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In order to not get burned out from painting i need to have a solid rotation of armys to paint at the same time as i usualy get burned out after painting 1 unit... (i need variation!)

So the time has come to make an IG army. as usualy i will not go above 1000p as i prefer small games.
I have the start collecting box, but i have no idea how build a guard list for 500 and 1000p that in terms of performance will be used mainly for pick up games at my local gw shop or local gaming club using the content from that box, and at the same time use the models from my 500p list in my 1000p list.

I could ofc browse your 40k list section and i have, but they makes 0 sence to me and they are all over the place in terms of content.


So can any 1 bother to help me out here?

 FrozenDwarf wrote:
In order to not get burned out from painting i need to have a solid rotation of armys to paint at the same time as i usualy get burned out after painting 1 unit... (i need variation!)

So the time has come to make an IG army. as usualy i will not go above 1000p as i prefer small games.
I have the start collecting box, but i have no idea how build a guard list for 500 and 1000p that in terms of performance will be used mainly for pick up games at my local gw shop or local gaming club using the content from that box, and at the same time use the models from my 500p list in my 1000p list.

I could ofc browse your 40k list section and i have, but they makes 0 sence to me and they are all over the place in terms of content.


So can any 1 bother to help me out here?

Would you like to focus on tanks, infantry, or a healthy balance of the two?

That's usually the first thing you want to consider when building a guard army, as it will heavily influence where your army goes from there. All of our mainline infantry choices are good this edition so you can't go wrong there and if you want to go tank heavy you'll still probably do decently well as long as it's not a super cutthroat area. If you go tank heavy you'll still want at least some infantry to screen the tanks from turn 1 charges and deepstrikes. That said, that start collecting box won't even be close to 500pts as it stands. You'll need at least a few more infantry squads or another tank to hit 500pts, let alone 1000pts. IG stuff is crazy cheap this edition, it's a bit of a blessing and a curse honestly.

I would say no matter what having at least 3 infantry squads would be a good place to start no matter what direction you want to go. Even 3 heavily kitted out infantry squads is less than 200pts still leaving you room for tanks and it's the start of a half decent platoon if you want to go the infantry route. That would fill out your start collecting box content pretty well and you could use the commissar as an HQ if you really wanted.

Best weapons are plasma, melta, snipers, and pretty much any heavy weapon, depending on what you want to do. You'll need to consider your meta to figure out what mix will help you the most, but until GW learns math you're safe with spamming the heck out of plasma at least.

I cobbled together a rough 500pt list that will probably be the easiest for you to build right off the bat and still be good. You'll need to pick up a heavy weapon box and find some plasma guns, but other than that it's just adding some 20 guardsmen and covers most bases. Plus, you're rocking a "batallion" at 500pts, nobody will expect you to have 6 command points at that level of game. If you're curious why the Russ is a tank commander, that's to help you get 2 HQ's for a batallion and make your battle cannon more accurate. I picked triple flamer to help as a counter attack element, but I could see an argument for Lascannon/heavy bolters or lascannon/multimeltas as well. Leman russ hull and sponson weapons will stay in no problem without glue so feel free to try out different loadouts. Finally, missile launchers was because it's a jack of all trades weapon and at such a low level that's a handy thing to have, normally in bigger games you will want to specialize your squads a bit more with weapons like heavy bolters, autocannons, mortars, or lascannons. Lord Commissar is surprisingly tough in melee and will more importantly keep your guardsmen around.

I'd probably prefer a regular commissar and a Company commander instead of spending the points on a Lord Commissar, but until you pick up the bits to make an officer the lord commissar is a solid choice.

I want to be mainly infantry based but i dont fancy transport vehicles or vehicles in general as it just means i have to use a bigger transport case to bring my army and i am dependent on the metro to get to gw/gaming club.
1 russ in a 500p is ok and 2 in a 1000p is allso fine for me. but the rest should be infantry.

That is allso the reason to why i dont want any army above 1000p besides the game lenght.

As for meta, i dont realy have any. i guess something that could work against moust forces.
i am a fluff player, not a comp player.


I cant tell you if i like your list or not untill i play whit it, but atleast i get to use all the stuff from the box =)

Do people rune veterans or conscripts in 500p games? And what transports?

I'm doing a 450-500 point game tomorrow, and I'm able to far outnumber my opponent with very little effort.

