Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Hi, I'm a reasonably experienced guard player, played a mech/gun line hybrid in 5th, but it seems a lot has changed since 5th edition and I want to go full gunline for 6th, so a couple questions

First, if I am running infantry heavy weapons, which ones and do I put them in infantry squads or heavy weapon squads?
Second, russes, yes? no? If yes which ones? (I have access to vanquishers, LRBTs and executioners)
Third, is the manticore any good anymore?

Finally, any general comments on gun line guard

thanks

EmilCrane wrote:First, if I am running infantry heavy weapons, which ones and do I put them in infantry squads or heavy weapon squads?

Lascannons. Everything else is a pea shooter.

A reduction in Ap2 has made terminators more popular, while the addition of HP has made players start taking heavier armor. They also added fliers which are tough to hit, so every hit has to count. Plus, they also hurt horde armies, so you don't have to deal with them as much, and those you do are easier to handle without dedicated heavy weapons now.

EmilCrane wrote:Second, russes, yes? no? If yes which ones? (I have access to vanquishers, LRBTs and executioners)

Yes. Russes are heavy now, which means that they can fire all their hull weapons even when on the move. This means that russes are the newer, better, HWSs.

For the price of an autocannon HWS and a lascannon HWS, you can afford an exterminator with a hull lascannon and sponson multimeltas. They put out the same damage for the same price, but a russ comes with AV14 rather than being blown away like a fart on the wind, and can no longer be stun-locked.

Just avoid the ones with ordnance weapons now. And the executioner is still too expensive for what it does.

EmilCrane wrote:Third, is the manticore any good anymore?

Yes and no. It lost big when it became half as likely to wreck vehicles outright, and they got a little more fragile with HP themselves. Also, as mentioned, they're going to have fewer proper hordes to shoot against.

They can now strip HP, though, and en masse against parking lots. Unless you only want a little bit of heavy support, I think I'd overlook them in favor of regular artillery, though.

EmilCrane wrote:Finally, any general comments on gun line guard

They're really boring to play against, and not very tactically challenging. If you like playing yahtzee with colorful miniatures, then go ahead, but otherwise...

 Ailaros wrote:

EmilCrane wrote:Finally, any general comments on gun line guard

They're really boring to play against, and not very tactically challenging. If you like playing yahtzee with colorful miniatures, then go ahead, but otherwise...

Is there any way to make them more interesting? I don't want to be the guy no one plays anymore, then again that foot veteran horde you run in some of your batreps looks interesting

< Taken by the void dragon. >

 Ailaros wrote:

EmilCrane wrote:First, if I am running infantry heavy weapons, which ones and do I put them in infantry squads or heavy weapon squads?

Lascannons. Everything else is a pea shooter.

Pea shooters are nice, especially if they shoot twice. Thats why I take Platoons with Autocanon + GL Infantry Squads. Flamers for the PCS to counter people that come near.
If you want LasCans put them in BF4 CCS/Vets or take Vendettas.

EmilCrane wrote:Second, russes, yes? no? If yes which ones? (I have access to vanquishers, LRBTs and executioners)

The Executioner you should wield with 3 extra HBs. A 150pt LRBT is valid because it is cheap although you can argue there are better ones out there.

EmilCrane wrote:Finally, any general comments on gun line guard

If you find gunline too boring to play with and your buddys don't want to play against you anymore spice it up with a small flanking Al'Rahem platoon together with some scout sentinels and (special weapon flamer) squads in flyers.
It is not effective but makes your opponents hate you less.

If you want to experiment, do it! Sounds like you want to make a fun list to play friends with, so who cares if you win or lose? Use it to test out concepts and go off the wall with it.

But if your looking for a more Tourney level list, Allies can be the spice to jazz up your list to make it competitive and different... maybe.

Right now the hot thing to do is put a Marine Libby or named character in Terminator armor in a blob squad. These guys give your squad ATSKNF. Some lists can have solo Elite choices (Techmarines, Sang Priests, ect) as well to do it to a second blob. Just make sure you skip the Commissars!

