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

=====Xenos=====
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*'''Craftworld Eldar:''' With to-hit modifiers being hard capped at +1/-1 these days, Craftworlders are nowhere '''near''' as hard to deal with these days. While the occasional -1 to hit does suck, the sheer volume of fire your infantry squads and vehicles are capable of outputting will borderline guarantee hits upon anything they can field. With a standard GEQ T3 and 4+ save on their infantry, even your humble lasguns have a solid 50/50 shot of killing the average Aspect Warrior (and remember, Aspect Warriors are anywhere from two to five times as pricey per model as your guardsmen. You'll have a ''lot'' more lasguns than they will Aspect Warriors). This by no means should be a cause for complacency. Melee is a notable weakness your infantry tends to suffer from (with a few exceptions), and Craftworlders do have specialized Aspect units that'll seek to exploit that. There is good news though; as mentioned earlier, everything the Eldar can field comes at a relatively steep price, especially compared to you. Not only can you easily outnumber the average Craftworlder, you'll invariably be able to easily outrange them as well. Spread out to ensure no uninvited guests can pop into your backline and to help contain potential melee charges. For your bigger guns and tanks, focus down their longer ranged heavy hitters first; Dark Reapers, Fire Prisms and Crimson Hunters can pose a serious threat to your armor and are among the few longer ranged options Craftworlders will typically bring in this matchup. Without those, they'll be forced to close the gap to engage you. Lastly, keep tabs on their Psykers. It's a blue moon when a Craftworld player ''doesn't'' bring a supporting psyker (in fact, the only non-named non-psyker HQ they can bring is an Autarch) and if they're left to their devices, they can cause quite a bit of [[HERESY|chaos]] through the mortal wounds and the library of buffs/debuffs they can throw around. Bringing one or two psykers of your own if only for Deny the Witch rolls wouldn't be a bad call. Also, a few Sniper Teams or an allied Vindicare Assassin will do you wonders against their actually fragile characters.
*'''Dark Eldar:''' Covens no longer fuck us over 100% thanks to the "everything can wound anything" rule now. Notice "100%", since the bastards now get an invulnerable save making them tough on your lascannons, plasma guns, and anti-vehicle/monster weapons. Kabalites in Boats and Wyches with their insane close combat attacks are top notch against us. Flamers are, and always will be, your friend against these slippery fuckers, and be sure to bring some Hydras along to punish the fact that all their vehicles {{WH40kKeyword|FLY}}. Be warned, like the Imperium's Scions Dark Eldar are ''very'' adept at punishing careless plays since Dark Eldar like Nids were trash for so long that any long-term players tend to be tactical geniuses.
*'''Harlequins:''' Well, these guys are just bad news. With flip belts that can launch these bastards over screening units and terrain in the movement phase, Genestealer-level close combat attacks, -1 to hit modifiers, 4+ Invulnerable saves, and access to a multitude of leadership debuffs, you're in for a tough fight. Again, bring flamers, auto-hitting weapons and lots of screening units spread out so they have no space to finish their moves over them. The new Saedath rules can give Harlequins increased resilience by making wound rolls of 1-3 always fail, but your mass S3 fire against their T3 functionally does not give a shit about that which is quite hilarious. A unit to watch out for is the Death Jester. He can snipe characters with his Shrieker Cannon, so either block LoS whenever you can or get an Ogryn Bodyguard/Nork Deddog to tank the hits for you and try to buy you a turn.
*'''Ynnari:''' This eldar army will behave very largely the same as any one of the other elf armies mentioned previously, only with a particular predilection towards melee-focused lists. The good news is that their out-of-phase actions are a thing of the past, so you won't need to worry about double tapping Fire Dragons or Dark Reapers anymore. The bad news is that the melee potential of units like Wraithblades or Troupes is effectively maximized if they soulburst, meaning they will ''absolutely'' slaughter units whole-sale if they make it into combat. Bringing a decent degree of heavy armor is advised since outside the larger Wraith units, most of their piddly S3/4 melee attacks will just ping off without dealing much damage. Flamers are also a strong charge deterrent, but beware of units like Howling Banshees or Autarchs who can disable your overwatch. Focus on whittling them down at range wherever possible as well; outside allied detachments, Ynnari detachments don't have much incentive to natively invest heavily in dedicated gunline units due to the inherent lack of support available to them anymore. Just like when dealing with Craftworlders, key targets include any psykers or the Ynnari characters, as they provide a significant amount of support to their units (like healing/rezzing wounded/dead models, providing re-roll support, etc).
