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 vipoid wrote:

bibotot wrote:
- No real weapon to take down 6 wound MC effectively.

Well, it depends on the MC. Flying ones are certainly a problem. Same with the Riptide and Wraithknight. But then, that's less of a problem with IG, and more a problem with flier rules being borked, and the latter two being OP. However, most others are pretty susceptible to plasma and meltaguns - and our veteran squads can take 3 of either.

Riptides and Wraithknights are not OP, they are 200+ point models that are on par with the cost of x2 Leman Russ Battle Tanks, they better be good and they are. However they are both susceptible to massive amounts of fire, which the IG can bring pretty easily to the table. A few Heavy Weapon squads with Lascannons and Orders or a few Leman Russ Tanks can deal with them pretty easily, not to mention Vendettas.

 Furyou Miko wrote:

 Sledgehammer wrote:
I play guard in the most unorthodox fashion. I don't use any wheeled or tracked vehicles (except the forge world tauros in the future as that works with my fluff) because they live on a forest planet where trees regrow in a years time. There are no roads because of this and thus they have to use vehicles and equipment that can operate in these conditions. That leaves Sentinels and aircraft. My regiment is a volunteer veteran organization that is not officially affiliated with the imperial guard. It receives its gear from the home world and by being contracted by imperial commanders and inquisitors. They are a very different force because of their home world and very selective recruitment process.

All of my troops are veterans and have camo cloaks.
I need sentinels which can perform a multipurpose roles
I need aircraft for rapid insertion and Anti Tank.

What the book is lacking for me is the ability to give my light infantry guys infiltrate. Since i rely on sentinels and aircraft for "heavy support" i need to run unbound armies which makes it even harder to get the infiltrate warlord trait.
Something that would also be amusing is if they gave imperial guardsmen stuff like the auxiliary krak grenade launchers.

The book itself is great and is highly competitive, there is no real problem with it if you play a traditional force. There must be something inherently wrong with op's list or something, because even i can get wins now and then.

Still say you should use the Elysian rules as a whole, they describe your army fluff perfectly.

I would probably use Elysians, but they do not have access to camo cloaks and those are modeled on all of my guys. Camo cloaks in ruins + go to ground gives a 2 up cover. You can then use get back in the fight to nullify the negative effects of going to ground.

What imperial guard really need is a system where you can get certain upgrades for a negative modifier.

For instance a mechanized infantry regiment should be able to make chimeras assault vehicles, but in return make the infantry slower on foot. (like always rolling for difficult terrain).
A light infantry regiment having moves through cover and infiltrate, but cannot take lemon russes or artillery.
An engineer corps that reduces scatter on artillery emplacements, but have -1 to leadership.

simple lines like that could make the guard so much more interesting.

bibotot wrote:
I don't think I have ever seen any AM army winning tournaments. Here are the reasons why:
- Worst-looking models ever

mkay...

 gmaleron wrote:
Riptides and Wraithknights are not OP

 Ailaros wrote:
Wow, yeah. Clearly you're not a guard player, or have ever played against a decent one before.

What you're describing are characteristics of the army, not weaknesses.

This. Peace through superior firepower and expendable manpower. Blob squads of FRFSRF will through sheer amount of shots level most squads.

 Psienesis wrote:

Lasgun is S3 no AP. WTF? Even scrap bullets from Shootas are S4 AP6. Why are you making laser weapons when machine guns firing bullets are vastly superior? Hellgun is S3 AP3. Again with the S3 ? It takes 5+ to wound an Ork, and there are lots of Orks out there. That's bad.

There is a reason that the lasgun is called a flashlight.

And, no, a machine-gun is not more effective. A standard machinegun is basically a lasgun.

An Ork Shoota is more akin to a boltgun than it is a lasgun. You're comparing apples to watermelons.

*Automatic rifle, not machine gun. There's a massive difference.

What? You're complaining about summary execution not granting an armour save? You're confusing the purpose of mob rule and SE here. The ork player wants to have those saves and keep all his attacks.

We, on the other hand, want that coward dead. There is no room for those who fail to do their duty.