Tempestor Prime
Company Commander
2x Infantry Squads
Tempestus Scion squad
Scion Command Squad
3x Grey Knight Paladins

In your list, you could replace the paladins with a Leman Russ from your starter kit, replace the Company Commander with a Lord Commissar from the starter, and then all you'd need is really two packs of Scions and a unit of infantry, or just load up on another infantry squad and transports/tanks as appropriate.

My IG army uses the following setup as a solid base every time at 1000 pts.

Leman russ exterminaror Tank commander
Leman russ executioner
3 squads of 10 guardsmen, 2 set up as a team with laz cannons
Company commander (for orders)

After that the rest normally changes depending on what I want to try. I have had success with sentinals, double flamer chimeras, veterans (go in the chimeras), scions (ariel drop helps a lot), and just maxing out on additional guardsmen squads with laz cannons and then taking heavy weapon teams and hiding them behind the 60 guardsmen and giving them mortars to have fun. I find russes get targeted quickly when you use just a few, leaving other stuff like sentinals and the like alone.

(Obviously not all of that in a single 1000 point game, but trying different stuff out to fill the rolls needed)

But yeah, like me mustafa said, a good clean 500pt starting position is important. You could drop the Tank commander if you wanted and put another company commander in, using the Tank as a normal leman russ if you want access to those orders (and if you go heavy infantry you want orders).

Alternatively if you dropped the russ all together from your lists and went pure guardsmen with gunlines you could catch your opponent off guard. Nothing is quite as precious as the look on a marine players face when you show up for a 1000 point game and he realizes your guard army has no tanks and he brought 2 dev squads with 4 laz cannons in each to make sure tanks die quickly.

After getting thrashed in two local tournaments, I am of the belief that Leman Russes are not suited for a competitive environment. They work fine in casual games, but it's too many points for something that is almost guaranteed to die or be crippled in the alpha strike.

I would try for some mix of arty/scions/infantry/conscripts to deny your opponent from having targets for his likely superior AT.

Edit: Wow, I totally misread the OP. For casual games, it's almost impossible to bring a bad guard list. The start collecting box + some infantry, one more tank or two light vehicles, a heavy weapons boxes to equip your squads, and another officer or two should be fine. Shoot for a minimum of 50 bodies at 1k, and 80+ at 2k

Thanks people.
have ordered 2 inf boxes and a heavy team box. =)

So about thouse heavy teams, why are no1 talking about the heavy bolter, rocket launcher or the autocannon options?

Have they become so bad that las or mortar are the only viable options, or is this forum simply too fokused on turney lists?

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
I'm doing a 450-500 point game tomorrow, and I'm able to far outnumber my opponent with very little effort.

Tempestor Prime
Company Commander
2x Infantry Squads
Tempestus Scion squad
Scion Command Squad
3x Grey Knight Paladins

In your list, you could replace the paladins with a Leman Russ from your starter kit, replace the Company Commander with a Lord Commissar from the starter, and then all you'd need is really two packs of Scions and a unit of infantry, or just load up on another infantry squad and transports/tanks as appropriate.

Those infantry squads are veterans?

 FrozenDwarf wrote:
Thanks people.
have ordered 2 inf boxes and a heavy team box. =)

So about thouse heavy teams, why are no1 talking about the heavy bolter, rocket launcher or the autocannon options?

Have they become so bad that las or mortar are the only viable options, or is this forum simply too fokused on turney lists?

In my opinion every heavy weapon has a legitimate use this edition depending on what you need to do. Even in more cutthroat metas I've seen pretty much every infantry heavy weapon have a place. The big thing is some are more generalist than others, and some only really work in certain spots. Keep in mind when people give you advice they're going to advise you as if it's a tournament area, this is simply to make sure you get good advice. I for example am not going to tell you to bring grenade launcher because grenade launcher are hot garbage and anyone who says otherwise is insane. It doesn't matter if the player I'm giving advice to plays in the most casual meta ever, grenade launcher are still bad so I'll advise them to run other things. That's the point of advice after all.

