Tactica Imperial Guard

[Steel Legion for Life]

@CKO - I was playing against mostly infantry chaos marines, and I didn't keep a count, but the only notable kill apart from "some chaos marines" was a vindicator, which took 9 St6 hits in the side.

TBH, I tend to fire units in a rolling wave against one squad until that squad is dead (It was a KP game), so the infantry kills blurred into one. The real utility of the squad was the ability to punch out loads of S6 shots, at a long range and keep moving (backwards) at the same time.

@Logathrim

You could quite easily do Chaos Guard/LaTD list with the new Guard codex. In particular:-

Straken makes a good renegade marine commander, or a Commissar Lord works well as the classic cultist demagogue/bond villain.

Penal troopers make good nasty flayerkin-esque mutants, or even lesser demons in a pinch.

Combined squads or conscripts make for good loser mutants, or crazed/rubbish cultist hordes. If you want the old school fearless cultists, e.g. Infardi, just add commissars as demagogues/enforcers.

Ogryns make good big mutants...mostly because they're big mutants.

Psi squads and the Primaris Psyker feel "right" in the list.

Banewolves and Deathstrikes have a good evil WMD feel to them.

Everything else can be done with a decent Evil colour scheme and spikes to be a "traitor russ/hellhound/Hydra/Vendetta", whatever. Just make sure it has skulls on it

If you're an Abnett fan, veterans are a good way to represent blood pact, as are any "professional soldier" guard unit, and armoured sentinels make good stalk-tanks. All of this would, in my mind, be well represented by the lovely forge world renegades, but that's just me.

[Lord Cook]

I just had a though (which soon died from loneliness), should we put together a Tactica Chaos Guard? It would be largely concerned with what units work well to represent the hordes of Chaos, rather than how to use them, as the current PDF pretty much covers all that.

An article on what units you might like to use for a traitor force would be a nice addition, but it could never be a Tactica in itself. It isn't even tactics for a start, it's more of a collection of ideas for cool counts-as conversions.

[Colonel Jacka]

I would like to see a guide about how to make a fluffy viable army, but not as part of the IMPERIAL GUARD tactica.

Cookie,

Isaac idea is not a bad one. Might be one (Article) I would like to do as I tend to enjoy the Fluff side of the game just as much as the game itself!

Worth consideration. Have already thought of a couple ideas. I might knock out a oveview and see what you think.

[Captain Micha]

Buzzkill: Dozerblades? I'd ditch em myself. *the Chimera is amphibious at some point you'll get to use that anyway*

I'd throw on a third Plasma gun on your Plasma Vets. That way Wound Allocation won't be quite so bad against you.

Your platoons aren't armed enough and I'm not sure really what they are there for. Autocannons are your friend on Line Squads when it comes to Platoons.


I promise I'll start my thrice damned vets article... just keep finding so much other stuff to do.


I like the idea of a "how to build a fluffy guard force " guide inside of the pdf, or maybe it should be listed as a second pdf? *if it is going to be a second, someone other than Lord Cook should do it. He's got enough on his plate with the Tactica Pdf being his baby*

[isaac]

What I meant, it shouldn't be part of the main tactica, but more of an expansion pack.

[Glocknal]

Hey folks,

I'm considering my purchase of the week, and I can't decide whether to get a Basilisk to convert to a Griffon/Colossus; a 10 Ratlings, or my fourth chimera.

I am leaning towards the Bassy because I usually dont have a third HS slot, and it doesnt feel very Guardlike not to max your HS slots. I have 3 chimeras, two for vets, and one for my CCS or a PBS depending on my list, a fourth would allow me to add another vet squad in my list.

Any thoughts?

[Captain Micha]

I'd go with the Artillery myself.

I just can't see myself really playing without some kind of Artillery anymore.

[RCgothic]

The Basilisk suffers a bit from being the middle option. A Griffon is better against horders for fewer points, and the Colossus ignores cover.

The 4th Chimera would be nice, but doesn't sound like a necessity.

Whether or not Ratlings are any good depends a lot on whether you play single-check or multi-check for your pinning rules.

