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I'm back to WH40k after 3 years of abscence. In my previous tenor as a WH40k player I never played competitively, mostly friendly matchs among mates.

I used to play Space Marines, much to my embarrasement, However, Imperial Guard has always been an attractive army for me fluff wise. While I love the idea of IG, I want to know how 'good' it is as a competitive army.

I've done a small amount of net-surfing over the last week, and the general consensus seems to be that guard is a 'weak' army due to the fact that it cannot win without taking severe loses.

Please help wash away my doubts about  The Most Glorious Instrument of the Emperor.   

IG has potential but you have to avoid some of the doctrine and unit sinkholes. There was apparently an IG army that did well at the Vegas GT that used lots of deepstriking vets and command squads with lots of special weapons. I think a list using that tactic combined with a good firebase (las/plas squads, basilisks, maybe HB heavy weapon teams) can be a very formidble army. A well contructed mech list is also pretty formidble but it is better suited to a vet player (could easily add chimera's latter after using a foot list)

IMHO IG gets the 'weak' tag becuase many people insist on using weak stuff like vox casters, excessive numbers of storm troopers. grenade launchers, etc. They do have trouble with certain objective based missions and have to rely on pure killing ability to win them.  I'm no expert though, just observation.

Search for tactic and army list topics of user "HMBC". He is usually involved with the more productive IG discussions (among other postersl)

Same boat as you are, havent played since 3rd edition and I come back and find my loveable orks no longer competative.  Jury is still out on the new codex.  But you have it worse, as every army build for a GT has to take into account the ability to at least kill a dakkafex a turn or shake 3 falcons a turn.  That means alot of heavy weapons to blow up your tanks.  Hopefully some of the heat should come off you when people are actually forced to prepare somewhat for a horde army, otherwise that one suprise ork army they face off against at a GT will steamroll em.

IG's still a very solid army.

Actually, all that HW-prep in competitive armies means that a infantry-heavy Guard force can do alright through weight-of-wounds. Witness the infiltraiting-dropping army you mentioned earlier. The only problem is the 'gimmick' nature of these approaches -- if the opponent takes the right countermeasures (close deployment, etc), he or she can screw you.

The Guard are 'second tier' only because they have no consistent uber-builds, and no super stand out must have units. The first tier lists have always-optium builds like the Nidzilla, StealerShock, MechTau, Falcon-Dar, Lash Prince, or Cannon-Marines. Guard have to rely on careful use of their meat-and-potatoes.

That said, I almost never play competitively, I just read enough about it here on Dakka to be well informed. And Guard make one of the most fun, fluffy, and adaptable casual armies.

-Adso

Second what Bro. Adso said. IG are a solid second tier army, roughly equivilant to Mech Sisters, Necrons, and non-optimized first teir armies. IG can and are competitive at some of the highest levels of tournament play.

IG can be very effective

i regularly play with 2 IG players, one uses a mix of infantry and vehicles and the other is straight mechanized with grenadiers, chimeras and russ's. both of these armies perform very well.  

 

the true key for IG is if they get to make saves they tend to survive which is why things like cameloline are generally no-brainers

 

and aside from the previous comments (and my frequent arguments with HBMC on the matter) i will always swear by the usefullness of the VOX system if you have troops on the table. giving an IG army, an entire IG army LD 10 no matter how spread out they are that can only be modified by attacking the CHQ(who is usually hiding on the back somewhere) is a powerfull thing and well worth the points. as is sharpshooter...or as my friends like to cal it "gaurd shooting 3.5"

Do you use the Master-Vox? I remember thinking it might be effective in a large mainly infantry army.

After that if you're not relying on them you can always use your command squads as special weapon teams or something.

I have a lot of experience playing against very good guard players and here is what I have seen.

There is a general consensus that the two best builds for guard are:

Mechanized: Essentially capitalizing that doctrine to field 6+ Chimeras. Most players who play this way, still stick to a gun line and us the mobile chimeras as support and flanking moves.

Gun-line: Multiple Lascannon/Plasmagun Infantry squads back by Leman Russes and the accasional HQ heavy weapon team.

The problem with the IG Codex is the vast number of bad choices you can make. I recommend posting a list or two and let the fine tacticians here help you out. Things to avoid are: Orgyns, Storm Troopers (Vets are better), Rough Riders (though some people swear by them), Sentinels, and 90% of the Wargear.

Start your list with an Infantry Platoon, everybody gets Las/Plas. and an Armored Fist Squad as your second Troops. Reinforce that with Hellhounds, Lemen Russes, and maybe a basilisk. If you have any more points, take Vets, or Heavy Weapon Teams (from your HQ). Fit as many Lascannons as you can fit in the list 8 to 10 in 2000 should be good.

Posted By BrotherAdso on 10/04/2007 7:04 PM
The Guard are 'second tier' only because they have no consistent uber-builds, and no super stand out must have units. The first tier lists have always-optium builds like the Nidzilla, StealerShock, MechTau, Falcon-Dar, Lash Prince, or Cannon-Marines. Guard have to rely on careful use of their meat-and-potatoes.

