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Command HQ
Every army must have a command HQ, and for most games a captain is the
appropriate leader for that. To my knowledge only one basic captain is
made for the imperial guard, that is the Catachan jungle fighter captain.
In most cases it would be reasonable to use a lieutenant for this purpose.
Also Captain Chenkov of Valhalla and Al'rahem of Tallarn are made if you
wish to use special Characters as your leader. I think that the ideal
equipment for the guardsmen command HQ is one comlink, and either all
special weapons or all heavy weapons, however for different reasons you
may want to change this. If you play battles with lots of short range
fighting you may want more special, or even assault weapons. You may want
to give your captain some good weapons. In the way of assault weapons
be careful, there is no reason to give him a chain sword, he can do better
with his standard equipped sword. Hot-shot weapons are not quite as good
as bolt weapons, and cost the same. For this reason you probably don't
want to use Hot-shot weapons. A bolt pistol is OK I guess, but only if
you plan to shoot someone with it, he'd do better with a knife in hand
to hand. Usually it would be better to pay the additional point and get
a bolter instead. If you plan to get him into hand to hand a power fist
is probably the best weapon there is, though it costs a fair bit. If you
do give him a power fist, make sure not to give him any other weapons
for hand to hand except a sword, as they will be useless. A cheap simple
weapon is the shotgun. It is not highly effective, but for one point it
packs a punch. The barrage is an excellent weapon for this purpose, as
it allows one to call down fire at great range, and without revealing
the location. The veteran ability stealthy is another way of protecting
your command from attack. By placing them deep within a forest so that
they can see out, but your opponent can't see in. They can call down barrages
and fire weapons with almost no risk to themselves. If forests are not
available street fighters may help protect your HQ. I do not recommend
using a Chimera to mobilise your command HQ. The chimera makes them a
big target, and a few pot shots with krak missiles could lose you an army
commander and a tank at once, not to mention quite afew victory points.
If you do choose to mobilise it, it would be better to mobilise another
squad and use the chimera from it, so that the points don't fall under
the command section. The codex suggests that you can add a battle standard
for 35 points, and in a low Ld army this is always a good idea. Your captain
gets 2 wargear cards, or colonel gets 3. Take a combo of things like cameoline,
teleport jammer etc to screw up the enemy. Veteran abilities are almost
always a good idea. Stealthy or street-fighters are usually the best for
command HQs, dead-eye shot is pretty good too.
Primaris Psykers
Primaris pskyers are not highly recommended. They have some severe
limitations. A minor one is they wear no armour. A major one is they get
only one wargear card. This means Force weapon OR Psychic hood, or even
maybe a field. This is the biggest drawback, most psykers can do better
than that. They are also limited to adeptus powers. Still the Primarus
is fewer points, and it is in your command squad or command HQ.
Commissar
Commissars are great. Why? Because they can be under 50 points,
which mean NO VICTORY POINTS for killing them. I usually equip mine with
a bolter and a refractor field (making him 48 points). However you equip
them always make sure they are no more than 50 points. They are important
for heavy weapons and just general leadership. A sneaky trick to have
one with a jumpack and vortex grenade lead your ratling squad. He is 100
points and only gives away 1 VP, but on the first turn after infiltrating
with the squad he can jump away and vortex something!
Command Squad
Command squads are useful usually for one of two reasons: your army is
too big for the command HQ to command (more than 3 squads + additional
units) or you want to incorporate units from another planet without wasting
additional units. The former is fairly simple, though if you are using
one of the groups with no separate captain model, you will want to do
something to distinguish between the captain and the lieutenant. As far
as equipping a command squad, you can do it much the same way you do with
a command HQ. The only real difference is that you may be more willing
to risk losing the command squad, as the Lieutenant is not the army commander.
You also don't really want to spend as much protecting them. The same
veteran abilities are good for the command squad as the command HQ. Again,
take a comm-link.
Rough Rider Command
Squad
The rough rider command squad is useful if you want to have many
rough rider squads or if you just want to have a lieutenant with good
stats. Rough riders are the Imperial Guards closest thing to assault troops.
