Bell of Lost Souls - Latest Comments in TACTICA:Imperial Guard Advantages in Fifth Edition

Re: TACTICA:Imperial Guard Advantages in Fifth Edition

Cuthbo — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 08:45:58 -0000

First up, thanks for all the info Jwolf, any bit of advice from a vet is great.

Second, concerning the sponson debate i have found that the lowering of the defensive weapon strength only opened up more modelling opportunities. If you work slowly and carefully you can remove the sponsons without to much hassle or damage to the model, now the answer to the now scared and quite bare hull is simple (well for me) armour skirts. A piece of 1mm plasticard shaped the same as the side hull and decorated with hatches and more armour plates works great. Perfect for representing “extra armour” now if you’re up for it you can still use your sponsons when you want to. Using pieces of sprue for supports inside the sponsons drill a small hole and glue in a small magnet, repeat the process for the armour skirts and place corresponding magnets in the hull. You now have the option to swap and without needing multiple models or trying to repair the damaged hull section because the sponson just fits back in place.

This also works for all turret options. Cut the standard barrel off at the mantlet, place in a disc of plasticard to fill the hole in both the barrel and mantlet. Add magnets and you have a removable barrel, now using plastic tubing you can create demolisher, conqueror and vanquisher barrels and swap out the fit as desired. If you use two magnets in the mantlet you can grab some spare weapons off the heavy weapon sprues (lascannon and autocannon) cut them down add magnets and ‘hey presto’ you have an annialator or exterminator. Also works for sponson and hull weapons, facing orks in a city? time for heavy flamers and heavy bolters, need some punch? Throw on a lascannon. Hope this helps some of you.

Thirdly and lastly, Imperial Guard are the lords of the massive battlefield, small scale battles don’t work so well for us but hey who cares, I don’t see any MEQ’s with the option of deploying a scud launcher or having the ability of deploying 50 guys via deepstrike with a single reserve roll. 

Long live the Guard, glory to the Emperor!!

Re: TACTICA:Imperial Guard Advantages in Fifth Edition

TSINI — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 21:48:47 -0000

wooohooo, im so glad i chose to leave off the sponsons of my new guard army to slimline the tanks for urban combat, though i could be eating my words when the codex is unveiled and they become cheap as chips upgrades and can fire all the time (a preposterous rumour i might add)

i will be missing them when the hordes of xenos approach though :(
and feeling the pinch on the the silly subject of tanks having "weapon wounds" (what was wrong with having weaponless immobile tanks and sentinals littering the field!!)

T.S.I.N.I

Re: TACTICA:Imperial Guard Advantages in Fifth Edition

Cloudhammer — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 20:17:25 -0000

well, the best thing for IG with regards to horde armies is that they can't consolidate their way down our gun line anymore... My counter to this is sit Storm Troopers behind my infantry platoons, and once the inital scrap is over, the enemy units suddenly have between 20-60 shots into thier face at point blank range. Is not a pretty sight afterwords

Re: TACTICA:Imperial Guard Advantages in Fifth Edition

banjo — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 16:32:04 -0000

Some very good points, but I think you play against MEQs too often. Against Orks or even nids, the Guard can struggle. Their troopers get all the same benefits with regard to cover that ours do. Sure, we get hellhounds (which are the Bomb, btw) but other than that we don't have any long-ranged, cover-ignoring firepower. If you can call 24" long-ranged.

Against MEQs, the guard is horribly deadly but I'm finding that I simply can't kill enough boys or nids before the hacking begins.

Re: TACTICA:Imperial Guard Advantages in Fifth Edition

random guy — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 02:41:52 -0000

What about the ratlings(snipers) with the new sniper rule they can pop a few meqs off and cause a pinning test as well.

Re: TACTICA:Imperial Guard Advantages in Fifth Edition

Savark — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 02:53:55 -0000

Guard should stop whinnin, they only have a 1/3 for ahnilation and the other to missions they excel at!

Re: TACTICA:Imperial Guard Advantages in Fifth Edition

the mike — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 15:05:52 -0000

where does it say that. That thing that says the pintle weapon and hv bolter are allowed? First time i ever heard that. Show me where it says that and i'll believe you.