-Adso

I actually would not put Mech Tau in the top tier. They are far, far below top tier, and cannot reliably win against Nidzilla or solid marines or falcdar. Stealershock is far from a top tier army also.

Vanilla Marines and Ig are just about on the same footing from what I've seen, in the mid tier with Necrons and Tau. Ig's mechanized build is semi-uber, in my opinion.

One thing IG have going for them is that they are a very, very difficult matchup for Falcon Eldar and Nidzilla, almost to the foil level. The downside to that is they have a rough game against shootie marines and Necrons.

Mahu, 8-10 lascannons in 2k points sounds like too few lascannons to me. A more mauleed-ish list with 10+ at 1750 is more like it, IMO. 8-10 means 'nidzilla screws you and so does Eldar air cav. ~15 means you have a chance.

Thanks for the reply's guys. I'm thinking of running an all infantry list, with the exception of an Armoured Company to claim objectives. It's over in the army list forum...

Hard Critique please.  

I'm not too sure about Lascannons however.. 1 shot at BS 3. =\ 

I play IG on a regular basis.  It has been my only army for a while, and while I do love IG, there are some things that really agrevate me about the army sometimes. 

Yes, drop troop and infiltrate armies are great, they scare your opponent.  But like most gimick armies, if you are not given the opportunity to use them you are screwed.  Give them an alpha mission and all your deep striking/infiltrating units are gone to waste.  You are now forced to set them up with your gunline or on a flank as a flank refusal unit.

Mech-IG are pretty strong also, but they reduce the number of models and heavy weapons you now have.  Where I once had 8 LC, 6 HB, 2 ML, 6 Mortars, and 2 Autocannons in 2500pt games, I am now reduced to maybe 6 LC, with a pair of Autocannons.  However your anti-horde equipment goes thru the roof.  4 Chimera's with a HB, Multi-laser and Heavy Stubber put out 12 str 4, 5, 6 shots a turn.  Thats 48 shots alone, not counting any Heavy weapons in line squads.

Another good tool that I started to use is Col Schaeffer and his Last chancers, being able to split up into sub units, being able to have a Chimera for each, all that are not in a chimera but are a sub unit can infiltrate/deep strike, specilists can take 15pts in wargear, give Shaeffer/Kage a 10man unit of power weapon wielding 2 base attack models is a force to be recon'd with.  Plus they all have BS 4.

IG is a good army, it just takes a bit of time to learn to use it well.  I have been playing it for a while now and still am experimenting.  It is a strong army once you figure it out.  At the moment I am working on building a mechanized IG force using Schaeffer, the Grenadier Doctrine, Sentinels, and Basilisks.  If I max it out that would be 9 Chimera's, 12 Sentinels, and 3 Basilisks, possibly some deep striking vets toting melta's or plasma's.

Also avoid vox's, commisars, enginseers, ratlings......

There are two reasons that you should avoid Vox's.
1)For the cost of the Vox you can get a vet sgt who gives you an extra attack, and with COD you get ld 9 in the squad.
2)It makes the command squad even more of a point sink and a target. Really how hard is it to kill 5 t3 5+ guys?

Posted By foil7102 on 10/05/2007 3:06 PM
Also avoid vox's, commisars, enginseers, ratlings......

Actually, I kinda like Ratlings, where else can you get 10 sniper rifles, that infiltrate, and get +1 to any cover save for 110pts?

IG are an excellent metagame army, as they cannot be build well to achieve all mission objectives and defeat all opponents, but if you have a good idea what you will face, you can tune them full tilt to kick the crud outta them. They are one of the most solid tier 2 lists. Unfortunately they are tier 2, and thus are inherently worse than Tier 1 lists.

i play tau and am quite successful with them in normal games because i am fully mechanised. i eat CC armies and do very well against marines in normal games. tanks and crisis suits are the true killing power in a tau list.

i originally was going to do a mechanised IG list but i switched to tau because they peform better.

 

yes he uses the vox/master vox system. for every unit of infantry he has on the table that can take one. because he can choose his squads leadership or his CHQ leadershhip when making checks.  his squads are far more likely to stall a unit in CC, shrug off casualties and keep shooting, or  fall back from an enemy at the right time to open them up for concentraited fire for the next turn. its tactical flexability. lots of IG players tend to "'castle up"  so they don't use a vox because thier officers are standing right next to them. spending the points elswhere instead and concentraiting fire. the down side of that is it exposes your officers to assaults and fire as well as makes it very easy for CC oriented units to roll through a guard line.  ive seen them used to great effect.

 

as an example imagine some IG squads in a piece of area terrain like a forest or a building, add +1 to their cover save and they have unmodifiable LD 10...you can shoot and shoot and shoot at them and they will just stay there and shoot back, almost never breaking, with near marine like saves(if they are in a building). and the last 2 guys in the squad to go will be the heavy weapon and the vox.