But yeah, I can really see a ADL with Camo Cloak and Caripice wearing CCS and Vets with plasma and LCs being interesting and competitive. Take a few Vendettas and some suicide Elites, maybe even a MoO or two for a CCS or two (though a Primus Psyker might be neat) and go to town.

Most of the time I want to play games, have a bit of fun, but also feel like I did well and aren't bringing a pop gun to a firefight (we have some very good players at club, guys who can stomp super competitive lists with friendly armies)

However tonight at club one of the players (who is normally a nice guy, great to have around) was bragging about he has never lost a game with his eldar and said the imperial guard suck. I said we'd have a 1500 pt game next week, the honor of the guard is at stake here

Cyberian wrote:

 Ailaros wrote:

EmilCrane wrote:First, if I am running infantry heavy weapons, which ones and do I put them in infantry squads or heavy weapon squads?

Lascannons. Everything else is a pea shooter.

Pea shooters are nice, especially if they shoot twice. Thats why I take Platoons with Autocanon + GL Infantry Squads. Flamers for the PCS to counter people that come near.
If you want LasCans put them in BF4 CCS/Vets or take Vendettas.

EmilCrane wrote:Second, russes, yes? no? If yes which ones? (I have access to vanquishers, LRBTs and executioners)

The Executioner you should wield with 3 extra HBs. A 150pt LRBT is valid because it is cheap although you can argue there are better ones out there.

EmilCrane wrote:Finally, any general comments on gun line guard

If you find gunline too boring to play with and your buddys don't want to play against you anymore spice it up with a small flanking Al'Rahem platoon together with some scout sentinels and (special weapon flamer) squads in flyers.
It is not effective but makes your opponents hate you less.

What in the actual feth?

Autocannon + GL isn't great, at best it's mediocre. Flamers on the PCS though are great. Lascannons can go on BS4 Vets, CCSs, Vendettas, AND PIS! Even more lascannons!

Don't ever put 3 HBs on the Executioner. No AP synergy, no STR synergy, not really even the same targeting profile at all. Executioners are plasma cannon sponsons or go home.

Yeah, pretty much ignore GL's they are worse then useless. Autocannons are great if you are facing AV10 Spam, not so much everything else. However since you are facing Eldar, you might want to take them since Wave Serpents have a special rule that all str 9 or 10 is reduced to str 8 so it may be better to take autocannons. What do you guys think?

Also I love Al'raheim. Which means my friends hate him. There is nothing quite like 50+ Guardsmen walking on the sides, and its even better in Hammer and Anvil. However this is a list built around Al'raheim, so you can't do it halfway.

 EmilCrane wrote:
Most of the time I want to play games, have a bit of fun, but also feel like I did well and aren't bringing a pop gun to a firefight (we have some very good players at club, guys who can stomp super competitive lists with friendly armies)

However tonight at club one of the players (who is normally a nice guy, great to have around) was bragging about he has never lost a game with his eldar and said the imperial guard suck. I said we'd have a 1500 pt game next week, the honor of the guard is at stake here

You already know he's playing Eldar. This should be an easy win for you, since the guard are awesome at high strength low AP firepower. I'd bring a Punisher with HBs and Pask (he's easy enough to proxy with just a normal tank commander), and a couple of Exterminators. You also won't need AP2 so don't waste points on lascannons (bring auto cannons instead), and I would think carefully about how many plasma guns you take. Other than that I mainly play mech guard so I don't really know how platoon guard works.

Just depends on they type of list. Wraithlords, Harliquinns, Eldrad, and a second Farseer or Avatar with maybe Wraithguard would walk through a Punisher no problem. Suddenly all of your Str 7 stuff vs T 8 Wraithlords fails pretty quick.