When using rough riders, make sure you get to charge, at all costs! There
is nothing more useless than using your hunting lance when receiving a
charge. When equipping the lieutenant (the only rough rider with any choice,
not even the sergeant in a regular rough rider squad can take assault
weapons) two possibilities come to mind. The simplest is the power sword.
For six points you get a strength 5, -3 weapon. Only take this if you
prefer that to a strength 6, -2 weapon (the hunting lance), or you plan
to fight on a lot after the first charge (you already get the parry from
your chain sword, after you lose your lance you can get 2 parries). The
other alternative is a power fist for that extra bit of punch in close
combat. A general rule for any rough rider squad is always put in a standard
bearer. That one extra weapon skill makes all the difference. Only one
veteran ability springs to mind for rough riders, hardened fighters.
Imperial Guard Squads
There is not much to say about them. This is your basic fighting
squad. Use them in quantity if you are fighting fairly short range battles,
other wise keep one or two and focus on heavy weapon squads. I would suggest
always taking a heavy weapon, with the ability to break them off they
always come in handy. I like to have a very big line of these, as the
lasguns are shit but 50 lasguns can start to be effective. Take whatever
heavy weapon you think is appropriate, but personally I prefer to leave
the heavy weapons to the proper squads and use the normal squads as tactical
squads. Just about all veteran abilities are designed for these squads.
The exceptions are slick crew, and hardened fighters (well tank hunters
isn't good for them, but it isn't good for anybody else either). For the
sergeant, a shotgun is a good weapon, just for that little extra punch
at only 1 point
Heavy Weapon Squads
The heavy weapon squad is one of the most important parts of
the imperial guard. Whenever possible put your heavy weapons into a heavy
weapon squad. This allows them all to benefit to slick crew, without wasting
it on lasgunners. Try to keep the weapons equal ranged, so don't have
missle launchers and heavy bolters in the same squad. Unless the unit
has mortars give them slick crew and keep pounding away.
Rough Riders
There are not a lot of options with rough riders. The standard
is great, always put it in. There are no options as far as equipment,
so don't worry about that. If you put a veteran ability on, the one to
choose would be hardened fighters. This may not be so good though, because
the veteran ability will put the squad over 100 points (making it worth
two victory points instead of 1). Remember, with rough-riders, always
try to get the charge. A rough rider charging, using his hunting lance
and with a standard in the squad has a weapon skill of 7, and 3 attacks.
He also has a parry, don't forget to use that. Hardened fighters also
lets him re-roll one of his attacks, and prevents him from being parried
against. With 16 inches of movement, a rough rider becomes a superb assault
troop.
Ogryns
I have never played Ogryns, or seen them played, but they seem
to be excellent, though expensive. Their statistics are excellent compared
to other things in the imperial guard (nothing in the guard has that high
toughness) Their main drawback is that they are so short range based.
They are really only useful at 6 inch range. They are OK at hand to hand
combat, but if you could give them weapons they would be much better (at
least they could have an extra attack die, their strength is pretty good).
Their movement of six allows them to get close, and the fact that they
cause fear can be useful. I think that it is easily worth putting mesh
armour on Ogryns, they could be shot at a lot. As far as veteran abilities
are concerned they have only a small selection. Crazed and Grizzled are
OK, but they already have good leadership. Dead-eye shot is about the
most useless ability you can give them, they auto hit usually. Hardened
fighters is probably one of the better ones for them, especially if you
focus on their high weapon skill rather than their crazy gun. Street fighters
could be good, but it doesn't really suit an Ogryn. Try the idea of putting
them in a chimera and then accelerating towards the enemy and leaping
out, you will only lose 1 wound (all ogryns have 3 wounds) and then be
able to wrench apart the enemies front line.
Ratlings
Ratling snipers are the scouts of the imperial guard. They actually
have one of the best ballistics skill among the many types of scout, and
they carry an excellent weapon, the needle sniper rifle. This weapon is
best used against creatures with high toughness, and bad armour. The best
example would be tyranids, but unfortunately it doesn't work on them.
