s0m3w0n
December 24th, 2007, 04:24
Tactica Fire Power - Imperial Guard
This is my Tactica on Imperial Guard and my particular style of play. I by no means know everything about guard, outside of this Style I actuly know very little, but given my current 11 game winning streak,(at the time of writing this) I know this one strategy decently well. I have played This strategy against everything from Tau to Speed Freak orks and It always seems to come out on top, and quite oftain by quite a bit.
*Before every sentance put "In my own opinion" And dont hold me to the word, Im not saying its the best tactic nor that It will work for you Im just trying to Share Some knowledge.
Alright the basic principal behind this style is that, Guard can't win fights, and when we have to fight Heroic Senior officers with power fists are going to save the day.
This sounds like basic Imperial guard concepts, but its amazing how few people follow them. For example People will buy sanctioned psker with honorific Imperialis and Force weapon, and....... Desperatly trying to win fights that they shouldnt be in in the first place.
The only exeption to this is Ogryns and Rough riders because they are only for combat, meaning that when you buy an 11 point rough rider. You get 11 pts of combat troops. Not a mix who is better (not nessisarily good) at combat.
But thats what not to do, what is it that you do? Well With Tau being the exeption If you stay out of combat you will almost certainly win. Very few armies can win a shooting contest against guard, and with out combat support thats what they will be forced to do.
So the first step is assembeling your troops. The second biggest advantage of guard is their survivablity. Most people will look at Toughness 3 and Flank Armour and say there screwed. But Guard dont need to advance very much, so can take up a building or any other cover, and have an armost permanat 4/5+ save going on. And the only Doctrine equipment I take can help with this, I'm talking about Cameloin claoks, they add 1 to that save so you have 3/4 + cover saves now. Although your guardsmen are now 7 Points I feel that the trade off is worth it. Which leads us into the second reason....
Imperial Guard can field massive amounts of troops. Imagin having to kill over 100 troops all with 3/4+ cover. Now imagin doing that at a 1000 Point level. Although that is an extream example it is possible. And I dont mean 100 Guardsmen with lasguns. I mean with heavy weapons and Cloaks, and points to spare.
Oh yea.... And we have the best (and most tanks ) In the game. We have St10 Ap 2 ordinance, and front armor 14 all for 165-180 pts . As well as the normal Leman russ with its huge range still an awsome gun and front armour 14. The hell hound and its rediculous turning flame thrower, the Basilisy with its indirect fire, Chimera with pretty decent fire power for a transport and then 4 Books of Imperial armour. Im not going to mention Imperial Armor tanks because there are so many and I have no experiance.
Now I know I missed most of the codex, but I dont think that they work in this strategy for verious reasons, I only take the toughest troops, so that I can keep as much fire power alive as possible.
So what do we take? Well we need to maximise fire power to the points. The way I buy troops is first take my command and 2 Platoons (minimum numbers) where points allow, Arm them accordingly to what need killing. However as a general rule I take las cannons and heavy bolters at a 2:1 ration (bolters/las) Although I to customize depending on my opponent.
Next I will buy Tanks usualy 3. 2 of with are leman russ and 1 is a Demolisher.
From there I buy armored fists squads. for flexibility. I arm them with usual weapons and deploy them im position that I think will help battle plan.
Next step would be Deployment.
I deploy In 1 of 2 ways.
A) If my opponent Has alot of shooty stuff and little combat troops, I will deploy with terrain and more importantly cover in mind. The tanks are then deployed evenly around my lines. 1 on the left the Demolisher in the middle and the last russ on the right. I take the cover for obvious reasons. And the reason I deploy the Basic Battle tanks on the flanks so that they can use their range more effectivly. And the Demolisher is in the middle so that its lack of range is unimportant becuse its very hard to ignore the center.
B) If My opponent has more combat troops than shooters I go this way. I deploy on the far side of either flank, so that they essentialy have to cross the board twice, you choose one side as the "victory flank" and kill every thing running at that side.(for more on this read the tacitca in the forum) There are 2 ways to do this one again depending on the opponent.
B1)Against fast combat armies such as Dark Eldar I deploy farther towards the board edge like 3 inches up ! And possibly go wider, because the extra inch wont help very much.
B2)Against foot slogers like Orks I tend to limit my deployemt horzontaly, and be more free verticaly. So keep your deployment 1 foot across and as far up ass nessisary (not i said nesssisary not possible!)
Personaly, I deploy my troops dead evenly between the 2 flanks. There are 2 exeptions. First the command platoon goes on the victroy flank, and second the demolisher goes on the loosing side. I know alot of your jaws dropped but that way it is guarenteed targets, but deploying it on the other side is still a valid option.
Now we start the game. Note ALWAYS take first turn. Movment is one you have to figure out on your own.
Shooting is a case of target priority. The most pressing targets are those that can hit you in assualt. And on how much damage they will do. This again is a judgement call, rember that the longer it takes to get there the less dangerous it is. Against shooty guys, you need to run through the same proses but shoot for the easyest targets to kill that offer the most fire power. Basicly your trying to kill as much enemy fire power as quickly as possible.
Now onto combat. Once this happens problems start. The key concpt is damage controll. You can try containment or elemination.
Containment is trying to keep them away from other targets, this might be by putting distance between the combat and troops. Or by keeping them in combat, and by that i mean ogryns. Again this is all up to the situation.
Then there is elimination, this is favourable but harder. If you have done your job you wont have anything too bad ass in combat, and you can over whelm it with guardsmen from near by squads or run rough riders in or possibly ogryns.