This list I'm planning looks something like this

HQ
Company Command Squad- 3x Sniper rifles, Banner, Master of Ordnance

Elites
Storm Troopers- 10x with two plasma guns

Troops
Infantry Platoon
Command Squad- 4x flamers
Infantry Squad- Lascannon, Meltagun
Infantry Squad- Lascannon, Meltagun
Infantry Squad- Lascannon, Meltagun

Infantry Platoon
Command Squad- 2x flamers
Infantry Squad- Autocannon, Meltagun
Infantry Squad- Autocannon, Meltagun
Infantry Squad- Autocannon, Meltagun
Heavy Weapons Squad- Autocannons

Heavy Support
Leman Russ Vanquisher- Pask, lascannon
Leman Russ Vanquisher- lascannon
Manticore

Some of the choices are kind of odd, but thats the models I own, so I want to use them, the storm troopers I kit bashed from guardsmen, they look cool so I'll use them regardless of effectiveness

 Unit1126PLL wrote:


What in the actual feth?

Autocannon + GL isn't great, at best it's mediocre. Flamers on the PCS though are great. Lascannons can go on BS4 Vets, CCSs, Vendettas, AND PIS! Even more lascannons!

Don't ever put 3 HBs on the Executioner. No AP synergy, no STR synergy, not really even the same targeting profile at all. Executioners are plasma cannon sponsons or go home.

I understand why you are saying this and your arguments are valid of course.

My experience and reasons for what I said was though:
@Autocannon + GL: SHow me something better. I want my platoons to be cheap and shooty at range. That excludes melter, plasma, lascannon and flamethrower for Infantry Squads.
An Infanterie Squad with LasCan + Plasma is 30% more expensive than Autocannon + GL. Is it 30% better? If not I'll stick with AC + GL.
I don't shoot at alot of vehicles with my regular platoons. For that I got better units. AC+GL wound nice for heavy Infantry or other T5 stuff and kill the occasional Rhino if anybody still brings them.

@Exterminator:
Infantry and Horde is the main target because it is the main threat in 6th. There's no point in sharing AP 4 synergy. It will be shooting Infantry at 36" what it is OK at with the option of an occasional light vehicle or flyer. I won't defend the Exterminator because there's better HS choices but I think this is OK for Anti-Inf and T5+ targets role.

Cyberian wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:


What in the actual feth?

Autocannon + GL isn't great, at best it's mediocre. Flamers on the PCS though are great. Lascannons can go on BS4 Vets, CCSs, Vendettas, AND PIS! Even more lascannons!

Don't ever put 3 HBs on the Executioner. No AP synergy, no STR synergy, not really even the same targeting profile at all. Executioners are plasma cannon sponsons or go home.

I understand why you are saying this and your arguments are valid of course.

My experience and reasons for what I said was though:
@Autocannon + GL: SHow me something better. I want my platoons to be cheap and shooty at range. That excludes melter, plasma, lascannon and flamethrower for Infantry Squads.
An Infanterie Squad with LasCan + Plasma is 30% more expensive than Autocannon + GL. Is it 30% better? If not I'll stick with AC + GL.
I don't shoot at alot of vehicles with my regular platoons. For that I got better units. AC+GL wound nice for heavy Infantry or other T5 stuff and kill the occasional Rhino if anybody still brings them.

A single lascannon, which makes your squads only 5 points more expensive then they are now, will do much better than a squad with a GL and an Autocannon, provided orders are taken into account. Making this simple change to a list with six infantry squads costs a whopping... 30 more points.

AC + GL wound nicely for heavy infantry, kind of. If you fire 1 Lascannon at, say, a squad of Paladins or something, you have a relatively high chance of killing one outright. If you fire both an autocannon and grenade launcher at them, then you've done feth all and only saved 5 points. The same is true of most vehicles that aren't AV10 or have some special rule.

Cyberian wrote:

@Exterminator:
Infantry and Horde is the main target because it is the main threat in 6th. There's no point in sharing AP 4 synergy. It will be shooting Infantry at 36" what it is OK at with the option of an occasional light vehicle or flyer. I won't defend the Exterminator because there's better HS choices but I think this is OK for Anti-Inf and T5+ targets role.

I thought you said executioner. My bad. Plasma synergizes well with, well, plasma.