Re: TACTICA:Imperial Guard Advantages in Fifth Edition

KINGS — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 13:11:31 -0000

Agreed. If I had three Hellhounds I would roll three Hellhounds. But instead I have 6 Sentinels, 4 of which see action in my standard army list.

I used to use two single las cannon sentinels in 4th that were deployed on my extreem flanks but now those are just too easy of KPs.

~kings

Re: TACTICA:Imperial Guard Advantages in Fifth Edition

jwolf_bols — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 12:16:11 -0000

Sentinels are good, and until recently I was running with 3 single AC Sentinels, to flank and either flank/rear shoot vehicles or charge big enemy swarms (especially Orks) and pull them away from my front lines. That is especially effective against those blocks of 30 with the Klaw in the front lines; the Orks can't hurt the Sentinel until the Klaw gets to it, and that is almost always in their assault phase.

I left them out because Hellhounds are better for the FA slot, and I think Sentinels are only an advantage if used well tactically, not in and of themselves.

Re: TACTICA:Imperial Guard Advantages in Fifth Edition

jwolf_bols — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 12:06:44 -0000

Rich, I'm only offended that you can't seem to read the title of the article. I had no intention of presenting a balanced article discussing the pros and cons of the Imperial Guard, only advantages. I would hope that the advantages look optimistic.

Power weapons for 5pts are not over priced. Pretty much every other weapon is over priced, as SM get them for the same or cheaper prices on a substantially better trooper.

I don't give a crap about the spirits of other Guard players. After all, "blessed is the mind too small for doubt."

Re: TACTICA:Imperial Guard Advantages in Fifth Edition

KINGS — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 11:42:17 -0000

My favorite unit in 5th for Guard are Sentinels and I am very surprised they have not been mentioned.

Jwolf and I argue about IG all the time but I think we can both agree that they are a solid army. Certainly not the best built for 5th... seeing as how they date back to 3rd!!! But still a solid army none the less.

I only take one Hellhound (dont want to buy any new models until the codex comes out) :P ) and two outflanking Sentinel squadrons each with a las cannon and autocannon. This minimizes the KP and makes the units more survivable. A single Sentinel gets poped against bolter gund lines... or even rhinos for that matter. I either outflank and shoot side armor of vehicals or tie up enemy units on objectives. I love it when in Capture and Control the enemy places their objective within 12" of the table edge.

I still roll Chem-Inhailers in 5th for two main reasons. "Go to Ground" and "Tar Pitz".

1) Go to Ground. Even if you do this you have to take a Ld and can fall back from shooting. With Chem-Inhailers if you fail your test from shooting you get pinned. Same difference.

2) Tar Pitz. My infantry squads specialize in anti hord shooting with lots of HB and Grenade Launchers. That means that if I am so unlucky to let a sizable close combat MEQ unit hit my lines I am not going to kill it in one round. Therefore Chem-Inhailers force the enmey to kill every model, if it looks like that will happen in my turn then I'll throw another unit in there, otherwise the tar pit works. Seconly the tar pit is sticking around on an objective so if this is late in the game I certainly dont want my scoring units folding.

~kings

p.s. looking forward to the Tactics article so I can describe how I won a KP mission in a tourni 10-2 with over 20 KPs in my army.

Re: TACTICA:Imperial Guard Advantages in Fifth Edition

philipmorgan1 — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 09:34:31 -0000

The difference between a gripe and "attitude" is the tone. The "Uh, yeah thanks, great 'trade off'" attitude. The thing is I try to bring something positive, you just moan. Man, WH40k players are such whiners... The rules are the rules. Yeah, some suck, get over it...

Re: TACTICA:Imperial Guard Advantages in Fifth Edition

Da Masta Cheef — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 09:27:47 -0000

So why is it assumed that every time someone has a complaint (even a justified one) that they're going to sell their minis & leave the hobby? Are you serious? I've got so much invested in this infernal hobby that a 12 step program probably wouldn't help me by now. A legitimate gripe (that I'll get over, just felt the need to voice it) is not an 'attitude'. You want to remodel your tanks, enjoy, I'm leaving mine as is. I just don't see the need to potentially ruin the prettiest models in my army to save 20 points total (between the 2 of them), when I've got another platoon to paint. As an aside: are you suggesting I tear the sponsons off of my old 1st. gen. Predators too?