Goffs and other orks in flak armour are about the best target a ratling
could hope for. Be careful how far you infiltrate them, they are very
vulnerable in hand to hand. When you think of veteran abilities the one
that comes to mind is dead-eye shot. This is what I thought at first,
but don't do it. Even though it is the best suited veteran ability to
ratlings, it puts them at 105 points, meaning they are worth 2 victory
points. The best veteran abilities for ratlings are either stealthy or
street fighters, depending on the cover available. Stealth will let the
shoot without being seen, and street fighters will at least make them
hard to hit. Crazed and Grizzled might have been good for these low leadership
ratlings, but since they cost double, they are not really useful (you
could get a commissar for the price of grizzled). Guerrillas could be
useful in some situations, as could freedom fighters. Ratlings will lose
at hand to hand under most circumstances, why bother giving them hardened
fighters.
Stormtroopers
Storm troopers are not really great, but they are useful. Their
hotshot packs are clearly useful (its like guardsmen with bolters), and
an extra leadership point is always useful. They are value for their point
cost for sure. The only problem is that they take up an additional unit
slot, without being something really special. For this reason I don't
use them. But if you don't use all your additional unit slots, storm troopers
might be for you (though maybe a tank would be better) Storm troopers
should follow the strategies of the imperial guard squad, though you might
be hesitant about putting heavy or special weapons in, as it makes their
advantages less. As far as the sergeant goes, I would recommend not giving
him any extra weapon, except maybe a shot gun. He already has a strength
4 pistol, no need for much more. Krak grenades are sometimes useful, but
not often. The same veteran abilities are good for storm troopers as imperial
guard squads, just remember you have to give them one.
Colonel Shaefers Last
Chancers
This is a great squad! It is too bad that the new 3rd Ed squad
cannot be used entirely (it has two heavy weapons). Shaeffer is the same
as any colonel pretty much. He even has all the options of a colonel,
which makes him one of the most flexible special characters in the game
as far as equipment. He cost's 50 more points than a regular colonel,
and of course he has no command squad (this is more of a bonus probably,
though it means no com-link). His squad is amazing. When he is alive its
like having three veteran abilities (not quite as good but almost), plus
one more if you put it on. I only wish he could have a last chancer heavy
weapons penal squad (imagine: re-roll misses, and slick crew together!).
My recommendation is to put a lascannon in the squad, though any heavy
weapon other than the mortar could be good in it. If you give the squad
street fighters, the lascannon will always have a -3 to hit on them, plus
they can re-roll misses, plus they pass all leadership based tests, and
finally if they get into hand to hand somehow they will be able to re-roll
fumbles. I recommend a chainsword and either a shotgun or a plasma pistol
for the sergeant. Any special weapon, except flamer is good for a special
weapon (flamer does not take advantage of their re-roll of misses). Grenade
launcher with its extreme range is my personal favourite. Remember, these
guys are some of the best troops you can get, deck them out with as much
as you can. Shaefer is good too. His colonel stats make him an excellent
fighter, the best (and quite expensive) equipment he can take is probably
a powerfist and a bolter (in addition to his laspistol and sword). This
may be too expensive, but if he is going to be in the front lines it may
be worth it. Make sure to give him a good field, if he dies, his squad
becomes a normal guard squad. Remember, displacer field will take him
out of squad coherency, don't use it. Colonel Shaefer is one of the few
really good Imperial Guard special characters.
Veteran Abilities
Crazed: If you have problems with break tests this could be useful.
I would not recommend putting it on ratlings, as for that price you could
give them a personal commissar. Ogryns, storm troopers, command squads
and command HQs all have good leadership and may not be good choices for
this ability. A Rough rider squad with a standard (and there shouldn't
be one without) can already reroll a failed break test, so it may not
be a good choice. Heavy weapons teams will usually be split in such a
way that they will lose 50% of the team anyway, making this ability useless
for them.
Dead-eye shot: A good ability for many squads. It is
not good for Ogryns (as they autohit), rough riders (as they are assault
squads, heavy weapons squads (it does not apply to many of their weapons,
and they ought to have slick crew), or ratlings (unless you don't play
with the normal victory point rules).
Freedom fighters: Good for anyone in special circumstances.
Grizzled: good for anyone you have trouble with breaking,
except ratlings, who it costs far too much for.
Guerrillas: Good for anyone under certain circumstances,
such as you are forced to attack for some reason.