We're the Guard. We hold the fething line.

The fact that I had to reply and dig up my info to do so on this site... wow... must be a real interesting thread.

I think that you don't really understand the guard as an army if you feel they are the worse thing possible as you described in your first post.

I've run a guard army since third edition, I can tell you that the force has improved and worsened through the editions, but have never been rendered unplayable. I'd rank the codex strenth as 4th, 5th, sixth and third (this is mostly due to my love of the customization available in the fourth edition guard dex.

re: model appearance: I remember the REALLY old guard models from the imperial army box, these cadians are pretty nice looking given the age of the sculpt... Catachans are older, except Tshirts and brass ones instead of helmets and armor. The models themselves are not necessarily bad, and its one of the few ranges of models that have most/all the options in plastic for them. Nowadays, command boxes (and to a degree the regular box) makes special weapons without having to buy extra dudes. While no longer the awesome deal they were in 2003 (20 for 25 freedom-bucks), the models are the same. They represent the basic, non-enhanced human soldier fighting in a galaxy of cybernetic beings, gods they can't really comprehend, super-genetically engineered warriors and alien cultures that until they took off on their recruitment lander probably never even thought of.... I think the "style" is pretty good to match the fluff. They are basically supposed to be the equivalent to the "mobile light infantry" from the starship troopers movie, rather than the MI from the book.

Re: lasgun- its a ubiquitous, simple, easily reproduced weapon that can be fired by anyone with minimal training. What says regular human better than a semi/auto rifle? The guard spends much of its time in fluff putting down insurrections, fighting cultists and other similar enemies, a shot from a lasgun is enough to put down the average enemy - another human. Ork fighting is a rarity based on the fluff. Would the US military give every soldier rocket launchers during the second world war when fighting japan? It would be impractical. Additionally, the cheapest currence in the IOM is human life, that flashlight is more valuable than the man holding it. The IG works on the "quantity has a quality all its own" idea. A ten man squad firing at 24 in will get 10 shots, if they receive FRFSRF, it becomes 20, now, if you happen to be at half range for RF, that just became thirty shots. If your guard squads are combined, say, a 30 man squad, that number goes up significantly. Its not that the shots are inidividually strong, its the fact that each enemy dudesmen will have to take a much higher number of saves, increasing the likelihood they fail saves. I've seen deathwing armies get lasgunned to death, its not as weak as you seem to think it is. Fluffwise, lasgun ammo doesn't weigh more than the cartridge put in the weapon and the weapon itself... have you ever tried carrying a large load of ammunition for a rifle? It's heavy.

Commissars "can" execute now, and this edition is much nicer than older editions. In 3rd you executed the highest rank dude and THEN took a test to see if they stayed on comm's ld, if they didn't the commissar got removed and you ran away anyway.

As for your complaints on wounding monstrous creatures, you should look at the orders the guard can give. Your HWS need to be prioritizing MCs, as should your high strength shooting. If you don't have HWS and are not playing vet guard, you are doing it wrong. If you are a vet player, 2 squads of triple plasma with a demo charge WILL put down most any creature especially with command squad support. Similarly, a pair of fully kitted leman russ executioners will make fried trout out of trygons, demon princes, etc. I personally prefer specialized HWS, one squad is full lascannon antitank/monster, another with autocannons (str7 will reliably put wounds on most big monsters) and either another Lascannon or a rocket launcher squad. I will periodically use mortars against armies like orks... give the order that allows for pinning and start dropping templates on them.

Same with saves... they are guardsmen, their lives are less costly to the imperium than the armor they wear. The guard infantry should as a rule, be deployed in cover. With the exception of marines, most armies need to use cover to improve their survivability. Want to see something difficult to shift? A full platoon in a fortress of redemption or a similar building, with commissars and priests attached. Good luck shifting that off the objective. If your guard are in close combat and you didn't mean to put them there... you did it wrong.

Conscripts are essentially untrained humans with gear on them. With the exception of using them to tie up deathstar units (attach priest and/or commissar) the unit is there to eat bullets for tanks or hop in front of your useful infantry to give cover saves.

