How do i win with Imperial Guard

Oscar1492 · Post by **Oscar1492** » Sat Jan 10, 2009 11:14 pm

hey guys and gals

ive got a small imperial guard force and every time i play with them i get raped no matter what i do or try

if anyone out there has imperial guard or can help i'd be much appreciated caus im starting to get sick and tired of my mates teasing us caus i keep losing.

ow by the way this is what i have:

HQ:
Command Squad;
1 herioc senior officer
1 medic
1 standard bearer
1 vox com operator
1 guardsmen with meltagun

Troop:
1 infantry platoon;
Infantry command squad
junior officer with powerfist and plasma pistol
4 guardsmen with las pistol and CC weapon (LCCW)

9 guardsmen
1 sergeant

9 guardsmen
1 sergeant

Armoured fist squad
9 guardsmen
1 sergeant
1 chimera

all help is much appreciated caus im really tired of losing lol

have a good one cheers

Aspiring executioner · Sun Jan 11, 2009 12:24 am

One thing really jumps at me... You have no heavy weapons at all. All the high strength stuff you have are all special weapons. My advice is to take at least 2 Leman Russes/variants or two heavy weapon teams and one Leman Russ. Also what armies do your mates play? We could help some more if we know what armies you play agaisnt reguarly. With the things I suggested you could play 750-1000pts roughly.

Hope this helps.

Post by **Dalamar** » Sun Jan 11, 2009 12:30 am

I didn't play 40k for a long time but from the armies I used to face yours is very different.
And they used to win.
So I'd say

You need more tanks! (like more more, not just one or two more, field tanks!)

Elric of grans · Post by **Elric of grans** » Sun Jan 11, 2009 5:59 am

Yeah, the Executioner has hit the sacrifice on the neck. The basic guardsman is good for only one thing: dieing. That is their purpose in life, to be canon fodder. Your list would not threaten anything. If you want to actually do some damage, get some heavy weapons into your squads and roll out the tanks. Your list also seems to be in something of a no-mans-land in terms of points. I think it comes to something around 425 points, which means if you are hamstrung in 500 points games, or over-points in Combat Patrol. You can easily add more dakka to this list.

Think about what your opponents may take and you will have a better idea of what to bring. If they are MEQ (eg Space Marines), you will need a lot more than your standard issue flash lights just to score a single kill. If they are mechanised (ie in transports) you will need more anti-vehicle to stop them --- my mech-Sisters would happily slaughter that list, in full knowledge that they are unlikely to be ever hit. If you are against a hoard army (eg Orks) you will want some templates in there and/or some armour. One of the biggest problems with your list is that it does not have any options to take on any form of opponent. Look at what your previous losses have come down to and you may have an idea of what your list lacks.

Fingol23 · Post by **Fingol23** » Sun Jan 11, 2009 12:16 pm

For your basic guard squads I would be tempted to get some autocannons in there, teamed with either a grenade launcher or plasma gun. The autocannon will wound nearly any infantry model on a 2+ with two shots and ap4. Against anything not in power armour or better this will be lethal and against those opponents with 3+ or better saves the amount of wounds it should cause will eventually get past their saves. It can also be used to take on any vehicle short of a land raider, this is why i suggest teaming it with one of the special weapons I mentioned so that you have at least one other model in the squad shooting at the vehicle with a chance of hurting it.

Dialeth · Post by **Dialeth** » Mon Jan 12, 2009 9:56 am

it is very simply with IG you win with heavy fire, and rough riders

Arquinsiel · Post by **Arquinsiel** » Mon Jan 12, 2009 7:22 pm

First question: how do you see the army playing? Are they a gunline? Advancing mass? Stealthy light infantry? Next, what doctrines are you taking for your army? These should be decided by the units you have and the style you have chosen.

The above mentioned lack of high strength weapons is an issue, but the Powerfist is a waste of points. Replace it with a Storm Bolter. You never want your Commander in CC and his BS is high enough that you want him to have good dakka capabilities. Instead of taking a Heroic Senior Officer take a Junior Officer and give him the Honorifica Imperialis. It's several points cheaper and does the exact same job. Standard bearers I've never been fond of, and a Vox caster is nearly useless without a full net and the Iron Discipline Doctrine.

As before, tanks. Also consider taking two or three Special Weapon Squads with just Flamers to protect the flanks and rear of the tanks.

