[Exarch Thomo]

Hi all,
Just wondering how many IG players out there play/have played without doctrines and what were your thoughts on the matter?
How did they fare? Is it a viable option? Does it increase flexibility or limit it?
The reason I am asking is that for the next few games I am going to play without my normal assortment of doctrines and just run a stock standard doctrine-less list to compare their effectiveness.
Thomo

 

[Certs]

i don't think there's any advantage to playing undoctrined unless you wanted to field a bunch of different types of those restricted troop types.

 

[Beardy_Wierdy]

Well, if you need to squeeze a few point here and there, losing the doctrines can help with that. A gunline for example, does not (in my experience) really need doctrines, any army using more than three restricted troop types would probably be better off without doctrines.


At the end of the day, unless you design your entire army around them, doctrines are not game-winners by themselves.

 

[RexTalon]

I try not to use doctrines, but when I do, sharpshooters is the first one I take. I like the fact that my "shooty army" starts being useful during the shooting phase.

I'm actually kind of upset by all this "drop troops" talk you hear these days. It's as if a Guard army cannot win unless they take drop troops. I think it has become a crutch and I think GW is relying on people taking it to fill the obvious gaps in the current codex and pacify us guard players for the long road, while we wait for a new codex to arrive.

 

[Sir Theobold the Lame]

I dont usually use Doctrines, mainly because i like using lots of troop types that would otherwise be restricted. Doctrines can give great benefits to IG troops but they cost, so not using them means you can take more troops- which after all is the IGs greatest strength isnt it?

Not that I dont like doctrines...

 

[Beardy_Wierdy]

I'm actually kind of upset by all this "drop troops" talk you hear these days. It's as if a Guard army cannot win unless they take drop troops.

Eh? Personally I take drop-troops because it is a bit more challenging with them, no heavy weapons and all that. I wouldnt DARE take drop-troops up against a close combat army.


If you mean taking it just for suicide squads I probably agree.


"Alternate Regimental Organisations" should be just that, Regimental rather than just two or three squads per company.

 

[stayscrunchyinmilk]

Hi all,
Just wondering how many IG players out there play/have played without doctrines and what were your thoughts on the matter?
How did they fare? Is it a viable option? Does it increase flexibility or limit it?
The reason I am asking is that for the next few games I am going to play without my normal assortment of doctrines and just run a stock standard doctrine-less list to compare their effectiveness.
Thomo

have i missed something here ? they give you access to basically your elites - no doctrines = no elites.

 

[Exarch Thomo]

Acually stayscrunchy, taking doctrines limits your elites quite dramatically as you have to spend doctrine points 'buying' them back.
A non doctrined guard army can include everything in the army list, without restriction. I.e, special weapons squads, ogryns, rough riders, ratlings, storm troopers etc all in the one list.

 

[stayscrunchyinmilk]

Acually stayscrunchy, taking doctrines limits your elites quite dramatically as you have to spend doctrine points 'buying' them back.
A non doctrined guard army can include everything in the army list, without restriction. I.e, special weapons squads, ogryns, rough riders, ratlings, storm troopers etc all in the one list.

Holy Monkeys! I never realised that - i thought you could have up to 5 different types because that's how many doctrines you had!
- err are there even 5 different ones you could field in a legal list?

 

[Exarch Thomo]

Holy Monkeys! I never realised that - i thought you could have up to 5 different types because that's how many doctrines you had!
- err are there even 5 different ones you could field in a legal list?

Yes there are:
HQ - Special Weapons Squads
Elite - Storm Troopers, Ogryns, Ratlings
Fast Attack: Rough Riders

 

[stayscrunchyinmilk]

Yes there are:
HQ - Special Weapons Squads
Elite - Storm Troopers, Ogryns, Ratlings
Fast Attack: Rough Riders

Ah, and wracking my brain
HS - Heavy Weapons Platoons.
variety is the spice of life

 

[Certs]

though generally even with doctrines, you'd be able to get most units you wanted in your list anyways with just spending all those points on the restricted troops you wanted, unless the list was to make the point of it.

not many people take priest, engiseers, or psykers. most that do only take one of the types unless trying to jam a hq command squad with an hso, commissar, priest, and psyker w/ honorifica to form some sort of guard-cc monster.

i guess you could spend 3 points on the unorthodox combination (most times mainly fluff-wise) of stormtroopers, ratlings, and ogryns to fill your elites, but most would use only a combination of 2 of these (usually stormtroopers and one of the other units).