Hardened fighter: good for ogryns and rough riders (especially
rough rider command squads) may be useful in a command squad or even a
command HQ.
Slick crew: Heavy weapon squads. All heavy weapon squads,
and nothing but heavy weapons squads.
Stealthy: Good for almost anyone who can take it, especially
command squads/HQs and ratlings. Not good for mortars (but a squad of
mortars should have slick crew).
Street fighters: Good for everybody, in hard cover environments.
Great with lascannons (which provide their own cover)
Tank hunters: This is only useful to Stormtroopers, and
even then only if you attack a vehicle in close combat.
Leman Russ
This is probably the best all round tank in the imperial guard.
The battle cannon is a simple but effective weapon, and the lascannon
is an excellent vehicle destroyer, or terminator killer. The heavy bolters
are really very useful at removing screens of troops, even marines. I
always like to make my tanks as safe as possible, so I put on Ablative
armour and reinforced armour on all my tanks, at least the former should
be. Bulldozer blade at first does not seem like a great card, but the
d6 extra armour it can add to the front of the hull can make it virtually
in penetrable, and you never know when you have to ram. Supercharged engines
are often useful, but with the range on a battle cannon, not always necessary.
Ceremite armour is largely useless, unless your opponent is big on heat
weapons. Vortex detonators are expensive, but useful. Storm bolter is
not all that useful for a battle tank, because you don't want to get that
close and waste a gunner. Electrohull is good if you have problems with
hand to hand attacks on your tanks. Unfortunately it will not do much
against terminators (and I haven't found out what will), but genestealers
and orks are often knocked back by this. If you play using the conversion
rule in the back of dark millennium there are several good ideas to try
with this tank. There is not much you want to change with the battle cannon
or the lascannon, but you may want to change the sponsons. This happens
to be what is mentioned in the codex.. For greater long range power you
may try switching in lascannons on the sponsons. This will be expensive
in points, but it would give you huge fire power, for a small number of
targets. You might be able to acquire these sponsons off a space marine
tank, or even attempt to put hand held lascannons (preferably not imperial
guard ones) onto the sponsons. Another idea would be to put heavy plasma
guns onto the sponsons. This is common practice for a demolisher, it gives
a very powerful and long range weapon, with far fewer points than lascannons.
Of course if you want to do this, just buy a demolisher instead of a battle
tank. The demolisher package comes with everything except the decals for
a Leman Russ battle tank, including the battle cannon, and adds heavy
plasma guns, multimeltaa and of course the demolisher cannon. It costs
a little more of course, but cheaper than trying to get a heavy plasma
gun. Another idea is to remove the sponsons entirely. You could eliminate
at least 50 points (30 for heavy bolters + 20 for crew) and at the same
time eliminate a weak spot on your armour. You could even argue it would
go a little bit faster without that extra weight.(eee, eeee, squeak, wheres
that cheese come from?)
Demolisher
This is the heaviest tank still made for the imperial guard.
It has great armour, but is very slow. For the sponsons there are two
main strategies to go with. The first is that the demolisher cannon is
its short range power, and that the sponson weapons should be long range
so it can function in both situations. This would mean equipping it with
heavy plasma guns. The alternative is that it is a close range tank, and
that should be its focus. This would mean multimeltas or heavy flamers.
Both have their merit. While it claims to be a siege tank, it is excellent
at killing infantry, with its 3" blast marker at strength 10. It should
be equipped similarly to a battle tank as far as vehicle cards. It really
should have supercharged engines if it ever wants to get close enough
to use the demolisher cannon. Also the storm bolter can be useful for
it, as when it gets within range to use the cannon, it can't fire because
it moved. This is the opportunity to use the storm bolter. It should definitely
have ablative armour. Re-enforced armour will make it very slow, but virtually
impenetrable.
Griffon
This tank (or artillery piece) is loads of fun. I love the ability
to hit things that can't shoot back. Frag shells are the most accurate,
as they have the largest blast marker, but it is very weak. The inferno
shell is fairly powerful and can be quite effective. If you ever hit with
the melta shell it would be deadly. Over all the Griffon is a great tank.