Mortars for example are only really good as a heavy weapon squad hiding in the back. They're kind of pointless in infantry squads. Infantry squads normally want something to help them deal with things lasguns can't. Lascannons are an obvious choice here as when they hit they hit like a ton of bricks, but I've had turns where not a single lasconnon hit or did damage with 8 squads packing them, so I tend to supplement mine with autocannons. More shots helps take out a bit of those random swings and a consistent 2 damage per hit is nice.

As for why I recommended missile launchers, they're a generalist weapon. At 500pts most lists will be somewhat limited, and you'll usually see people with just infantry, or just big things to try and catch their opponent flat footed. Missile launchers can realistically smack around anything so at 500pts they'd be my go to. At a 1000pts I tend to run a mix of nearly every weapon but heavy Bolters, and that's honestly just because I don't have any built. They're a nice cheap weapon for the front line squads and honestly a few of my autocannons could stand to be swapped for them if I was trying to optimize more. So basically try out each and see what works for you. Nice thing is the tripods in the kit can fit heavy Bolters, autocannons, and lascannons without glue so you can swap them in and out easily. I'd start there if you're not sure what you want to run, and use spare guardsmen to build mortar and missile launcher teams. You can theoretically build every type of gun in the heavy weapon box with enough spare guardsmen and some clever converting.

Seriously, IG infantry this edition is really good. Honestly the only place you can go wrong is grenade launcher, they're still 100% garbage and literally any other option, including not taking a special weapon and keeping the guy with a lasgun, is mathematically better than bringing Grenade Launchers in most situations.

right.
Well magnets i have plenty of so i should be able to make multipurpouse unit from the heavys.


While i do understand that people want to recomend what is THE best, the BEST tends to be overkill or unfair when you dont play competativly.

I'd recommend about 100 riflemen, a CC, a Commissar, a Manticore, a Wyvern, and a nice Leman Russ Tank of your choice [or, if you don't like Leman Russes, another Manticore and Wyvern].


Manticores and Wyverns are both very good, Unless you're running drop stormtroopers, you don't want to leave home without one of each. 100 Conscripts is approximately ideal at 100 points, any more and you'll be digging too heavily into your allocations for things that are actually good at killing things. In fact, I have to question if 100 is too many, 50 + 2 Infantry Squads may be adequate if you're on a 4x4 board.

Once you have a functioning army base, [CC, Commissar, Manticore, Wyvern, 2x Conscripts runs about 600 points], fill the rest of the list with things you think are cool that fit your army theme.



With regards to heavy weapons:

I have some Lascannons and some Missile Launchers. I haven't built any Mortars or Autocannons yet. The extra point of strength and AP on Lascannons are lifesavers over the Missile Launcher, which I've never fired in frag mode.
Mortars are now good, because they're really cheap.
I was never impressed by Autocannons in the past, and I'm only mildly more impressed now, but some people swear by them.
Heavy Bolters you can leave behind. Mortars are better for cost.

A single HWT box builds 6 guns, actually. It comes with 3 of all the weapons options, 5 large bases, and 6 kneeling crewmen, so if you buy an infantry box to go with it you can set up standing soldiers on the bases and get more value out of it.

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:


A single HWT box builds 6 guns, actually. It comes with 3 of all the weapons options, 5 large bases, and 6 kneeling crewmen, so if you buy an infantry box to go with it you can set up standing soldiers on the bases and get more value out of it.

Comes with 3 large bases. But its easy enough to get extra bases either from ebay or GW.

If you can get creative with leftover bits, sometimes you can stretch the HWT with tank crew bits. I remember that a few of them had legs that went with the upper torsos, or you could just build a mound on the base and say he'd knee deep in a mudhole or something.

Yea i will get conscripts but that is a long project on its own to paint 100 of(plus a wee bit expensive).

And moust likely by the time i get ot that point the IG codex has arrived.
Like i originaly said, i have to rotate between my armys painting 1 unit at a time, else i will never finish an army.

RogueApiary wrote:

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:


A single HWT box builds 6 guns, actually. It comes with 3 of all the weapons options, 5 large bases, and 6 kneeling crewmen, so if you buy an infantry box to go with it you can set up standing soldiers on the bases and get more value out of it.

Comes with 3 large bases. But its easy enough to get extra bases either from ebay or GW.

