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Some of you may know me and some of you may not. Either way I have taken my imperial guard to just about every major GT/Ardboyz since the beginning of 2011. They have served me well.

Ard Boyz Prelim Champ
Ard Boyz Regional Champ
Indy Open Runner-up Best General 5th Overall '12
Final 16 40k Champs tournament Adepticon "12
4th Best General Midwest Massacre "12
Feast of Blades 2nd Tier bracket(missed top bracket by mere points) "12

Now here at the start of the 2013 GT season I am finding myself unable to build what I think is the best TAC list I can field. There are just armies out there now that can just get the job done better and/or cheaper. 6th edition has taken a serious toll on imperial guard. With having to be out of transports to score objectives, new wound allocation, 50% chance of night fighting, no more alpha strike demo vets, and with allies the variety of armies is almost impossible to plan for. So I quite literally find myself thinking of retiring my Imperial Guard army for the time being. With my Necron army able to take 90pt firing platforms and 100 point flyers that can place my troops after moving up to 36" it is hard not to take them as my new primary army and supplement them with allies rather then rely on my Imperial Guard to continue to weather the ever changing storm.

Don't get me wrong IG are still very competitive and I could probably take them far in a tournament/GT environment. However, with missions like crusader and relic those are pretty much auto draws at best unless my opponent has a clear lack of tactics. Even with allies it is easy to identify what can make it to those objectives and what cant. The days of gunline armies are fading in turn for faster moving shock armies such as FMC based armies, Beast spam DE, Daemons, Heldrake spam, or even wraith spam. What are your alls thoughts on this new meta where guard IMHO find themselves slipping from the top tier armies. Sure vendetta's are great and we still have some awesome heavy support choices but those dont exactly win missions for us beyond kill points.

There are plenty of competitive guard builds. If you want a "Top Tier" codex, whatever that means, then go necrons. Then when they fall out of "Top Tier", go for the next "Top Tier" army until they too drop out of "Top Tier".

I still think IG are in the Top Tier of competitive armies, but it is hard not ignore how strong Necrons are currently. The only advice I can give is to wait for the flyer update that is being released in two days and consider what changes (if any) are made as both the Vendettas and Croissants are supposedly getting an update.

IG seem to have hit hard times in 6th edition. Despite what a lot of posters are writing, I have not seen any great tournament results for IG lately.

I too have been pretty desperate in trying to get a solid IG list onto the table. There are a lot of options that are good, but overall not good enough to go far in a tournament environment.

Most recently, I have toyed around with 200 bodies at 1850, or 14 tanks, or 4xAV14 (3 LR + allied Land Raider) at the same points level. IG may have to go to new extremes to be successful. Considering the current meta, there may be a niche for IG where the hard counters are rarely ever seen at tournaments. The classic 5th edition Mech IG list is dead for good.

Aleinikov wrote:IG seem to have hit hard times in 6th edition. Despite what a lot of posters are writing, I have not seen any great tournament results for IG lately.

I too have been pretty desperate in trying to get a solid IG list onto the table. There are a lot of options that are good, but overall not good enough to go far in a tournament environment.

Most recently, I have toyed around with 200 bodies at 1850, or 14 tanks, or 4xAV14 (3 LR + allied Land Raider) at the same points level. IG may have to go to new extremes to be successful. Considering the current meta, there may be a niche for IG where the hard counters are rarely ever seen at tournaments. The classic 5th edition Mech IG list is dead for good.

I agree fully the standard list for 5th is definitely dead. Running 14 tanks at 1850 could be a head ache how many russes?

Brock79 wrote:I still think IG are in the Top Tier of competitive armies, but it is hard not ignore how strong Necrons are currently. The only advice I can give is to wait for the flyer update that is being released in two days and consider what changes (if any) are made as both the Vendettas and Croissants are supposedly getting an update.

Yea but if they update the vendetta it will most likely only get worse. Will be an interesting update.

