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Hello everyone

I decided that I wanted to play IG, and picked up the Start Collecting! Astra Militarum and Tempestus Scions boxes, but I'm not sure where to go from here. Looking for some advice on what models to focus on buying for a decent army composition.

Here we go with tanks vs infantry again. The answer to your question is whether you find Russ hulls worthwhile in 7th ed.

Well, we don't know about 8th yet.

But that's beside the point!

First thing is that you need a legal force. That means two troops and an HQ. Right now, you don't have that, so, that should be your first goal. The easiest way is to grab another Start Collecting set and to call each infantry group a Veteran squad, while yoru Commisar is a Commisar Lord. That covers the things that you HAVE to have (Troops #1, Troops #2, and an HQ) and gives you a few extra guys for other stuff.

From there, you'll need to expand the army. Personally, I'm a big fan of infantry, so I'd want to direct you there, while others are treadheads who want more tanks. Either way's fine! The main thing is this:

Play the army that you want to play.

You can get advice and pointers, but never get into the "There's only one way to play this army" mega-competitive style. That'll tear you up and you'll miss all the fun parts of the hobby. Yeah, tournaments are fun, but it's more fun to just hang out with your friends, play the game, and swap stories.
"Man, remember when that conscript held off your Chaos Lord for two turns all by himself? That was *crazy!*"
"Dude needs a promotion!"
"He got one! He's my commanding officer now. Ol' One Ear."

So, core legal army, then have fun. I'll drop some more targeted thoughts in a bit.



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Alright. Purchases #2 and #3 should be Start Collecting boxes. Take your time, no need to invest a gob of cash up front, but these are great deals and, when you don't have much, it gets you rolling. Three sets you up with:

3 Leman Russ tanks (more on them in a bit)
3 Commissars
3 units of 10 infantry
3 heavy weapon teams
You will also want to get some more Large Bases, for future heavy weapon work.

With a bit of trickery, you can stretch those heavy weapon squads, so, try not to build them until you have some spare parts. Heresey, I know, but, hear me out.

Autocannons are generally considered the best thing going in there. It uses the tripod, and you want a guy sitting behind it. if you're feeling skillful, you can build it without the gun glued into place, letting you swap it out with a lascannon, but if not, hey, no big. You can keep the spares for the future. (ProTip: You get a lot of spare parts with stuff these days. Bag 'em up and store 'em! This creates a "bits Box" that you can draw from in the future. You will find things in there down the road that launch whole projects.) You technically should have a second guy on the base, but it isn't required.

You also have a bipod in there. There's some debate about mortars or Heavy Bolters, but, for me, I go with the mortar. Again, a kneeling guy goes here well, but a standing one also works. A second guy is, again, suggested but not required.

(Those standing guys, by the way, are guys you'll be pulling from the infantry squads. This will leave you 20 soldiers, then a bunch pulled aside for projects. Again, mix n match your kits! Cool stuff happens.)

You can also take another guy and give him a missile launcher, with a second guy holding ammo being suggested but not required. If you didn't use a squatting guy on the mortar, you can use him here... looks cool, and cool matters.

You can *also* use the crates and assorted 'scenery' in the heavy weapon sprue to make a small gun emplacement, and lay a trooper down flat to fire it, making a machine gun nest (Heavy Bolter) ... again, a second guy is suggested but not required.

That lets you use two kneeling guys and 1-6 standing guys to make four heavy weapon teams. Woo! This will give you around three of each heavy weapon, which is awesome, 20 guys with lasguns, and a ton of spare parts. Keep an eye on those special weapons! You can slot them into the units (Flamers and grenade launchers being the favorites), or you can spin them off to make special weapon squads (6 troopers, three with lasguns, three with special weapons) ... these are handy units, but mainly come up in larger games.

The Leman Russ ... boy. There are a ton of people here who can tell you about them better than I can. I prefer stripped down models, with a battle cannon (main gun) and a heavy bolter (front of the chassis) as the only weapons, but others vary from this. Listen to better people than me about how to kit them up. The in-game notation is that they form squads of three, and are often assigned to support infantry platoons, so, you're playing the game in a fluff-friendly way, which always has fans in the store. (You can later add more tanks, or a tank commander, but for now, keep it simple.)

This gives you a solid core to push out from, and should keep you busy until after Xmas. From there, things get tricky.

In some ways, you're lucky in that IG don't have a very obvious build, but part of that comes from simply not having a lot of great units.

I would focus on getting a force built for small games, and then focus on stuff that IG always can use relatively well: guardsmen, command, russes, and chimeras.

