I got Guard. Now what?

[Wolf Brother Hellstrom]

I just recently procured a huge guard army with no tanks and i have no idea how to play them. i know how to kill them lol destroy tanks and get into close combat, but being on the other side is a little confusing. honeslty ive only played against them 2 or three times. all my armies have been very assualt oriented( wolves, orcs, dark eldar) so a shooty army is not my forte.

ques #1- i understand that all the infantry platoon squads are one troop choice but can they seperate? or do they all stay together in one blob. cause with all those heavy weapons you dont want to move right? it just seems very static to me. im used to being mobile

ques #2 is a foot guard army effective? im going to buy some tanks, but to start can i hang without them?

ques #3 can someone help me paint all these f-ing models :D?

please help and thanks for it!

[Slug]

1: each option is a separate squad, so a platoon command squad is one unit, each of the infantry squads are separate units and so on. Essentially anything that is listed in the platoon section functions as separate squads but only take up one force organisation slot per platoon, so you can have 2 platoons with 2 infantry squads and a platoon command squad in each and that would be 6 separate units but only take up 2 troop choices.
2: depends on how competitive you want, armies that can get into combat and avoid being shot at what so eve, as in anything that can assault form deepstike or get into combat turn one, will shred you, however anything else will take allot of punishment. Use heavy weapon squads as then you can use infantry squads to move around and intercept assault units, Autocannons are your friends they munch through light armor.

[w7west]

1.buy chimeras for everything
2.???
3.grats on 1st place 'ard boys

[Kawauso]

I play a very infantry-heavy IG army with armoured support and it's a lot of fun.

I use heavy weapon teams and armour like Russes and/or Valkyries to bust open transports or tackle heavy armour.

Once I have my opponent on foot, they find it hard to deal with 70+ guardsmen. I've never really been a fan of blob squads - I keep my units separate so that I can form gunlines and reposition, and so when a unit inevitably gets into CC the loss is easier to take.

As long as you can de-mech your opponent and have some heavy weapons to deal with anything that has a toughness of 7 or higher, IG infantry works.

With enough flashlights, eventually you will kill anything.

PS. Don't forget some melta or plasma vets - I'm not fond of the idea of basing a whole army around them unless you're goting all veterans for fluff or an armoured company or something, but the amount of special weapons vet. squads can take will come in handy.

[Multigeneral]

1. All of the individual units in an infantry platoon deploy as seperate entities. All of the infantry squads (not heavy weapon, special weapon or command squads) in a platoon can "blob up" or combine, and become one large sqaud with multiple seargents, etc. I am not a fan of the blob squad. Others are. Try it yourself and see how you like it. And yes, you NEED those Heavy weapons to stay put and dish out the hurt. In an Infantry heavy Gaurd Army mobility is NOT your forte. Your Commander's Orders can help somewhat with the mobility issue (Move,move,move) but your going to be slow by comparison. I have tried, with limited success, fielding all my heavy weapons in HW squads and tanks so my infantry squads can move about unemcumbered. A couple of units of vets for the extra killyness is a good idea.

2. An all infantry guard list is rough. It is really hard to win with competitively, but is an absolute riot to play. "Oh, you killed a squad. S'ok, I got 7 more. And my command squads, and my HW squads, and my Ogryn, and my 2 Vet squads, and my Special weapons squads. I think I'll manage." 3. Dude, you're on your own!!

[doom-kitten]

I'd love to help you paint them, if you can stand waiting around for me to finish my sisters, as to the Guard I've wanted to play them since I started but my girls just won't let me go :p. I've only played mechanised guard and it sucked I got mulched by all those guns, basically he took a ****load of chimeras and parked them in one spot and filled the air with rounds, and a couple of Griffons, a manticore and two Lemans to round it off.

[scadugenga]

My second army is an (almost) all foot guard army.

It's hellaciously fun to play--but requires a lot of work and forethought/planning to do it competitively.

When you have time limits, you need to be really proactive about dice rolling quickly and effectively.

And yeah, painting 130+ infantry is a stone pain in the arse. ;)

[Thornblood]

I had some success with a foot guard army. The principle was the amount of special and heavy weapons you could get, and how to win was getting them in the right place at the right time. It was a principle I started using with my marines- how did I get the best out of a limited number of squads- it was by equipping them for specific tasks each.

I think My foot guard was around the 1,500 mark at its best. With my regular gaming group all being power armoured at the time the horde was a bit of a shock. I remember getting at least two plasma special weapons squads, at least one melta, some big units 'mobbing up' or whatever the term is to shield them and have survivability (and as big units they could really put out some firepower- enough maglights can kill marines). The army was led by Straken, and I think I got some advisors in thier too...

Anyway It was quite fun, but the army never got painted.

[Wildcard]

@Multigeneral:

Their ability to shoot through other squads in the same platoon and not give cover from them is priceless. Makes the meat shield tactic viable.

Either i didn't understand what you meant by that, or i am playing my platoons completely wrong. So, how to put this, why / how can squads of the same platoon shoot through each other? I mean, wheres the rule or how have you figured out its like that? Because i wanna know how to back that claim up too in our games :)

[Multigeneral]

Well, embarisingly, I must call shenanigans on myself. =( I can not find anywhere in any book where it says that. I believe it must be a fragment of an old rumor still stuck in my brain and as my opponents are virtually all space marines (or get cover anyway from other sources such as actual cover) there has been no need to recheck this. Wow, I feel really bad about this now.

(KInda goes to show you how prevelent cover is in 5th edition.)

[Da Gargoyle]

Shooting through the Platoon without conceding the cover save comes down to deployment. As noted earlier you can deploy as a single platoon as it is one troops choice, or you can operate squads independently. If multple squads are acting as a single unit then you use the rule that states a single unit can not mask its own firing. The down side is, all the squads in that unit must shoot at the same target. If they act independently and choose different targets then shooting through other squads means you concede the cover save.

In a 2000 point game my son fielded 3 platoons of five squads and unexpectedly developed a tactic. A screening unit in front of each platoon provided cover saves from much of my line of sight shooting. By taking them out first I then opened myself up for five ranks of missile, grenade launcher and flash lights.

However, if you get past that screen with flamers, it gets grisly, and he still needs to co-ordinate vehicles, in this case Hydra and Chimera to counter flyers. I am/game an Eldar.

By the by, he did a thousand points where HQ & 2 troops deployed and everything else came on first turn, Dawn of war scenario I think. The opponent was an Ork who hoped to swamp him. But HQ & two platoons meant the only thing missing from the guard was his Hydra and the Orks hit the guard line like the Scots at Culloden. It was ugly as the green tide melted in front of the fat red line.