How To Beat IG

[ElectricPaladin]

I hate the IG codex. I honestly think that it's the worst codex in the game. I know some people claim that dubious honor belongs to the Grey Knights, or the Necrons, or even the Blood Angels. For me, it's IG. I hate that they can build any kind of list, from decent close combat to blobs of infantry to wall of tanks. I hate that they have at least one example of every trick possible, from infiltrators to deep striking special characters to outflanking to reserves manipulation. I hate how cheap their tanks are. I hate them with the burning, fiery passion of a thousand suns. I want to play Chaos or Nids, just so I can kill those T3 b@stards in the most horrible and humiliating way possible.

For the record, most IG players I've met are perfectly cool people, very sportsmanlike and fun to play. Hate the army, not the player.

So, how do I kill these sons of b^tches?

For the record, I play jump Blood Angels, mechanized Space Marines, and Tau. I'd like to avoid expanding my collection too much - hence this post being on tactics rather than list building - but I'm open to comments of "you really need a X, Y, and Z," though I'm more interested in the follow-up "and this is how you use them."

[brewskiletta]

I've found that charging them tends to work pretty well.

All joking aside, I play Eldar, which seems like it shouldn't be a good matchup, but I do very well against Guard. The most important thing is not to give them many (any) good targets to shoot at. Secondly, you have to threaten the tanks. I generally run a jetlock council. This forces my opponent to bubble wrap their tanks with many of their guardsmen. Add in some snipers to force pinning checks and an extra CC squad or two, and you force them to be reactionary. Again, the best best thing you can do is not give them easy targets, b/c they WILL kill whatever they're shooting. Oh, one last annoying trick - put your 2+ save independent character at the front of a unit and take all the wounds on them (with 2+ look out sir saves). This will infuriate opponents who rely on battle tanks to clear your units out - though it doesn't work as well against basilisks.

[Iceman]

I play Imperial Guard and get beaten by Blood Angels at least 50% of the time. Close combat kills me virtually every time. A few drop pods in my midst or a landraider delivering some terminators or heck, even regular assault marines getting close enough to assault will kill me off pretty quickly. I win whenever my opponent divides up his forces and/or gives me too many targets in the open.

[ElectricPaladin]

So, what it sounds like you're saying is that with my two power armor forces, what I should do is play extremely aggressively. Lay all objectives in my opponent's deployment zone, rhino rush (or jump pack zoom) at their lines, and get into close combat as soon as possible. Let my 100% shooty elements, like my hellfire dreadnought, hang back in cover and try to take out a tank or two before they die.

I'll try that next time.

Any other thoughts?

[brewskiletta]

I win whenever my opponent divides up his forces and/or gives me too many targets in the open.

Seriously, this is the key. Be like water. Flow to where he can't blow you to bits.

[magickbk]

It's kind of a double-edged sword: you need to keep out of the line of fire, while also aggressively charging in...

I'm going to be talking from the opposite side, since I play Guard, but I almost always have them allied with some sort of Inquisition stuff. It's a different beast depending on what your opponent takes, but against a relatively rounded force is what I will focus on. You want to concentrate your attacks to even the playing field as quickly as possible. Go after the tanks first, Speeders with meltas, drop pods with meltas, that sort of thing. Second target should be the little units, Command Groups and Special or Heavy Weapon Squads; focus on the squads with hurty stuff like plasma guns first, then go after the buff units so they can't issue orders. If they blob, you'll need to coordinate charges so that they only get Overwatch against one unit. See DarkLink's thread about assault to see how you can pull those blobs out of position, and minimize incoming Overwatch fire and returning attacks. Primarily, you want to hold back in the beginning, take out those tanks, and force the guard to move into shooting position, don't just run face first into guns. I can say from experience that against basic guard units, your power armor should last a long time. I do most of my damage with battle cannons, heavy squads, and command groups, and then my basic infantry struggles to do much more damage against 3+.

[Aegwymourn]

A huge part of how to beat IG depends on two things you cannot control. What kind of IG list they bring and how good the player's tactics are. Like you and others have pointed out IG are so flexible it becomes hard to formulate a decent plan, unlike so many other armies (look tyranids - shoot the big ones!). Also if your opponent is a good general they can make the game much harder since your armies all have a pre-defined plan. The only success with Tau that I have had vs IG armies is to use both our superior mobility and range to your advantage. Force them to make bad choices (does he stay out of range or does he move out of cover) and hopefully you can capitalize on his mistakes. Also I always ask my opponent for tips after the game. I find that their point of view really does help learn what I could have done differently.

