Tactica Imperial Guard - 6th Ed

[Glenn87]

Hey guys,
What's your take on General Odon from IA11?
Is he usable??

[Vengeance2410]

Hey guys,
What's your take on General Odon from IA11?
Is he usable??

I have heard that he is ok- the option to take a Valk as a dedicated trasnport is nice- just a shame that its not a Vendetta he can take I have heard... (Am I thinking of the right guy?)

The other downside is that off the top of my head, his command sq can only take 2 special weapons for some odd reason... FW army lists have an odd habit of screwing with special weapon slots for no reason... The Armoured Fist veterans from IA Vol I 2nd ed spring to mind in this regard -.-

So yea, 95pts left with my 1.5k Armoured Battle Group list... Any suggestions?

[Glenn87]

yeah, he can take a Valkyrie as Dedicated. But the downside is idd that his command squad only has 1 Meltagun...

What would be a good start to build around him??

[Ariobarzanes]

Tons of infantry; with the ability to Comand trhee orders per turn and a 24" command radius (regimental standard included in the command group) he is demanding to be the anchor of a battle line + he allows a reroll to the seize the iniciative roll

[hangnail]

I'm starting to see lots more units/ options that result in 3+ or 2+ cover saves, and I'm wondering if I need to seriously consider upping my Ignores Cover component, in the form of a Colossus, or less effectively an Eradicator (heaven forbid)... I already run a hellhound at higher points, but I'm warming to the Ap3 ignores cover of the Colossus. I know 2 griffons throws out more wounds for the same points, but trying to dig stealth suits out of cover etc., means that it's coming up as viable. What do you think?

[hobbic_c]

I'm starting to see lots more units/ options that result in 3+ or 2+ cover saves, and I'm wondering if I need to seriously consider upping my Ignores Cover component, in the form of a Colossus, or less effectively an Eradicator (heaven forbid)... I already run a hellhound at higher points, but I'm warming to the Ap3 ignores cover of the Colossus. I know 2 griffons throws out more wounds for the same points, but trying to dig stealth suits out of cover etc., means that it's coming up as viable. What do you think?

Another option I think can help with stuff getting good cover saves is taking advantage of the "fire on my target" order, I used it alot when facing the 4th ed Tau codex with all those disruption pods, although against something that already has a good armour save it only really helps the situation with models like the master of ordinance...

[Neighbor Kid]

my friend fights primarily battlesuits ..I honestly have yet to beat him.. and I dont know what to do anymore.. He pops my leman russes way to easy and I have hard times taking out his suits. How do you beat a Battlesuit based army. Do inform me! And when you come up with your ideas i have a huge army so the only weapons i dont bring to the table are sentinels, ratlings and rough riders. Anything else is fair game to use. help!!

[Blinder]

What exactly about the suits is giving such a hard time (aside from the fact that fusion blasters and Russes don't mix)? Do you run platoons as troops or vets? Maybe you're relying too heavily on the tanks for killing power and need to consider a few dozen extra lasguns to help tear the suits down after the tanks are gone?

[ColShaw]

my friend fights primarily battlesuits ..I honestly have yet to beat him.. and I dont know what to do anymore.. He pops my leman russes way to easy and I have hard times taking out his suits. How do you beat a Battlesuit based army. Do inform me! And when you come up with your ideas i have a huge army so the only weapons i dont bring to the table are sentinels, ratlings and rough riders. Anything else is fair game to use. help!!

If the Suits are using mainly Fusion Guns, then what you need is to keep the Suits out of Melta range. For that, you can use infantry spread out to fill the space around your tanks, so the Suits don't have enough room to move in on you (especially guard the flanks; you can often butt the rear of your tanks against the table edge and protect that part with the "edge of the world"). Like in the real world, tanks unsupported by infantry are vulnerable to getting popped at close range.

If you're having a different Suit problem, let us know what it is; with the new Broadsides' Strength going down to 8, those shouldn't be causing all that much trouble for Russ front armor.

[Neighbor Kid]

I do lose tanks easy. I also seem to always get stopped by the saves of tau for all their models granted by either the drones or special wargear being brought with them. I am a pie plate master, but Im guessing im bringing too many tanks to the field. Perhaps just only takes basilisk and just pour my points into HWS?

I typically use 2-3 squad blob platoons of regular infantry. Vets i pull here n there. Should i perhaps just charge suits if they are close enough? I feel that giving the first rank second rank order for a 3 shot volley per guy is better then running in for 2 attacks, though i guess hidden power weapons would slightly help.

[TheBearminator]

How big are his suits units? K
Can be tricky to land pie plates on small units. When I last played against tau all units were tiny and always in cover because of their jet packs, therefore my ap was wasted. Why not try to blast them to pieces with Punishers? 29 S5 shots with hb sponsons. :-)

[Vaktathi]

Tanks in 6E, *especially* medium tanks, have a severely curtailed lifespans, roughly on the order of 4E, they do not last long at all (which is why increasingly AV10/11/12 vehicles are disappearing off of tables), which is why it's generally AV14/AV13 tanks (especially Skimmers with Jink saves) and flyers that you see on most tables these days.

[ColShaw]

Should i perhaps just charge suits if they are close enough? I feel that giving the first rank second rank order for a 3 shot volley per guy is better then running in for 2 attacks, though i guess hidden power weapons would slightly help.

Yes, absolutely charge them. Blob squads are great at this. The main thing is, you don't charge to kill things; you charge to keep them from killing you. If you can tie down a Battlesuit unit in a long, hopeless close combat (which is what a fight against a 3-squad blob with Commissar should be), you've taken those Battlesuits completely out of the game. You will probably eventually drag them down, too, but in the meantime they won't be hurting you in any significant way, and they won't be shooting your valuable tanks.