 EmilCrane wrote:
This list I'm planning looks something like this

HQ
Company Command Squad- 3x Sniper rifles, Banner, Master of Ordnance

Elites
Storm Troopers- 10x with two plasma guns

Troops
Infantry Platoon
Command Squad- 4x flamers
Infantry Squad- Lascannon, Meltagun
Infantry Squad- Lascannon, Meltagun
Infantry Squad- Lascannon, Meltagun

Infantry Platoon
Command Squad- 2x flamers
Infantry Squad- Autocannon, Meltagun
Infantry Squad- Autocannon, Meltagun
Infantry Squad- Autocannon, Meltagun
Heavy Weapons Squad- Autocannons

Heavy Support
Leman Russ Vanquisher- Pask, lascannon
Leman Russ Vanquisher- lascannon
Manticore

Some of the choices are kind of odd, but thats the models I own, so I want to use them, the storm troopers I kit bashed from guardsmen, they look cool so I'll use them regardless of effectiveness

Something about putting meltas in squads with lascannon just never makes sense to me. Having long range and short range weapons in the same squad seems to be a waste of points. Try putting the meltas in SWS instead. Would be able to move them about to possibly counter any deepstriking units plus would free up just a few more points as well. Then again YMMV. Though I do admit that a defense line might be in order.

EmilCrane wrote:Is there any way to make them more interesting?

Get some sort of a mobile element in there. Al'rahem, or mechvets, or stormtroopers, or something. Also, close combat is cool as well.

Of course, getting guardsmen upfield is still a pretty tricky problem for your regular guard ground pounder.

BryllCream wrote:You already know he's playing Eldar. This should be an easy win for you, since the guard are awesome at high strength low AP firepower. I'd bring a Punisher with HBs and Pask (he's easy enough to proxy with just a normal tank commander), and a couple of Exterminators.

Right, or just cut to the chase and take hydras. Pretty much the only thing in the codex that isn't vulnerable to them is striking scorpions.

I also agree on pask. The wave serpent shielding may be annoying, but pask doesn't give +1S, he gives +1 to the die roll, which means that lascannons still fire at full strength, and vanquisher cannons and multimeltas still fire at +1 as well. I'd imagine a pask exterminator would do some pretty hideous things to an eldar army.

 Ailaros wrote:

Right, or just cut to the chase and take hydras. Pretty much the only thing in the codex that isn't vulnerable to them is striking scorpions.

I dunno, hitting the jetbikes on 6s is pretty trashy. I have no clue why the hydra wasn't FAQ'd to have interceptor. However against everything else the hydra will certainly dish out some damage.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

I thought you said executioner. My bad. Plasma synergizes well with, well, plasma.

Actually it was my fault because I did the first mixup between those two and then you the second.

@Lascannons
Maybe it is worth a try. I will get some more Lascannons into the mix. Against Orks and DE I'll keep my AC+GL. Do you have a special weapon in your Lascan squads?

Cyberian wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

I thought you said executioner. My bad. Plasma synergizes well with, well, plasma.

Actually it was my fault because I did the first mixup between those two and then you the second.

@Lascannons
Maybe it is worth a try. I will get some more Lascannons into the mix. Against Orks and DE I'll keep my AC+GL. Do you have a special weapon in your Lascan squads?

I don't touch GLs with a barge pole. My special weapon is melta 60% of the time, and plasma the other 40%. If I'm spending points on something, my only stipulation is that it is indeed good at a job. Whatever that job may be. Unfortunately GLs aren't good at anything, whereas melta can prevent vehicles from getting too close, knock off wounds from MCs and hurt MEQ. Pretty much the same with plasma, except less vehicular damage and more MC and MEQ killing.


Against orks I'd still keep those LCs, there are a lot of tough units they can bring, and it's not like ACs work against green tide anyway.

Griddlelol wrote:I dunno, hitting the jetbikes on 6s is pretty trashy.

No, but jetbikes are...

...

... not fliers.

*sigh*


Fliers, skimmers AND JETBIKES. AND JETBIKES, damn you!