special weapon squads usually woundn't be combined with heavy weapon platoons, since you'd probably have filled those 0-5 command plt slots with heavy weapon squads already.

and though some people use them, conscript platoons aren't as near effective as they would be with an independant commissar in them.

though, rough riders are useful in most battles, when get to do their spear-charge bit, shrug i love the unit (i wish all my guys could be mounted... on wolves, no matter what race i played as) and despite being a great way to push meq's off your units in combat (and provide future incentive not to charge into a unit near these bad boys) they don't seem to get used in as many lists as they should be imo.

though sometimes it seems odd that a generic guard army (as that is what undoctrined is) would include such a large diversity of troop types in one force, it doesn't seem very force-complimenting or 'wieldy' but i guess that's why it's a sledgehammer and not a scalpel.

 

[Korim Trucebane]

even if you make a vanilla guard army its still very likely that you will still qualify to take doctrines (unless you completely freakout and want to have every unit out there). a lot of poeple I've talked to have actually put their army together first, then figured out their doctrines. in such cases there is no real drawback to taking them.

 

[Kaiser]

You can't play mechanised grenadiers without mechanised and grenadiers!(Oh, fine. You can ditch the mechanised doctrine and still play mechanised grenadiers, but there's really no harm in having it.) Also. Stormtroopers fit the theme quite well.

Aside from that, I'd never play an infantry army without Iron Discipline. It's ace.

 

[MTG Guru]

Seeing as doctrines let you take more than a single unit of hardened veterans, I always use doctrines. Same goes for grenadiers.. basically I like my elite units, and doctrines allow you to take 6 slots of 'elites' (3 vets and 3 stormies as troops). Without doctrines, the elite choices are more limited in my opinion, only 3 slots to choose between all the options and then I'm limited to a single unit of vets. No thanks!

And to the person that said doctrines mean you spend more points... grenadiers can save you a bucket load of points as you only have to take a single squad to fill a troop choice rather than a whole infantry platoon.

 

[DARKTROOPER]

The main doctrine I use is close order drill, by merely clumping up it can really help when assaulting and since I don't really care how things go with my guard when i go over the top we go in MASSIVE CLUMPS!!!!

 

[Cadaver Junkie]

Like that which has already been mentioned by others in this thread, i've always kinda thought that an un-doctrined list only really becomes worthwhile in really large points games, as normally you wont really want to use storm troopers and ogryns and ratling and rough riders and priests etc... all in the same list.

So unless this is the case, its almost always worth it to take doctrines, if only to add tactical variety to your list, with choices like drop troops and close order drill being prime. You dont have to use either, but if you sudddenly need to, they can be pretty helpful!

 

[Dr. Paris]

Because several doctrines are free (drop troops, CoD), I never have a reason not to take them.

If I need special weapon squads or a heavy weapon platoon, I still have three slots left.

 

[vorlon]

I suppose the key thing with doctrines is they allow you to make your army just that bit different from the plain vanilla, personalise it if you will - they help you to write the background fluff.

They aren't battle-winning on their own, but used in the correct combinations they can be a help. OTOH to get that "help" you have to forego other options - so it's all about choice.

Personally I think doctrines are one of the nicer rules and make our Codex one of the funner ones around - which probably means GW will break it in the next edition

As to always taking certain doctrines - I think some get taken more than others because they're free - and if you've taken the three doctrines you wanted - it's case of two slots left - oh bugger - let's take CoD and Drop Troops - I'm not sure they are used as much as they are taken??

 

[Exarch Thomo]

For the record I should probably say that the main doctrines I use are Iron Discipline, Sharpshooter and Drop Troops, with Storm Troopers as a possible 4th. However, as our usualy games are 1000pts the stormies don't get a run very often and I haven't deep striked (struk?) yet.
That and after reading a spate of battle reports by Ailarios (sp?) it got me wondering how a 'generic' guard army (ironic really as the vast majority use doctrines) would fare. The loss of Iron Discipline would hurt, and the loss of sharpshooters off my fire support and anti-tank squad will be annoying, I should imagine.
However, I am determined to play at least 10 or 15 games without doctrines, against a variety of oponents, just to test out how much of a difference doctrines make (and in certain aspects how much of a crutch they really are).
To this end I plan to
a) post up my army list
b) report on my progress after every 5 games
c) evaluate the different roles of your basic guard units, as oppossed to their doctrinated cousins, in varying situations.
d) post my findings after the trial period is completed.
To be fair I suppose I should also play the same amount of games with my normal doctrinated list following the same points. Ah, the things I do for the game.