Basic Tactics for Imperial Guard
here's my patented Tactica IG... it's long but it's worthwhile :) HQ - there are two things that an HQ can be designated to do - assault
or shoot...
The assault option is also known as a counter-charge unit... it has a lot of HtH stuff in it... and some short range, low AP assault weapons like plasma pistols or meltaguns. The basic idea behind a good counter-charge unit is to get in a lot of attacks and make them count. For this reason, it is a good idea to take a captain (same number of attacks as a colonel but cheaper), a commissar, an inquisitor and a preacher; give them all a powerfist and pistol, and give them all refractor fields (the inquisitor gets a rosarius, so does the preacher)... with this combination you get 19 powerfist attacks in a charge! These guys, when used correctly, can do a HUGE amount of damage... they can easily take down a 10 man terminator squad... they go last, (but then IG generally do!) but those 4 extra bodies in there can take the wounds from some of the more nasty high-initiative attackers. The assault option gets a chimera... they need it for mobility. If you have a really troublesome unit that ploughs right through your HQ, add an Eversor assassin to the mix for a truly unstoppable unit (though it does cost about 600 points!!) The IG HQ has the really nice option of including squads of support weapons... up to five squads may be included, up to two of which can be anti-tank, two of which may be fire-support and two of which may be mortars... anti-tank squads get either missile launchers or lascannons, fire-support squads get either heavy bolters or autocannons, and mortars get... well... mortars J - NEVER mix weapons within a squad, you will seriously hamper the effectiveness of the unit! - The option of including a Veteran Assault Team or two, as units of support weapons, is available to a commander who has the Death World Veteran ability. These assault teams are useful, cheap, and devastating to anything they can get near. They can carry a 6” Range, STR 8, AP 2 ordnance blast weapon that can be fired on the move and which costs a mere 10 points. (Be cautioned, there is a chance your template will scatter BACK onto the unit that throws it!). They can also be equipped with an array of flamer-weapons (at a hefty price) and all members of the unit have the option of including a CC weapon & pistol as their primary armament. They have the ability to regroup even when below 50% strength. That AP 2 battle cannon template they walk around with is an ideal last-chance weapon that can be used to take out stubborn units of heavily armoured troops or medium vehicles that have gotten too close to your lines. Troops - as an IG player, one on one, your troops are pretty much the equal of nothing else in the warhammer 40k universe [that’s a BAD thing] - (short of grots and cultists). Their main strength lies in their cheap price (6 points each) and their numbers… if you wanted to you could field a 500-model army within the standard deployment template. Each troops choice you select can have a maximum of 63 models (5 x 10 man squads, 1 x 5 man platoon HQ, and a preacher in each squad… add to this a chimera and a commissar for the HQ and you get a truly awe inspiring single troop choice consisting of 62 men and a tank! Platoon HQ’s - A platoon HQ is a very versatile unit… they may take two special weapons and a heavy weapon and may include a preacher, veteran sergeant and a lieutenant with ease. They also get the option to take a chimera as a transport choice. Combine the heavy weapon and the Chimera’s weapons and you get a quality mobile fire-support squad. Combine two meltaguns, 2 CC weapon combos and a plasma pistol and you get a credible (if small) threat to an enemy if the HQ has the opportunity to shoot before charging. You can also make them into a very cheap counter-charge unit - 4 CC weapon combos and a preacher a lieutenant with the same and you have a 41-point unit with 20 attacks in a charge. These units work well to support other counter-charge units and as a source of extra Chimeras on the battlefield. The only real problems a PHQ has are it’s low toughness and its limited number of bodies to take hits. Platoons designations - there are two types of platoon - a hammer platoon and an anvil platoon - an anvil platoon gets a heavy weapon and a long range assault weapon they work as the heavy troops that the enemy charges at, they almost never move and so, heavy weapons are extremely good for them… Then, the hammer platoon is always on the move, therefore, they have no heavy weapons and a lot of low AP assault weapons… meltaguns and flamers work very well for them. The hammers need transport, so they are very good when this role is assigned to an armoured fist squad, combine this squad with a batch of storm-troopers or ogryn in a chimera too, and a platoon HQ in a chimera - this means you get 3 chimeras and 20-25 guys charging around the field… these rate as a threat