Tempestus are supposed to be special forces... they take forever to train and get better weapons because they can work independently. They get shorter range, but stronger weapons and some extra armor. A 4+ save still gets eaten by everything ranging from chainaxes to standard heavt weapons. Think of the guard as a cross between the soviet army in ww2 and the draftee parts of the US army in the north african campaign... there are SOME competent soldiers and formations, but for the most part, the greatest strength of the army is that nearly every unit is expendable to some degree. You can feed units peacemeal to the enemy solely for the purpose of extending the amount of time you can fire at them.

Last point for me, the orders, which came into effect in 5th and were improved in the new book REALLY make the guard effective. The lasgun order is one of SEVERAL which can make a guard player's regular dudes nasty and mobile in a way you wouldn't really expect.

This edition we even get vehicle commanders AND vehicle orders.

While I am sad at the loss of my awesome griffins, I welcome a great deal of the changes.

 Las wrote:
We, on the other hand, want that coward dead. There is no room for those who fail to do their duty.

We're the Guard. We hold the fething line.

His death will fill the hearts of the faithful with the courage to serve the immortal Emperor!

 TheSilo wrote:

 Las wrote:
We, on the other hand, want that coward dead. There is no room for those who fail to do their duty.

We're the Guard. We hold the fething line.

His death will fill the hearts of the faithful with the courage to serve the immortal Emperor!

And if that fails, give 'im to the Ogryn. We can still use him as a club!

From shoring up the line to building a spaceport, there are myriad uses for Guardsmen, alive or dead

 vipoid wrote:

 gmaleron wrote:
Riptides and Wraithknights are not OP

Nothing funny about a factual statement, if you're having issues then you might want to change your list or tactics up.

 sierra 1247 wrote:
The troll is strong with this one.

Strong?
This is the poorest attemp of trolling i have ever seen in my forum life jajajaja, imperial guard is and always be one of the toughtest armys in the 40k, fluff and rule wise. Here a quote from 1d4chan, to show how awsome are the guardsmen:
"The foot soldiers of the Imperial Guard take to the field equipped with nothing more than the 40k equivalent of flak jackets, glorified laser pointers, a copy of the Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer (if they have not already used it for toilet paper. Note: it is highly recommended that you do not use it as toilet paper, to prevent BLAMing) and a pair of Mars-pattern forged titanium plated balls. Please note that whilst the Lasgun and Flak armor are very good by modern standards, they're just flashlights and t-shirts compared to the automatic mini-rocket launchers and power armor everyone else uses. This means they have balls of steel (as in Duke Nukem would say, "Holy gak! I thought I had balls of steel!"). "
I agree with the description, and i am a space wolf player

 gmaleron wrote:

 vipoid wrote:

 gmaleron wrote:
Riptides and Wraithknights are not OP

Nothing funny about a factual statement, if you're having issues then you might want to change your list or tactics up.

Your subjective opinion is not fact, especially when you clearly advertise the fact that you play Tau. Let's make that clear.

Whilst I would concede that Wraith Knights are reasonably well balanced given their considerable investment, Riptides are very easy to consider to at least some degree overpowered; I refuse to bog this thread down with too much detail, but even starting off with the facts that you can get an effectively-infinite-range, near infinite LOS-due-to-height S8 AP2 pie plate dispenser that is more often than not is several orders of magnitude harder to kill than a Leman Russ and a Land Raider (even if it doesn't Nova) and moves 6+2D6 a turn for 185 points , anyone with eyes and two braincells to rub together can clearly see it doesn't match up in balance when you draw comparisons. 5 points for an Ion Accelerator, come on, seriously?

Now you can say this and that about a progressive meta, and I don't think they're as drop-dead broken now as they were at their release , but they're still slightly overpowered and against a fair portion of opponents outside of the greater competitive meta it still proves crucially unfair.

