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So I'm trying to put together a strong Imperial guard army list and I would like to know Strengths and Weaknesses of the current codex. I have several views on some units like the hellhound and would like what everyone one else thinks. I'm still somewhat of a noob and would look any advice vet players could give. I also know that we could be getting a new codex anytime but who knows when.

I love the hellhound but evertime i use it gets kill turn or two or it pops a track and becomes useless. Is this common or am I unlucky?

I play against guard frequently, the things I see as strengths are:

• Mass units: Guard can place a ton of bodies that are tough to plow through if you are lacking template or blast weapons.
  
• Durable Aircraft: The Vendetta has strong armament and a tougher shell than most other aircraft.
  
• Long Range: Basilisk artillery tanks have long range and strong large blasts, I have lost several hammerheads to these things.
  

The Primary weakness of Imperial Guard lies in Close Combat. Everything except Tau Firewarriors are better than guardsmen in close combat. In 5th we used to be alittle better with Platoon squads with commissars filled with power weapons, but 6th editions changes to wound allocation removed that tactic of its teeth.

If you are playing guard, do not let the enemy into close combat, or only do so with a sacrificial unit. Barring a miracle, guard always loses in close combat, and unless you have stubborn its usually a pretty hefty leadership test you have to pass to stay in combat. And you have a low enough initiative that you'll usually be swept for a 1 round loss of combat.

The best thing though, is that if you are using platoon squads, the overwatch can sometimes be enough to deny a charge or two. Massed Lasgun fire solves many potential problems.

First two poster summed it up very well, and as far as the hellhound goes you are probably getting unlucky if it keeps getting immobilized (or driving over too much difficult terrain). It's a very easy tank to keep behind cover because it's fast and has the torrent flamer. You hide almost entirely behind a building and hit people on the other side with ease, just try to keep it hidden a bit better.

Guard aren't *that* bad in melee, once you factor in point levels. Heck, they can stave off Termagants with ease and, taking one round of shooting and Overwatch into consideration, will fend off Hormagaunts more often than not as well. Against certain foes (like Marines) they're actually better off in melee than away, due to having a 5+ armor save that would be ignored by opposition guns.

You never want to hear your commander shout "Fix bayonets!" but, it has a place in the toolbox. Just a rarely used one with a funny shape. And probably metric.

Big plus is versatility...you can cook many interesting variants of the army and its working. Tanks? Check. Airstrike? Check. Mass of footsloggers whipped by commisars? Check. Artiellry bombardment? Check.
But they are weak in CC if you dont sprinkle unit with some toys. You will lose guardsmen in dozens but hey, thats what they do, die standing.

Hellhound is beast, but of course, you must use terrain. Sometimes its worth to keep him in reserve and bring him for flanking attack "eat my fire, footaz!". Remember, its not tank per se, its fast, rather fragile deliverer of fire.

First what you need is choose what style of army do you want. There isnt one right formula.

I personally love the powerful charges they can pull off while still being a technically shooty force.

50 Guardsman can fire off 24 STR 5 AP 2 attacks on a charge just with their sergeants and Commissar. That ignores ALL other attacks the unit might make! The ablative ability of those sergeants and their bonus wounds they carry around with them should never be underestimated. Meltabombs make them deadly to the Wraithknights of the World and the WraithKnights cant kill them faster than they can kill the Wraith Knights because a refused challenge only costs one Meltabomb hit.

Add to this the ability to ally with certain codex's who in turn can give this unit a SERIOUS boost in power. St. Celestine leading the unit can make wounding the unit at ALL very difficult early on and potentially later also. If you instead choose a Space marine ally, they can include "And they Shall Know No Fear" as a serious buff to the already stubborn commissar led units.

The Infantry platoons are REALLY impressive units. Their cost can be high, but RIGHTLY so. they can do a lot, take a lot and yes, sometimes break your heart. That's war for you though.

The fact that they can fire a LasCannon per squad at an affordable price and gain the advantage of Orders makes them highly effective at whittling targets that can overpower them. Thunderwolf cavalry and other tarpitting units can through sheer ferocity and number of wounds, mire an IG platoon, but even the smallest amount of whittling harms such offending units far more than most as they are suually low in numbers to begin with, and need their strength to take on an entire IG platoon.