TheCustomLime wrote:There are plenty of competitive guard builds. If you want a "Top Tier" codex, whatever that means, then go necrons. Then when they fall out of "Top Tier", go for the next "Top Tier" army until they too drop out of "Top Tier".

I think you missed my overall point. Not saying guard are bad necessarily. I am more or so addressing their issues to complete the rulebook missions. Having to be disembarked to score probably hurt guard more then any other army. I love my guard but I am coming to realize that they have some significant disadvantages with the current mission sets.

 Brock79 wrote:
I still think IG are in the Top Tier of competitive armies, but it is hard not ignore how strong Necrons are currently. The only advice I can give is to wait for the flyer update that is being released in two days and consider what changes (if any) are made as both the Vendettas and Croissants are supposedly getting an update.

Im hoping that bolded bit was a bit of autocorrect fail because I just LOL'd.

 Tomb King wrote:

I agree fully the standard list for 5th is definitely dead. Running 14 tanks at 1850 could be a head ache how many russes?

That's just one Executioner. The rest are Vets and CCS in Chimeras, Hydras, Griffons, and even 3 tanks from the FA slot. That kind of extreme AV12 spamming requires (almost) every tank to be really cheap. The strength of IG tanks is that you can run extreme spam as a concept, and still take a tool for every job.

Night fighting took a huge toll on guard. There's a 50% chance that you'll lose your first turn of shooting. It's insane.

Night fighting is a non-factor for Guard. If anything, it helps.

The new night fighting rules make searchlights a very useful upgrade - and Guard has a bunch of free searchlights in almost every list.

Aleinikov wrote:
Night fighting is a non-factor for Guard. If anything, it helps.

The new night fighting rules make searchlights a very useful upgrade - and Guard has a bunch of free searchlights in almost every list.

Anything >36" can't shoot. That's artillery out straight away, as well as a few Russes.

An aggressively played Chimera (or Scout Sentinel if you still field them) will let you light something up, negating that 36" cap, along with the improved cover saves. As long as your spotter has a decent cover save, and you claim First Blood in your opening volley, you should be fine.

Static lists are dead. IG are very much alive. 5th edition lists that sit there shooting and waiting till turn 4-5 to move out are going to fail. Properly building a list to incorporate infantry, tanks, and flyers is what you need. At 1850 I put 100 models on the table and 5 AV12, 1 AV14, and an allied rhino. That gives me 5-11 scoring units with the clumped units being extremely resilient. IG are far from a lackluster codex.

 Tomb King wrote:

TheCustomLime wrote:There are plenty of competitive guard builds. If you want a "Top Tier" codex, whatever that means, then go necrons. Then when they fall out of "Top Tier", go for the next "Top Tier" army until they too drop out of "Top Tier".

I think you missed my overall point. Not saying guard are bad necessarily. I am more or so addressing their issues to complete the rulebook missions. Having to be disembarked to score probably hurt guard more then any other army. I love my guard but I am coming to realize that they have some significant disadvantages with the current mission sets.

Fair enough. Though, the "having to be disembarked to score" did hurt guard it didn't hurt it too much. Besides, with 6th edition's fetish for night fighting you can get somewhat of a save out in the open. Another thing to mitigate this is to block the view to your own troops though with people often putting little terrain on their table this may be harder. Have you considered footguard? With a rune priest I hear they a pretty good.

If all you want is THE strongest list, with no exceptions, then yeah, drop your guard army.

If you want an army that's strong enough to compete in a game where the resolution of the core mechanic is a six-sided die, then guard should do you well.

Being luckier, even just a little bit will make a much bigger impact on the number of games you win than tiny tweaks to list strength.

 Ailaros wrote:
If all you want is THE strongest list, with no exceptions, then yeah, drop your guard army.

If you want an army that's strong enough to compete in a game where the resolution of the core mechanic is a six-sided die, then guard should do you well.

Being luckier, even just a little bit will make a much bigger impact on the number of games you win than tiny tweaks to list strength.