Back in the days of 6th, without the latest AM Codex, it was hell trying to kill those things; literally the only thing that worked well at killing them was plasma Vets, Vendettas and Executioners; don't feed me the bull about ignoring them either. Since the book came out all we really gained to that list was the Pask Punisher/Executioner squadron/tank and perhaps better Lascannon blobs; though I still see no great gain in taking the the blob. The good thing is that the Pask unit/tank is actually extremely effective, thank the lord, because I usually take it.

Still, if you're faced with the prospect of Riptides, the amount of variation in your list evaporates into thin air as you are forced to consider Riptide killers/tacklers. That's not as much a subjective opinion as that is an observation I've made time and time again for myself and others. The very existence of Riptides made C:IG and to a more negligible extent makes C:AM all round worse.

I used to run guard and I eventually had to switch to something else due to how frustrated I was. Seemed like I was getting trashed by turn 2 and the game was essentially over. It's an army that requires a lot of know how and balance. Lasguns are worthless everybody knows that. I hate the saying "yeah but it's easy to mass fire" I once fired 90 shots with one blob, over watched with another 60 shots and that blob failed to cause a single wound. You really need to know your stuff in order to make them effective. I had to dump them and pick up an army that was a little kinder and had things more in their favor. I love the imperial guard and I actually love the basic Cadian look. But man it was hard to have fun watching 60 men get cleaved in one assault.

They absolutely have some strong points, Pask for example is a terror on the field. But be prepared to sink some serious money into vehicles if you want to go vehicle heavy. Their armor was a lot of fun to use, but the brunt of the damage relied on ordnance and I couldn't roll a direct hit to save my life. They're a fun army but not ideal for beginners.

What I told my friend was that every battle felt like a war, every kill felt like I killed a Titan and every assault I survived felt like I went a round against mike Tyson as glass joe.

To make things clear.... Imperial Guard ARE currently the worst thing in 40k. But that's only because Marbo abandoned them to persue other interests.

AM is boring and I have no clue how they fit into the 40k universe of high technology, power armor and badass aliens. I table them most of the time and I play SW which aren't exactly a power gamer army. If anyone wants to see how "good" guard is, check their win rate in 7th on TOF. They're barely above last place. Last time I checked they were 2% higher than the worst army in 40k. How does anyone paint so many boring looking models that are mediocre at best on the tabletop?

IG can be strong or weak, boring or interesting, depending on how you play it, I've been using IG (amongst other armies) since 3rd ed, and here are some of my observations:

1. Hobby - awesome! You can create an IG army to be whatever you want it to be. The web has tons of examples, and it's really up to you. I've got an army based on WW2 dudes, another army based on Vietnam war dudes, and one WIP army inspired by WW1 Brits. You can do a zombie-based one, samurai, spongebob, anime or whatever you like. Sure, the 2 basic plastic ranges from GW aren't the best, but being IG you're really spoiled for choice how you can convert, substitute, kit bash - or just use the basic ones anyways.

2. Flexibility - play it as you wish, it's really up to you. I find that the best way to win against almost any army is massed infantry (around 110+ infantry, 70% advancing, 30% fire support) supported by lots of Leman Russ and a couple of Hellhounds. But winning is not the end-all for IG. I also have lots of fun with Armored Company lists (9 Leman Russ +2 Chimera in 1850), veteran mechanized infantry, Air Cav and a bunch of other themed army lists.

3. My biggest gripe about IG is that the most competitive lists I have tend to be big, and are thus quite tiring to play. Other than that - love it!

Toofast wrote:
AM is boring and I have no clue how they fit into the 40k universe of high technology, power armor and badass aliens. I table them most of the time and I play SW which aren't exactly a power gamer army. If anyone wants to see how "good" guard is, check their win rate in 7th on TOF. They're barely above last place. Last time I checked they were 2% higher than the worst army in 40k. How does anyone paint so many boring looking models that are mediocre at best on the tabletop?

Because they have some of the coolest looking models in the game if you're not just using the basic GW Cadians or Catachans.

Toofast wrote:
AM is boring and I have no clue how they fit into the 40k universe of high technology, power armor and badass aliens. I table them most of the time and I play SW which aren't exactly a power gamer army. If anyone wants to see how "good" guard is, check their win rate in 7th on TOF. They're barely above last place. Last time I checked they were 2% higher than the worst army in 40k. How does anyone paint so many boring looking models that are mediocre at best on the tabletop?