[Sircyn]

I always bring one unit of artillery to the field in my Guard armies now, unless I am doing something themed like my tank company. You can't go wrong with a Griffon, but the Colossus is a fine choice if you have a place for it in your fire power allocation. If you are going the way of the Griffon take note that you will likely want a pair as for the price and boost in effectiveness it's something I would consider a standard issue upgrade. I'd advise against actually building the basilisk as a basilisk though!

I'd not bother with Ratlings of any number myself, they just don't have much bang for their buck and are fragile lil critters.

The 4th Chimera is also an excellent choice and one I would recommend if you are going completely mechanized and is also handy to have kicking around for any Guard force, they are great to have to be able to chuck into an army list. Get it next week, the artillery conversion project sounds much more fun!

[Glocknal]

Yeah, I think ya'll sold me on the Bassy. I ideally want to get two, and run them as griffons in smaller games, colossus in larger ones.

Im also considering of making a conversion turrent for my 4th chimera and turn it into a manticore.

I'd like to get your opinions on using the PCS as a assault unit. I commonly run it in my Vendetta with 4 flamers, but I was thinking of attaching a Commissar w/ PF, and adding a PF to my JO to assault any survivors of my flame bath. This jacks the cost up considerably on a fragile unit, but gives some punch against MEQs.

[Steel Legion for Life]

Well, it's a bit of a risk putting the Commissar next to an expensive officer with a powerfist in a small squad. Nothing so galling as two boltgun shots giving your opponent a fair chance to have your officer executed. It's a small squad, striking last, at T3. Rolls don't have to be too bad for it to die outright before the officer or commissar fight. And losing a combat will often result in your officer being executed -even losing by two, that's a 50/50 chance to die.

Also, the utility of the flamer squad is that in a transport it can be where it needs to be and use its flamers effectively. That's just not the case with the fists. You need to position them carefully to get to assault - remember, you can't move the transport at all if you want to assault.

I'd say multiple fists in PCS are a bad spend of points (especially if not against MeQs). The fists and commissar cost 65 points - you can almost have a squadron of rough riders for that. If you want commissars in an assault unit, combined platoons with flamers is the way to go.

[RCgothic]

And losing a combat will often result in your officer being executed -even losing by two, that's a 50/50 chance to die.

Wrong on two counts.

Commissars confer stubborn, so doesn't matter how much you lose by, still testing at leadership 9, which is a 5/6 chance of holding.

Testing at leadership 7 is a roughly 42/58 chance, not 50/50.

[Sir_Lunchalot]

Actually Ld7 is a 21/36 chance - reduces to 7/12. it's marginally better than half the time, but not by much.

[decker_cky]

21/36+15/66*21/36 = about 42/58 (not quite).

He's including the reroll.

[infernus31]

Unless you count the Hydra (which I dunno is it?) I dont take artillery yet. I'm tempted to try Manticore whenever it released in plastic or in a proxy game.

[RCgothic]

Sorry, I think I've inadvertantly confused people by using / instead of : in my ratio.

I was pointing out that passing leadership 7 (and getting executed) is not a 50:50 chance.

If you are taking a test at ld7, then there are 15/36 (41.667%) chances to fail, or 21/36 (58.333%) to pass. (a 42:58 failass ratio, or more correctly 5:7)

You can't take a test at ld7 if a Commissar is in the squad though.

[Sir_Lunchalot]

unless it's a pinning check, as I so painfully learned before getting slapped around by my roommate's nidzilla army

[Sircyn]

Yeah, my blob squads soon learnt to fear horrorfexes! After that embarrassingly shameful short game against DE I decided my infantry were getting into transports and not leaving them!

[Lord Cook]

I'm considering my purchase of the week, and I can't decide whether to get a Basilisk to convert to a Griffon/Colossus; a 10 Ratlings, or my fourth chimera.

I'd definitely go for the Griffon/Colossus option. But Chimeras are always useful, so in the long term I'd aim for both.

I'd like to get your opinions on using the PCS as a assault unit.

Gaahahaha...mnnnmnmnm...eerrrg.

I think that suitably soliloquises my position.

[isaac]

However a GL or flamer filled PCS is quite nasty...