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Hey guys, I run Imperial Guard, and I want to improve my game. I was hoping I could get other people's perspectives on Guard weaknesses so I can better either overcome for their weaknesses or compensate for them by improving elsewhere. I'm really basically planning on running a foot list with Leman Russ/Demolisher and Artillery support. I'm pretty defensive, maintaining a strong position and pounding them with my big guns from afar.

What I'm looking for is basically this (stolen from my buddy's thread): what are weaknesses the Guard have in general? Are there viable ways of countering them? What can make a foot list crash and burn? Anything you'd like to add that the Guard can't do that well? I'm really just looking for any known threats.

Well, a foot list...get cover I suppose.

With an Flak armour, armour of 5, most weapon can and will have an AP value of 5 or less, meaning if your troops are in the open, kiss'em good bye.
Worse case you can always use a naked IS put'em in front of whichever unit you would like to survive and have them act as cover.

As for crash and burn...well, perhaps not take only 6 Penal Legion squad, it might be hard to get on top.

If you're going foot guard, small, elite, deathstar type close combat units can murder you. You have to be able to pack enough firepower to knock them out, and quickly. Deepstriking armies in general also can give foot guard a hard time (daemons being the number one offender) You need to maximize your spread, turtle up in a corner, and create a defensive ring with the most expendable goobers up front.

Other than that, if it's a guardsman, it better be carrying a meltagun, a plasmagun, an autocannon, a lascannon, or a lasgun, anything else is a waste of points sadly. CCS with at least a regimental Standard is mandatory, maybe a heavy weapon and an advisor or two if you think it'll help. Keep your tanks bubblewrapped, and keep em safe.

Biggest weakness is when the IG get into close combat. That is one thing they do not do well. How to protect against this.

1. Deployment. Make sure nothing gets behind you. Don't worry about weapon range. All your big guns will have range on most deployment set ups. If you have a 12 inch deployment along the long table edge, make sure you leave no room behind you for drop pods and other similar things.

2. Protect you flanks. Now that units can not charge coming in from reserves, this helps. Don't let your big guns ( LRBT and variants, artillery, heavy weapon squads) not be protected.

3. Don't worry about losing guardsmen. They die. Get use to it. They die. Sacrifice them when you need to.

4. You can spam heavy weapons and special weapons like no one else, do it.

5. Flak armor is good enough.

Hope that helps some.

Couple of my friends play Guard and my main strategy against them is to take out the vehicles first, and charge the field with a mob of boyz. Once the boyz get stuck in (if they're still strong in number) it's carving and stomping.

Your biggest weaknesses with that list:

1) Getting to objectives. You're playing a static defensive list, which means very little mobility. You're going to have a very hard time pushing up the table and getting to your opponent's objectives before the game ends, so you enable your opponent to put cheap objective holders on their half of the table and consider them safely held while they send the rest of their army to smash you off of yours. Even if you survive and hold all of your objectives uncontested you're probably looking at a draw at best because your opponent has all of theirs and probably got linebreaker on you as well.

2) Armies with alternate deployment methods. For example, a drop pod army can skip the march up the table, avoid those turns of shooting, and go straight to killing you at close range. Your defensive position depends on a traditional "line up 24" away and move forward" opponent, so anything that can break that plan is a major threat. And, worst of all, you don't have any real mobility to escape the trap. If you get boxed in on one corner of the table your opponent's assault units are going to be massacring guardsmen at maximum efficiency.

As others already mentioned: assault and getting objectives on the other side of the table.

Getting guys across the table can done a few ways.

The most obvious is running a heavily mech list there are dozens of tactics threds on that so I'll leave it to thoses to explain for you.

Another is taking flyers if your running foot guard you should have a few Platoon Command Squads at your disposable instead of waisting them by doing nothing with them throw them in a flyer. For 30pts they have a small foot print so deep striking out of them isn't always an up hill battle and there scoring if you want you can give them a few special weapons for a bit of extra punch.

Another way is by taking squads that can Outflank. The guard codex is choc full of units that can Outflank. Al'rahem can make an entire platoon Outflank, Harker can make a Veteran Squad Outflank or you could take the Penial Legion guys although I'd advise against that. Taking Creed can also let you Outflank any unit of choice.

Another way which is the slowest and most unreliable is by just running to where you need to be just make sure if this is your tactic don't wait till the last minute.

Also you could take Allies to take and hold objectives with. Allied SM biker units are pretty fast and durable and can score as well and when the new Dark Angels come out there will tons of fast and mobile Raven Wing units to choose from.

The most difficult problem that foot guard have is armies that can bring good force concentration. Your foot horde is likely going to be spread across several square feet of table. If your opponent is able to pack several hundred points worth of stuff into just one small space and hit you on one of your flanks, the units aren't going to be able to support each other very well.

This makes drop pod lists a pain to deal with especially, but lots of armies can bring elite stuff that can get in your face right away.

There are probably three main solutions to this. The first is to up-power your infantry. Make them less reliant on supporting fire. Personally, I give all of my platoon infantry squads a meltagun and a lascannon. They can handle most threats on their own, and aren't going to need to be bailed out by something else.

The second way of handling this is by having your own units that can concentrate force suddenly. For example, once your opponent has committed to an attack, that's when 30 stormtroopers show up right there and even the balance back out. Likewise, artillery can generally concentrate all of its firepower most places on the board, regardless of range or line of sight restrictions.