*'''Necrons:''' In a sentence, play for KEEPS. Reanimation Protocols trigger after every attack made, so there's no real getting around it anymore, '''but''', you're also better able to keep multi-wound models like Destroyers down; Necrons only get back up if they roll a 5+ for each wound the model has. Don't fight in half-measures and use your biggest, shootiest guns first. 99% of Necron lists will be running the custom "every model has ObSec and gets a free 6" pregame move" along with the Silent King, Wraith blobs, and Skorpehk destroyers because the Necron internal balance is atrocious. On the flip side, their faction Secondary objectives as of Nephilim are the easiest to max out in the game and [[Derp|they have a good chance to win because they outscored you, even if you table them.]] Try and do whatever you can to deny them their secondary objectives, and you may just squeak out a draw or a rarer victory.
**Versus vehicles, your meltas and lascannons are going to lose a lot of effectiveness when Quantum Shielding triggers - every model with this rule has a 5+ invuln, and wound rolls of 1-3 always fail. The solution to all of this? If you're into list tailoring (which makes you a [[That Guy]] by definition), the relic Banner of Nemrodhesh. Ignores hit modifiers and any ability that lets enemy units ignore wounds (phase cap, feel no pain). Great for taking down any C'tan unit the Necrons are banking on and denying feel no pain against shots from {{W40Kkeyword|CORE}} units. 
*'''Orks:''' First, shake hands with your opponent and thank him for keeping this hobby fun. Then, crack open a beer. Finally, STAY OUT OF MELEE! Even your dedicated melee troops are going to struggle against the green tide - while none of their models are game-breaking, they do have a LOT of them. You may actually lose out on model count and board control, depending on what he brought. 
**Beast Snaggaz are purposefully built to fuck Vehicles, and have enough buffs from New Model Syndrome to really rub it in your face: 6+ invuln, bonuses to hit and wound, and Mortal Wounds out the Ass that you have no protection against mean that anything that gets to touch you will end up either destroying your tank, or crippling it. 
**Orks depend on movement tricks in order to get close and bypass their shit movement of 5". The "Ere We Go USR allows them to re-roll either one or both dice for a charge roll allowing them to pull of charges from a surprisingly long distance. You have a Tank Order that slaps -2 to movement on an Ork unit. You should always use that Order against Orks if possible
**Ork Shooting is ''worse'' than last edition, since they no longer get stackable exploding shots, but weapons like Rokkits and KMBs will make anything that does hit hurt like hell. 
**Watch out for Speed Freakz, whose units can do a little bit of both shooting and melee, while still being speedy as fuck. Units like Deff Koptas have Rokkits, which can really hurt with 3D, but also have really effective multi-hit attacks in melee that can make mincemeat out of your Bullgryns.  
**Most Ork players will be taking MSU or 10 or less due to the changes to Mob Rule and BLAST weapons; they are no longer immune to morale, but the changes to the Morale Phase still means that unless he only has 1 Boyz left, ''most'' of the mob will stick around. Pick your objectives and play hard for them - don't spread yourself too thin. And then crack open another beer with the boyz. 
*'''Tau:''' Like Craftworld Eldar, these guys used to be a thorn in our side with markerlight spam that took away cover, Pulse Rifles that shredded our infantry from 30" away, and Riptide spam that made a mockery of our tanks. 
**The Bork'an sept will be able to out-dakka you beyond your 24" lasgun range,  since their tenet adds 4" to their weapons,  on top of reducing the Strength of your S7 and less guns by 1 when you target Battlesuits and Vehicles. Get past this by just using your Meltas and Tank Cannons, and leave the Autocannons at home. 
**Their infantry are superior to yours, with 4+ armor and S5 guns with AP on pretty much everything; they aren't hurting for ways to bring it, either, as most of their suits come with high ROF. Your only defense right now is to bring more bodies and hope for the best. Even then, taking 100+ models might not hold up against the amount of high AP shots coming their way.
**Railguns will fuck your day up, so if you can, smoke launchers will do you wonders since the T'au tend to have a mediocre ballistic skill value of 4+ without markerlights or Commander units. Also, remember to issue the order "Strike and Shroud" to any Leman Russ you can for that exact same reason. Finally, if you have Artillery you can one-up the T'au since most of their ranged weapons require LoS, so hiding your vehicles becomes EXTREMELY important.
*'''Tyranids:''' Xenos armies were buffed quite a bit, and the Tyranids were buffed the most. At a 59% winrate competitively, gone are the days of 5th-7th when they were trash-tier. 
