40K tactics

[General Biakal]

My overview of imperial guard for fellow semi-newbies

never underestimate the power of hyping up a new model weeks before so that when you actually field it he spend three turns trying to blow it to bits while the rest of your army quietly goes about stomping his colon. His surprise is total as he grins at your smoking ruin to realise his shit has been most definatley ruined.

look at every model with a clear head. ignore the MODEL and look at it in the GAME.
people scoff at my salamander and shoot all kinds of stuff at my other tanks while it sits on their flank hitting their rear armour with autocannon hits and their infantry with HB's and storm bolters. Ratling snipers look totally gash but ten of them can give a small squad of terminators a bad day and against crisis suits and avatars and the like they can be a real match winner if used right.

Use each unit in the way its works best, not the way the codex tells you.
I used to lose my sentinel all the time by using it as i suppose, a dreadnaught. keep it well inside your lines or on his/you flanks and use it to snipe enemy transports. I only have onemyself but i imagine three or so would make short work of those rhinos on the left wing...

Your allowed two HQ squads. why not tool one up armed for bear and get assaulting? nobody expects it and with three flamers and a veteran rocking a bolter next to a senior officer with a storm bolter and power fist/sword you might actually kick some ass.

veterans- use em. anyone who pays 80 points for a special weapon squad of the BS3 meltas is a tool. spend a tiny bit more, have veterans and you can also add a storm bolter to the sgt, all BS4.

I have had a lot of sucess with storm bolters.

never give armoured fist squads heavy weapons.

ALWAYS give infantry heavy weapons.

frag gren launcher is rubbish. but dont forget using the krak option is like having a single shot ass-kicker cannon. if it hits, it kills.

ogryns. dont fit in with my army fluff, dont like the models, do an ok job but costs are horrendous (real money AND points)

this is basicly what i have fathomed these last few months. please add your own advice, piss on mine or hi five me.

[BobbieTheDamned]

General Biakal wrote

Ratling snipers look totally gash but ten of them can give a small squad of terminators a bad day and against crisis suits and avatars and the like they can be a real match winner if used right.

Amen to that on both counts! I've seen a squad of space marine scouts (which offencively arn't to differant to ratlings) take out the nightbringer in one turn, that's value for money!

General Biakal wrote

 keep [sentinels] well inside your lines or on his/you flanks and use it to snipe enemy transports. I only have onemyself but i imagine three or so would make short work of those rhinos on the left wing...

 
I've always used my sentinels as advised in one of the WD articles way back, basicly they're just extra heavy weapons. They're also pretty good for bolstering imperial guard in assaults due to their decent strength attacks, though I wouldn't use this offencively, it helps tie up the nasty assualt troops the enemy will be hurling at you whilst you run away to get more shooting!

General Biakal wrote

Your allowed two HQ squads. why not tool one up armed for bear and get assaulting? nobody expects it and with three flamers and a veteran rocking a bolter next to a senior officer with a storm bolter and power fist/sword you might actually kick some ass.

I'd like to see that played, I have a feeling it'd still be mince meat against pretty much anything, even trying to go against a marine tactical squad they'll be down to maybe 2 guys before they even reach them and then they'll be horrificly outnumbered by troops that they've not really got any advantage on.

General Biakal wrote

veterans- use em. anyone who pays 80 points for a special weapon squad of the BS3 meltas is a tool. spend a tiny bit more, have veterans and you can also add a storm bolter to the sgt, all BS4.

Yeah veterans are very cool for their points, good for giving you a bit more firepower on key points in the line I find. Not a lot else worth buying in the elites section anyway!

General Biakal wrote

ALWAYS give infantry heavy weapons.

