanting to try and bloat unit costs to keep the model count down. It's just not how our army was designed to work. We win by quantity over quality. Even our "elite" lists win by the fact that we can still bring more of our "elite troops" than most armies can take of their scrubs.

You can either make the army light on infantry, and heavy on tanks, or heavy on tanks and light on infantry. No matter where you save money, it adds back up somewhere else.

As for the original question of how expensive you can make a single guardsman, The most expensive guardsman, amongst rank and file, would be a vet with all 3 doctrines, and a plasma gun. He would 31 pts, by the time all upgrades are taken into account. He would also have a plasma gun, meltabombs, carapace armor, camo cloaks, defensive grenades, and potentially a demo charge if you were feeling stupid. A Lord commissar is the most expensive single model, who can get up to a 100-120pts range if you really kitted him out with carapace, Power fist, Power sword, meltabombs, and a camocloak. Both instances are really bad ideas though, since after all, they're only guardsmen.

EDIT: Found another one. Single most expensive non officer/IC model. CCS Medic (sadly not surprised). 49pts for one guardsman. That's with krak grenades, camo cloaks, and carapace armor.

MrMoustaffa wrote:You can either make the army light on infantry, and heavy on tanks, or heavy on tanks and light on infantry.

... I see what you did there.

MrMoustaffa wrote: A Lord commissar is the most expensive single model, who can get up to a 100-120pts range if you really kitted him out with carapace, Power fist, Power sword, meltabombs, and a camocloak. Both instances are really bad ideas though, since after all, they're only guardsmen.

Alas, it's nothing compared to 4th ed guard...

 Ailaros wrote:

MrMoustaffa wrote:You can either make the army light on infantry, and heavy on tanks, or heavy on tanks and light on infantry.

... I see what you did there.

To be fair, that was completely unintentional

But to be perfectly honest, if you're trying to make a "cheap" IG army, you should take one look at Foot IG, and then run the hell away as fast as possible

Ok :(
Is there a different codex I could easily use?

another codex to be ig? i dont think so.... if you want ig nothing is really going to be a substitute for it..... and that is really the question.. do you want the army or just like the way the models look

 Urien_Rakarth wrote:
Ok :(
Is there a different codex I could easily use?

Hey if you love the idea of IG, don't let us discourage you. We just didn't want to say "oh yeah IG is dirt cheap" only for you to find out $300 later that it isn't. There's a reason you see so many IG players. It's a strong, flexible, and very fun to use codex, that can be adapted to almost any situation. It requires commitment to make a really good army with them, but you could always use them as an ally force while you build them up over time.

If you really love the idea of IG, save up and buy it in small increments. A well made IG army is awesome on the table, both in looks and strengthwise, so if you really want to get in, an IG army is as good of one to pick as any.

Plus, if you pick DKoK, those models are friggin gorgeous. If I had the cash I'd get them too.

I suggest using third party models, or buying off ebay to play IG cheaply.

 Ailaros wrote:

MrMoustaffa wrote:You can either make the army light on infantry, and heavy on tanks, or heavy on tanks and light on infantry.

... I see what you did there.

MrMoustaffa wrote: A Lord commissar is the most expensive single model, who can get up to a 100-120pts range if you really kitted him out with carapace, Power fist, Power sword, meltabombs, and a camocloak. Both instances are really bad ideas though, since after all, they're only guardsmen.

Alas, it's nothing compared to 4th ed guard...

That JPG makes this IG vet proud

Blackhoof wrote:
I suggest using third party models

I wouldn't.

That is, if you want the freedom to play in all gaming stores, restriction-free.

OK... The thing was I was really hoping to have a cool looking DKoK style army. TBH Money isn't much of an issue because, well, I've got so much time. What is a poblem is me. I paint soooooo slowly, which means I'd never get an army of more than 50 models or so painted in a reasonable time. (My Dark Eldar are still mostly in boxes after over a year!)

 Urien_Rakarth wrote:
OK... The thing was I was really hoping to have a cool looking DKoK style army. TBH Money isn't much of an issue because, well, I've got so much time. What is a poblem is me. I paint soooooo slowly, which means I'd never get an army of more than 50 models or so painted in a reasonable time. (My Dark Eldar are still mostly in boxes after over a year!)

Good, that gives you an excuse to save up money and build your army slowly. "But Joe, why aren't you buying more DKoK?" "I gotta paint the squad I bought first genius" Buy a squad, paint em up, get em on the table, and choose another one to get.

I did the opposite. Bought a gigantic chunk of models and never painted them. I'm now staring at a table with over 50 infantry models on it, all needing to be painted, and dreading it. I regret it every time I look at them.

Don't make the mistake I made.

 Urien_Rakarth wrote:
OK... The thing was I was really hoping to have a cool looking DKoK style army. TBH Money isn't much of an issue because, well, I've got so much time. What is a poblem is me. I paint soooooo slowly, which means I'd never get an army of more than 50 models or so painted in a reasonable time. (My Dark Eldar are still mostly in boxes after over a year!)

Your only hope is to just make a small army, 500-1000 points. The unfortunate truth is that IG are an army composed of extremely cheap and efficient units. Even our elite units (plasma vets, for example) just bring a ton of firepower for a small point cost. It's great for winning games, but it means that no matter how you do it you're going to have to have a lot of models in your army. The best you can do is take a list of veterans in Vendettas and Chimeras and then fill the rest of the list with tanks. But even then you're talking about 40-50+ infantry models in a 1500 point list.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 MrMoustaffa wrote:
Good, that gives you an excuse to save up money and build your army slowly. "But Joe, why aren't you buying more DKoK?" "I gotta paint the squad I bought first genius" Buy a squad, paint em up, get em on the table, and choose another one to get.

That's harder to do with FW stuff. The only way to avoid paying 15% shipping is to spend ~$400 and qualify for free express shipping, which means that the best way to get an army involves making large single purchases instead of a unit here and there.

Ok, thanks. I think I could just about handle 40 or so models.

NNote to self: Stop dreaming and paint what is on your desk at the minute!