 Ailaros wrote:

Griddlelol wrote:I dunno, hitting the jetbikes on 6s is pretty trashy.

No, but jetbikes are...

...

... not fliers.

*sigh*


Fliers, skimmers AND JETBIKES. AND JETBIKES, damn you!

lol I scrambled for my codex when I read your post thinking "WHAT?! HOW DID I MISS THAT?!"

Well, they still don't get their jink save... once you've hit them...

 Ailaros wrote:
Well, they still don't get their jink save... once you've hit them...

Indeed...once you've hit them. Still, against skimmers and fliers (DE) the hydra will make its mark. I'm waiting for a plastic kit and the new guard codex (which will update them to interceptor or I'll be angry) before I get any.

I suppose they wouldn't be too hard to covert, but hey, time is money.

Yeah.

And they are still one of the better weapons in the guard codex against AV12 shielded skimmers. Plus, even without interceptor, it's not like they're all that terrible against warwalkers either.

In fact, eldar is probably the one army that it's not so required that you bring lascannons and meltaguns against. Not that they aren't useful, though. They'll still wreck the hell out of eldar vehicles, even if they get -1 S against the serpents.

I have quite literally no experience against eldar. There were a couple of DE players in my local scene, but I've not played against an Eldar opponent since 1999-ish. For some reason they're not popular.

They're basically an entire army made up of guard special weapons squad (with better BS), and chimeras that are skimmers that reduce the strength of stuff down to 8.

Just don't rely on blast or ordnance weapons, and a guard player should do fine, gunline or no.

 Griddlelol wrote:
I have quite literally no experience against eldar. There were a couple of DE players in my local scene, but I've not played against an Eldar opponent since 1999-ish. For some reason they're not popular.

Eldar are tricky to play... not as bad as they were in 5th, but tricky enough.

You will not see alot of Mech Eldar anymore because 90% of the upgrades are now worthless to get. Thier vehicles are worse because of this. Foot Eldar are alot more common.

The thing is, they are not a hoard army. They are a shooty army that needs to get within 24" for base weapons, but have a ton of 36-40" Str 6 weapons because they are the master of Str 6 weapons, which is instant death to Guard.

They have maybe the best Psykers in the game and are Psyker heavy. Thier base Psyker powers are pretty good (yet) and they have access to good 'schools', Divination being the best IMO. Since IG have /nothing/ for Psykers, Allie with a Marine Libby is a popular choice. Space Wolf with Jaws of the World Wolf, or whatever the heck it is called is popular.

Their special troops tend to have better armor than IG troops, as there are a few at 3+ range. But thier base troop (Guardians) have 5+ armor. They really have nothing at 2+ except for the rare HQ special character. They are also not about Invuln either, but cover saves. Expect HQ to have 4++ and anything else with Invuln to be 5++. But they can get cover saves pretty easily and pretty low. They have psykic powers that allow an entire unit to re-roll failed saves, which makes them tough to kill.

They also allmost all have Init 5+, so if you get in CC with Eldar just expect to be striking last. The only good thing is Eldar are rare to have PF and AP 1-2 CC weapons. THey have to do things like take power axes which kills thier best CC feature (high Init). Combine that with low Str, and they can have issues in CC with things like Assault Marines, much less Terminators who don't care what Init their opponet is going at due to the Fists. IG blob squad with power swords could be effective as the Eldar just do not have the numbers to kill 20-30+ guys and can't take the hits back.

Plasma and ACs, and even MLs and HBs can be super effective against Eldar, specially on foot. They do have T 8 Wraithlords (think Dreads that act like MCs) that if they get into CC with you, you will have /nothing/ but meltabombs that will hurt it, so make sure you take them.

Eldar really have no real answer for Vendettas/Valks and no flyers of thier own, just Allies. Use this advantage.

Unless you come across an Eldar player who uses IA, in which case Nightwings become a serious issue. For Eldar, you need to dump a bucket and a half of wounds on them to knock them down, which means AC > LC. Personally, I run Harlequins and they have a 2+ rerollable cover. Flamers make me cry hard, so stock up on those too.