**[[Imperial Munitorum Manual|Most Guard players know what they need to do]]: "[[DISTRACTION CARNIFEX|Shoot the Big Ones]]." But just like most things found in the Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer, the truth is a bit more complicated than that: Ignore all the non-Synapse monsters to focus down on the Synapse ones, and worry about the big killy melee ones first: Tyranid shooting has been buffed to be pretty potent, but they don't come with a scary amount of guns like you do; an Exocrine ''might'' be able to pop a Leman Russ in one go, but he only has the one gun to fire each turn. On the other hand, if a Tyrant or Carnifex touches you, you can be damn well sure that you won't be able to kill it on the rebound, and it can wreak more havoc when it consolidates. 
**Tyranid monsters have been buffed quite a bit, and you're looking at 15 Wounds '''minimum''', and that's not counting LEVIATHAN's transnid physiology ignoring the S8/9/10 of your Battle/Las/Demolisher Cannons. Indirect fire is amazing for dumping fire on them without line-of-sight, so invest in Basilisk/Manticores.
*'''Genestealer Cults:'''  Positioning, positioning, positioning. These guys are always unpredictable. For one thing, these guys can bring a Guard detachment (and even without doing that, borrow a few Guard units), so don't be surprised to see Leman Russes and Chimeras. Even without that, these guys will obliterate any opening you leave in your backline, so screening units are a must. 
**'''They also gain +1 to hit and +1 to wound when they focus down on you''', which makes it more important for you to establish board presence. 
**Kelermorphs are better snipers than anything you can bring, especially against Guard characters in particular because you don't have that many wounds, so you'll probably want to include an Ogryn Bodyguard or Nork Deddog if you expect to see one. Keep your officers safe by using Vox-Casters, they're free now on regular squads. You usually don't want to be in melee with these guys, but if you bring Bullgryns or Rough Riders, you can make your opponent generally regret taking an ambush-themed army once you get those countercharges in. 
**Expect to see more Achilles Ridgerunners now that they've been rebalanced, too. But if you really want to screw with your GSC-playing opponent, bring Scions in Valkyries backed up by Vulture and Vendetta Gunships and fly around the board with them, where you'll be relatively safe from just about everything your opponent is going to deep strike and generally immune to charges. Then, once they come in at the end of the third turn, disembark and shoot them down.
*'''Leagues of Votann:''' That's right. [[Rage|The Squats got reintroduced to 40k before the Guard got their 9th Edition codex]]. To keep it short, the Votann shoot better than you, do melee better than you, get better buffs compared to you thanks to Judgement tokens, and are MUCH harder to wound than you (and the average Space Marine, even) because of Void Armour. The only thing is their basic infantry are slow unless they have the Pioneer Jetbikes. Hug cover and obscuring terrain like a bitch, only expose yourself when ABSOLUTELY necessary. 
**Whatever the Leagues can see is a goner thanks to their legitimately broken Judgement Token mechanic. Three tokens stacked gives the Leagues auto-wounding shots on unmodified 4+ to hit against any unit with 3+ JT, and they're EXTREMELY easy to stack. A near-immediate FAQ and errata took away JT counting auto-hits as 6s to wound, so the Magma weapons aren't nearly as obnoxious as they were on release. There's still absolutely nothing you can do to counter the JT mechanic except play a tediously slow and unfun match, though the same can be said of many armies that will go against the squats. 
**Remember, you fully have the right to deny any proxying on the squat player's part until their model line is fully released. 


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[[Category: Warhammer 40,000]]

[[Category: Warhammer 40,000 9E]]

[[Category: Warhammer 40000 Tactics (9E)]]

[[Category: Imperial]]

[[Category: Imperial Guard]]

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