to most things, especially when armed with an array of assault weapons like meltaguns and plasma rifles… hardened veterans are great as hammer elements because they can get three assault weapons, a heavy weapon, two officers and a chimera… they also get a BS of 4 (ooh, aahh :P) Armoured Fists - An Armoured Fist (AF) is, pretty basically, a single infantry squad in a Chimera. You may select one AF for each normal troop choice you make. An AF counts as a troops choice in and of itself. The AF is slightly cheaper than a standard 25-man platoon and makes up for it’s lack of numbers with its increased mobility. The Chimera can be outfitted to provide a withering salvo of supporting fire to compliment the rest of your force. The AF squad itself is very likely to move out of the circle of influence of any of your HQ units and, therefore, requires a bit of extra help with its morale. A veteran sergeant raises the squad’s leadership to 8 and, when given a trademark item he provides the unit with some staying power when they come under fire or enter into any assaults. I find that one of the best uses for an AF squad is as a mobile tank-hunting unit. Outfit the veteran sergeant with a plasma pistol, meltabombs and a CC weapon and give the squad a meltagun and they combine to be capable of destroying 2 medium vehicle in a single turn. Provide them with a cheaply equipped preacher and they get a total of 26 attacks when (and if) they charge an enemy. Heavy Support - tanks, tanks, and more tanks... IG can't get enough heavy support... they lack sorely in high toughness troops so tanks get to be their hard-to-kill units - the standard leman Russ battle tank is always a good start - it can be outfitted in an anti-light-infantry fashion (3 heavy bolters, a pintle storm bolter and a battle-cannon) or anti-heavy-infantry and anti-tank - (a lascannon, hunter-killer missile and a battle-cannon). With front armour 14 it's a tough nut for most enemies to crack. They are far from invulnerable though; it is best to field them in groups of two or even three leman-Russ chassis vehicles to more than double their chances of survival. Other variants include the exterminator (good against lightly armoured foes), a vanquisher (which is good at killing armour 14 vehicles), a demolisher - which has heavier armour on its back and sides (14\13\11) and a truly evil combination of low-AP weaponry! A standard demolisher can be outfitted with a lascannon - ap2, str9; a demolisher cannon - ap2, str10 - ordnance blast; and two plasma cannons - ap2, str7 - small blast - the only real problem with this behemoth is it's relative lack of range on its main gun which has a 24" range, the plasma's get a more decent 36" and the lascannon gets 48". - There are also a few specialist weapon platforms that can be taken, a Basilisk has a 120" range, an option to make it a guess 36"-240" weapon and a str9 ap3 [!] warhead... the only real problem with this vehicle is it's lack of armour and it's being open-topped. Then there is a griffon mortar, it gets a guess 12”-48” weapon but has a relatively bad AP (4) and is therefore limited in it's usefulness against heavily armoured troops like marines. Both these platforms can force opponents to take pinning tests if they take casualties from the blast! Elites - As for elites... IG barely get any truly cost effective ones... the most useful of these would probably be Ogryns - hulking great brutes with toughness, leadership and weapon skill equal to a space marine! - And 3 wounds each... take them against other IG players and watch them instant kill characters with a single wound getting through :) - strength 6 is a wonderful thing - this unit, unfortunately, is just too few in numbers and lacks power-weapons... so, they generally can't put up a good enough fight against assault marines... Ratling snipers deserve a mention - 10 sniper rifles in a unit for 110 points - ALWAYS give a unit of these guys a preacher to up their leadership from 5 to 8. - They work especially well in conjunction with veteran snipers, a Vindicare assassin, mortars and basilisks and griffons - all of which can force pinning tests... why pin just one unit when you can pin his entire army J, unfortunately ratlings have a toughness of 2 and die extremely easily to any incoming fire [See themed army - pinning - below] The last heavily used type of elite in an IG army is stormtroopers - they create a stable backbone of fire-support to bog-standard troops... they also get to make saves against bolter fire-: P - will the wonders never cease - unfortunately, they’re the only IG unit that can: P A really nice unit available (just about the only one!) via elites is hardened veterans… they get the ability to regroup under 50%, and they don’t suffer from negative modifiers when taking morale tests either. They can take an officer, get a chimera and 3 [!!] assault weapons and a heavy weapon (all with a BS of 4 [!!]) - they cost quite a bit unfortunately… - but then again, you can