Similarly, stand and shoot forces like Mechdar are forced to be in 24" range in order to put maximum damage downfield with Wave Serpents. However, that task is not easy when cover, psykers and heavy duty tanks are there to threaten them. So as long as the IG train their weapons on the real priorities, they can take losses for quite some time and usually longer than the enemy who tends to be more elite but less numerous (2:1 is pretty typical)

The TRAP with IG is to fall in love with their more expensive toys. The Imperial Guard ideal is an armored mailed fist slamming into the enemy, with men to back them up in most cases. However those hulls, if relied upon, can really be the victims of overconfidence. In Imperial Guard lists it is better not to concentrate heavily on any ONE Armoured tactic and use them as support, NOT the focal point.

I say that because there are just so many tank hunting specialists; and grenades are so much more powerful and common than they ever were. Grenades and how they work on rear armor has made your BASIC Sisters of Battle a terror against armored hulls. More specialized troops like my own Tau Pathfinders can eat entire squadrons of tanks at relatively lower risk to me than to the enemy.

So in an ideal world, I would tell someone whose analyzing the Guard NOT to squadron tanks and don't use armor as the FOCAL point of the list. You'll still need armor but use it to support the infantry's mission, and trust in the Emperor to protect and guide your killing hand. =)

 Jancoran wrote:
I personally love the powerful charges they can pull off while still being a technically shooty force.

50 Guardsman can fire off 24 STR 5 AP 2 attacks on a charge just with their sergeants and Commissar. That ignores ALL other attacks the unit might make! The ablative ability of those sergeants and their bonus wounds they carry around with them should never be underestimated. Meltabombs make them deadly to the Wraithknights of the World and the WraithKnights cant kill them faster than they can kill the Wraith Knights because a refused challenge only costs one Meltabomb hit.

Where are you getting the S5 for the sergeants and Commissar? They're only S3 base and power axes give you +1S so it would only be 24 S4 attacks IF your opponent didn't manage to already whittle them down before attack with firepower. Also 50 man footslogging guardsmen are an incredibly unwieldy unit, especially in the context of proper terrain, as getting all of them into combat (and you would generally keep most of your sarges spread out with the commissar in the back so they wouldn't die in the front ranks) is very unlikely given their size. This also means that it will be rare that you will get the charge off of most units given your footslogging nature, most of the time you will be the one who is on the receiving end of an assault. Having played green tide orks before it's already hard enough to get 90+ boyz into combat with an enemy across the map but with guardsmen who are even squishier and crappier at fighting in CC I don't see them as a particularly effective unit in this role. Even range wise they're limited because not all of them will be in 12" range for rapid firing or even sometimes 24" given their sheer size. It's better to use them separately as 10-man units as it forces your opponent to split their firepower and CC wise they act as effective speedbumps as they'll get slaughtered undoubtedly by any half-competent CC unit but then that unit will be exposed in the open to all your guns.

For the Honor of Cadia.
Fear it.

Thanks for the replies they've helped greatly. I'm still amazed the way guard is played " fined something that works and spam it" lol. I should have been a little clearer I play mech guard because I love tank roaring across the battle field. I think it was just unlucky for the hellhound and two I think people are scared some what of it so they kill it first. Anyway I'm going to run two vendettas know over it and just put anti infantry somewhere else.

 Jancoran wrote:
For the Honor of Cadia.
Fear it.

This doesn't refute my argument that you need to get the charge in order to get the bonus. If they manage to not screw up following the order. Or the fact that it's highly unlikely that all the axes will in range to swing their stuff in
close combat. And if they are it's likely that some are already dead as casualties since that 4+ LoS can only save so much against things like a berserker charge or a horde of boyz.

There's a lot of margins for error when playing a big blob of guard since you need everything (like Creed in the army you're proposing) to be just right which in most games, like war, doesn't play out that way. It's much more reliable to stick with smaller blobs of 20-30 in Purge the Alien games and simply 10-man units in others so you don't have to worry about fumbling one failed morale or leadership test that in a 50-man blob can result in it being wiped out in a sweeping advance.

Yeah, this entire thread is going to become obsolete in just a few weeks.

If you want to build a certain kind of guard army, then build that kind of guard army, but if the point is to build the strongest guard army, then you're just going to have to wait a little bit.

What's strong now might very well not be strong by the time You're done buying and assembling your models.

 Grimskul wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:
For the Honor of Cadia.
Fear it.

