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Coming back to 40k, haven't played since early 7th. Starting new with IG because I love the fluff and aesthetic. My questions is would a more mobile guard army be viable in moderately competitive games? The pure
parking lot gunline playstyle I find a little dull and I have lot more fun with more aggressive/ mobile armies. Don't have codex yet but after doing some online reading, do you think an army like this would be viable?

using catachan doctrine
2-3 hellhounds
2-3 leman russes
2 basilisks/ manticores
1-2 large groups of infantry w/ priest as an assault force
2-3 squads with heavy weapons for objectives
bull/ogyrn
2 valkyries dropping some type of close range infantry, maybe vet, scions or bull/ogyrn

Still in planning stages, not set on points yet. What do you guys think?

Bizarely Guard are some of the fast moving units in the game due to "move Move" and other dodgy rules - you can see guardsmen and Leman Russ moving faster than Eldar Raider etc....

Again strangely Catachan works well with Artillery and the +1 Strength is fun

Welcome back to IG Here's my take on what you have available:

hellhounds (run with track guards) can do some work as long as they don't blow up in your own lines. We don't have great FA options so hellhounds are at least not a total waste of points like sentinels
leman russes are best run as Tank Commanders with the Vigilus tank company. Hammer of sunderance and the ability to shoot twice for 1CP after moving 10" is gold. I'm going to try 1 sunderance, 1 punisher and 1 demolisher. The demolisher is new for me since they FAQ'd it.
basilisks/manticores - I'm starting to go heavy on bassies. Probably too many with 5 now but we'll see how it goes. Manticores are decent but are only AP-2 compared to AP-3 on the bassies. Plus I always take the emperor's wrath artillery company which doesn't work on manticores. For 2CP you can fire a bassie or wyvern twice. There's some gold.
large groups of infantry w/ priest as an assault force isn't really a thing anymore as you have to start the game with 10man squads and spend CP to combine them which you can only do once a turn - better going with bullgryns
infantry squads with heavy weapons for objectives. Yep that works. Mortars seem to be the default
bull/ogyrn I've only played a 5 man unit of these with mauls and a priest and an astropath for -1 to hit once so far but they did well...just need to do a lot of walking.
valkyries and all other transports sit and collect dust right now for me. Too expensive for the points. Better off taking scions or Elysians for drop troops. Infantry on their own are pretty darn fast with move move move anyway.

 necron99 wrote:

large groups of infantry w/ priest as an assault force isn't really a thing anymore as you have to start the game with 10man squads and spend CP to combine them which you can only do once a turn - better going with bullgryns

That's disappointing to hear. Blob of catachans with straken sounded really cool. I'll have to reevaluate. Definitely considering bullgryn

valkyries and all other transports sit and collect dust right now for me. Too expensive for the points. Better off taking scions or Elysians for drop troops. Infantry on their own are pretty darn fast with move move move anyway.

What about valkryies with missile pods and HBs? Seems like thats a lot of anti-infantry dakka + roving gunship would be decent Maybe put a squad of melta/ plasma vets inside or just a distraction squad of basic guardsmen.

Also what do you do with the infantry squad mobility if not assaulting? Wouldn't they be better served protecting/ screening a gunline?

you rarely want to change out of flying mode due to losing the -1 protection, also missile pods are generally great due to beeing assault whilest the HB is just , terrible, sadly.

Sincerly from the spikey side.

Yeah it's definitely not like 7th anymore. Back then you could run a 5+/4+ fearless blob with some axes - that worked great but this is 8th and we have fewer shenanigans...

As for flyers, yeah hitting on 5s really sucks (due to movement) which is why I like tank commanders and hellhounds (auto hitting and with track guards means until they die they can do some damage)

Ok my ideas are a little outdated, that's fine. But how can one make a mobile IG army competitive? I love everything about the guard except the parking lot gunline style of army.

I get the value of move move move, but what does that do for non-ogyrn units?

Is a heavily mechanized or armored list effective if ran aggressively?

I play a fairly mobile list.

I take a Tallarn detachment with a pair of HQ Russes. They can move and shoot without penalty, and have an order that lets them move even faster. With them, I run 30 to 40 Guardsmen for screening and special / heavy support. They have an order to run and shoot without penalty (mostly) to get into position, then have default orders for extra Killy.

I also run a Catachan detachment. I mostly ignore the Strength benefit, but keeping Harker nearby gives a reroll 1’s aura, with a Ld bonus. The big winners are the artillery and hellhounds in that detachment. Rerolling number of shots on artillery and HH is gold. The infantry are screens for the big guns, and also have Plasma / Lascannons to deal with tough threats at range.

Lastly, I run a Scion detachment. Their purpose is to claim distant objectives, or finish of units that are out of sight, being pounded by artillery. Hold off till 3rd turn if you can, to limit return fire and maximize their survival. Drop them with the Scion HQ to give orders.

Perfectly workable, you have board presence in the middle with the Russ, HH, and Infantry. You have home presence with the Artillery and Infantry. You have “distant” presence with the Scions.

Some gunline, but mostly moving out of your deployment zone.

 necron99 wrote:


basilisks/manticores - I'm starting to go heavy on bassies. Probably too many with 5 now but we'll see how it goes. Manticores are decent but are only AP-2 compared to AP-3 on the bassies. Plus I always take the emperor's wrath artillery company which doesn't work on manticores. For 2CP you can fire a bassie or wyvern twice. There's some gold.

Eh, AP-2 vs. -3 isn't a huge deal unless you're shooting power armored infantry in.cover. AP -2 will get you to the invuln save of pretty much every vehicle target that matters as vehicles without an invuln are still relatively rare.

That said, the Basilisk shines with the added flexibility of strats, having a more consistent number of shots every round, and being able to shoot all six rounds.

Though Manticores are much easier to hide and slightly more resilient when a flier zooms into your backline.