field a minimal size unit (4 guys with a veteran sergeant) and put in a lascannon, 3 plasma rifles and a plasma pistol - for a pure anti-termie/anti-tank unit. If you should ever want TWO units of hardened veterans, make use of a unit of Catachan Devils as your second unit. The two units make a good combination; the Devils may be armed with 3 grenade launchers at 6pts each, that’s 18 points to supply a unit with 3 Str6 AP4 24” range assault 1 weapons. Combine this with a storm-bolter on the veteran sergeant and a preacher with a storm-bolter, and you have a unit that can move full distance then fire3 Str6 AP4 rounds and 4 Str4 AP5 round. This option makes a good mobile, medium strength unit of infantry. The Devils do, however, have to spend 16 points each for standard flamers. The standard hardened veteran unit may take those same 3 flamers at a price of 6 points each, while they are asked to spend 12 points each for grenade launchers. The one unit may be used to torch a unit from a mob army while the previous one may be used to drop light vehicles and medium infantry at medium range or a mob force at the same range, using the grenade launchers as blast weapons, at Str3 AP6, the blast option is good when facing mobs of orks… stand at 24” range - drop 3 blast templates on a mob, retreat however far the orks moved forward and repeat the process. An interesting unit that you can take as elites is a unit of Krourk
Ogryns (introduced on the Armageddon website), they are basically a squad
of 5-10 ogryns that are fearless in HtH combat, gain +1 Initiative when
they charge and come with no option to take ripper-guns (default is an
Ogryn CC weapon and a CC weapon). This unit is, unfortunately, unable to
take a chimera as a transport option; they work well as a spearhead for
an assault-based infantry army. They cost 10 points more than normal Ogryns
(40 points each) but never run from combat in return for the extra price.
Special abilities include - power-weapon; Neuro-Gauntlet - always wounds on a 4+, glances a vehicle on a roll of 6+, no armour-saves allowed; Executioner pistol - dual purpose - as bolt pistol but may always be fired twice, or as sniper rifle, 12” range, may be fired once; combat drugs - add D6 attacks when charging, may charge 12” or double the distance charged through difficult terrain; meltabombs. Vindicare (sniper, hard to kill at a distance, probably not worth its
points because it only does about 3-4 wounds in a single game… hard to
recover his 110 points cost on; but great for addition in a pinning army)
Special Characters -
Solar Macharius - The high-Commander of the Imperial Guard forces during a period of unrivalled expansion. He supplies one of the most useful special rules to any Imperial Commander who makes use of him. The guaranteed ability to go first in any mission that has the choice made randomly. Make use of this ability and you can set up your forces to take advantage of the fact that you WILL be going first. Forget about cover for the tanks, schemes envolved in drawing your opponent out of cover and such. Set up in order to maximise your field-of-fire and wipe out a third of your opponents force before the battle even begins. VERY useful in combination with a Callidus Assassin, use her 6” enemy move to bring dangerous units out of cover and into the kill-zone of your guns. Macharius is best used as a morale-boost for infantry. In HtH he is barely a match for a marginally tooled up marine commander. Many of his statistics are determined randomly before the battle. Unfortunately this means that you can end up with a supreme commander of your forces with a WS of 3. His other major downside in HtH is his Strength of 3. With a maximum of 10 attacks on a charge he is still limited to strength 3 and, therefore, will do very little damage to any tough enemies. His toughness is also 3 so, even with his 3+ invulnerable save he is VERY likely to be killed off by a few well placed rounds from a enemy heavy weapon. Expensive… you can afford to purchase 2 heavily tooled up infantry squads or an extra Leman Russ Demolisher for the same price as Solar. Probably only worthwhile in games valued at over 2000 points. Commissar Yarrick - Without a doubt, one of the most useful and deadly characters in the game. His base toughness of 4 and force-shield mean that he can stand up to anything short of a Lascannon and just soak up the damage. His major downfall is his lack of an invulnerable save. A strength 3 lascannon is still AP2 and, therefore, fully capable of going right through his carapace armour. He bestows the Fearless ability on the any unit he joins. Making him very useful in conjunction with a squad of Ogryns. Nork Deddog Ogryn Bodyguard - great when combined with other special
characters like solar Macharius or commissar Yarrick. He can leach off
some of the more nasty wounds if needs be and his ability to swap places
with his charge is great for taking out high initiative enemies with a
powerfist on your charge.