No one · Post by **No one** » Mon Jan 12, 2009 8:53 pm

there is a guy at my club who plays massed (and I mean MASSED) guards and tends to be incredibly hard to beat, he is also a long time player but the idea is good on it's own: take about 100+ guard in 1000 points or so, add a couple of lasscannons, autocannons, heavy bolters and a small unit or two with deep strike and LOTS of plasma and then shoot the hell out of one unit at a time.

EDIT: also try to get vox caster with full network and iron discipline like arq said

Kargan daemonclaw · Post by **Kargan daemonclaw** » Tue Jan 13, 2009 1:29 am

How many points are you playing, what sort of armies are you facing and what missions are you playing?

Some more detail about what you try and what goes wrong will help in providing advice.

You also can't take the simplistic advice of get loads of tanks if you are playing on a small points limit.

Looking at your army list some things stand out.
Your command squad has a vox unit but no other units have a vox to recieve the messages. It is a waste because it doesn't do anything.
You have not listed and special weapons or heavy weapons. Guard need to make use of heavy and special weapons to im prove the stopping power over the basic lasgun.

Make use of cover you get a 4+ save in terrain whereas a marine gets no benefit.

I would not put the powerfist on a junior officer and then give them a plasma pistol. It's a 1 wound model that could easily die before it gets to attack.

Oscar1492 · Post by **Oscar1492** » Wed Jan 14, 2009 12:10 am

ok thanks for the advice so far.

from what ive read you all want to know
1.why i dont have heavy wepons
2 who i verse
3 what points limit im aiming for

well i dont have that many hevy weapons in my squads caus im pressed for money at the moment thats also the same reason why i dont have tanks

secondly i usually verse chaos, eldar, tau and black templar

and finally im aiming to slowly bring the points up to about 2000 maybe a little less

so any more tips?

cheers

Demetrius · Post by **Demetrius** » Wed Jan 14, 2009 1:01 am

If your stretched for cash, sentinals arent too bad and they are cheap. Give them lascannons or Autocannons and then send them tank hunting, they are also mobile.

Arquinsiel · Post by **Arquinsiel** » Wed Jan 14, 2009 4:52 am

Sentinals with Autocannon are good, but I hold a special place of loathing in my heart for Sentinals with Heavy Flamers. Those buggers outflanking into a tightly packed unit makes for a hell of a lot of wounds. Tau and Eldar especially will hate them. Best part of all is you can charge when you come onto the table, because there's not a damn thing they can do to dent it unless they've got Assault Grenades handy. Ties up a S3 unit for the entire game with a bit of luck, and kills it dead with a smidge more.

Oscar1492 · Post by **Oscar1492** » Wed Jan 14, 2009 7:10 am

how much would 3 sentinals be?
autocannons and hevy flamers do sound like a good idea
but they are pretty flimsy and with tau strength 5 ordinary
weapons they might die easy

Mr. anderson · Post by **Mr. anderson** » Wed Jan 14, 2009 7:26 am

Arquinsiel wrote:Sentinals with Autocannon are good, but I hold a special place of loathing in my heart for Sentinals with Heavy Flamers. Those buggers outflanking into a tightly packed unit makes for a hell of a lot of wounds. Tau and Eldar especially will hate them. Best part of all is you can charge when you come onto the table, because there's not a damn thing they can do to dent it unless they've got Assault Grenades handy. Ties up a S3 unit for the entire game with a bit of luck, and kills it dead with a smidge more.

Flamers do very nasty things to eldar... very very nasty, but an eldar with a heavy flamers is even better, or a whole squad that fires 5 heavy flamers at you before hacking you apart in combat :mrgreen:

I don't much like sentinels either, which is why I usually try to ram them with one of my skimmers, or point some big guns at them. But sentinels appearing in the rear of my army are a nightmare, and a really bad one at that because by the time they come, my mechanised force will be well across the board which leaves the rear armor of my tanks terribly exposed. Really very very bad.

@oscar - how much in terms of money or points? You should buy a codex if it's about points. If it's about money - 3 sentinels are about 105 bucks. You can check the Aussie GW website for all the prices (and some terrible nightmares... I looked for a fire prism today... 95 bucks. I don't know where these prices come from, but I think GW needs to test some of the people responsible for the pricing for their sanity).

Of course sentinels are flimsy, but that's not the point. They march on, cause havoc, and then die spectacularly if you don't manage to hide them. AV10 and open-topped means that they can't take as much as an opponent sneezing at them, but that's why they are cheap. And with the new outflank rules, they are definitely worth it.

HUZZAH!

