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.

You know what makes me dislike guard in recent years? They are very focused on being cadians and steel legion with no support for other guard playstyles. I've been wanting to build a catachan army for about 3 years now, but know that I will be unable to run it as I want (vetscouts in deep cover with snipers, with sentinels boogieing along with heavy flamers, without losing to all but orks and blood angels. The army demands either tons of conscripts for blob guard, or bringing 8+ tanks which I despise as an army concept. Entirely personal opinion and not fact obviously, I just feel that almost every army with distinguished chapters/regiments/warbands/etc should get a proper 30k treatment. My word Bearers have special units, special detachments, character options, special weapons, etcetc. If they added a supplement for each book with 4-8 pages for each regiment, I would be very happy to jam money into GWs gullet xD

Funny thing is they don't even really support Steel Legion that much either. They have like 1 squad, plus a few blisters for heavy weapons teams and an officer. As a Cadian player I'm satisified, but I do wish the other regiments would get some love, I dearly want to start a Mordian army, but they have all of like 1 squad for them. Might have to look into a 3rd party retailer for that though.

 War Kitten wrote:
Funny thing is they don't even really support Steel Legion that much either. They have like 1 squad, plus a few blisters for heavy weapons teams and an officer. As a Cadian player I'm satisified, but I do wish the other regiments would get some love, I dearly want to start a Mordian army, but they have all of like 1 squad for them. Might have to look into a 3rd party retailer for that though.

Most of the minor regiments have metal/finecast models still. The crazy Russians have it the worst I think, since all of their models are objectively worse then just running over to a historical store and getting actual Russian models, likely for cheap too. For catachan they are decent, though third party heads are required if you want to go with non-googly eyed freaks. Thing about catachan for rules though? They have a single option: an out of date apocalypse formation that is barely strong enough compared to the now standard formations now. I could honestly make a all scout ravenguard army, and have it fit the fluff better then the actual army :/

Sad, but true. Hopefully we'll get a model facelift when/if we get a new codex. Fingers crossed

What's funny is that a lot of the (non-Praetorian) metal IG are still available from GW. Pretty fairly priced, too, in the sense that plastic is catching up with metal.

I would like doctrines, though. That would be nice.

You guys just aren't building the army right. A Blobguard deathstar to get into melee does the trick.

Typically-Wardian wrote:
Just... Why? They can put down 100+ infantry and tons of vehicles every game, and massively outnumber their opponents, they have units that can take out their points of stuff in a single phase (Wyvern, LRBT, Basilisk), their HQ's are all force multipliers, they can take lots of psykers, and they have more LoW choices than everyone else. I don't get how you could think that the AM are underpowered.

They can take tons of infantry. Their infantry suck, both in absolute terms and for their relative investment. There's gobs of things that can remove humongous numbers with ease. More to the point, the scale at which the game is played, with Knights and companies of tanks and deathstar units like Necron Wraiths or TWC's, stuff like Lasguns simply have no functional value, and all you're really getting out of most of your infantry is simple board presence rather than any sort of useful combat unit, and they cost too much for that.

They have lots of vehicles. Vehicles (particularly non-skimmer vehicles) are exceedingly easy to remove and otherwise negate, particularly with the increasing availability of weapons like Gauss, Grav, Haywire, Destroyer, etc that all largely ignore AV and can strip HP's or otherwise kill vehicles with great ease, and IG have very little access to these sorts of abilities. Despite your previous statement in another thread that putting down 10 AV14 tanks auto-wins games...it doesn't, in fact it practically auto-loses most.

They have units that can *potentially* remove their points worth of stuff every phase, but really very rarely do. Yeah, in theory, a Leman Russ can obliterate 150pts of Marines in a single round. However, This basically requires a clean hit on a very clumped up enemy unit that's standing out in the open. Opponent's rarely give you such an opportunity, and even when they do, you have less than a 50/50 chance of sticking the hit you need to make it count. I can probably count on one hand the number of times I've seen a Leman Russ or Basilisk accomplish this feat in the last several editions. Such vehicles also tend to be rather poor at actually engaging other tanks, and are atrocious at dealing with MC's (that they can only ever do one wound to) and are rather very poor at engaging popular deathstar units.

Yeah, IG HQ's are force multipliers, but only really for the weeny crappy infantry that die immediately after they do their job, and the HQ units aren't exactly hard to kill either, they're usually priority (and squishy) targets.

They can take lots of Psykers...but they can't really use them anywhere near as effectively as other factions can. Getting Invisibility with a 25pt Telepath sounds cool...until you realize you can't cast it from inside a transport, the unit is incredibly easy to kill outside of a transport, and there's no particularly amazing units to cast it on the way there are with many other armies like Eldar or Daemons or Space Marines. Likewise getting Iron Arm on a Primaris Psyker isn't anywhere near as useful as on say, a Biker Librarian or a Daemon Prince. The army just can't make use of many (or most) powers as effectively as other armies can make of them.