Tactical Deployment -
H formation - best used as a defensive formation - any number of ranks
forming a central, layered fire-formation; then there are two files of
troops providing supporting positions for the flanks of the formation.
Layered formation - A layered formation is the formation used most often by IG commanders. This involves the use of many ranks of troops, each 4” away from the one in front of it. The front two ranks should be cheap and expendable. Heavy weapon squads should be placed at the very back of the formation. The basic idea behind this is that an entire armies worth of firing-zones overlap when faced towards a specific direction. The troops are 4” apart to avoid enemy troops assaulting a unit and then defeating it and simply consolidating into the unit behind it. What you, as the IG commander, want is for the enemy to have no choice but to make a sweeping advance into the overlapping kill-zone of all the defending troops and invite fire from them all. The front rank takes the brunt of the attacks and provides every infantry squad behind it with a screen through which the enemy may not fire. (This is the one-way mirror concept). Your rear-most troops may, however, fire through the front, screening ranks and destroy any enemy that comes too close. If it is done correctly, your force should lose 2-3 squads of troops but thoroughly dominate the game. NEVER attack such a formation head-on… you WILL be shot to shreds! This formation is vulnerable to deep-striking units and to flank attacks. When an assault does occur at the front of this formation, you WANT to fail morale checks you make IN YOUR OPPONENTS ASSAULT PHASE!! - If you end up running away in your own assault phase, your enemy will be able to sweep into your second rank of defenders without suffering the consequences of the return-fire. Allies
continued below... cheers
Army specific tactics -
Vs. Blood Angels - same basic setup as above, forget the griffon and go with a demolisher instead of one of the standard Russes, kit the troops plasma guns and replace the armoured fist with more troops… drop the ogryn squad, tool up the HQ to make it a counter-charge unit, change the assassin to an Eversor, and layer the troops close together in batches of two, eg. One picket line, another line 2” behind it, and then third line goes 4-6” behind the second, fourth goes 2” behind third - this sets up kill zones… remember that they HAVE TO sweep when they win a combat… try very hard to hit the death company with a strength 8 ordnance shell - it will ignore both their armour and their - ‘stand up again on 4+’ rule. Vs. Orks - as IG above, shoot the open topped vehicles with ordnance, you can annihilate them on a 5+ with two tries: P a basilisk has about an 85% chance of destroying a battle-wagon: P keep your layers intact, have at least one lascannon anti-tank team. - Stay more than 24” from the zzap guns and the tankbusta boys (str9, assault 1, 24” range weapons are NOT nice) - stay well away from the HQ unit. Flamer’s work wonders against orks… hellhounds do even better J get single sentinels into standard mobs of boys, they can’t be hurt by normal orks - nobs can hurt the sentinel, but only on a 3+/6+/5+ roll. Vs. Black Templars - A BT force will probably have at least one Landraider
Crusader variant. It WILL have an Emperor’s Champion. And it will probably
have a squad of neophytes and an assault squad. Black Templars are a cheesy
HtH army. Their vows give them a few nasty surprises to throw at you. The
one that gets used the most is probably the “Hit your enemy on 3+”. They
also have the nasty little rule that they don’t retreat when they fail
a morale test, they Sweeping Advance! This can be very nasty as, if your
front rank defenders do enough damage to cause a morale check and the BT’s
fail it… they sweep into the second rank of defenders. In regards to the
Emperor’s Champion, just ignore him if he’s on his own… otherwise blow
his unit out from under him.