This doesn't refute my argument that you need to get the charge in order to get the bonus. If they manage to not screw up following the order. Or the fact that it's highly unlikely that all the axes will in range to swing their stuff in
close combat. And if they are it's likely that some are already dead as casualties since that 4+ LoS can only save so much against things like a berserker charge or a horde of boyz.

There's a lot of margins for error when playing a big blob of guard since you need everything (like Creed in the army you're proposing) to be just right which in most games, like war, doesn't play out that way. It's much more reliable to stick with smaller blobs of 20-30 in Purge the Alien games and simply 10-man units in others so you don't have to worry about fumbling one failed morale or leadership test that in a 50-man blob can result in it being wiped out in a sweeping advance.

Actually...It invalidatersyour argument because what I SAID...Originally...Was that on the charge I really liked them. So. In retrospect the better "argument" for you was to think about what I was saying and respond to that instead of responding to what I wasn't talking about. And what I wasn't talking about was Guardsman without the orders.

And...Why...Would you actually NOT include orders in your thinking?

And assuming that the axes aren't EXACTLY where I wanted them is not probably what I would use as a premise here. But ya did.

And Commissars don't care if they fail once, cause they shoot someone in the head and roll again. Then there's the Vox Casters...

Anyways. Look. I don't mind discussing it but you gotta actually respond to what i was actually suggesting. Not some long set of "what if" premises that aren't really going to happen.

Actually the 25 S5 attacks can get up to an effective 25 S8 attacks with double hammer hand double rad grenades. It would only actually be S6 but with the -2T from the grenades it would wound wraith knights on a 4+ and ID T5 units.

ah good point, yes. I was trying not to overstate things but in fact there are several things you can do to make life miserable on someone charged by the IG.

IG can Weaken Resolve as an added bonus since we're talking bout it. So winning by ONE means winning by 11 or something crazy like that. the Regimental Banners can help.

So Ig on the move are not really something you want rampaging you too much. Move+ run puts em in dangerous, if exposed at times, position. An Aegis Line set at midboard resolves a lot of (though not all) concerns against a lot of foes. The Hammer of the Emperor cometh.

Pros:

-Never waste points on weedy power armour again
-Heavy support choices with firepower that makes your eyes water
-Tales of heroism with fleshy, disadvantaged Guardsmen triumphing over the odds

Cons:

-You just lost your heavy support?

Theres a reason why I tell people to use the Heavy's as support only!

But if you want an armored corps, spread it out a lot and make it hard to take it out wholesale.

 Jancoran wrote:
I personally love the powerful charges they can pull off while still being a technically shooty force.

50 Guardsman can fire off 24 STR 5 AP 2 attacks on a charge just with their sergeants and Commissar. That ignores ALL other attacks the unit might make! The ablative ability of those sergeants and their bonus wounds they carry around with them should never be underestimated. Meltabombs make them deadly to the Wraithknights of the World and the WraithKnights cant kill them faster than they can kill the Wraith Knights because a refused challenge only costs one Meltabomb hit.

Add to this the ability to ally with certain codex's who in turn can give this unit a SERIOUS boost in power. St. Celestine leading the unit can make wounding the unit at ALL very difficult early on and potentially later also. If you instead choose a Space marine ally, they can include "And they Shall Know No Fear" as a serious buff to the already stubborn commissar led units.

The Infantry platoons are REALLY impressive units. Their cost can be high, but RIGHTLY so. they can do a lot, take a lot and yes, sometimes break your heart. That's war for you though.

The fact that they can fire a LasCannon per squad at an affordable price and gain the advantage of Orders makes them highly effective at whittling targets that can overpower them. Thunderwolf cavalry and other tarpitting units can through sheer ferocity and number of wounds, mire an IG platoon, but even the smallest amount of whittling harms such offending units far more than most as they are suually low in numbers to begin with, and need their strength to take on an entire IG platoon.

Similarly, stand and shoot forces like Mechdar are forced to be in 24" range in order to put maximum damage downfield with Wave Serpents. However, that task is not easy when cover, psykers and heavy duty tanks are there to threaten them. So as long as the IG train their weapons on the real priorities, they can take losses for quite some time and usually longer than the enemy who tends to be more elite but less numerous (2:1 is pretty typical)

The TRAP with IG is to fall in love with their more expensive toys. The Imperial Guard ideal is an armored mailed fist slamming into the enemy, with men to back them up in most cases. However those hulls, if relied upon, can really be the victims of overconfidence. In Imperial Guard lists it is better not to concentrate heavily on any ONE Armoured tactic and use them as support, NOT the focal point.