I personally don't like them or think its plausible that they could win anything without massive casualties either. Then again that's the point of IG.
Tell your local players to get good.
A win rate online, like any other statistic, is not an accurate representation of every single game. Those only take into account tournament games or those reported on. For stuff like this you should always assume that for every game that says they suck, there is an equal or greater number than says they table every time. Win rate also doesn't take into account list builiding, player strategy or skill, opponent's skill, list and army selection, as well as mission, deployment and objectives. It could be that most of those games were against cheeseTau lists that outranged the IG platoon army while also remaining highly mobile with Devilfish to redeploy onto Maelstrom objectives, while Riptides and LongstrikeHeads blasted anything with evlnough range or firepower to be a threat. Or the IG player was a new player who decided to bring a platoon for troop #1, a Vet Squad for #2, a CCS with no specweapons, a few Leman Russ and an Ogryn squad.

Same way Ork and Nid players paint theirs, and the people who paint them like the look. Good looking or bad looking is a subjective viewpoint.

To those who have said Guard are the worst army in the game. Please could you design a TAC as possible pure BA or CSM list to defeat the following Guard list at 2k:

Pask punisher with mms and lascannon
Vanquisher with lascannon

Tank commander vanquisher with lascannon
Vanquisher with lascannon

Vet squad with demolitions and 3 melta guns
Chimera

PCS with autocannon

3 infantry squad (blobbed) each with plasma gun and autocannon
Priest

25 conscripts
Priest

Vendetta with 3 tl lascannons

3 wyverns

3 wyverns

2 wyverns

That's a basic guard mech/foot list attempting to be TAC. Absolutely nothing special - not gone for cheese by allying anything in, or going full wyvern. Try designing a TAC list then from BA or CSM to have a more than evens chance against it.
Piece of advice - don't underestimate wyverns, pask or fearless conscripts.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Not even included any large ap2 or 3 blasts to make it easier.

 Mr.Omega wrote:

 gmaleron wrote:

 vipoid wrote:

 gmaleron wrote:
Riptides and Wraithknights are not OP

Nothing funny about a factual statement, if you're having issues then you might want to change your list or tactics up.

Your subjective opinion is not fact, especially when you clearly advertise the fact that you play Tau. Let's make that clear.

Whilst I would concede that Wraith Knights are reasonably well balanced given their considerable investment, Riptides are very easy to consider to at least some degree overpowered; I refuse to bog this thread down with too much detail, but even starting off with the facts that you can get an effectively-infinite-range, near infinite LOS-due-to-height S8 AP2 pie plate dispenser that is more often than not is several orders of magnitude harder to kill than a Leman Russ and a Land Raider (even if it doesn't Nova) and moves 6+2D6 a turn for 185 points , anyone with eyes and two braincells to rub together can clearly see it doesn't match up in balance when you draw comparisons. 5 points for an Ion Accelerator, come on, seriously?

Just because I play Tau, and barely have I started playing them and don't own any Riptides, doesn't mean my opinion is biased and that I cannot make an educated decision from looking at facts. I am stating from personal experience that the Riptide is not overpowered. And it is your opinion that they are just as it is the opinion of me and other players, not just people who play Tau, that I found them to not be broken. Does that mean they aren't strong? Not in the slightest, I would hope for something that I pay over 200 points for (because no one takes just the Ion Accelerator) would be a strong model.

I have been an Imperial Guard player for a number of years and when Riptides first dropped I never had issues with them, that includes the Tri Riptide list. The biggest reason the Riptide is so dominant that I have seen is people refusing to change their tactics or lists and people not putting enough terrain on the table which includes area and LOS blocking terrain. And so what it has a large blast 8 AP 2 weapon, you can get a strength 10 large blasts ap2 weapon for 15 points cheaper on a 14 armor hull or take multiple heavy tanks for cheap. Want to complain about Marker Lights? Guess what it's what makes the army unique and even then you're paying a good chunk of points in order to get them so when it comes to cost of said marker lights its pretty expensive and balances out. You And some people may feel the Riptide is to strong but in my experience and other fellow players at my store and others I have been to who feel that the Riptide is manageable.

