Editing Warhammer 40,000/9th Edition Tactics/Imperial Guard (section)

=====Chaos=====
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One hilarious strategy against Chaos in general is to run the Relic of Lost Cadia, and once per game drop the hammer on these bastards for what they did to Cadia.
*'''Chaos Daemons:''' On paper, Chaos Daemons are an army that primarily relies on their psychic phase and Close Combat phase to do damage. The 40k setting has often favoured armies that rely primarily on their shooting capabilities. In practice, Daemons have been faring very well in 9th Edition. With Psychic Awakening and a comparatively lenient entry in the Munitorum Field Manual 2020 (hint, Guard got slapped hard in that book), Daemons now have multiple ways to fuck your shit up. Their new Daemon Saves are unique in that they always get their base save, no AP and no invuln-ignoring bs will stop this. The best way to press it? Massed fire. Units to watch out for include Flamers and Exalted Greater Daemons.
*'''Chaos Space Marines:''' Abaddon's still bad news, armless jokes aside. With the addition of Legion Traits, several builds can do a number on the guard's forces. The Alpha Legion has the same -1 to hit against ranged attacks outside of 12" that Raven Guard have, Night Lords make horrible leadership bombs that can scare off half your units even if they lose only one model in a turn, Iron Warriors ignore cover with their weapons. Deal with them as you would their Loyalist equivalents. Get inside 12" of Alpha Legion units, and use Hell Hounds or Valkyries filled with flamers to do so. Against Night Lords? Commissars solve Combat Attrition problems nicely.
*'''Death Guard:''' Disgustingly Resilient is now -1 Dam, and the T5 2W Plague Marines now project a variety of auras that get larger as the game goes on, the most annoying one being the one that shuts off ObSec. Thankfully for you, DG's horde-melting melee has been pared down and you're no longer going to see 5/10 man squads with everyone kitted out with plague-spewing melee. While you will never want to be closed in by the DG, at least now they're not overkilling your hordes. 
**The -1 Dam is most noticeable on your 2D and anti-vehicle weapons, especially when you're pouring them on their vehicles. Since most of your weapons are D3/D6, the D3 weapons will be doing 1 D 2/3s of the time, so you'll be relying on swingy D6s. Ironically, the lasgun is the ''least'' affected weapon from all of these changes. They've always wounded Plague Marines on 5s, saved on 3s, and were 1 Damage anyway, so you have that going for you, I guess.  
**DG is one of the few other armies that have auto-take artillery. Plagueburst Crawlers are mini-Daemon Engines that come stock with with 5++s, long-range meltas, RF guns that wound you on 2, and of course, a mortar that hits as hard as a Russ, but more consistent with flat 2D (3 with a strat that they will always use). Unlike you, they suffer penalties to shoot without LOS, so bracket them with your own artillery to weaken them a bit. 
*'''Renegades and Heretics:''' Squatted. If you're playing against them, it is probably because they're more masochistic than you are. Blast them to high-hell, spam FRSRF to cut them down, and just stay out of melee. 
*'''Chaos Knights:''' Hang on, this is gonna be a rough one. They're like the Imperial Knights, but you can play upon the degrading statlines of these buggers much more effectively by taking out bits and chunks of each tank and reduce their WS and BS. However, Chaos Knights are much more aggressive and tanky in their playstyle than Imperium-loyal Knights. Chaos Iconoclast Knights can pay 1cp before the game begins to take a Vow of Carnage which grants them an extra melee attack for every 10 models they destroy. If you're playing a guard horde, that spells bad news. Like, really bad news. On top of that, they can spend 2cps to give a different Knight of their choice the Vow of Dominance which gives them immunity to being wounded on unmodified rolls of 1, 2, and 3. That's a huge blow to your near-mandatory lascannons, and choice weapons such as the Demolisher cannon or the Shadowsword's weapons.  Outside of that, they share some stratagems such as Full Tilt, the infamous Rotate Ion Shields, Chainsweep, and Devastating Reach.
*'''Thousand Sons:''' Mind Bullets as far as the (Magnus' one) eye can see. Each squad is now led by a fully-fledged sorceror, so when they're not buffing each other for better shooting or invulns, they'll be delivering D3 MW. Since you only have so many Denies, save these for spells like Doombolt, which does flat 3 Mortals, or for Sorcerous Facade, which lets them redeploy to get out of combat/take an objective.
**Rubric Marines and Scarab Occult terminators have 5+ Invuln, get +1 to all saving throws against damage 1 weapons, ''and'' the new Armor of Contempt rule which makes your AP one worse, all the time, meaning they'll have Cataphractii-level resilience against your basic troops, and worsen your already mediocre AP when you've got anything good. But, you took Autocannons and supercharged your plasma guns like a good boy, right? 
**Born Soldiers helps, but it's not the Wounding that's the issue, it's your absolute lack of AP. Your go-tos, like Autocannons and HBs, are only AP-1, and your Battle Cannons are only Ap -2, both of which will only worsen against AoC. Spam Plasma and Demolisher Cannons when you can take it, and don't be afraid to use anti-tank weapons against Rubrics: you have a lot of potentially tank busting guns, and Thousand Sons players will almost always pick 10-men Scarab Terminator blobs over vehicles any day of the week. 
**Outside of that, the Cultists and Tzaangors often show up in big blobs and get either put in deepstrike reserve through Webway infiltration or warptimed in to get close to a screen. Don't bother using heavy weapons on them and stick to FRFSRF. Only Tzaangors are ObSec, so if you're competing for objectives, take them out first. 
*'''World Eaters:''' Guard and World Eater are like oil and water, with Guard being squishy and shooty, and Eaters are dangerous in melee with lackluster shooting. Still, they're more dangerous than ever now that they're getting a new codex, getting stuff like getting to move closer to you after being shot, preventing you from falling back, and even getting Angron back from the dead. Rather than relying on overwatch, Guard players should focus on proper spacing and battlelines. 
**Acceptable losses becomes an important stratagem in case they prevent you from falling back, which is also why the composition of your first and second line is important: anything that the World Eaters gets a clean charge on is going to die irregardless of what it is, letting the WE consolidate into the second line (they cant attack, but you can fight back) and possibly locking in that second line. Ideally, anything you want in melee, like Ogryns or Rough Riders, shouldn't be getting consolidated into since they get bonuses for charging, so keep them safe in the back. Instead, guardsmen should always make up your first and second line, because as Platoon units, you can shoot into them like the chaff they are. 
**tl;dr: your first and second lines should be well spaced whenever possible, and should always be chaff, because anything WE charges gets blended. Melee units should be kept in the back so they can counter charge, because getting consolidated into robs you of options.

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