I say that because there are just so many tank hunting specialists; and grenades are so much more powerful and common than they ever were. Grenades and how they work on rear armor has made your BASIC Sisters of Battle a terror against armored hulls. More specialized troops like my own Tau Pathfinders can eat entire squadrons of tanks at relatively lower risk to me than to the enemy.

So in an ideal world, I would tell someone whose analyzing the Guard NOT to squadron tanks and don't use armor as the FOCAL point of the list. You'll still need armor but use it to support the infantry's mission, and trust in the Emperor to protect and guide your killing hand. =)

While its true that guard will change rather soon, unless the wound allocation rules change, then Close-Combat foot guard will STILL not regain its viability.

The issues with using a ton of sergeants/commissars w/ power axes, is that in order for them to hit they must be within 2" of the enemy units in close combat. Which means that you are going to need them within the first 2 lines or so of guardsmen to get that off with the charge. And thats a terrible place to be because wound allocation pulls from the front first. Also, at initiative 3, Guardsmen don't strike fast. Charging a unit of Khorne Beserkers? Nice, you've likely lost a good portion of your power weapons before you've even struck. And that same problem echoes into the shooting phase. Take too many wounds in the shooting, and you're losing power weapons before they can even enter combat.

And you can't leave them at the back, because then they won't get their hits until they reach 2" of the enemy units. Which means you've gone through a number of phases of combat anyways, so its not like you got to use hatred or the extra attack from charging.

In 5th edition, you could have your commissars and sergeants leading from the front to use your power weapons, and pull ALL of your wounds from the rear until you only had sergeants and commissars left if the combat went poorly. Sixth Edition allocation rules do not allow this, and any time that you could use your sergeants in close combat is more likely to see them die before doing anything usefull. They quite simply are not fast enough for their inititiave to consider using seriously as a close combat force. And unless they alter the wound allocation rules again, I do not see this changing.

I think you're underestimating what can be done for two reasons.

1. a 6 inch move allows the back guys to move up more into formation when READY to charge, and there really only need to be two guardsman layers in "front" of the sergeants. So at BEST spread, 5" from the front.

And the pile in move is 3". Effectively that means that if you are spread AS AFAR as you need to be for maximum barrage-nerfing, You're in. And if you wanna be safe, skimp a little on the barrage nerfing ONLY in the round in which you intend to charge OR the round before.

In addition, think of it like an amoeba. if the enemy jumps to ONE side of you for example, th entire unit can move away and leave the sergeants in ideal position OR leave the enemy in very poor charge position. The effect being to either maximize distance and fire OR to minimize distance and charge.

On a forum this is kind of hard to explain so hopefully people are getting the picture.

DO the IG always GET to charge first? no, but agaisnt the things we are talking about, probably yes. Such enemy units aren't afraid of the IG and will try to force the issue as early as they can which means they're not holding back (or they just LIKE lots of risk in their charges). A

Foot IG have done well. in fact before 6E and after, I have seen the vehicles slowly diminish in their LEAD role and become more and more the bait rather than the trap.

I cannot foresee all threats. Lists just come in thousands of varieties. but as a rule, the units you are TRULY concerned with tying you up have a LOT less chance of success with a build that includes power Axe + Meltabomb than a list that does not. And clearly more guys to do this is better than less. So i find that Veterans are the way to go if you like reliance on armor to carry the day. If you aren't sold that armor is the best play as lead dog, and I think it isn't outside of maybe mechdar spam, then you hve to consider this as a really important option.

Would, say, severin Loth the FW Librarian help that with endurance and enfeeble to make them all relentless and make the enemy weaker?

If you're going to charge 50 guardsmen into something, spend like 78 points on an inquisitor with Hammerhand and Rad Grenades. Wounding MEQ on a 3+? Yes, please.

(Or if you really have some points to burn, a Sisters of Battle command squad with the sacred banner of the order militant gives all friendly units within 12" +1 attack... And with the footprint of a 50 man unit that command squad needs not be anywhere near the action. Also the priest that makes them fearless and makes them hate the enemy... (And possibly makes them reroll their 5+ or reroll their wound rolls.))




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Actually that would be interesting... 50 man blobs with a thin line of guards snaking back to within range of the sisters with banner, each getting +1 attack from it! Not necessarily effective, but certainly novel.