[Blinder]

Yes, absolutely charge them. Blob squads are great at this. The main thing is, you don't charge to kill things; you charge to keep them from killing you. If you can tie down a Battlesuit unit in a long, hopeless close combat (which is what a fight against a 3-squad blob with Commissar should be), you've taken those Battlesuits completely out of the game. You will probably eventually drag them down, too, but in the meantime they won't be hurting you in any significant way, and they won't be shooting your valuable tanks.

Seconded, and personally I'd shell out for a couple PWs of some sort for added impact (sure, the main goal is to tie them down, but it can be nice to get your squads back before the game ends). Keep in mind the "squads-and-commissar" bit though: while Tau are even worse than we are in general at CC, you want to make sure you have plenty of "oops" wounds around to protect the commissar.

Were they not on your list of non-options, this could be a very good application of rough-riders as well, since they *should* pretty well delete the first suit unit that drops in.

[mikehardez]

To add to the vs. Tau discussion, Tau is one of the armies IG really wants to assault if the opportunity presents itself. They've got WS2 practically across the board and once you get them into close combat their fancy guns mean jack squat (as well as their cover saves!).

That being said, you must be careful, as Tau will be happy to shoot you to pieces as you try to close the distance. Also, Tau may be weak once you get into assault, but they have a few rules that can make their overwatches particularly punishing.

The first is Supporting Fire, which allows all Tau models within 6" of the unit you're charging to overwatch in addition to the charged unit's overwatch. Straight forward, but things can get messy if you charge a unit in range of multiple Fire Warrior squads.

The second is Marker Lights. Specifically, for one counter, Tau can increase the BS of a shooting attack by 1 against the marked unit, including snapfire and overwatch. Suffice to say, be careful if you charge with a marked unit. The few extra casualties it will cause can make for a failed charge. Since Lasguns are not assault weapons, this means you gave up all that shooting to get shot at. Yikes.

With those caveats, some units are ideal to charge against. Being charged is a stealth suits teams worst nightmare. No defensive grenades, nothing to give them extra attacks or any AP in combat... a 6 suit team will retaliate with a vicious 6 S4 AP- attacks... if they haven't taken casualties by the time they go on initiative 2. Chances are extremely good you'll win the combat, and if they do break, you also have an advantage in a sweeping advance.

Hope these points give you some ideas! Give us more specifics if you're still struggling against the Tau.

[FraustyTheSnowman]

On the subject of assaulting tau, the Supporting Fire rule allows them to fire overwatch when you charge any unit in their army, not just tau units (this is how it was explained to me, haven't verified yet) so firewarriors near an allied unit get to shoot you when you charge the allied unit. Just something to keep in mind.

Also, the marker lights can be used to increase overwatch shooting, but they only last for one phase of the game. So markerlights put on your units during your opponents shooting phase go away at the end of their shooting phase. It's still possible to get marked up (DO NOT charge a unit of marker drones when there's other tau units within six of them...) it's not as bad as it might have sounded.

Lastly...yep, they're weapon skill 2, but they also generally have better armor saves than us. I haven't done the math to check, but with the previous codex an equal number of guard would generally not win combat against an equal number of firewarriors in my experience. I would strongly recommend(second the above recommendation for) a couple power weapons in the squad. I always run a power axe on my blob commissars, and often run power axes on the sergeants...anymore I think I'm going to always do the commissar and at least one sergeant.

[Retrospectus]

if charging with a blob be sure to invest in some flamers or grenade launchers to soften them up a bit (or meltaguns if going suit hunting and have points to spare)

incidentally, when throwing grenades (not from a launcher) is a blob considered a single unit and hence can only hurl one?

[FraustyTheSnowman]

uno grenados...or um, yeah, one grenade. in the dark elder tactica it's been suggested to disengage ICs from wyches when throwing haywire grenades, so you can get two shots...course, then you're using wyches so it doesn't really matter cuz you already screwed up...but that's beside the point.

[AngryAngel]

On the subject of assaulting tau, the Supporting Fire rule allows them to fire overwatch when you charge any unit in their army, not just tau units (this is how it was explained to me, haven't verified yet) so firewarriors near an allied unit get to shoot you when you charge the allied unit. Just something to keep in mind.

Also, the marker lights can be used to increase overwatch shooting, but they only last for one phase of the game. So markerlights put on your units during your opponents shooting phase go away at the end of their shooting phase. It's still possible to get marked up (DO NOT charge a unit of marker drones when there's other tau units within six of them...) it's not as bad as it might have sounded.

Lastly...yep, they're weapon skill 2, but they also generally have better armor saves than us. I haven't done the math to check, but with the previous codex an equal number of guard would generally not win combat against an equal number of firewarriors in my experience. I would strongly recommend(second the above recommendation for) a couple power weapons in the squad. I always run a power axe on my blob commissars, and often run power axes on the sergeants...anymore I think I'm going to always do the commissar and at least one sergeant.

Not every unit of the tau have this. You need to take an upgrade for instance for vehicles to have supporting fire. Alos as the rules written its only models, within 6 inches that can make supporting fire for the unit being charged. Models and not unit is an important distinction, as if he wishes to really squeeze out extra snap shots, he needs to bunch up for guard blasts. I have both armies and both books, so if anyone is having any issues with Tau, just ask me and I'll give ya info heads up.

I don't see why as well suits would be bothering your heavy tanks unless your not properly bubble wrapping them with infantry, if your not, begin doing so pronto. With the drop of broadsides str with their rail gun the good old Leman Russ should be having a better time vs Tau shooting then it had been.

Also and I stress, always bring your aegis line with ya, they can try and negate your cover save but at least it then eats up their marker lights to do so and if they don't, it just may save your life.