Yes, IG have lots of LoW choices, but by and large, they're vastly inferior in effectiveness than everyone else's, particularly on a point for point basis. Sure a ~500 Shadowsword gets a D Pieplate. A 295pt Wraithknight gets two D shots and way more mobility. A 500pt Eldar Scorpion gets two Twin-Linked D pieplates. A 300pt IG superheavy like a Macharius gets a 7" S8 AP3 blast and a couple of Heavy Bolters, is actually less impressive than two bog standard Leman Russ tanks.

EDIT: It should also be noted that IG armies aren't placing anything anywhere near top places in any tournaments anywhere, except as a meatshield allied detachment to another army, and even that's relatively rare.

IMO, IG are a fine army.

As long as the vast majority of the points are spent in IKTs and the IG are used as bubble wrap

Because what's ridiculous is how IKTs do everything the Guard wants to do, but categorically better. For the same points as 2 LRBTs, you have the same core firepower laying down 2x 72" S8 AP3 pie plates from an armored vehicle. However, you get an Invulnerable save. And you're faster. And you get to fire your secondary weapons at regular BS. And you get Skyfire or extra templates at a fair price. And you don't suck in HtH, because you can Stomp enemy mobs. And if there are enemy Titans or whatever, there are actually good options to take those out.

But the IG are superior to IKTs at one thing... dying. As bubble wrap to take up space, Platoons and blobs are great at that.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
You guys just aren't building the army right. A Blobguard deathstar to get into melee does the trick.

Exactly.

Until it meets just about any other deathstar in the game, or any one of the very large number of accurate delivery template weapon that are common to many armies

Blobguard can kill things in melee, definitely. But the losses in the imperials side more then makes up for anything they can kill. Killed that daemon prince? Good job, most of the blob is gone now assuming black Mace. Now imagine that for veterens who should be better in melee, and are actually worse for ppm .

The book can do things, but mostly they pay to much for to little

120 points of seekers will kill almost 30 guardsmen on average in a single round.

Blob guard is one of the most overrated play-styles I've seen, which is a shame because it's fun as hell to play.

Edit- The Lost and the Damned army-list from Forgeworld is a great example of how the IG should play, imo.

If blob is the best IG can do, we have way bigger problems than what I had previously surmised.

a 50 man squad of guardsman with azrael power weapons (or melta bombs)and a priest. you can add an inquisitor to give them scout. take azraels fnp warlord trait or his +3 run charge trait. 6 inch scout move 6 inch normal move. potentially another 9 inch run move with a decent roll with orders. 2nd turn charge. 4++ rerollable invulnerable saves.

peirceg wrote:
a 50 man squad of guardsman with azrael power weapons (or melta bombs)and a priest. you can add an inquisitor to give them scout. take azraels fnp warlord trait or his +3 run charge trait. 6 inch scout move 6 inch normal move. potentially another 9 inch run move with a decent roll with orders. 2nd turn charge. 4++ rerollable invulnerable saves.

Yay allies stupidity.

peirceg wrote:
a 50 man squad of guardsman with azrael power weapons (or melta bombs)and a priest. you can add an inquisitor to give them scout. take azraels fnp warlord trait or his +3 run charge trait. 6 inch scout move 6 inch normal move. potentially another 9 inch run move with a decent roll with orders. 2nd turn charge. 4++ rerollable invulnerable saves.

Piggy-backing on another codex does not mean the IG codex is any good. For the same reason that the Eldar aren't made worse by being able to ally with Orks and BA.

As above, if you're going to take allies, at least take GOOD allies - Imperial Knights!

That said, Azrael+Ogryns in a LR is fun as hell, if not very effective.

Ineffective yet fun, is that something like healthy food?

Right now IG are pricey tanks and cheap infantry. IG was able to get by on large blasts and volume of fire but right now that doesn't generate enough hits/wounds/failed saves.

GW will never do it, but they should consider looking at what FW did with 30k Imperial Militia and Solar Auxillia... Not saying they copy that, but they need to move outside the orthodoxy of Cadian style IG and approach them as an empire spanning force.

The problem with measuring a codex with allies is that you quickly reach a point where there's no point even playing your codex - because there's nothing it can do that your ally codex can't do better.

See also: Dark Eldar.

peirceg wrote:
a 50 man squad of guardsman with azrael power weapons (or melta bombs)and a priest. you can add an inquisitor to give them scout. take azraels fnp warlord trait or his +3 run charge trait. 6 inch scout move 6 inch normal move. potentially another 9 inch run move with a decent roll with orders. 2nd turn charge. 4++ rerollable invulnerable saves.

The problem with the blob is that it's very expensive and is still slow. Vulnerable to weapons
A 6" scout and 6" normal is 12 up the field. You run for another 9" that's 21".

At that point, 20 scat bikes with guide remove quite a bit of troops. Eldar army moves back to prevent a charge.
At that point, wraiths/flayed ones charge in and win the combat anyway.
At that point, drop pod marines in a triangle with launchers remove half the blob or more.
At that point, the centstar fires TL bolters and gravguns.
At that point, 200-300 points of wyverns open up and remove the squad.
At that point, tau with markerlight support decimate the front ranks and prepare for overwatch (since they likely have no other targets in fire warrior range turn 1).