 Mr.Omega wrote:
Pros:

-Never waste points on weedy power armour again
-Heavy support choices with firepower that makes your eyes water
-Tales of heroism with fleshy, disadvantaged Guardsmen triumphing over the odds

Cons:

-You just lost your heavy support?

That was great!


buy vandettas and special weapon squads win the only addvice I have.

Mavnas wrote:
If you're going to charge 50 guardsmen into something, spend like 78 points on an inquisitor with Hammerhand and Rad Grenades. Wounding MEQ on a 3+? Yes, please.

(Or if you really have some points to burn, a Sisters of Battle command squad with the sacred banner of the order militant gives all friendly units within 12" +1 attack... And with the footprint of a 50 man unit that command squad needs not be anywhere near the action. Also the priest that makes them fearless and makes them hate the enemy... (And possibly makes them reroll their 5+ or reroll their wound rolls.))




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Actually that would be interesting... 50 man blobs with a thin line of guards snaking back to within range of the sisters with banner, each getting +1 attack from it! Not necessarily effective, but certainly novel.

Already on that one. And yeah its awesome.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Devoted-to-the-machine wrote:

 Mr.Omega wrote:
Pros:

-Never waste points on weedy power armour again
-Heavy support choices with firepower that makes your eyes water
-Tales of heroism with fleshy, disadvantaged Guardsmen triumphing over the odds

Cons:

-You just lost your heavy support?

That was great!


buy vandettas and special weapon squads win the only addvice I have.

Vendettas so good...and so going to get nerf'd soon. Sad day.

Strengths : Shooting, Vendettas, Good selection of allies, having more small bases than you.

Weaknesses : Everything else.

Has anyone else used the inqusion to take a pskyer for prescience and severo skull to make blast template almost unmissable?

Zengu wrote:
Has anyone else used the inqusion to take a pskyer for prescience and severo skull to make blast template almost unmissable?

I would rather squad in a Griffin for a re-roll for 75pts per slot. But I guess that depends on your Heavy Choice. If your doing Manticores, the Inquisition might be the better choice. Just remember your not going to be able to cover all 3 heavy slots going this route. Also, it is IG and the Platoon is a amazing thing concerning Allies. I am seriously considering switching all of my IG lists to make them the Allies and the other lists that were Allies into the main force.

Guards can be buffed to the point of one of the most frightening mellee fighters.
Xeno inquisitor with grenades, Krak nades on platoon to deal with mc's, power axes on 3-4 sarges. Here you go. This guyz can kill literally anything in mellee. and have quite powerful 24' shooting. The problem is they're not fast enough to be dedicated mellee fighters for this edition. And all this nades matter only in mellee. But the point remains. You can make a blob fearful both in mellee and close-shooting.

I've run Tigurius, Xeno inquisitor, 50 guyz, 3 power axes on sarges, 30 krak nades, 3 meltas, 2 vox to reliably recieve orders. And i've lost count of how many MC's an bikers they've slain. Tigurius is there for 4++ or fnp+relentless or both.

I see the main ig weakness is gunlinish ideology and lack of good push. It's really no use to go defensive when you're easilly outshot by half of the most common armies (tau, eldar). Besides, ig's main strength always lay within ammount of support vehicles and a number of high-str large blasts they can dish. Both are not nearly as amazing within new ruleset and meta as they used to be in, say, 5 ed.

Hopefully vendettas don't get Tervigoned in the new codex

Fingers crossed for a points increase of 20-30 points but no massive combi nerf stacking.

Currently Inquisitors are really helping out guard in all aspects of the army and I have personally found that power axe blobs very effective now that they can be augmented (as above posters have mentioned), sure they usually die by the end of the game but they cause more damage and soak up more firepower against most armies than thier ~500 point cost (including the buff characters).

Zengu wrote:
Has anyone else used the inqusion to take a pskyer for prescience and severo skull to make blast template almost unmissable?

My new list uses Coteaz and he is there to twin link my Manticorre.

 Jancoran wrote:

Zengu wrote:
Has anyone else used the inqusion to take a pskyer for prescience and severo skull to make blast template almost unmissable?

My new list uses Coteaz and he is there to twin link my Manticorre.

That sound pure evil . I've enjoyed putting a squad executioners baste plate next to a skull and getting close to 10-15 wounds off.