Huh, did they correct that? I haven't bought many, but the ones I have bought came with 5. I cut extras from plexiglass with a holesaw to really stretch the kit! You can get 8 out of an HWS and Infantry box, actually, since they don't have to kneel to use rocket launchers/

Stretching a hwt kit:

What you get: 1 of each weapon, but only 1 tripod and 1 bipod. 2 kneeling guardsmen. 2 small sections of sandbags. Spare ammo for each weapon. 1 large base. Various arms for the non-giunner guardsmen.

How to stretch it(will also require an infantry box): you don't really need 2 guardsmen on the base: boom 2 gunners. You do not need the bipod for the missile launcher and any non-running legs in the infantry box will provide a gunner for the missiles. Mortar requires the bipod but a standing model can be used just as well as a kneeling model. That is 2 down. Autocannon looks best on the tripod and using a kneeling model with the paddle-trigger arms(hey its a build-as directed model) lascannon has a cable and power-pack, power pack has buttons, a kneeling model using the pointing arm from the non-gunner can be positiined next to the pack and as if he were about to push on of the buttons, you will just need a way to mount the lascannon at the same height as the tripod, or on the tripod and working ot a solution for the Autocannon(either case I suggest sprue-brick wall or a sand bag on a mound). Now for the heavy bolter(this is fun); there are a pair of running legs in the infantry box that are too close together and have a single contact point with the base. These legs are rubbish for a standing/running guardsman, but great for a prone one. There is also both a flamer and a grenade launcher in the infantry box; you are not going to be using both. Trim the gun from the arm, trim the strap flush. The handle-arm for the gun will be used as-is. Assemble the torso and legs without a base, the back of the heavy bolter goes on the specialgun trimmed arm as if it had a single handle. Sand-bags or sprue-brick wall goes on the base, heavy bolter on arm gets rested or nested on bag/wall, torso and legs get set into arm and specialgun handel arm then gets connected to both torso and bolter as a side-mounted foregrip. Then find a naturalish angle for the head: boom; Prone heavy bolter gunner.

In all cases you will need extra bases for all the gunners, and you should build up the rest of the base enough to provide ample visibility and play with that as "counts as model" for both you and your opponent's los; inform opponent of this pregame and rule of cool will take away arguments.

Man, the experience that exists on this forum......

I love that idea for the heavy bolter Team. That's awesome.

With the HWS stuff, there's a weapon grip without arms attached. You can even go so far as to just have two guardsmen positioned in such a way that it looks like they just walked up to it, or they are in the process of setting it up.

In the case of stuff like Mordian Lascannon teams, they aren't even directly manning their weapons. They are kneeling or standing with a little remote control in their hands!

A single heavy weapon team box [with 3 bases] can make all of the Heavy Weapons into usable models. You just need to add more "grunts" to the mix, from an infantry squad.

First piece of advice, is to put the spotters on their own bases, though I would never again waste the kneeling legs on spotters! On their own bases, they're convenient wound markers!




Next piece of advice, is to get handy with plasticard, and build your own tripods. These aren't beautiful. One's broken and had a field repair done to it. But if a person had a bit of skill, it wouldn't be hard...




From there, get creative. You can have standing dudes for missile launchers, or mortars. Have extra weapon bitz? Make new, but easily identifiable weapons!




Harker is sooooo good right now, and you're going to have extra Heavy Bolters... so cut one down to size and build your own! [Though that prone HB is a great idea too!]




One of the cool things about IG, is that you can play "Brigades" getting +9 Command Points by using a lot of small squads.

Infantry Squads with Special and Heavy are about 65 pts each. 5-Man Scions with 2x Plasma are 65 pts each. 3x Missile Launcher HWT [Heavy Support] are 72 pts.

3x Mortar teams are 27 points. One more Heavy and you've filled that out, so take a Russ / Arty if points are tight. Sprinkle remaining Autocannons and Lascannons through your infantry. If they move, you still hit on a 5+

Armoured Sentinels with Plasma Cannons are 55 pts each, x3 for your FA slots.

Commissar, Harker, and Master of Ordinance clock in around 118 for all three Elites.

For your HQ, take a Lord Commissar, Company Commander, and a Tank Commander.


For example...