 

Voxes are junk.

Vet Sergeant + COD > Vox.
Command Radius = Free therefore > Vox.

BYE

He has spoken. Amen.

Posted By H.B.M.C. on 10/07/2007 1:56 PM
Voxes are junk.

Vet Sergeant + COD > Vox.
Command Radius = Free therefore > Vox.

BYE

vet sgt + normal games+ non castling IG armies<vox p=""></vox> < vox system

 

command radius+ LD  modifiers+ objective taking +exposing the vet sgt and his crew to assaults < vox system

 

its free because it isn't as effective as the vox system for mainting un-modifiable leadership.

 

I run an all-Infantry/sentinels army on a regular basis and I usually do quite well with it, finished in the top 10 at the last Baltimore GT (2nd for Best General) and in fact, I've never lost more than 1 game in a GT while playing IG. I will admit that those of who do that well with IG do seem to be the exception.

I play shooty Necrons, in a blend I believe is quite competitive, and I loathe seeing IG on the other side of the table. As opposed to skimmers, which fly toward the Gauss like bugs towards a zapper, IG tanks tend to park themselves on the back line and shoot Ordnance at me.

In a table quarters deployment mission the IG gun line w/dropping plasma squads may be one of the very strongest armies.

I consider IG a competitive list.

Posted By 40kenthusiast on 10/08/2007 7:23 AM

In a table quarters deployment mission the IG gun line w/dropping plasma squads may be one of the very strongest armies.

I consider IG a competitive list.

Yeah, but in Alpha missions your whole tactics are screwed.  Not being able to deep strike vets, makes that playstyle extremely hard.  Even if you are allowed to infiltrate it is not the same.

 

I dunno, those dropping squads are still going to come in handy and its not like they are a ton of points. They won't be as useful against a shooty army in Alpha but an assault based army is still going to get punished if the IG player deploys well.

All in all the drop heavy army can still utilize its main tactic of shooting the crap outta the other guy regardless of mission.

He's got a point, Alpha Recon is almost a defeat sentence for the Guard. Tanks can't cross the board without exposing side armor. Troops can't slog the board without getting shot below half.

We had 3 'Ard boys Imperial Guard players, none won the first mission. (one tied by sitting put and playing defense, other 2 lost by massacre trying for the win)

Posted By System Overload on 10/04/2007 1:18 PM

I've done a small amount of net-surfing over the last week, and the general consensus seems to be that guard is a 'weak' army due to the fact that it cannot win without taking severe loses.

Taking "severe losses" is what the Guard are all about! It can be a lot of fun (in a sick, Red Army kind of way) to lose 40 men and 4 vehicles by turn 3, and still out number the other guy.

In general, I agee with the other posters. A Guard army with drop troops, or that is heavily mechanized (or both), can certainly be competative. The tanks and the deep strikers help compensate for the Guard's terrible lack of mobility and also give them a fair amount of shock power.

This isn't to say that you should neglect the basic infantry squads, but as long as you don't focus on them exclusively you should be fine.

Posted By 40kenthusiast on 10/08/2007 11:38 AM
He's got a point, Alpha Recon is almost a defeat sentence for the Guard. Tanks can't cross the board without exposing side armor. Troops can't slog the board without getting shot below half.

We had 3 'Ard boys Imperial Guard players, none won the first mission. (one tied by sitting put and playing defense, other 2 lost by massacre trying for the win)

This brings me too another point,  if ard'boyz is about winning, why did they completly stack the deck IMO against guard?  At my Ard'boyz we had 2 guard players, myself and another.  And neither one of us won the first game.  Infact I suffered a horrible defeat.  I dont think any other army got hosed as much as guard on the first game.  1 extra d6 on ALL ordinance, and 1 extra d6 on ALL deep strike. 

Did any IG general's win the first round with your IG army?

I know a guy that did versus Necrons. Sounded like he played to the mission while the other guy was just going for kills. He also had some grey knight allies that I think DSd in for the win.

On a side note, that damn extra scatter dice was a pain, had some terminators scatter 18" directly away from my opponnets deploy zone (could have been worse I guess).

Yeah, but for that tourney, I ran 1 Bassie, 2 Leman Russ Battle Tank's, 2 deep strikeing veteran units, and 2 Last Chancers that deep strike, each with a demo charge.  That whole first senario really put a damper on my army.   I cant think of any other army that got more hosed by the special rules of that senario than an IG army.

Actually that tournament is what made me decide to start looking for a second army. 

 

*edit, to add last sentance.

I know I got a 24 point massacre against an infantry-heavy guard army in that scenario.

Granted, I would have in almost any scenario...Footsloggers with only 9 heavy weapons (3 fire support type squads). 2 Russes, a demolisher, and a lascannon sentinel. Rest were infantry platoons with no heavy weapons and a couple big conscript squads...