If there is anything else I need to say just ask and I will try to help.
This is my Tactica on Imperial Guard and my particular style of play. I by no means know everything about guard, outside of this Style I actuly know very little, but given my current 11 game winning streak,(at the time of writing this) I know this one strategy decently well. I have played This strategy against everything from Tau to Speed Freak orks and It always seems to come out on top, and quite oftain by quite a bit.
*Before every sentance put "In my own opinion" And dont hold me to the word, Im not saying its the best tactic nor that It will work for you Im just trying to Share Some knowledge.
Alright the basic principal behind this style is that, Guard can't win fights, and when we have to fight Heroic Senior officers with power fists are going to save the day.
This sounds like basic Imperial guard concepts, but its amazing how few people follow them. For example People will buy sanctioned psker with honorific Imperialis and Force weapon, and....... Desperatly trying to win fights that they shouldnt be in in the first place.
The only exeption to this is Ogryns and Rough riders because they are only for combat, meaning that when you buy an 11 point rough rider. You get 11 pts of combat troops. Not a mix who is better (not nessisarily good) at combat.
But thats what not to do, what is it that you do? Well With Tau being the exeption If you stay out of combat you will almost certainly win. Very few armies can win a shooting contest against guard, and with out combat support thats what they will be forced to do.
So the first step is assembeling your troops. The second biggest advantage of guard is their survivablity. Most people will look at Toughness 3 and Flank Armour and say there screwed. But Guard dont need to advance very much, so can take up a building or any other cover, and have an armost permanat 4/5+ save going on. And the only Doctrine equipment I take can help with this, I'm talking about Cameloin claoks, they add 1 to that save so you have 3/4 + cover saves now. Although your guardsmen are now 7 Points I feel that the trade off is worth it. Which leads us into the second reason....
Imperial Guard can field massive amounts of troops. Imagin having to kill over 100 troops all with 3/4+ cover. Now imagin doing that at a 1000 Point level. Although that is an extream example it is possible. And I dont mean 100 Guardsmen with lasguns. I mean with heavy weapons and Cloaks, and points to spare.
Oh yea.... And we have the best (and most tanks ) In the game. We have St10 Ap 2 ordinance, and front armor 14 all for 165-180 pts . As well as the normal Leman russ with its huge range still an awsome gun and front armour 14. The hell hound and its rediculous turning flame thrower, the Basilisy with its indirect fire, Chimera with pretty decent fire power for a transport and then 4 Books of Imperial armour. Im not going to mention Imperial Armor tanks because there are so many and I have no experiance.
Now I know I missed most of the codex, but I dont think that they work in this strategy for verious reasons, I only take the toughest troops, so that I can keep as much fire power alive as possible.
So what do we take? Well we need to maximise fire power to the points. The way I buy troops is first take my command and 2 Platoons (minimum numbers) where points allow, Arm them accordingly to what need killing. However as a general rule I take las cannons and heavy bolters at a 2:1 ration (bolters/las) Although I to customize depending on my opponent.
Next I will buy Tanks usualy 3. 2 of with are leman russ and 1 is a Demolisher.
From there I buy armored fists squads. for flexibility. I arm them with usual weapons and deploy them im position that I think will help battle plan.
Next step would be Deployment.
I deploy In 1 of 2 ways.
A) If my opponent Has alot of shooty stuff and little combat troops, I will deploy with terrain and more importantly cover in mind. The tanks are then deployed evenly around my lines. 1 on the left the Demolisher in the middle and the last russ on the right. I take the cover for obvious reasons. And the reason I deploy the Basic Battle tanks on the flanks so that they can use their range more effectivly. And the Demolisher is in the middle so that its lack of range is unimportant becuse its very hard to ignore the center.
B) If My opponent has more combat troops than shooters I go this way. I deploy on the far side of either flank, so that they essentialy have to cross the board twice, you choose one side as the "victory flank" and kill every thing running at that side.(for more on this read the tacitca in the forum) There are 2 ways to do this one again depending on the opponent.
B1)Against fast combat armies such as Dark Eldar I deploy farther towards the board edge like 3 inches up ! And possibly go wider, because the extra inch wont help very much.
B2)Against foot slogers like Orks I tend to limit my deployemt horzontaly, and be more free verticaly. So keep your deployment 1 foot across and as far up ass nessisary (not i said nesssisary not possible!)
Personaly, I deploy my troops dead evenly between the 2 flanks. There are 2 exeptions. First the command platoon goes on the victroy flank, and second the demolisher goes on the loosing side. I know alot of your jaws dropped but that way it is guarenteed targets, but deploying it on the other side is still a valid option.
Now we start the game. Note ALWAYS take first turn. Movment is one you have to figure out on your own.
Shooting is a case of target priority. The most pressing targets are those that can hit you in assualt. And on how much damage they will do. This again is a judgement call, rember that the longer it takes to get there the less dangerous it is. Against shooty guys, you need to run through the same proses but shoot for the easyest targets to kill that offer the most fire power. Basicly your trying to kill as much enemy fire power as quickly as possible.
Now onto combat. Once this happens problems start. The key concpt is damage controll. You can try containment or elemination.
Containment is trying to keep them away from other targets, this might be by putting distance between the combat and troops. Or by keeping them in combat, and by that i mean ogryns. Again this is all up to the situation.
Then there is elimination, this is favourable but harder. If you have done your job you wont have anything too bad ass in combat, and you can over whelm it with guardsmen from near by squads or run rough riders in or possibly ogryns.
If there is anything else I need to say just ask and I will try to help.