213 - Tank Commander w/ Battle Cannon, 3x HB
35 - Company Commander with Plasma Pistol
55 - Lord Commissar w/ PSword and BP

66 - 5x Scion w/ 2x Plasmagun, Plasma Pistol
66 - 5x Scion w/ 2x Plasmagun, Plasma Pistol
73 - Infantry Squad w/ Meltagun, Lascannon, Boltgun
73 - Infantry Squad w/ Meltagun, Lascannon, Boltgun
67 - Infantry Squad w/ Flamer, Autocannon, Plasma Pistol
67 - Infantry Squad w/ Flamer, Autocannon, Plasma Pistol

50 - Harker
35 - Commissar w/ Plasma Pistol
38 - Master of Ordnance

55 - Armoured Sentinel w/ Plasma Cannon
55 - Armoured Sentinel w/ Plasma Cannon
55 - Armoured Sentinel w/ Plasma Cannon

125 - Manticore
27 - Mortar HWS
72 - Missile Launcher HWS

1227 - Total

So you could probably tweak that to fit into 1000 points. Trade the Manticore for something cheaper, use Scout Sentinels with Multi-Lasers, trim some upgrades... Point is that with 12 command points, that's a lot of re-rolls.

it is ALOT of rerolls for 1000p if you mod that list as you said.
usualy you see 3-6...

there are so many good ideas in here that i would not find anywhere else.

Considering you only can use the stratagem once per phase, 12 is probably about the maximum you can use right now. Only 6 can be spent on re-rolls in your shooting phase [for those D6 weapons on your tanks and artillery, or damage for a Lascannon that rolled low], and you'll use another to re-roll the seize-the-initiative die and another to re-roll your die when you roll off to pick deployment zones and table sides, but that's about it.

I generally run much fewer command points and quite a few more tanks and guns.

Hehe, Philips Pattern Lascannons. Took me a moment to get the joke.

* Wink and the guns * ^ This guy gets it. ^

##ScrewYou##

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:
Considering you only can use the stratagem once per phase, 12 is probably about the maximum you can use right now. Only 6 can be spent on re-rolls in your shooting phase [for those D6 weapons on your tanks and artillery, or damage for a Lascannon that rolled low], and you'll use another to re-roll the seize-the-initiative die and another to re-roll your die when you roll off to pick deployment zones and table sides, but that's about it.

I generally run much fewer command points and quite a few more tanks and guns.

12 is a good number because you need to remember that there is more to the command point system than just rerolls in the shooting step. For one, rerolls in other phases is important as well if you're playing anything more involved than kill points. Advance rolls in the movement phase, charge rolls (yes, IG charge, infantry guard charge quite a bit believe it or not) critical saves for your officers in the assault phase, and of course the morale phase.

Speaking of which, that 2pt Insane Bravery strategem is one of the most important we have access to. I can't tell you how many times I've thwarted an opponent or held onto a key objective thanks to that one.

Most armies have to seriously consider whether or not they'll use one of these, but we can spam so many command points we can use them with almost no care at all in larger games. This is to say nothing of the fact that there are mission specific strategems out there, especially the ones that use tactical objectives. We're also completely ignoring the fact that our codex will undoubtedly quintuple the amount of strategems we'll have access to. May as well get used to bringing those points now. It's one of our biggest strengths, you'd be insane to not use it, especially since GW literally gave us the Batallion system with detachments as a way for us to rebuild our platoons now.

I couldn't agree more. Once I had access to tons of Command Points, I was rerolling any poor "shot" roll for the Manticore. I went from 5 shots to 10 shots. Night-night Land Raider.

Insane Bravery can save your last Lascannon, or Meltagun, or whatever. Commie limits you to one casualty, but if the last casualty is your Lascannon. :(

There's lots of places to use the extra re-roll / auto-pass morale. You probably don't have a Commissar running around with your Scions, and getting them to stick on distant objectives can be a win/lose situation.

I have yet to have objectives matter, because I've only had one game where my opposition had models left at the end of the game.

Bring down His wrath!


And yes, the lascannon joke is very funny.


I don't really use a lot of CP, I use it to re-roll the number of shots for a Shadowsword or Manticore, or sometimes the damage from a Lascannon, but I don't usually do it at other times. Nothing in my army moves far, and the most I use it for is to maximize damage dealt by a successful overwatch hit for tanks. Commissars keep my conscripts in position, assuming the conscripts have any models left, and spending 2 for a melee interrupt is generally pointless, for me. I typically have 7, from a Battalion, Spearhead, and Super-Heavy Auxiliary detachment.