I'd extend that to say all infanty squads and all infantry HQ's and pretty much the entire army. Heavy Bolters are the IGs best friend: they're cheap, they get lots of shots (which is good because you will miss a lot) and they can actually kill stuff. With most of my IG squads the HB will kill maybe 2-3 times as many enemys as anything else. I normally bring at least 8 on the table even at 1500pts. Multi-lasers and Autocannons are also both very good and I tend to give these to sentinels as it means if there is a vehicle it will just get a sentinel shooting it rather than having to waste a whole IG squad who might be able to shoot some troops and maybe kill one with lasguns if they're very lucky. Personally I think lascannons are a waste of time for IG, if you put them in a squad then yeah they're survivable but they're unlikely to be able to hit something when you want; if you use a heavy weapons platoon with them then you can easily focus on a target and kill it but you'll loose lascannons very quickly. If I have to take them I normally give them to platoon command squads.

General Biakal wrote

never give armoured fist squads heavy weapons.

I donno about that it depends on what you're doing with them. Remeber one model can fire from the chimera's hatch if you don't mind making yourself become an open topped vehicle, so if you're pretty sure no one is going to be shooting at it you can end up shooting that heavy weapon in addition to the vehicles own weapons. I normally use armoured fist squads to run to objectives unload their guardsmen then just get hulldown somewhere and act as pillboxes blasting at anything that moves, they're really not up to pretending to be a tank like the razorback can when correctly armed.

A tactic that I used to use in 4th ed was conscripts with mortars (as BS didn't use to affect their guess range weapon), thats not going to work now!

For me playing IG is about bringing as many bodies onto the table as possible. In 5th edtion even more so as each squad can capture an objective meaning IG are about the only army that can theoretically capture everything on the table and still have lots of troops to spare. You should be able to hold a couple of objectives and still be able to contest everything else on the board.  If you're playing the 'Annihilation' game type you really need to remember that its only units that have been totally destroyed that count, so once a guard squad has done its part and is nearly gone just pull it back to a safe distance. IG are one of the only armies with enough troops to be able to do things like that.

[MarkRG]

Iv not tried this for some time, but i tried a full i guard without  any tanks. I was fighting Eldar and the look on my mate's face was classic as he opted for heavy weapons options. after droping 7 mortar bombs per turn taking out a falcon grave tank, glancing blow then to finish his troops off with hundreds of lasguns and 4 rocket laurchers ( note not missle ) did me proud, my lascannon missed most of the time. This tactic does throw off players expecting to fight tanks andit looks cool to see over a hundred models on the board.

Game on

[General Biakal]

the HQ squad i mentioned above had a very good outing against a tau army. they took down a squad with an ethereal. however i take the point against grey knights or SM it would be futile. i think it would be a nice surprise for a rival IG tho as it would munchy wunchy through their command squads.

in all im planning a static (shocker) Main Line of Resistance made up of my infantry platoon and autocannon squad supported by a demolisher, and a flank strong point made up of HQ1 and a missile team and defence turret.

the AF squad, HQ2 supported by LR and sentinel will move forward under this supporting fire

the salamander and veterans will create a nasty firebase inside the enemy lines. the salamander has the speed to bug the hell out if it gets too nasty there and i guess six BS4 guards with 2 multimeltas and a storm bolter should have a fair chance against most for a turn or two.

or i might just get minced. its a learning curve boys.

[MarkRG]

In my HQ im guard, i have a basic commisar, only sometimes adding melta bombs, i use him to soak up the wounds, but for my platoon command Commisar i tool him up and use the l,t as cannon foddar. With this method they survive a little longer.

Game on.

[General Biakal]

a thought struck me the other day too, after i had been hitby some eldar guardians and their damn hover-guns. if you have the points what about instead of having a heavy weapons team, why not attatch a sentinel to infantry squads? it can move and shoot, rapid fire 18 times (i always give sgts lasguns) and still have a heavy weapon.

also, i think ogryns should be available as an upgrade to squads if you spend a doctorine point on them- espesh for catachans. all the guff says catas and ogryns get on just fine and dandy, so for 20pts why shouldnt they have one in the squad?

if u dont use a doctorine point then they should only be in squads on their own.

over complicated i know.