If I wanted the strongest list I would be playing daemons, or grey knights. The way guard play has changed in 6th edition. They are very much a finesse army complimentary to popular belief. Vendetta's having to go into reserves and the nerf to demo vets kind of hurt my list building a good deal. I loved the sacrificial demo squad on turn 1.

As a guard player what is your solution for games like relic and crusade? I am all ears. I understand its not impossible and there are cases where you can pull it off but its definitely an up hill battle when you draw those missions. Relic in particular.

As for my list, I usually run a hybrid list of mech and guard. Usually putting down around 80 models in an 1850 list. For sisters of blades which was 2000 points I was able to bring in some sisters of battle allies that really helped supplement the army. Celestine is a bargain for 115pts. I could still win with my guard and could probably go far in a GT with them still but IMO I would be playing with a handicap if I entered a GT with 2 of 7 missions having relic as the main mission. Not necessarily that my guard cant get the job done 5 of the 7 games but those 2 would require a little bit of luck to pull off. Especially if those missions are in the later rounds of the tournament. Meaning the quality of player would most likely have improved. So when does it become okay to switch out my army or should I stick to my guns and take my army into the fight knowing full well that I will be handicapping myself along the way? I am all about fighting with unorthodox armies. Hell I lost with my tau for the first time ever the other day... naturally it was a relic mission against space wolves. I was able to shoot him off the relic and deny it from him but he got first blood because he went first and drop podded in.

I dunno maybe its more a problem with the current missions set up then an actual army. But being as those are standard. The army suffers.

 BryllCream wrote:

Aleinikov wrote:
Night fighting is a non-factor for Guard. If anything, it helps.

The new night fighting rules make searchlights a very useful upgrade - and Guard has a bunch of free searchlights in almost every list.

Anything >36" can't shoot. That's artillery out straight away, as well as a few Russes.

That's not entirely accurate.

In the old Night Fighting rules, if you couldn't "see it" (i.e., roll high enough on the dice to stop the target), you couldn't shoot it. Now, you can move 12" and Search Light ANYTHING within 36". Anything Search Lighted ignores the Night Fighting rules.

In other words, if you have anything within 48" of a Chimera at the start of the turn, it might as well not even be Night Fighting for that unit.

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:

 BryllCream wrote:

Aleinikov wrote:
Night fighting is a non-factor for Guard. If anything, it helps.

The new night fighting rules make searchlights a very useful upgrade - and Guard has a bunch of free searchlights in almost every list.

Anything >36" can't shoot. That's artillery out straight away, as well as a few Russes.

That's not entirely accurate.

In the old Night Fighting rules, if you couldn't "see it" (i.e., roll high enough on the dice to stop the target), you couldn't shoot it. Now, you can move 12" and Search Light ANYTHING within 36". Anything Search Lighted ignores the Night Fighting rules.

In other words, if you have anything within 48" of a Chimera at the start of the turn, it might as well not even be Night Fighting for that unit.

You should read the night fighting rules again. There is a restriction placed on the firing unit. Search light or no search light no unit can target something over 36" away during night fight. Unless the unit has night vision. Searchlights only remove the cover saves granted by night fighting.

 Tomb King wrote:

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:

 BryllCream wrote:

Aleinikov wrote:
Night fighting is a non-factor for Guard. If anything, it helps.

The new night fighting rules make searchlights a very useful upgrade - and Guard has a bunch of free searchlights in almost every list.

Anything >36" can't shoot. That's artillery out straight away, as well as a few Russes.

That's not entirely accurate.

In the old Night Fighting rules, if you couldn't "see it" (i.e., roll high enough on the dice to stop the target), you couldn't shoot it. Now, you can move 12" and Search Light ANYTHING within 36". Anything Search Lighted ignores the Night Fighting rules.

In other words, if you have anything within 48" of a Chimera at the start of the turn, it might as well not even be Night Fighting for that unit.