Most of the same vehicle cards are useful as the other tanks, depending
on whether you want to move it. Of course you can't use electrohull, because
of the exposed crew. Even though you try to keep the griffon out of sight,
in case it does get hit you really ought to put ablative armour on it,
like all tanks.
Chimera
This is one of the best armoured personnel carriers there is.
The lasgun emplacements (and the storm bolter) make the troops carried
quite effective even without leaving the APC, especially since the lasguns
(and the storm bolter) have targeters. The multilaser is not a bad weapon
either. It is good against enemy infantry, though not great against heavily
armoured ones (such as terminators). The chimera is useful if you want
to advance your infantry fast, or to protect them. It is not a good tank
itself though. If you aren't going to transport infantry with it, don't
take it. While on many of the tanks which are based on the chimera chassis
I find the heavy bolter pretty much useless, on the chimera, with the
closer ranges it fights at, it can be useful. Don't you wish you could
put continuous ammofeed on this tank (2 sustained fire dice on the heavy
bolter, 3 on the multilaser, and 1 on the storm bolter) For vehicle cards,
you definitely want to put ablative armour on the chimera, transporting
infantry can leave you way out in the open. Re-enforced armour may slow
you down too much, but the extra armour can help a lot for the light armoured
chimera. you probably want to load the chimera with everything you can,
because it will often be quite close to the enemy. Autolaunchers (possibly
frag defenders) are a must. Electrohull is important. I like upgrading
the lasguns to stormbolters, 7 sus. fire dice for the stormbolters, 3
for the multilaser and then 2 for the heavy bolter.
Basilisk
Lets face it, how can you go wrong with a gun that big. I don't
think there is any weapon with a range to match it. But don't be fooled
by the size of the gun. It is not much more powerful than a simple battle
cannon. Use it against armoured targets, not infantry. The blast radius
and two shots a turn let it hit many times in a turn. The auto d3 means
you are guaranteed damage. As it mentions in the codex the earth shaker
cannon is great against bunkers. Even though you don't knock it down,
you at least manage to knock the people in it onto their backs, making
them useless. After a few turns the thing will fall for sure, killing
many of those inside. Who knows, you may even hit a slit and kill them
directly. Re-enforced armour is good for the basilisk, as since when do
you move a basilisk, who cares about the loss of speed. And of course
you have to watch out, the basilisk is probably the lowest armoured tank
in the imperial guard. I can't stress enough: every tank should have ablative
armour. The basilisk should be kept in the back, so you may not want to
put on all the hand to hand defences. If you are converting a basilisk
the first, and maybe only thing to change is the heavy bolter. The heavy
bolter doesn't suit the tank at all, its short range makes it useless
at the ranges a basilisk should be shooting at. Put on a lascannon, or
a heavy plasma, or an autocannon, or whatever has a range of 60 or more.
Hellhound
The hellhound is one of the best close range tanks there is.
A flamer so powerful it can fry tank crew. A tank that causes fear. A
tank with the best flame weapon in the game. Probably one of the best
anti-infantry tanks. It can clear out bunkers easily, and it can do tremendous
damage to tanks by baking their crew. Also, as it says in the back of
the codex, you might as well keep it going at fast speed, since the -1
to hit won't matter. This tank needs to get up close, so super charged
engines is a must. Ablative armour is definitely needed. Re-inforced armour
may make it too slow, but you know you will get hit a lot, you may want
to put it on anyway. Using the vehicle card to change the heavy bolter
to a heavy flamer may be an excellent idea. Imagine, two heavy flame weapons,
it would be crazy!
Sentinels
Good, but only in squads of 3. Any less than 3 is asking to be
shot apart. The assault cannons short range is partially negated by the
speed of the sentinel. It is a useful vehicle to support a squad down
a flank while the heavy armour rumbles down the centre.
Tank Commanders
The idea of tank commanders is mentioned in the Warhammer Battles
book, and even though it isn't in the IG codex is ok'ed in the Official
Q&A. The extra ballistics skill which
is provided by a tank commander is extremely valuable. It is well worth
the 10 points. The wargear card you can give him is also useful, since
as well as BS4 and a targeter on the weapon you can give him a bionic
eye or targeter, brilliant against bloody eldar. If you are really nasty
give him armour piercing ammo especially if it's a leman russ variant
or a basilisk "'ere Fred, thats not a battlecannon shell, THIS is
a battlecannon shell *pulls out something with 'dead hard' written on
it*", you get the idea.