Vs. Chaos - No Chaos choices get an invulnerable save. The only invulnerable
saves in their forces are those on chaos terminators and on all their daemons.
Watch out for various units that are arrayed in the ‘holy number’ of their
particular chaos god as those groups count as having an aspiring champion
for summoning purposes.
Tzeentch - holy number is groups of 9 Thousand-Sons. The Tzeentch special
ability is that they get a ‘psychic lascannon’ on a lot of their characters.
Thousand-Sons marines each have immunity to S4 and weaker weapons and 2
wounds. Shoot them with Str8+ weapons - battle-cannons work wonders for
wiping out units of Thousand Sons.
Wraithlords - Contrary to popular belief, Wraithlords are NOT monstrous creatures… hence; they do NOT add 2d6 to their AP when assaulting vehicles. (Though the Strength of 10 generally results in nasty damage anyway). Target priorities - Transports (always fire ordnance at un-smoked transport units - the chance of an annihilate roll is worth it), HQ’s, assault units, Melta-weapons, fast units, tanks, heavy weapons units, standard units Mission Specific -
Night-Fight - go barrage heavy, take 4 sentinels with lascannons to light up enemy vehicles with searchlights… use initial 6” move to get near enough to light up enemy vehicles with searchlights then fire on them from maximum distance with tanks. Give every vehicle a searchlight. Other than that - see cleanse mission details for further relevant info. Cleanse - Pay attention to the objectives and don’t get carried away annihilating the enemy forces, the ONLY thing that matters in the end is who has the most table quarters! Plan ahead so you have units on the border-lines of the quarters in turn 5… this way, when turn 6 comes along, you can stand a good chance of moving units into sectors and getting zones for yourself or preventing your opponent from doing the same. You only ever have to take units down to half-strength; when they are below half strength they can no longer claim quarters and are therefore no longer a threat. Send an entire platoon of 35-45 men into a quarter and see your enemy try and flush that out in 6 turns J Mobility is key in this mission, if you are mobile you can claim far quarters in the last turn and spend more time standing still in a firing line prior to that. Remember that, if you are not sure what units belonging to your enemy are below half strength - ASK… I’ve lost a game because there was a unit of 2 scouts left next to my basilisk and I presumed it was at less than half strength so I fired the basilisk at his commander! - The two scouts were actually 50% of the unit and they cost me the game - making it a draw instead of a win! - If I had fired the basilisk heavy bolter at them I would easily have killed one and won the game! General-Use list for Random missions - Ok, this is the type of force you’d have to field in a tournament. One set army list for unknown opponents and unknown missions. Ideally you want a good mix of mobility (at least 2 Chimeras and 3 sentinels), a solid block of infantry in a single troop choice (PHQ and at least 4 squads - you may play a mission where you only get 1 troop choice on the table), searchlights on all the sentinels and the chimeras (you may get night fight) and some good heavy-support (heavy support is almost always useful to have, even if it only shows up on turn 2+). Remember that sentinels have the option of always starting on the table, even if they’re meant to be in reserve… This is a good way to bring up some extra heavy weapons at the start of a Reserves Scenario. The Bigger the gun, the bigger the Bang… (Or, What to shoot…)