The third way is to bring a few units that are dedicated to nothing but breaking elite units. If you have something good for the job, you will probably need only one of them to be in a good position. For example, lots of people take executioners precisely because they can break up scary new threats from elite units. Keeping some plasma vets in reserve can also do this, and so can things like a demolisher, medusa, or pask vanquisher (depending on the threat). Also people like Marbo for this, because even though he's not likely to do very much damage, he can still do some to elite units and benefits from being able to show up anywhere.

After force concentration, the second big thing is getting across the board. There's nothing to say that you can't just march across the table (having respawning conscripts helps allow you to do this), but you're going for a gunline, which means you're going to struggle to get stuff over to take objectives on your opponent's side of the board.

There are several good solutions, such as outflanking your own scoring units (say, with al'rahem or harker), or bringing strong denial units (like flamethrower stormtrooper squads to clear them off the objectives), or flying veterans around in vendettas and dropping them off somewhere at the end of the game. You can also do it the old-fashioned way - take some artillery and blow your opponents off of their objectives at range. Who cares if you can't take them if your opponent can't either?

These are some interesting tips, I'll definitely keep them in mind. Force concentration has definitely been an issue in the two games I've played with them, that, and holding up at all when heavy infantry reach my lines. My defensive line didn't last long after that 15 marines leapt out of a Land Raider right in front of them.

I've been switching in lascannons for add AT firepower, and I'll probably myself a Harker. Getting my meltavets from here to there in one piece could be a huge bonus.

What do people mean when they say to bubblewrap units? I've never heard the expression outside of dakka.

 Elector wrote:
What do people mean when they say to bubblewrap units? I've never heard the expression outside of dakka.

It's like packing a delicate thing with bubblewrap. You put the expensive tank in the center, and you wrap it with layers of expendable guardsmen. If something wants to assault the tank or get into melta range they have to clear the guardsmen away first, delaying the death of the tank.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Elector wrote:
What do people mean when they say to bubblewrap units? I've never heard the expression outside of dakka.

It's like packing a delicate thing with bubblewrap. You put the expensive tank in the center, and you wrap it with layers of expendable guardsmen. If something wants to assault the tank or get into melta range they have to clear the guardsmen away first, delaying the death of the tank.

Wait. So all this time I've been putting actual bubblewrap around my tanks. You're telling me I've been doing it WRONG?

Wtfudge, Dakka. Wtfudge.

 TheCaptain wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Elector wrote:
What do people mean when they say to bubblewrap units? I've never heard the expression outside of dakka.

It's like packing a delicate thing with bubblewrap. You put the expensive tank in the center, and you wrap it with layers of expendable guardsmen. If something wants to assault the tank or get into melta range they have to clear the guardsmen away first, delaying the death of the tank.

Wait. So all this time I've been putting actual bubblewrap around my tanks. You're telling me I've been doing it WRONG?

Wtfudge, Dakka. Wtfudge.

Well, actual bubblewrap can work if you have artillery tanks. Your opponent can't draw LOS to the tank so they can't shoot or assault it, while the barrage weapons don't need LOS to shoot your opponent's stuff. Just make sure you don't leave any gaps in the bubblewrap.

 TheCaptain wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Elector wrote:
What do people mean when they say to bubblewrap units? I've never heard the expression outside of dakka.

It's like packing a delicate thing with bubblewrap. You put the expensive tank in the center, and you wrap it with layers of expendable guardsmen. If something wants to assault the tank or get into melta range they have to clear the guardsmen away first, delaying the death of the tank.

Wait. So all this time I've been putting actual bubblewrap around my tanks. You're telling me I've been doing it WRONG?

Wtfudge, Dakka. Wtfudge.

But the real bubblewrap gives you a cover save, so it's worth it. Plus, enemy units can't assault the tank if they can't touch it! It's GENIUS!

Sinji wrote:
Getting guys across the table can done a few ways.

The most obvious is running a heavily mech list there are dozens of tactics threds on that so I'll leave it to thoses to explain for you.

Another is taking flyers if your running foot guard you should have a few Platoon Command Squads at your disposable instead of waisting them by doing nothing with them throw them in a flyer. For 30pts they have a small foot print so deep striking out of them isn't always an up hill battle and there scoring if you want you can give them a few special weapons for a bit of extra punch.

Another way is by taking squads that can Outflank. The guard codex is choc full of units that can Outflank. Al'rahem can make an entire platoon Outflank, Harker can make a Veteran Squad Outflank or you could take the Penial Legion guys although I'd advise against that. Taking Creed can also let you Outflank any unit of choice.

Another way which is the slowest and most unreliable is by just running to where you need to be just make sure if this is your tactic don't wait till the last minute.

Also you could take Allies to take and hold objectives with. Allied SM biker units are pretty fast and durable and can score as well and when the new Dark Angels come out there will tons of fast and mobile Raven Wing units to choose from.

Well the OP is going for a foot list with heavy support so the mech spam wont help him as its mech and not foot lol. Harker, Alrahem, and Troops out of his platoon or some kinda troop in a vendetta is about your best bet aside form just running your whole army up the board, but then again unless your protecting your warlord that leaves him as a possible easy kill point.