Re: TACTICA:Imperial Guard Advantages in Fifth Edition

xbruthamanx — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 08:45:22 -0000

I don't know if it has been stated yet or not, i have only had time to read through some of the posts, but...

Anyone who has faced a space marine army fielding a whirlwind knows how much fun it is to lose at least one squad a turn (from something you cant even shoot at, and most of the time cant claim a cover save from).

Tanks fall quickly to the faster pace of HTH based troops since 5th made them all effective 10/11 AV. You need to target squads not in cover, hit, then hope you don't leave any left standing.

The 4+cover save using your own... that's helpful if your opponent doesn't shoot the front line, or charge you. The main drawback most of my marine opponents enjoy pointing out to me is the TLOS issues that you face while trying to draw a line through your "covering"squad. You can ignore units in your own squad, but not in the ones in front of you. I tend to field at least 10 infantry squads each game, hiding my heavy weapons behind several infantry squads means I can't draw clear line of sight without giving them the same cover save. 3+ save generally beats the 4+ cover, but superkrak missles and lascannons bouncing off my own guys and not killing marines on the off chance i get lucky enough to hit, doesn't seem to be as useful as it could be.

I know there are times where I have played marine forces so geared up, they only had three or four squads on the table. I win the game to the man, on the third turn. Most players know to put in a bunch of basic marines, with few if any weapon upgrades and wade through my troops until i have no scoring units left, then hold on to the objective to win the game.

All in all, Imperial guard has a lot of advantages over many of the other races in the 40K universe... Too bad everyone plays Space Marines :(

Re: TACTICA:Imperial Guard Advantages in Fifth Edition

RichBlake — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 08:44:34 -0000

Hey no need to get offended. I thought the article was good, just a little bit more optimistic really. Quite frankly you may be annoyed by people disillusioned by Guard at the moment but theres no need to be as agressive as you are being.

If you think by ignoring the bad you can make an army that works well you're gravley mistaken, I wasn't "whining" in the slightest, I stil lthink that the Guard is possibly the best army going, however bias that is, thanks to many of the things you mentioned. Also if you notice I said that the problem with Guard isn't that "they suck" its that nothing really does what it's supposed to do, almost as if the idea in theory gets changed when put into practice. Thats not a bad thing, it just means that you need to be a veteran Guard player before you can even know what to use, neverlone how to use it.

Also weapons options are overpriced? Power swords for 5 points, heavy bolters for 10 points (OK lascannons for 25 is Over prived) is NOT over priced. Plasma Guns and Meltguns for 10 points each are a bargin also.

Quite frankly if you are playing 2K games with 19-22 kill points available you're either the best Guard player I have ever even had the honour to talk to or you're playing against people who are either rubbish or don't know how to fight Guardsmen. (If you can prove the former then I take my hat off to you).

Overall I just said your article was too one sided, you showed all of the good points with none of the bad. While I can appriciate you're trying to "buck up" spirits amonug Guard players by reminding them our strong points you'd be much better by also pointing out how to get around the bad points too.

I do however look forward to your article on IG tactics, I'm always open minded and eagar when it comes to discussing various strategies.

Re: TACTICA:Imperial Guard Advantages in Fifth Edition

StaysCrunchyInMilk — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 08:14:52 -0000

That'd be fire whilst hidden in 2), not hide whilst hidden.

Re: TACTICA:Imperial Guard Advantages in Fifth Edition

StaysCrunchyInMilk — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 08:13:31 -0000

My opinion of our KP disadvantage is offset by two things:
1) Anhiallation is 1/3 of games played. We have a advantage in the other 2.
2) If only we had some well armoured / able to hide tanks. With the new vehicle damage chart making them more survivable, some AV14 tanks, maybe with rear armour of 11, or the ability to hide whilst hidden would be really juicy. What's that tread head? you have 14 tanks filling a shelf so you can fit each HS slot three times with whatever takes your fancy, and hellhounds to boot? Well, don those commanders goggles, a T-shirt that reads "Shut up hippy, tanks are cool" and roll out!
P.S. It is still a disadvantage to have low LD, low AV troops for kill points, but it's not like we can stop that last man fleeing off the table. It's like the officers need to stop them with some sort of Iron discipline. "Sighs and flicks through the doctrines section longingly."