You should read the night fighting rules again. There is a restriction placed on the firing unit. Search light or no search light no unit can target something over 36" away during night fight. Unless the unit has night vision. Searchlights only remove the cover saves granted by night fighting.

BRB wrote:
Illumination lasts until the end of the following turn.
Illuminated units gain no benefit from the Night Fighting
special rule.

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:

 Tomb King wrote:

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:

 BryllCream wrote:

Aleinikov wrote:
Night fighting is a non-factor for Guard. If anything, it helps.

The new night fighting rules make searchlights a very useful upgrade - and Guard has a bunch of free searchlights in almost every list.

Anything >36" can't shoot. That's artillery out straight away, as well as a few Russes.

That's not entirely accurate.

In the old Night Fighting rules, if you couldn't "see it" (i.e., roll high enough on the dice to stop the target), you couldn't shoot it. Now, you can move 12" and Search Light ANYTHING within 36". Anything Search Lighted ignores the Night Fighting rules.

In other words, if you have anything within 48" of a Chimera at the start of the turn, it might as well not even be Night Fighting for that unit.

You should read the night fighting rules again. There is a restriction placed on the firing unit. Search light or no search light no unit can target something over 36" away during night fight. Unless the unit has night vision. Searchlights only remove the cover saves granted by night fighting.

BRB wrote:
Illumination lasts until the end of the following turn.
Illuminated units gain no benefit from the Night Fighting
special rule.

Alright and they gain no benefits. Benefits being shrouded or stealth. Night fighting states a unit cannot target an enemy over 36". Nothing in the rules takes away that restriction from the firing unit. Search lights only affect the target unit. Its dumb but its the rules and they still have yet to faq it.

 Tomb King wrote:

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:

 Tomb King wrote:

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:

 BryllCream wrote:

Aleinikov wrote:
Night fighting is a non-factor for Guard. If anything, it helps.

The new night fighting rules make searchlights a very useful upgrade - and Guard has a bunch of free searchlights in almost every list.

Anything >36" can't shoot. That's artillery out straight away, as well as a few Russes.

That's not entirely accurate.

In the old Night Fighting rules, if you couldn't "see it" (i.e., roll high enough on the dice to stop the target), you couldn't shoot it. Now, you can move 12" and Search Light ANYTHING within 36". Anything Search Lighted ignores the Night Fighting rules.

In other words, if you have anything within 48" of a Chimera at the start of the turn, it might as well not even be Night Fighting for that unit.

You should read the night fighting rules again. There is a restriction placed on the firing unit. Search light or no search light no unit can target something over 36" away during night fight. Unless the unit has night vision. Searchlights only remove the cover saves granted by night fighting.

BRB wrote:
Illumination lasts until the end of the following turn.
Illuminated units gain no benefit from the Night Fighting
special rule.

Alright and they gain no benefits. Benefits being shrouded or stealth. Night fighting states a unit cannot target an enemy over 36". Nothing in the rules takes away that restriction from the firing unit. Search lights only affect the target unit. Its dumb but its the rules and they still have yet to faq it.

If it was intended to apply to cover saves exclusively, it would say, "Illuminated units gain no cover save benefit from the Night Fighting special rule.

The rules are pretty clear on this one. A state where a unit cannot be targeted clearyl constitutes a "benefit" in the broad sense of the word. No benefit = no benefit. I've never heard of anybody playing it any other way.

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:

 BryllCream wrote:

Aleinikov wrote:
Night fighting is a non-factor for Guard. If anything, it helps.

The new night fighting rules make searchlights a very useful upgrade - and Guard has a bunch of free searchlights in almost every list.

Anything >36" can't shoot. That's artillery out straight away, as well as a few Russes.

That's not entirely accurate.

In the old Night Fighting rules, if you couldn't "see it" (i.e., roll high enough on the dice to stop the target), you couldn't shoot it. Now, you can move 12" and Search Light ANYTHING within 36". Anything Search Lighted ignores the Night Fighting rules.