Timing is everything… (Or, When to shoot it…)
General Tactics
Specific Army themes
The “Sentinels are cool” army - Lots of sentinels… a standard army can put down 12 sentinels in a battle… these guys ALWAYS start on the table, get a free 6” move before the game and get some nasty heavy weapons. Depending on your opponent you can field 9 lascannon sentinels and a squad of Power-lifter sentinels. A lot of the armies out there can’t deal with a sentinel in HtH - they need something with strength of 4 just to glance the thing - so try to avoid doing this theme against marines. Sentinels with heavy flamers work wonders against orks. A single sentinel is untouchable in HtH by a normal ork. Power-lifter sentinels work well when accompanying your main HQ to give them some extra S5 power-weapon attacks. The “Tread-Head” army - Tread-Head is a phrase used to describe any commander who’s overly keen on tanks and vehicles in his army. The Mechanised Infantry list from Codex: Armageddon is a great thing in any Tread-Head’s eyes. This type of army will almost invariably contain all 3 Heavy Support units, 3-4 Chimeras, a pair of hellhounds and some sentinels. As it is, the ubiquitous Chimera of the Imperial Guard has a good array of anti-infantry firepower that, ideally, can all be brought to bear on an unsuspecting target. The only downside of this style of army is the relative cost of all those vehicles. A mechanised infantry force can relatively easily overwhelm small units of enemy infantry and light enemy vehicles using only a relatively small amount of its own resources. This army type is especially effective against orks. At the best of times, orks have trouble killing tanks with an AV higher than 11… The Chimera’s front AV is 12 - impenetrable to almost all ork weapons… When standing still, a Chimera and its crew can spew forth am astounding 6 Str5 AP4 shots, 3 Str6 AP6 shots, 2 Str4 AP5 shots, 3 Str3 AP- shots and 1 Str8 AP3 shot. (Hull heavy bolter, crew heavy bolter, turret multilaser, storm-bolter, hull mounted lasguns, hunter killer missile)… that’s 15 shots at 24” range and that’s just a SINGLE unit! And all the while the unit within the Chimera is immune to all shots that are Str5 and less. The crew in the back of the Chimera can also be equipped with extra heavy weaponry, eg. Try a lascannon or an autocannon. To provide the unit some extra sting at range. The “Ogryns Rule” army - An army that uses a large number of ogryns to pound the enemy into the ground. Selection includes one unit of Krourk Ogryns - 10 strong; 2 units of standard ogryns in chimeras - 2x 5 strong. The Chimera Ogryns charge up the line under smoke and assault close enemies. Ten ogryns assaulting just about anything can utterly destroy it… that’s 40 strength 6 attacks on a charge… 20 of them hit and 17 of those wound… if anything survives they are destroyed by the secondary charging unit of Krourk ogryns on foot - another 40 strength 6 attacks. This army would work especially well against armies made up of toughness 3 creatures (Eldar, dark Eldar and other IG, who they are able to instant-kill with a single wound). Expensive in terms of both cash and points for the models (400 points for the Krourk ogryns, 150 points for each unit of standard ogryns and then 93 points each for the 2 chimeras. 900 points for your elites section… As for cash… each one of those 20 ogryns would set you back $10 or R100). But it is one of the few ways of making a strictly HtH IG army… throw in a few units of roughriders and preachers with Power-Fists and you have an ideal shock-force. Beardy or Strategy?
