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So iIm getting into 40k (5th edition) with a couple people. I want to do something new instead of SM or CSM again. My top choice is IG, followed by Tyranids.

I could have sworn Ive seen/heard that yo can do a mostly tank IG army, and being a treadhead I like the sound of this. How does one go about building such an army. I see that the Russ is a heavy support choice. Does a SC unlock them as troops? Any info on a tank based IG army would be appreciated.

Guard is probably the most flexible army around, with lot of options. You can have either fully infantry army, fully mechanized army or somewhere between. In right hand IG is pretty powerful and shoty.

Basically if you want to know more about how to start and play guard read this.

Here you can see overview of every Guard unit and in the end get some tips for beginning. I know it's 4chan. and some part are hilarious, but they were very serious here and quite honest. Good luck with IG, lead them to victory

Hey chap,

IG can have quite a few different lists which makes them good fun, you can go from a full light infantry style army to a full armoured company

From the IG Codex you can take Leman Russ tanks (and Artillery) in squadrons of 3 so a max of 9 MBT's (or 9 Basilisks etc) plus the same is true for their fast attack like Sentinels and Hell Hounds.

All troops can take Chimera's as dedicated transports.

There is also an Imperial Armour list that lets you take tanks as troops and use comand tanks for HQ.

Hope this helps

I don't have a great knowledge of imperial guard. But I don't think its too hard to go all mech. Check the army list section of ghe site for some examples. I know that your ccs can take a chimera transport as can all your troops. Leman russes can be squadroned so you could take 9 of them in your 3 heavy support slots. I think the hellhound andsome others are fast attack and can be squadroned also, so that's another 9 tanks. Dont know about the making tanks troops thing, pretty sure the 6th ed rules don't allow any vehicles to be scoring units anyway but I could be proved wrong on this by the more knowledgeable.

Thanks for the info, and keep it coming.

I hate painting infantry, but I suppose if I needed to I could do minimal squads to fill the 2 troops requirement, then load up on the tanks.

My primary opponent is a Grey Knights player, pulling a Draigo wing gimmick...love to see the look on his face when they are staring down all those cannons.

My deployment has literally no infantry on the table. Once those transports start getting wrecked then I have to deploy the infantry.

Out of curiosity, why are you playing 5th? 6th has much better vehicle rules.

 Mad4Minis wrote:
Thanks for the info, and keep it coming.

I hate painting infantry, but I suppose if I needed to I could do minimal squads to fill the 2 troops requirement, then load up on the tanks.

My primary opponent is a Grey Knights player, pulling a Draigo wing gimmick...love to see the look on his face when they are staring down all those cannons.

See, our minimal squads are much much bigger than other armies. Mostly that's because we are so squishy, and die in droves when shot at. If you bring minimum infantry (so 2 vet squads, 20 men) they WILL get shot to death and you will lose hahaha. Even the average mech lists involve between 40-60 guardsmen.

Also, I agree with Griddle, 6th has better vehicle rules so why use 5th if you want to play with all the awesome tanks we have (I don't know any list I have ever made or seen that couldn't benefit from a LRBT of some kind)

Ah, theres no way Im building and painting 40-60 guardsmen, I dont have the time or patience.

As far as using 5th over 6th...neither I nor my regular opponent care for 6th. We both started building armies just before 6th hit, and dropped the game for a while after reading the 6th rules. We decided that since we both have 5th rulebooks, codexes, etc that we would continue with it.


Might just be sticking with the counts-as Deathwing I started...

If you want to go tank then you'll probably still have to assemble/paint 40- 60 guardsmen. Theres just really no way around it. Thats still a lot less guardsmen than if you run a foot army. Maybe try a simple paint scheme. I painted 50 guardsmen one day and it wasn't very hard because they were all just black with a grey drybrush, some skin, and silver for lasgun mags and buttons. If you're not into painting and assembling a lot maybe guard isn't the army for you. Hope that helps.
-Color Sgt. Kell

Yep. We are not an army that can have 2 squads of troops and have enough. We're the only army that can say "4 troops choices at 1,850? Gonna need more..."

EDIT: Well, unless you run Platoons. But that's different, because with that you may only have 2 FOC slots filled, you can have a lot of troops choices on the table

 Mad4Minis wrote:
Ah, theres no way Im building and painting 40-60 guardsmen, I dont have the time or patience.

As far as using 5th over 6th...neither I nor my regular opponent care for 6th. We both started building armies just before 6th hit, and dropped the game for a while after reading the 6th rules. We decided that since we both have 5th rulebooks, codexes, etc that we would continue with it.

Problem with this logic is, if you/your friend ever want to take your models down to the LGS and play a game or two with some randos, you'll have a bunch of units modeled to decent loadouts as per 5th ed. rules.

Kinda crippling yourself, if your army does ever jump to 6th.

Just something to consider.

You can look for Forgeworld rules for the Armored Battlegroup as well.

 washout77 wrote:
Yep. We are not an army that can have 2 squads of troops and have enough. We're the only army that can say "4 troops choices at 1,850? Gonna need more..."

EDIT: Well, unless you run Platoons. But that's different, because with that you may only have 2 FOC slots filled, you can have a lot of troops choices on the table

Unless you take platoons, where you can be playing at 2500pts and STILL outnumber a green tide player with troop units alone

 TheCaptain wrote:

 Mad4Minis wrote:
Ah, theres no way Im building and painting 40-60 guardsmen, I dont have the time or patience.

As far as using 5th over 6th...neither I nor my regular opponent care for 6th. We both started building armies just before 6th hit, and dropped the game for a while after reading the 6th rules. We decided that since we both have 5th rulebooks, codexes, etc that we would continue with it.

Problem with this logic is, if you/your friend ever want to take your models down to the LGS and play a game or two with some randos, you'll have a bunch of units modeled to decent loadouts as per 5th ed. rules.

Kinda crippling yourself, if your army does ever jump to 6th.

Just something to consider.

No worry about that, nearest LGS is an hour away. The only one that was local closed up a year or so ago.