In other words, if you have anything within 48" of a Chimera at the start of the turn, it might as well not even be Night Fighting for that unit.

Night fighting in 5th happened 1/3 of the time, and you had to move your units on to the board. It was pretty unlikely anything would be in range.

Now it happens in half of games, meaning assaulty armies get a free turn of protection against shooting.

IG can still win, but you're probably not going to have as much luck with pure mech IG in competitive tournaments. Necrons counter Chimeras way too effectively, and having to disembark your veterans to claim objectives is a big weakness. On the other hand IG platoon blobs are still awesome at holding objectives, and 5/6 games are won or lost based on objectives. You'll probably want to keep some veterans (though maybe in Vendettas instead of Chimeras), but consider moving to a foot + AV 14 list with objective holding blobs and as many LC Sabre guns as you can afford (say goodbye to flyerspam). That style of list will lock down your "home" objectives easily, put out a lot of firepower to cripple your opponent's army, and drop veteran squads on your opponent's side of the table to clean up and maybe hold an objective or two.

 Tomb King wrote:
Alright and they gain no benefits. Benefits being shrouded or stealth. Night fighting states a unit cannot target an enemy over 36". Nothing in the rules takes away that restriction from the firing unit. Search lights only affect the target unit. Its dumb but its the rules and they still have yet to faq it.

And the final benefit, besides stealth + shrouded, is "not being able to be targeted because you're more than 36" away". If you are seachlighted you don't get that benefit.

And in any case, this is just pointless RAW nitpicking and not relevant to the discussion.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 BryllCream wrote:
Now it happens in half of games, meaning assaulty armies get a free turn of protection against shooting.

Except they don't because of the sheer number of searchlights IG can bring. If you're focusing fire correctly you're going to have everything going at a small number of targets, and your Chimeras can easily searchlight all of them before the big guns fire. Sure, they'll get a cover save if I happen to hit with that BS 1 multilaser, but it's not like that's really going to make a difference.

If anything nightfighting helps IG almost as much as Necrons, by taking away a lot of shooting that would otherwise be wiping fragile artillery units off the table while not doing very much to hinder return fire. I don't know about you, but I love having my Medusas getting a 3+ (or even 2+) save while shooting back with no penalty.

FWIW, the Search Light conversation is now a YMDC, for anyone interested.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/507914.page#5291466

 Peregrine wrote:
IG can still win, but you're probably not going to have as much luck with pure mech IG in competitive tournaments. Necrons counter Chimeras way too effectively, and having to disembark your veterans to claim objectives is a big weakness. On the other hand IG platoon blobs are still awesome at holding objectives, and 5/6 games are won or lost based on objectives. You'll probably want to keep some veterans (though maybe in Vendettas instead of Chimeras), but consider moving to a foot + AV 14 list with objective holding blobs and as many LC Sabre guns as you can afford (say goodbye to flyerspam). That style of list will lock down your "home" objectives easily, put out a lot of firepower to cripple your opponent's army, and drop veteran squads on your opponent's side of the table to clean up and maybe hold an objective or two.

 Tomb King wrote:
Alright and they gain no benefits. Benefits being shrouded or stealth. Night fighting states a unit cannot target an enemy over 36". Nothing in the rules takes away that restriction from the firing unit. Search lights only affect the target unit. Its dumb but its the rules and they still have yet to faq it.

And the final benefit, besides stealth + shrouded, is "not being able to be targeted because you're more than 36" away". If you are seachlighted you don't get that benefit.

And in any case, this is just pointless RAW nitpicking and not relevant to the discussion.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 BryllCream wrote:
Now it happens in half of games, meaning assaulty armies get a free turn of protection against shooting.

Except they don't because of the sheer number of searchlights IG can bring. If you're focusing fire correctly you're going to have everything going at a small number of targets, and your Chimeras can easily searchlight all of them before the big guns fire. Sure, they'll get a cover save if I happen to hit with that BS 1 multilaser, but it's not like that's really going to make a difference.