There is really no such thing as too many basic guardsmen, as the same lasgun trooper can fill out a command squad, veteran squad, basic infantry squad, or a conscript platoon. One big tip, and this has been true for over a decade, is to avoid buying or building too many generalist weapons, such as grenade launchers or missile teams. IG can bring enough specials and heavies to focus on the specialist kit. That being said, five point grenade launchers are nice to fill in points compared to leaving a special slot empty (such as in platoon command squads).

The wyvern is arguably the best unit the IG has now, so it's a good buy for the current edition.

Unfortunately, ogryns/bullgryns, sentinels, hellhounds, and hydras are pretty notorious underperformers, so I'd hold off on them unless you really dig the models.

IG is not an easy army to start, but you can always keep adding stuff!


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I'd also be remiss to not suggest both third part bits and used army lots. Painted plastic can be stripped, and while not as thoroughly as metal, the IG plastics do well, as bulk, relatively low detail models. IG are both fairly popular and not very good, which means there are a ton of models in circulation at good prices. A good eBay bid can net you a lot of stuff for a few hundred bucks. You can then focus new purchases on the command boxes (the only source of plastic melta or plasma guns).

Thank you everyone! I really liked your post Wakshaani, thank you! I'll definitely look to get more boxes soon

I was thinking of making a mostly infantry composition with some mechanized and indirect fire support. I was flipping through the codex and I like the idea of the Basilisk, but would that even be worth taking into a standard game? If not, would mortar teams be a good replacement? Are fliers a good choice?

With 7th, IG aren't in a terribly great place. They're not the bottom of the barrel, but they aren't far from it. What works will be heavily dependent on your common opponents, as there are common hardcounters to almost any IG army but usually not all present all the time with any particular player. The army really is best as a rump detachment rounding out some capabilities to another army

I would avoid Basilisks, just pay the extra 25pts for a Russ to get the same output with dramatically more survivability. The indirect fire capability and extra range won't be terribly useful, but the armor will against many (but not all) opponents. It's a unit that, in real life, would never see the front lines and would be many miles behind them. Mortar teams are even worse, they're very expensive for the damage output they provide, and are absurdly fragile. As noted, if you're gonna go for an artillery tank, go for the Wyvern. Cheap, impressively effective against infantry, and expendable.

IG does at least have a passable flyer in the Vendetta. This once was the stuff of nightmares, but edition and codex changes has reduced it to "ok".

What probably works most consistently is mechvets with lots of massed AV12 simply to overload most opponent's ability to deal. There are many armies however that will curbstomp such a build, but it's probably the most commonly effective. My common 2k list is something like 2 CAD's, each with 2 Mechvet units and a CCS, all sporting as many special weapons as they can take, and then some Lascannon equipped armored sentinels (mostly because they're cheap and have a big enough gun for an opponent to want to kill them but not actually devote any resources to them, and they're great tarpits against stuff with no CC AT ability), then a couple of Wyverns and 3-4 Russ tanks, usually autocannon-toting Exterminators for some long range S7 volume-of-fire ability.

Aw man, am I just gonna lose every game I try to play then?

Wobbles wrote:
Aw man, am I just gonna lose every game I try to play then?

Not necessarily, it just really depends on your meta. If you see lots of Eldar, Tau with huge stompy robots, and Imperial Knights, it might be rough, but there a lot of other armies that are in the same boat as IG is.

Also, if you can, try to stick to smaller games to start. Trying to get an IG army up to 1850pts is a recipe for madness, you'll be much better served sticking to kill team or <1,000pts standard games. IG can be pretty powerful in lower points levels because we can get way more stuff on the table than most armies at that point and still have points to spare. To give you an idea, it's quite easy to field a leman russ even at 500pts and still have 30-40 infantry on the table to boot. We also can bring more special weapons per squad than any other army in the game, or just run conscripts and drown them in lasguns.


What we're essentially warning you is that tournaments and tournament minded areas are going to be a rough learning curve. Odds are you will not be the only new or lower powered codex in the area so you should have plenty of opponents around your power level. Orks, Blood Angels, and several codexes are all around your level so it's not like IG is alone down there. And if youre really hell bent on being competitive IG ally with all sorts of armies so you'll have options if you choose to go that route.

Would a 1000 point game still use the CAD? Or a different method?

On the subject of allies, what works well with IG?

Wakshaani wrote:
First thing is that you need a legal force. That means two troops and an HQ. Right now, you don't have that, so, that should be your first goal. The easiest way is to grab another Start Collecting set and to call each infantry group a Veteran squad, while yoru Commisar is a Commisar Lord. That covers the things that you HAVE to have (Troops #1, Troops #2, and an HQ) and gives you a few extra guys for other stuff.