Aspiring executioner · Wed Jan 14, 2009 7:32 am

3 normal Guard Sentinels are $105 AU or $35 ea. If you want the Cadian or Armageddon Patterns then they are $50. Personally I'd go with a hellhound or two instead of sentinels but that's just me.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I believe they have the scout rule, so outflank them and flush those timid little tau out of their buildings with heavy flamers ignoring both armour and cover saves and on top of that wounding them on 2's.

So when you get some more money buy some heavy weapons or tanks or sentinels and your chances of winning will improve. Also take note of the other suggestions of removing those CC stuff and giving the rest of your army vox systems.

Right now for the armies you play against I'll give some advice. Chaos are good at shooting but brutal in close combat, never and I repeat never engage in close combat with them and hug cover when they are shooting. Concentrate all your firepower on the scariest unit like Khorne Beserkers or Terminators or something like that. They should die to enough lasguns.

Eldar are highly specialised and excel at one thing and suck at the rest. For example Howling Banshees are perfect for Marine armies but against Guard their power weapons don't exactly give them much of an advantage. Make sure you shoot their CC specialists and use your chimera to block en masse shooting from Dire Avengers and Guardians and use your Guard to finish off Fire Dragons after you deal with the CC specialists.

Tau are just good at shooting the crap out of you so hug cover and try to hide behind buildings to block LOS while moving up. You won't have much luck against Tau until you get Heavy Weapons/Tanks etc but you might be able to pull off a victory if your lucky.

Black Templars play similar to Chaos but usually focus a little more on shooting. Use the advice on Chaos to fight them unless they are a shooty BT army use the Tau advice.

Hope this helps a bit.

Mr. anderson · Post by **Mr. anderson** » Wed Jan 14, 2009 7:41 am

Eldar are highly specialised and excel at one thing and suck at the rest. For example Howling Banshees are perfect for Marine armies but against Guard their power weapons don't exactly give them much of an advantage. Make sure you shoot their CC specialists and use your chimera to block en masse shooting from Dire Avengers and Guardians and use your Guard to finish off Fire Dragons after you deal with the CC specialists.

Good eldar players don't ever shove one unit at you, they always take a combination (usually for example those howling banshees would be in a wave serpent which would let them out and then move to fire at the rear of your chimera, most likely killing it and then the banshees would assault whatever is inside it. And then most likely there'd be another squad (bikes for example) engagin another unit to avoid much return fire. At the moment you'll be lucky to pull of a victory against any armies (that is, unless you have some heavy weaponry in your platoons. If you do, that changes things dramatically).

HUZZAH!

Arquinsiel · Post by **Arquinsiel** » Wed Jan 14, 2009 3:47 pm

The S5 weapons don't matter at all in close combat, which is where your Sentinal wants to be. You just need to flame a little and then get stuck in where they can't hurt you and you can blat them.

Oscar1492 · Post by **Oscar1492** » Fri Jan 16, 2009 11:48 am

yer but being WS3 makes it a little hard to hit all eldar (except guardians) when you only have one attack.

Arquinsiel · Post by **Arquinsiel** » Fri Jan 16, 2009 3:38 pm

Who cares? If you kill one it's a bonus. Think about it: a fully maxed squad of Howling Banshees tied up by 50 points for a whole game. That's well worth it.

Oscar1492 · Post by **Oscar1492** » Sun Jan 18, 2009 7:48 am

yer when you put it that way it does sound pretty good caus i usually have problems with those damn power weapon weilding banshees

Post by **Loki** » Sun Jan 18, 2009 10:16 am

You should be glad that you're facing Banshees and not Scorpions. Scorpions rip Guard apart a lot quicker than Banshees do, and they're harder to kill as well.

Hulkster · Post by **Hulkster** » Sun Jan 18, 2009 10:44 am

Regardless of being strapped for cash you need to get in some heavy weapon teams. Tanks are not needed to Guard to win.

In fact in 5th Ed the best guard army is pure manpower, due to the CC not being able to jump from one combat into another.

Get more guardsmen, and a lot more heavy weapon teams. If you buy the big box of 3 teams and you have a few spare guard bodies you can make 9 heavy weapon teams and 3 mortor teams.

it doesnt really get more cost effective then that

Arquinsiel · Post by **Arquinsiel** » Sun Jan 18, 2009 9:39 pm

And mortars are beautiful in many, many ways.

Hulkster · Post by **Hulkster** » Mon Jan 19, 2009 4:36 am

indeed they are, espec in 5th ed