If anything nightfighting helps IG almost as much as Necrons, by taking away a lot of shooting that would otherwise be wiping fragile artillery units off the table while not doing very much to hinder return fire. I don't know about you, but I love having my Medusas getting a 3+ (or even 2+) save while shooting back with no penalty.

That is just it though. Blobs are good but they are not mobile. All my opponent has to do is take out my transportation and I am not coming across the board. I have ran them with space wolves, and sisters of battle. Both of those require auto-take spots. At 2000 points I can ea easily fit a allied detachment in the list. Anything less and I find my self dropping essential units in the army to get what I need.

Those cover saves can be negated by search lights but they also illuminate you. You can drive up 12" and search light something but good luck no dying in return. You know how easy it is to get side armor on a chimera that is almost at midfield?

Mech IG doesn't work in 6th the way it did in 5th, tanks and especially transports in general got really whacked with 6E between hull points and the new rules about not being able to even contest, even with embarked infantry Troops units. There's too many hard-counters to mid-AV tanks, this edition has been practically custom built to mash them.

That said, with the increasing acceptance of FW throughout the tournament realm, the use of Artillery units has become am major boon, with Rapier Laser Destroyers or Heavy Mortars proving resilient and powerful.

 Tomb King wrote:
That is just it though. Blobs are good but they are not mobile. All my opponent has to do is take out my transportation and I am not coming across the board. I have ran them with space wolves, and sisters of battle. Both of those require auto-take spots. At 2000 points I can ea easily fit a allied detachment in the list. Anything less and I find my self dropping essential units in the army to get what I need.

That's what Vendettas are for. Your blobs ensure that your "home" objectives are claimed, while the Vendettas carry scoring units for a late-game objective grab. With half the objectives covered by your blobs you just need one, maybe two objectives on your opponent's side of the table to win.

Those cover saves can be negated by search lights but they also illuminate you. You can drive up 12" and search light something but good luck no dying in return. You know how easy it is to get side armor on a chimera that is almost at midfield?

First of all, if we're talking about fast assault threats they're hardly going to be hiding at the back of the deployment zone. The targets are going to be as close as they can get, so a Chimera searchlighting from 35.9999" away isn't even going to be close to "almost at midfield".

Second, Chimeras are expendable. You trade one Chimera (which may or may not actually die) for the ability to wipe the target unit off the table. Chimeras are cheap, so this is almost always a trade in your favor. And if you really hate the idea of losing Chimeras you could always take (sigh) Sentinels. Now you're just sacrificing a 35 point unit to do way more than 35 points worth of damage.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Tomb King wrote:
That is just it though. Blobs are good but they are not mobile. All my opponent has to do is take out my transportation and I am not coming across the board. I have ran them with space wolves, and sisters of battle. Both of those require auto-take spots. At 2000 points I can ea easily fit a allied detachment in the list. Anything less and I find my self dropping essential units in the army to get what I need.

That's what Vendettas are for. Your blobs ensure that your "home" objectives are claimed, while the Vendettas carry scoring units for a late-game objective grab. With half the objectives covered by your blobs you just need one, maybe two objectives on your opponent's side of the table to win.

Those cover saves can be negated by search lights but they also illuminate you. You can drive up 12" and search light something but good luck no dying in return. You know how easy it is to get side armor on a chimera that is almost at midfield?

First of all, if we're talking about fast assault threats they're hardly going to be hiding at the back of the deployment zone. The targets are going to be as close as they can get, so a Chimera searchlighting from 35.9999" away isn't even going to be close to "almost at midfield".

Second, Chimeras are expendable. You trade one Chimera (which may or may not actually die) for the ability to wipe the target unit off the table. Chimeras are cheap, so this is almost always a trade in your favor. And if you really hate the idea of losing Chimeras you could always take (sigh) Sentinels. Now you're just sacrificing a 35 point unit to do way more than 35 points worth of damage.