This is terrible advice in 7th edition. The troops + HQ requirement only applies to CAD armies, formations will have their own required units. For example, you can make an army of nothing but LRBTs and completely ignore the troops requirement. And generally, given how powerful formations are in 7th, you're going to be building your army around one or more formations as the core.

That said, vets and CCS with melta/plasma are good units, but you'll need to buy them Chimeras or Valkyries/Vendettas. Just throwing some "veteran squads" into your army to make a CAD is not productive.

Wobbles wrote:
Aw man, am I just gonna lose every game I try to play then?

No, IG work just fine vs BA or Orks for example.

Martel732 wrote:

Wobbles wrote:
Aw man, am I just gonna lose every game I try to play then?

No, IG work just fine vs BA or Orks for example.

IG are in a bizarre spot. They have the capacity to be either completely OP vs. certain armies, or else, basically auto-lose against other armies.

If you are facing up against non-gladius MSU marines without grav and without drop pods, then you win. You just fething win.

Again, if you're facing up against orks: You win.

If you're up against scatbikes and wraithknights, then you lose.

If you're facing up against marines with drop pods, melta, flamers, etc., then again, then you lose. You just lose.

The strengths of IG are ridiculously cheap infantry which can spam upgrades and spammable tanks.

And line of sight? line of sight. You don't need that .

The weakness of IG is that you have infantry and tanks...and some planes. And that's about it.

"If you're facing up against marines with drop pods, melta, flamers, etc., then again, then you lose. You just lose."

That's BA, and you can beat them handily.

Martel732 wrote:
"If you're facing up against marines with drop pods, melta, flamers, etc., then again, then you lose. You just lose."

That's BA, and you can beat them handily.

But you have ATSKNF! That automatically makes you OP. You need to be nerfed. Clearly.

Where do I find formations? I didn't see any in the codex...

Warzone Damocles: Mont'Ka

Yeah, I don't know beans about formations. They exist, but it's a side of the rules that I don't chew on, so, I focus on the core rulebook.

Which is why I say make fluffier armies that you'll enjoy, rather than hunting around for all the broken stuff.

That said, other people are *way* better at the game than me and that's fine. They can set you up with all the strong stuff.

But modelstuff? That, I can do. It's my inner Ork on display.

For example! Command squads. Eventually, you'll want 'em, but don't think that you have to load up on command boxes. Most command-level guys are just troopers, after all, and jr officers don't have to stand out much. You can get by with splitting a standard infantry squad box into two command squads without too much trouble. (You'll be short a close combat weapon, but that's about it) ... and if you buy a single Command Squad box, you can raid it for parts, turning it into two or three command squads worth of gear.

For example, the Regimental Standard? You probably want it on your senior command officer. Captains look awesome with a flag flappin' behind them as they send men into the field. A command squad box gives you two, one pristine and one shot up. Platoon command squads can also take a standard, but, honestly, you aren't likely to want it (they look great! but they don't do much) ... so that single flag will go a long way. The command box comes with a couple of close-combat weapons, some pistols, a nice pointing 'command' arm, plus some nice special weapons and adornments, so, you can stretch it out fairly well. Each can easily do a high command (HQ) and a platoon command (troops), and you can probably squeeze a second platonn command out of it as well. (So, a command box + an infantry box = 15 guys for three command squads) ... kitbashing: it's handy!

If you go for the Imperial Armour book..... you can then give yourself some decent Russ upgrades (co-axil guns giving twin linked, beasthunter shells, extra hull points etc) without the Russ Tax given via taking the Vanilla Tank Commander in the Codex. You also get access to Salamanders which are AV 12/10/10 with scout, autocannon and heavy bolter, basically a faster, non walker, tougher version of a scout sentinel for a minor buff in points. Finally you'd get Vultures which are vendettas with twin linked punisher cannons and BS4 against ground target with another 90 degree pivot at the end of their move. All extremely fun and effective, but you have to fork out for the IA book, FW kits and in the Salamanders case, convert chimera chassis vehicles.