Re: TACTICA:Imperial Guard Advantages in Fifth Edition

StaysCrunchyInMilk — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 08:01:08 -0000

Agreed - It doesn't scatter. The hellhound entry has a special rule for placing the template, written in the codex. It doesn't say scatter anywhere. (In fact it says (shortened version): place the template and hit everything underneath)

Re: TACTICA:Imperial Guard Advantages in Fifth Edition

jwolf_bols — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 19:46:42 -0000

I'll do a tactics article later this week, but concentration of firepower is certainly a key against assault armies. The trick is knowing what to shoot when, and that's what I'll talk about.

Re: TACTICA:Imperial Guard Advantages in Fifth Edition

SSG_Snuffy — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 17:01:04 -0000

A long while ago, in a White Dwarf, I saw a battle report that provided advice for IG armies: pick one target and shoot it until it's dead. Repeat as necessary.

Is this more or less what you do to wipe out so many opponents? Do you concentrate your firepower or whittle away a little at a time?

Re: TACTICA:Imperial Guard Advantages in Fifth Edition

SSG_Snuffy — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 16:54:43 -0000

As suggested, I went back and read the Annihilation mission...
Personally, I'd be tempted to rule that a SM comand squad is a separate KP as they're purchased separately, whereas the IG's command squad is a mandatory purchase, and shouldn't count as a separate KP.
But... Until that's clarified by the Roolz Boyz/FAQ, the RAW are the final arbiter.

Re: TACTICA:Imperial Guard Advantages in Fifth Edition

faultie — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 13:55:27 -0000

Ding! Ding! Ding! We have a winner!

Yes, Cameleoline cloaks (however spelled) are a relatively inexpensive way to make Guard units incredibly survivable. Having a 3+ save in cover (or higher in a bunker or similar) is incredibly effective against ranged weapons, blast that doesn't ignore, etc., making the lowly T3 5+ guardsmen a MEQ at range. Since that's where they should be staying (at range), it's a great thing to have! In pure shooting, 10 Marines vs. 25 Guardsmen (~160 pts), but both with 3+ saves, the Guardsmen stand a good chance to stomping the Marines.

Re: TACTICA:Imperial Guard Advantages in Fifth Edition

jwolf_bols — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 13:34:19 -0000

The article is focused on the advantages the Guard have in 5e, as the title explains. If you want to talk about how 5e gave the Guard a sour deal, write your own damned article. I have no use for complaints, as they provide no assistance in playing strongly. Yes, the basic Guardsman is overpriced and the weapon options for all infantry are too expensive - so what? We have what we have, and my goal is to make the best force possible from what we have, not whine about what we don't.

My record in Annihilation games, with a 2k force having 19-22 KP (various builds) is my weakest in 5e, but still more than 60% wins. Granted, most of those wins are via the Wipeout! rule (as are most of my wins overall), but I have not found that my huge amounts of available KP have cost me in close games against average KP forces.

Re: TACTICA:Imperial Guard Advantages in Fifth Edition

RichBlake — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 13:19:25 -0000

Some of these advantages are OK but Guard still have a bit of a sour deal in 5th ed.

As a Guard player I feel that for a while now Guard units usually do something different on paper then they do in practice. For example Armoured Fist Squads should be about going forward and capturing objectives left unguarded or that have been cleared by infiltrating or fast attacking units. In practice they make a much, much more effective stationary bunker then they do a forward attacking squad.

Guard haven't come out that badly from 5th ed apart from in one respect: Kill points. Guard armies are the easiest to beat in annihilation by miles. The only time I've ever found this to be an exception is in large team games over 4000 points and thats simply because Guard have always been more effective in large games.

Overall I have to say this article is a bit too rosy for my liking. There are flaws in the Guard codex and how Guard play in 5th ed, not terrible but there are some serious flaws which need addressing. This article seems to be talking up Guard wayyyy to much, and thats me saying that as an ardent Guard player :P

Re: TACTICA:Imperial Guard Advantages in Fifth Edition

spudwack — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 02:44:17 -0000

Don't break it just yet. The standard set with the newer books is "models come first". So expect the new dex to include the russ's with hull lascannons and bolter sponsoons as the standard package upon which you can then upgrade weapon options. In the interim, just build your lists as best you can, and find friendly players who won't mind a little proxy russ.