Editing Warhammer 40,000/5th Edition Tactics/Imperial Guard (section)

==Tactics==
Tactics for the Imperial guard have been expanded upon through out the years resulting in a plethora of different stratagems. First to explain a few of the different rules of the IG and their different uses, as well as some army compositions and strategies.
===Orders===
The order system, though new to Guard, has become one of the most important and most raged-about addition to the IG codex. When you are about to declare a Ld check for an order, get your troll face on. The fact is, is that Sisters are only decent now because of faith points. In a few years the same will be said about Guard and the orders system. With orders your lasguns become 30-50% more effective. You get rerolls for cover and armored/monstrous enemies. When you go to ground with an order, you go to ground like no other son of a bitch. Your run move is guaranteed to be decent. Some call it broken, but you can not give orders to those inside vehicles. So the most broken list of Guard currently, can not make full use of them. Anyway, orders are the shit. And you don't even need lady luck on your side. With the right vox system and use of other leaders Ld *COUGH* commissar *COUGH*, you should be able to roll a savings grace.

===Army variants===
*Blob guard
Blob guard is a rather simple concept. Have more bodies than your opponent has bullets. The fact is, is that IG has access to guardsmen that can be as cheap as 5 points. You will overwhelm them in model count, in deaths a turn, in shots fired, you will have at least twice as many heavy weapons as they will. All of their anti-tank weaponry that was meant to take out the 150 point Leman Russ? It killed a guardsman with a lasgun, good job. The problems that come with such an awesome army composition is the lack of speed and how effective the enemy's anti-infantry will be against you. A decent thousand-point list might consist of 2 20-man combined squads with a commissar and priest each, about 9 or so heavy weapons, and your three or so command squads loaded out with special weapons. Works best in a Cities of Death game, all that cover, all those cover saves, your men will live a bunch longer and confound the enemy to no end.
*Mech guard
Mech explores the wonder of armored vehicles. The core of the army would be a command squad and 2 squads of vets all in chimeras. And the rest would consist of anything from Leman Russ tanks to vendettas, to artillery, fast attack choices, or more chimeras.
*Melta vet spam guard
Put vets in Chimeras. Give them meltas. Fill up Force Organization troop chart. Do same with Company Command Squads and Storm Troopers.
*Hammer and Anvil Guard
This army is for those who can't choose between the two. A main force hits head-on while supported by tanks and artillery, and vets come in from a supporting side. As they say, hit from the air, sea, and ground. A list might include a command squad along with a squad of vets in a Chimera, a squad of 20-30 men with a commissar and priest, a Leman Russ variant, and a Basilisk.
*Artillery apocalypse
Take a few infantry squads with just standard guardsmen, say around 20-30 troopers, do not upgrade at all: these are meat shields. Fill up your remaining points with the Imperium's single most destructive medium, Basilisks. "But wait," you say, "Baneblades/Titans/Shadowswords are more destructive!" And yes, you'd be right, HOWEVER, when you have, say, 1,000,000 Basilisks per battle titan, well, you get the picture. Whilst your enemy is dossing around trying to kill your infantry, your many Basilisks pound them into dust. AP3 and large blast means all standard infantry fall like chaff to these bad boys, whilst Str 9 means most man-sized units suffer instant death. This mind-blowingly massive amount of firepower is, however, completely useless if the crew is being hacked to pieces by deep striking terminators or some other such buttholes. So this formation is best for large, pitched, foot-slogging battles, where your foes will be lucky even to reach your infantry lines if you've spent half your points on Basilisks.

===Allies===
If you're still using the now-old Codex: Witch Hunters or Codex: Daemonhunters and you want to use allies, good god do so. For the price of a fully-kitted Veteran squad, you can have an entire 10-woman Sisters squad with all their needed gear PLUS the cost of a Rhino for them. Suddenly your army has 3+ saves and BS4 Bolters to backup your lasgun spam and 5+ armor save.

If you're lacking punch for some reason, consider using the old Allies rules. Sisters and Grey Knights can introduce a world of hurt most people don't expect from a Guard army. This writer knows from experience that Valkyrie-borne Sisters plus a Canoness make a superior, cheaper alternative to expensive Veterans or Stormtroopers doing the same thing.

===What to buy===
The battle force. This gives you two squads of 10 and a leader pack, as well as heavy weapons and a Sentinel. This will be helpful if you are going blob or mech. You can make them vets for a quick 500pt army. You can even save the heavy weapons for vehicle modifications later when you buy tanks if you go for mech.
Next thing would most likely be a Leman Russ and two chimeras if going mech, and another battle force if you are going blob.


Also if you dip, or one of your friends dip, ask them for the metal lids to the tobacco containers. These are the exact size of the heavy weapons base, making it extremely easy to take advantage of all the heavy weapons in the pack. Just use the bending knee for the dude shooting, and put the other dude as a standing man. Green stuff some sandbags or a wall to take place of the tripod stand.


As far as organizing your army, you ought to know better that you don't have to pimp out every platoon FULL of men. Usually, two large Platoons decked out will do the job, but let's calculate the body count if you spammed every slot.

HQ: CCSx2 (24 models; Commissar, Chimera, and all Advisors, including Officer of the Fleet and Astropath, which are MANDATORY)<br/>
Priest x5<br/>
Techpriest x2 (With 10 servitors. Give 'em ALL plasma cannons. Because you can.)

Elites: Stormtroopers all around, bitches (30 models)

Troops: 6x FULL Infantry platoons (6x6-man CCS + Chimeras, 30x11-man Infantry squads + Chimeras, 30x6-man Heavy squads (it's two guys on one base, be glad I'm not counting the gun model), 12x6-man Special squads, and 6x50-man Conscript squads. 954 models, bitch)

Fast: 3x Rough Rider squads (30 models)

Heavy Support: 9x Leman Russ EXECUTIONERS WITH FULL PLASMA-SPONSONS (STFU. You want them)

Grand total: 1064 models, INCLUDING Chimeras. Yes. You can have one-thousand models on the table. THIS IS THE GUARD. OUR INFANTRY ARE BLOBS.<br/>
Want MORE INSANITY? For an extra 500 points you can make those 300 Conscripts UNDYING MONSTROSITIES! This is also mandatory, no exceptions.

But unless you're a millionaire or you've been in the Guard since 2nd edition, you aren't pulling this off.

Ideal generalized army list that you should start with:

HQ: 1x CCS

TROOPS: 2 Infantry platoons of two Infantry squads each

FAST ATTACK: Scout Sentinel x2, Valkyrie and Hellhounds if you wish.

Once your army has reached this point, start looking at where you want to go with it. You'll have a decent base for starting the typical MechVet army that is shining right now. If you want to get Leman Russes, get three, split between two Battlecannons and a Demolisher. Max out melta. It's the best thing in the game currently. Just do it.

[[Category: Warhammer Tactics/Old]]
[[category: Imperial Guard]]

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