Anyway back to the vanilla codex

Tanks

In terms of vanilla dex, a mix of Anti-Tank and Anti-Infantry Russes will suit you well. Get Pask in a punisher for Anti-Infantry duty with all round heavy bolters. You can go for Pask in a Vanquisher for Anti-Tank but give it a hull lascannon but leave the Melta's at home on that specific variant (they are expensive and you're mixing short and long range AT, anything that gets that close to your russ will normally kill it), if anything bolters suit it better. Personally not keep on Demolishers seeing they tend to act more as short range AT.... which when you have vanquishers and them being so slow... yeah they normally get popped early on. The Exterminator and Executioner are decent enough imo, take the first with all heavy bolters (maybe a hull lascannon as backup) and take the Executioner with Plasma Cannon sponsons for full scale hilarity. Either with Russes make sure you take two and have them in separate battlefield roles.

Infantry

In terms of infantry you have to decide whether to go mech or footslogger. Mech means Veterans with either 3 Melta's or Plasma guns in either Valkyries or chimera's, I'd choose chimera's. Don't give them flamers/heavy flamers though, as you're wasting their BS4.

However if you use footsloggers use platoons but be aware your troops will die so keep them cheap, with minimal upgrades, but you can blob them with mixed results. When they are blobbed up and they can get tied up via assaults, but you then need fewer orders to cast and can help survivability to an extent. Within your platoons ignore heavy weapon teams unless you want a fluffy army. I presume you'll get a few of them via the get started box so equip them with autocannons. Generally however they look cool but are too fragile and cost too many points. Also stay away from the special weapon teams, unless you plan on giving them 3 flamers and popping them in a Vendetta. Conscripts are fun to simply throw into the meatgrinder but then you're having to have time to paint all those guys. Concerning the Platoon command squad I like to keep them cheap, they tend not to last long and equipping them with special/heavy weapons makes your opponent more likely to target them when their main role should be simply to issue orders.

With that all said, make sure each unit has a vox to help with orders as they will be your bread and butter, especially with your footsloggers.

Artillery

In terms of Artillery.... Just take Wyverns.... you don't really need anything else. The rest are situational or simply overpriced point wise (looks shiftily at the basilisk. However going back to FW (slap me) Heavy Artillery Carriages are rather competitive with Earthshaker cannons.... so maybe buy 1-3 basilisks, convert them into Salamanders and save the cannons for Carriage conversions? If someone else can clarify I think artillery can either benefit from either orders or something else that denies cover saves? *slap* right I'll shut up about FW now )

HQ

Concerning Company Command Squads.... I can't quite get them right yet myself. Also most named characters apart from Pask... and possibly Creed are pretty rubbish. Lord Commissars are quite good and fairly cheap to field, the non-ORG slot HQ's such as the Commissar, Priests, Psykers etc are good too but probably a bit higher up in terms of skill level and in some regards your army needs to be built with them in mind, rather than you just adding them into a random force. Psykers in general can be good for guard but i've never bothered with them due to their fragility.

Specialist/other units

Generally you have to be weary of most of your choices. Ogryns are not really great, Scions are overpriced and situational and Rough Riders are simply mediocre glass cannons. Ratlings though can be a decent annoyance for your opponent (and incredibly cheap) and most other units have their uses albeit I have limited experience with some such as hellhounds. Many swear by scout sentinels and admittedly they're cheap at only 35 points..... but with 2HP and AV10 all around... they're going to die. Give them a lascannon, sure they can outflank and hit side/rear armour.... but it will miss 50% of the time and then die.... Armoured sentinels are better armoured but still retain the 2HP and lack scout, thus relegated to fire support for your footsloggers. That said both variants are better options than Heavy Weapon Squads. Taurox's have their supporters, but I'd say simply take chimeras instead.

The most important thing

However all this is moot if you want to play a specific army type. Wanna play airborne? Spam Flyers and vets.... Wanna Play Mech Inf? Spam Chimera's + Vets with a few Russes... Wanna play Tank Regiments? Spam Russes + a few Vets in Chimeras...... Combined Arms? Artillery, Flyers, Tanks and Infantry.... Footsloggers? Only use infantry, you'll die but it'll be so goddamn glorious! The main part of 40k is having fun, playing guard you should never expect to win (albeit I have roughly a 60/40 W/L ratio with them), have fun and play whatever type you wanna play.

I've also ignored formations, seeing A) I don't have the book and B) You really have to buy your army with them in mind.

I would take everything you read with a grain of salt as well as ask around on some other 40k boards. This thread is already full of people who don't even play the faction weighing in on how they think you should play.

You can't really go wrong with the basics, that's how I started. Just stocked up on common infantry and basic tanks, played a few games to see what direction I wanted to go after the initial purchases. A lot of the time you'll find yourself just buying more, more tanks, more troops, we don't add bling and call it a new unit in this faction.

The army isn't a power gamer army, you're going to lose games and some of them quite badly. Guard is better for someone who just wants to roll some dice after work/on the weekend and not take things too seriously, a less comedic Orks in a way.