Back to this thread the ig have a lot of answers for said MCsin the form of their tanks, heavy weapon teams with order, tying it up with conscripts that are fearless and the Vendetta. also one of the best ways to defeat said list was to focus and kill everything else but the Riptides which was doable.

Toofast wrote:
AM is boring and I have no clue how they fit into the 40k universe of high technology, power armor and badass aliens. I table them most of the time and I play SW which aren't exactly a power gamer army. If anyone wants to see how "good" guard is, check their win rate in 7th on TOF. They're barely above last place. Last time I checked they were 2% higher than the worst army in 40k. How does anyone paint so many boring looking models that are mediocre at best on the tabletop?

They have sheer manpower.

And IG are considered a top tier army.

 ChazSexington wrote:
And IG are considered a top tier army.

I thought they were considered mid tier?

I don't think the Cadians look boring. I find them to be nicely understated. They're as basic as you can go with the theme, and I can see why some don't like it, but it fits right up my alley. Drives home the theme of ordinary against the insanity for me.

With regard to Cadians, I'm personally fine with most of their design - it's just their heads I don't like.

I mean, I much prefer the simplistic approach to the current Space Marines - who can barely move for all the bling covering them.

What I dislike are the shape of the helmets (which make them look bobble-headed), and that their faces look like someone carved them out of potatoes. Thank goodness for head-swaps.

Actually, I feel I should also add 'cost' to my dislikes. Because £18 for 10 models, when you can easily field hundreds of the things, is just batty.

Poly Ranger wrote:

3 wyverns

3 wyverns

2 wyverns

That's a basic guard mech/foot list attempting to be TAC. Absolutely nothing special - not gone for cheese by allying anything in, or going full wyvern.

So 8 wyvern instead of 9 is not full wyvern? You are generous.

Zsolt wrote:

Poly Ranger wrote:

3 wyverns

3 wyverns

2 wyverns

That's a basic guard mech/foot list attempting to be TAC. Absolutely nothing special - not gone for cheese by allying anything in, or going full wyvern.

So 8 wyvern instead of 9 is not full wyvern? You are generous.

I was wondering if someone would pick up on that ;-p. I originally had a standard russ instead of the 2 wyverns plus a few other things in the list,when I originally wrote that sentence. Took the russ out to get rid of an ap3 large blast so it couldn't be said it was tailored for BA or CSM. Left that sentence in as tongue in cheek.

Could have done more Wyverns by doubling up on CAD or allies or just going Unbound for dozens of the things.

 vipoid wrote:
With regard to Cadians, I'm personally fine with most of their design - it's just their heads I don't like.

I mean, I much prefer the simplistic approach to the current Space Marines - who can barely move for all the bling covering them.

What I dislike are the shape of the helmets (which make them look bobble-headed), and that their faces look like someone carved them out of potatoes. Thank goodness for head-swaps.

Actually, I feel I should also add 'cost' to my dislikes. Because £18 for 10 models, when you can easily field hundreds of the things, is just batty.

Absolutely, Space Marines have gone crazy recently, "no man, my bike needs wings, I need more purity seals, I need some sort of protrusion on my helmet, let's spice up the back pack while we're at it, and I'll take a banner why not..."

I love the understated guardsman (not a big Vostroyan fan). Unfortunately I'm stuck with the slightly ridiculous Catachans back from when they were the only plastics. If they released Tallarn and Mordian (reasonably priced) plastics, I'd be unable to choose. Mujahideen guerrilla army or classy guardsman who wears his dress blues to save the galaxy from alien hordes...impossible decision.

I think the cadian models are pretty cool. I get to like them in DOW.

I find that an Imperial Guard list needs a clear idea of what it wants to do in order to succeed. The Space Marine method of taking a little bit of this and a little bit of that for flexibility just doesn't work for them. You can't count a single Vanquisher to cover your AT, for example. You need at least three.