Lord Solar
Macharius is a good character, but dangerous to play. If you
rely on preliminary barrages, or reserves, playing Macharius is far too
dangerous. If you don't he can be quite good. His hot headed charging
rule makes him quite effective in hand to hand combat. His lack of good
weapons is another serious drawback, for such a high ranking officer,
you think they could have given him something better than a chainsword.
If you can find some good wargear card for him, which gives him a good
hand to hand weapon, that would be excellent, but otherwise Macharius
is largely useless.
Commissar Yarrick
An excellent character, but too many points for his worth. It
can be quite hard to kill Yarrick, his force field, and habit of not dying
when reduced to 0 wounds can keep him alive quite well. He is OK at shooting,
ballistics skill 6, and equipped with a storm bolter. In hand to hand
he is fine too. So he is a good character, but wouldn't you rather have
a battle tank, for the same cost?
Nork Deddog
Nork Deddog is a great character in some ways. He is tough, and
has good stats. His ability to block shots seems quite useful. In any
army other than the Imperial guard he might be good, but in the Guard,
he is not so good. Why? Because there is no one worth protecting. At 67
points he costs more than the captain he is protecting (unless there is
expensive wargear on him, or he is a special character or something).
Nork Deddog would be great, if there were anyone useful to guard. This
is especially true since he has to be put in a command HQ, and therefore
not guard either Macharius, Yarrick, or Shaefer, the only characters that
cost over a hundred points, and probably the only ones worth guarding.
Captain Al'rahem
Al'rahem is not very expensive, but he is also not very good.
He has no special abilities, and like all Imperial guard characters (with
the exception of Nork Deddog, and Commissar Yarrick) he has no better
scores than his regular counterpart. His sword which causes fear is one
of his bonus's, however it isn't all that useful. The targeter on his
plasma pistol is worth almost nothing. He is OK, but not really very good.
Captain Chenkov
He is slightly better than Al'Rahem, but more expensive too.
His re-rolls on leadership can come in very handy with the easy to break
Imperial Guard. This ability costs 27 points (40 - 6 for the power sword
- 2 for the bolt pistol -2 for the frag grenades and -3 for the krak grenades)
which is quite a steep cost. Unlike some special characters he still has
room for 2 wargear cards, at least one of which probably should be a field.
Not a bad character, but not a great one.
Stumper Muckstart
This character is of questionable merit in my mind. He is priced
too high for his ability (he is more like 1d3 ratlings, for almost three
times the cost), but one thing makes him much more worth while, he isn't
worth any victory points. In the tradition of almost all Imperial Guard
special characters, Stumper Muckstart has the abilities of his rank, a
regular ratling. In his case it seems exceptionally stupid. Why does a
ratling who can shoot nickels out of the air blind folded have only ballistics
skill 4??? Anyway, he can be useful, though in many cases a squad of ratlings
would be better. If you aren't playing with the usual victory point rules
of a character worth 50 or less is worth no victory points, don't use
him. Put in a squad of ratlings with dead-eye shot, if over 100 doesn't
make it jump to 2 victory points.
Captain Mogul Kamir
Mogul Kamir was badly designed, though he has some things going for him.
Lets start with his weapons: Hunting lance, bolt pistol, laspistol, frag
and krak grenades. Of course he needs the hunting lance, he wouldn't be
a rough rider without it. His two pistols aren't that good, instead of
a bolt pistol, why not give him a chainsword like most rough-riders, he
shouldn't be shooting, he's a hand to hand expert. The grenades are mostly
useless, but they can't hurt. If I were to design him I would have given
him either powerfist (for extra strength in hand to hand) or a sword of
some sort to give him a parry. Crushing arm of Kamir is great, it is his
one well designed feature. Eye of the Falcon, there are probably no wargear
cards worse than this to give him. What is he doing with shooting weapons??
He should be hand to hand based. He should go trade eyes with Yarrick
or something. Maybe he should have a field. In many ways, I wish they
would just have a regular rough rider captain.
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