Most of the commonly seen units can roll that blob. It's been popular since 6th and it wasn't broken then, just kinda competitive.
Now, in 7th, the good dexes are even more powerful while the blob hasn't changed that much.

Uughhhhhhhhhhh no. Christ.

Look, what is the actual definition of a "bad" codex. One in which 50% or more of the units and options that are present are so bad there's no reason to take them? One that actually gets forced to build in a specialized way to beat one specific type of enemy because the other options are too inefficient to ever work?

Someone defended rough riders, right? Let's talk about rough riders. Let's say, for instance, you take your rough riders and charge their perfect prey: tactical marines with bolters. If you survived with T3 5+ models and managed to get a flawless charge, and you've got a "one use only" ability you should completely obliterate them right? Let's say 10 RRs make it unscathed to 10 hapless tacticals.

Well... (Hold on to your pants, I'm going to use decimals. I know you can't take .4 of a wound or hit .7 times but it's a better way to estimate averages compared to rounding.)

First, 2.2 of your rough riders die to overwatch. Then you kill 5.1 tacticals. Then another 1.8 rough riders die.

So on average, you kill a whopping one more tactical than you lost rough riders. And it gets worse. If the tacticals retreat, they rally on their turn and shoot you for 5 of your remaining 6 wounds. If you stay in cc, you don't kill any more marines and they kill 2 more, because your lances are done.

Best case scenario... They don't make their points back. If the tacticals have something crazy like a flamer... The initial round of combat is a tie and they get even less. That's what make RRs quite possibly the worst models in the game: they simply can't be efficient.

Agree that the biggest issue is the current Guard codex is Codex: Cadia. Cadians are cool and all, but when I compare customization optionsto the Renegades and Heretics lists, the difference is obvious.

 Lukash_ wrote:
Agree that the biggest issue is the current Guard codex is Codex: Cadia. Cadians are cool and all, but when I compare customization optionsto the Renegades and Heretics lists, the difference is obvious.

Except if it were actually Codex: Cadia, it would be good.

Well if you're using a unit meant to counter charge and mop up to charge an unscathed tactical squad you're doing it wrong. If GW made Rough Riders the way they need to be to actually assault full units... They'd be more like the Death Korp of Krieg Deathriders. GW really needs to think about updating Rough Riders. In every known civilization that had cavalry they were elite better equipped units... These riders should be more on a hardened veteran or storm trooper power level, equipped better and mounted on sufficiently sci-fi steeds.

peirceg wrote:
a 50 man squad of guardsman with azrael power weapons (or melta bombs)and a priest. you can add an inquisitor to give them scout. take azraels fnp warlord trait or his +3 run charge trait. 6 inch scout move 6 inch normal move. potentially another 9 inch run move with a decent roll with orders. 2nd turn charge. 4++ rerollable invulnerable saves.

That's the thing. I would rather not have to take allies to make my army better. In fact, I shouldn't have to take allies to make Guard work. But with the way 7th has gone pure Guard is one of the weakest armies out there.

I'm not sure that RRs are defined as a countercharge unit - it's more that countercharge is the only thing they're capable of.

UrsoerTheSquid wrote:
Rough riders are awful! They are great at dying very quickly. Maybe if they could outflank and assault on the turn they arrived. But still.

I've mentioned before how it would be great if guard could have a bike unit that is a motorcycle and side car, equipped with a heavy stubber. They would run in squads of 3 and be a new part of an infantry platoon.

This would make them fast and give them obj sec.

and then theres a race for everyone to get bikes, and then the meta is basically bike armies everywhere or flying spam, wow thats some realy diversity of armies right there with everyone basically drinking the same two flavours of kool-aid. how about instead we make an army to hard counter bike spam, how about that. no im not talking about standing in fields with IC, how about letting the IG player buy his own terrain, things like spike strips and grav plate barricades that force units of the bike (jetbike for grav) (against any special rules they may have) to make dangerous terrain checks or remove from play on a model by model level. then let him place them wherever he wants on the table. i think that would be an effective way to counter the speed is king lists that dominate the meta so much as you can use them to effectively deny the ability to cross the table the way the other person wants. its a simple idea but a very powerful one. if a unit crosses them they make checks or they are crushed by their own weight/thrown from their bikes and effectively out of the fight and because it over-rides other rules applicable such as born in the saddle it will have an impact and bikes will tumble to the ground, heck you could lose IC's from jetseer's in single dice rolls which would be just brutal. maybe let him buy IED's to pre-plant as well. guard are the masters of siege warfare and placing traps and using simple things like spike strips to slow the enmy or deny them a route of passage altogeather is something they would actually think of doing, instead of you just being left to run across the field willy nilly.

All I have to say about allies is this: if a codex relies on allies to be useful, then it is either a minidex which is meant to be THE ally, or its weak. Chaos marines have renegades and daemons, impguard has inquisition and space marines, and sisters of battle reaaaally needing inquisition for as much divination as possible. The pattern here? All three used to be stable on their own, but now require crutches to survive a friendly game.its to the point with impguard that not taking divination psykers next to 2+ artilary pieces is insane talk, because them and tank squadrons are all you have