1) Set up your infantry a tiny way into difficult terrain, just enough so that bikes and jump-packs assaulting you will need to take a difficult terrain test to get to you… it’s simply a fact of life that bikes tend to crash and burn one time out of six and that jump-packers break both their legs one time out of 6 as well. Besides, as IG you need as few enemies making it into close combat as possible. Setting up 4-5” into difficult terrain is optimal, you can see out but any enemies trying to charge in must roll a 5+ on a difficult terrain test to get at you. That extra turn of shooting might just set the battle in your favour. 2) If you want to fail a leadership test in your opponents assault phase, it is an option NOT to use the leadership of the nearby officers and NOT to use your trademark items and standard to allow re-rolls. By electing to use the leadership of a standard guardsman in an assault, you generally end up needing to roll a 5 or less on 2d6 to make your leadership. - Codex: Imperial Guard. 3) Elect to remove tanks (or not) when they are destroyed. The only official roll that actually removes destroyed vehicles from the field of battle is an ordnance penetrating 6, in all other cases, the removal of the vehicle is optional… if your opponent has a squad of angry termies on one side of the tank and you have a few plasma guns on the other, by all means, remove the tank (unless he objects you have every right to do so). This also works for placing useful areas of cover onto the board; when a tank dies in the middle of an enemy fire-lane, leave it there, instant cover for approaching units. - Vehicle penetration tables - main rulebook. 4) Watch those moves… when your opponent moves his assault units up the board, note where they came from, it’s all too common an occurrence to have a unit of jump-packs that is 19” away getting into assault in one turn. That extra 1” just cost you a squad and a turn of shooting and gained your opponent a 3d6” sweeping advance up your line. 5) In assaults, make sure the closest model assaults the closest unengaged enemy model. Set up your movement before the assault to protect your valuable weaponry from dangerous enemy models… eg. Move your power-fist laden HQ to be 5” away from his terminators so that you only end up with one of his models in contact with all of your high-efficiency models, this also allows you to set your assaults so that none of your low Initiative models contact his high initiative models that are dangerous in HtH… (Termies with lightning claws)… that way the only attacks he can legitimately make are his ‘go last’ attacks and throwing stones (also last). This way you have a significantly improved chance of killing his entire unit with your power-fists. This works well when combined with 10) below. - Chapter Approved and weapon speeds. 6) Fire ordnance at units that stand near vehicles… this way you can hit a unit of troops and still overlap the explosion onto the nearby vehicle, hopefully killing both. - Main rule book 7) Placing a heavily armoured vehicle (like a Demolisher) in the very front corner of your deployment zone so as to force all opposition forces to set up further back and increase the number of rounds of shooting you have. This is even more easily accomplished by the use of a platoon of cheap, expendable infantry which can be placed along the entire periphery of your deployment zone, however, in this case, you would not be able to field any heavy support units as the main advantage of the infantry perimeter is lost when you do not place your infantry block first. As most missions require heavy support to be placed first, they tend to hamper this particular strategy. - Depends on the minimum distance between sides in a mission. 8) Shoot at any character that is not within 6” of a supporting unit (viable target) or is the closest model in short range (12”), if your opponent isn’t aware of this particular ruling - it’s in the ‘shooting at characters’ page of the big rulebook. 9) A failed charge does nothing, if your opponent announces a charge then measures the range and comes up short, the unit simply stands out in the open, at which stage you may shoot them to shreds. 10) Wounds do NOT carry through to characters in HtH assaults. Eg. A unit of berserkers can assault a unit of guardsmen and cause 20 wounds, of which 2 are saved. As long as the berserker player was not aiming at a specific model, only the standard members of the unit die, while the characters emerge unscathed. - In this case, 9 guardsmen would die and the sergeant and the preacher (if there was one) would remain alive - Chapter Approved. 11) Park a unit within 1” of all access points to a vehicle and then destroy it. If the troops within have no way to disembark from their wrecked vehicle AND stay more than 1” away from all of your models, then they die. This works extremely well against other guard units (Chimeras only have ONE valid access point) and Eldar (Falcons and Wave Serpents only have ONE valid access point). Especially useful against nasty units in light vehicles (banshees/scorpions in wave-serpents; IG counter-charge HQ’s) [Also useful to remember when taking out Land-Raiders filled with expensive Termies, harder to accomplish though because rhinos, razorbacks and land-raiders have 3 access-points each] - Chapter approved. 12) 29 Powerfist attacks and 17 standard attacks from a charging Command HQ. Colonel-PF, DWV, LP, TI, Bi, RF; Commissar- PF, DWV, LP, Bi, RF, H.Relic on Colonel; Veteran Sergeant-LP, CC, Bi; Commissar- PF, DWV, LP, Bi, RF on Veteran Sergeant; Preacher-PF, LP, R; 1 standard bearer-Reg.Stan., CC,LP; 3 guardsmen-CC, LP; Inquisitor-PF, BP, R. The total value is 444 points. Interesting Ideas.