The chimera is actuall 55points. Its not the chimera I care about. Its the squad inside that takes S4 hits with T3 and 5+ armor. Anything that survives is most likely going to get killed if the vehicle was at all exposed. In addition, if I am using search lights then I am not gaining those cover saves either so I have to fight to ignore night fight while others can still benefit from it if I dont have enough SL.

 Tomb King wrote:
The chimera is actuall 55points.

35 points is a Sentinel. AKA "cheapest searchlight I can buy". Normally I'd say they're not worth it since they take the same FOC slot as Vendettas and Vultures, but if you're really concerned about night fighting they're the cheapest way to solve that problem.

Its not the chimera I care about. Its the squad inside that takes S4 hits with T3 and 5+ armor. Anything that survives is most likely going to get killed if the vehicle was at all exposed.

So don't use a vital squad. Use a flamer PCS Chimera. Or, even better, buy the Chimera and put the PCS in a Vendetta, so all you lose from searchlighting is a 55 point transport. If you need more searchlights, buy empty Chimeras for the blob squads.

In addition, if I am using search lights then I am not gaining those cover saves either so I have to fight to ignore night fight while others can still benefit from it if I dont have enough SL.

You aren't getting them on the searchlighting unit. Who cares about it, it's expendable. You DO get the cover bonus on the Medusas/Manticores/etc that are doing the actual damage, and your opponent has to choose between shooting at a Chimera with a 5+ save (don't forget to hide it in terrain) or shooting at a gun tank with a 2+ save. Given that you care way more about the gun tanks than a Chimera or two this is a pretty good deal for you.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Tomb King wrote:
The chimera is actuall 55points.

35 points is a Sentinel. AKA "cheapest searchlight I can buy". Normally I'd say they're not worth it since they take the same FOC slot as Vendettas and Vultures, but if you're really concerned about night fighting they're the cheapest way to solve that problem.

Its not the chimera I care about. Its the squad inside that takes S4 hits with T3 and 5+ armor. Anything that survives is most likely going to get killed if the vehicle was at all exposed.

So don't use a vital squad. Use a flamer PCS Chimera. Or, even better, buy the Chimera and put the PCS in a Vendetta, so all you lose from searchlighting is a 55 point transport. If you need more searchlights, buy empty Chimeras for the blob squads.

In addition, if I am using search lights then I am not gaining those cover saves either so I have to fight to ignore night fight while others can still benefit from it if I dont have enough SL.

You aren't getting them on the searchlighting unit. Who cares about it, it's expendable. You DO get the cover bonus on the Medusas/Manticores/etc that are doing the actual damage, and your opponent has to choose between shooting at a Chimera with a 5+ save (don't forget to hide it in terrain) or shooting at a gun tank with a 2+ save. Given that you care way more about the gun tanks than a Chimera or two this is a pretty good deal for you.

This might address the issue with night fight but it still wont fix the issue with relic or missions like crusader. Sure I could use vendetta's but who isnt trying to shoot them damn things down all game? If they go down mobility goes to . So you have 2 maybe 3 vehicles which are already priority targets trying to make it to the end of the game to drop troops off on their objectives which are hopefully unoccupied.

 Tomb King wrote:
Sure I could use vendetta's but who isnt trying to shoot them damn things down all game?

So focus on killing their AA, and if they spend lots of firepower on snap shots at Vendettas the rest of your army isn't getting hit and you wipe them off the table with full-strength artillery/Chimera vets/etc. And of course killing 3+ Vendettas is easier said than done, especially if you also include flyers in other FOC slots (Avenger = more AV 12, allied marine flyers, etc).

As for the relic, that's the easiest game for IG. All you have to do is shoot their scoring units off it and win on secondaries, it's not like the relic is going anywhere and it gives you a nice single target to focus on. And of course if you DO manage to get a blob onto the relic, well, you're probably not going to be giving it up.