If you're interested in fliers Guard get the awesome Vulture gunship, if you like the American A-10 Warthog you'll love this beauty. BRRRAP!

 MarsNZ wrote:
If you're interested in fliers Guard get the awesome Vulture gunship, if you like the American A-10 Warthog you'll love this beauty. BRRRAP!

You mean this for the space A-10, complete with avenger cannon:



BRRRRRRRRT.

Thank you everyone for contributing

I'm gonna take your advice MarsNZ and just wing it! And I'm definitely gonna get some BRRRRRT for my army

Dollar for dollar, strongly consider the Web-only metal IG ranges. Price-wise, they're not much more expensive than plastic.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Dollar for dollar, strongly consider the Web-only metal IG ranges. Price-wise, they're not much more expensive than plastic.

That or going 3rd party (aka using models made by someone other than GW)

Youd be amazed at the quality out there thats roughly the same price as GW's aging plastics. You can pick pretty much any regiment and odds are someone makes it now, or at least makes the bits for you to do it yourself.

 MrMoustaffa wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Dollar for dollar, strongly consider the Web-only metal IG ranges. Price-wise, they're not much more expensive than plastic.

That or going 3rd party (aka using models made by someone other than GW)

Youd be amazed at the quality out there thats roughly the same price as GW's aging plastics. You can pick pretty much any regiment and odds are someone makes it now, or at least makes the bits for you to do it yourself.

^ This..... some third party models are simply amazing. Sadly with my local club being at Warhammer World in Nottingham.... not really an option for me

Peregrine wrote:

 MarsNZ wrote:
If you're interested in fliers Guard get the awesome Vulture gunship, if you like the American A-10 Warthog you'll love this beauty. BRRRAP!

You mean this for the space A-10, complete with avenger cannon:



BRRRRRRRRT.

A fine specimen, love how it looks so beautifully ugly, like a Stuka. I'll add it to the list of hardware that I want.

Wobbles wrote:Thank you everyone for contributing

I'm gonna take your advice MarsNZ and just wing it! And I'm definitely gonna get some BRRRRRT for my army

/tips fedora

as you were, guardsman.

Wobbles wrote:
Hello everyone

I decided that I wanted to play IG, and picked up the Start Collecting! Astra Militarum and Tempestus Scions boxes, but I'm not sure where to go from here. Looking for some advice on what models to focus on buying for a decent army composition.

Imperial Guad are, at their core, meant as an infantry combined arms sort of force. The armored might of the Emperor is impressive when arrayed against its foes on the table but artillery and boots on the ground are the watch words.

The Emperors Wrath Detachment in the Mont'Ka rulebook supplement is an excellent place to start if you'd like to take a look at it.

From a points perspective, most tournaments are played at 1850, so you kind of need to make a decision between Artillery supported Infantry vs. Tank supported Infantry. It is very difficult to balance having both tanks that matter, in amounts that matter and still bringing artillery that matters in amounts that matter.

The amount of Haywire, Grav and the fact that Leman Russ tanks have only three hull points, I think I lean more towards artillery supported infantry forces.

I know the idea of Air Cavalry is attractive to some players as well and that's another direction to go. So is an Abhuman army if you're just looking for a themed army. But with the cost of the hobby, I'd stick to getting ahold of 50 Guardsman, some Heavy Weapons teams and making a decision between the two kinds of support the IG have.

Ig are in a tough spot, mostly because they get outclassed.
I strongly suggest you look into artillery, one of the few good ways IG have of killing things
Earthshaker Platforms are good.
Wyverns are the stuff of nightmares
Thudd Guns are terryfying.
Emporers Wrath Artillery company is absolutely brutal. But be careful, it is expensive.
Ignore Leman Russes, their Av14 may look good, but doesnt amount to anything when Grav weapons are a thing and most armies spam melta.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Ig are in a tough spot, mostly because they get outclassed.
I strongly suggest you look into artillery, one of the few good ways IG have of killing things
Earthshaker Platforms are good.
Wyverns are the stuff of nightmares
Thudd Guns are terryfying.
Emporers Wrath Artillery company is absolutely brutal. But be careful, it is expensive.
Ignore Leman Russes, their Av14 may look good, but doesnt amount to anything when Grav weapons are a thing and most armies spam melta.

I essentially agree with all of this.

Option: Heavy Psykers summoning Daemons. That's also a decent choice, but it's *VERY* expensive, as you'll need Bloodthisters, Horrors, Bloodletters, etc, etc.