2) Steel legion rock in Patrol…. You can place a single troop choice on the table to start… that’s 6 chimeras, 5 squads, 1 platoon HQ, and up to 12 sentinels… all you need in reserve is a chimera with your main HQ and a chimera with an armoured fist as your second troops choice… you basically instantly outgun anything else in the game… probably even an armoured company which can only take three Leman Russ tanks… you can start with a theoretical limit of 18 lascannons… that can toast three tanks in 1 turn without a doubt… 3) A Commissar with a holy relic… give all guardsmen within 2d6” +1 attack 1x per battle… especially useful in Cityfight where everyone in 6” of the combat gets their attacks… instant assault troops. 4) A Vanquisher tanks main gun counts as ordnance - no matter what!! This means that, even if you fire an anti-tank round, it still follows the ordnance penetration rules… eg. If you fire an anti-tank round at a land-raider, if you pass your BS roll, your shot regains the ability to annihilate an enemy tank on a penetrating hit of 6+, making the vanquisher one of only three weapons in the game that can annihilate a land-raider… it is also significantly better at what it does than a demolisher cannon or an earthshaker cannon. 5) The highest possible AV of a vehicle is 14. Yes, this means Nurgle-infested chaos land-raiders too. 6) Minimum size unit of Catachan Devils with a preacher attached, give the preacher and the veteran sergeant storm bolters (S4 AP5 Assault2 24”) and give three grenade launchers to the standard infantry (S6 AP4 Assault1 24”). This gives you a unit that can move its full distance and still fire 3 Str6 AP4 rounds and 4 Str4 AP5 rounds at a range of 24”. At 100 points it is also relatively cheap for its ranged fire ability. Basic General Tactics.
2) Direction of force - contemplate your enemy’s deployment and deploy accordingly, also, don’t do things in half-measures, if you want something done right, do use 3 times the troops you think you’ll need. 3) Economy of Effort - eg. Good firing positions that support one another 4) Security - be able to respond to a direct assault on any position in your lines with the maximum amount of your own power. 5) Target priorities - see the above section labelled target priorities. 6) Segmenting enemy defences - by segmenting an enemies lines you gain the ability to destroy him piecemeal and this tactic allows you to bring large numbers of your own units to bear against significantly smaller units of his units. IG isn’t as good at this tactic as marines but it still works for them. The idea is to move up a large number of fast-moving vehicles and drive them up to and through his defensive lines, keep the vehicles in a solid line and use them as a terrain feature that separates his force into 2 disjointed sides. Disembark on one side of the phalanx and assault that one side. The best that can happen is you tank shock a unit or two and they fall back, pushing his entire force back and further onto the defensive, you segment some of his units and disrupt them enough to prevent them firing in the next round. Your assault should be able to deal with one side of his force while he re-orders his defence and then you’ll outnumber him 3 to 2 and will be able to use the numbers to your advantage. Be careful with your tank-shocking moves because they allows for death-or-glory attacks. DO NOT attempt this tactic if there is a strong flank that your enemy can bring to bear on your assault troops. Destroy all heavy weapons on the side of your assault BEFORE you assault. 7) Use vehicles as terrain features. If you need to move units up in cover and you have none available to you, use your tanks… with AV 14 on the front facing they make excellent blockers against enemy fire. Even when they are destroyed you get the choice of whether to leave the wreck on the field. Use a tank or two as forward units and move any infantry or light vehicles up behind them. The big guys take the brunt of the punishment while the little guys invariably make it to where they’re going. DO NOT use this tactic too near the enemy lines as melta-weapons make short work of your front vehicles if they get into short range. Cheesy Things IG can do.
hope it helps cheers
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