[Wolfshade]

I play against IG reguarly both with BA and Orks, both times the key is charging. Big tanks are great, but can't fire into CC, deny your enemy the ability to shoot you. I've also found guard blobs still end up with issues against nobs or boyz even being out numbered 3:1 they go down nicely.
The big thing is don't try and beat the guard at fire, that is their strength and unless you have a brilliant gun line you will find yourself out shot. Though having said that I have seen a Tau army just shoot them off the board once.

[jifel]

I play Tyranids. My method of facing IG has always been to advance and make him run away, while using cover to get survivability. Normally I use a flyrant to hit a key target or better yet get locked in assault, and mostly to distract him. Then, hold objectives and dare him to push back at me. Hive Guard make IG vehicles cry, if they get close they get pounded. This wouldn't work in a Kill Point game though, to be fair... in that case I'd hide gants and just shove 40 Toughness 6 wounds down his throat.

[Red Brigade]

My main opponent uses IG. Plays a heavy artillery list, backed with loads of infantry so that he can prevent/punish deep strikers. Playing Chaos, Eldar, and Nids makes it pretty hard to counter, mostly because any infantry I have are wiped off the table thanks to some artillery dice that HAVE to be loaded or something.
I find I do best against it when just rushing everything at the front line. It really is a zero-sum game at times though. For BA and SM, maybe getting some scouts with locater beacons on the board to deep strike closer? Might help close the gap quicker.

[entendre_entendre]

You want to beat IG? You have to neutralize whatever his biggest threat is right away. Now this seems vague because it is. You have to look at his list and your own list and see what is going to mess you up the most. For example:
Your opponent has a Manticore and a LR Executioner. Both of these are huge threats, but you only have enough firepower to kill one a turn. Which do you try to kill first? At this point you have to look at your own list and see what could mess you up more. Are you mechanized? Kill dat Manticore before you're stuck in your DZ. You're running an Assault Marine BA list? Kill the Executioner first, your power armour laughs at AP4 even if it causes instant death.

This is the kind of thinking you're going to have to use to crack open the shell of IG. There is no one tool for doing this unfortunately aside from massed assaults, which 6th does not favour on the whole. Also: focus fire on one target until it is no longer a threat. Even shaking that Executioner removes its primary threat, but you do need to deal with it next turn. Hull points help you here as many guard lists rely on vehicles to do the heavy lifting. A librarian with Objuration Mechanicum can be especially annoying if only for the automatic Haywire hit.

With your Tau, use your railguns to reach out and touch him in his deployment. With TLoS,you should be able to find any hiding artillery units. Abuse your shrouded 3+ cover tanks to the extreme and try to limit the amount of fire incoming to your units. Getting into a straight up gunfight with Guard is a risky game that is stacked against you currently. DS your suits into his backlines will shift his fire, but they can be wiped in a turn of shooting fairly easily if they get straight up turned on by his entire army. A refused flank can help minimize incoming fire, but he'll probably still be able to range you.

With your Marine armies, if you roll Hammer and Anvil you're probably screwed. He'll probably deploy within 12" of the board edge you come to him. Depending on the mission however, you may be able to bait him into coming to you by placing objectives in his half of the board, but closer to the centre, forcing him to move from his (presumed) cover camping positions. This can be use to spring board assaults closer to his main lines.

Drop Pods are an easy way to get up and close. Just keep in mind that his entire army WILL try to kill those units that drop in his face. You can use this to your advantage by distracting him with these 'expendable' units while the rest closes in. The pod is also useful for LoS blocking. This could work with your BA. Drop the pods turn one- run and odd number, and never drop just one, so you'll want 3+ (one can be empty if you want) to be an actual threat- to drop a lot turn 1, hide behind the pods for cover, take pot shots, assault turn 2 if still alive. While this is happening, the rest of your army is charging forwards hoping to be in a position to threaten targets from turn 3 onwards. You will take heavy casualties, especially on the pod squads, but you are facing Guard on their best deployment, so you shouldn't expect a walk in the park.

Assault can also be a problem if you assault a blob squad with flamers and Straken nearby. 20-50 guys with 2-5 flamers + overwatch + counterattack + stubborn = brutal for any assaulting unit. Mind you, that unit will be 200-450 points depending on setup. Tying something like that up even for a turn or two can be useful even if you get clubbed to death. Just try to see what he's going for and try to limit his strengths.

Hope that helps.

[Learn2Eel]

Fast close combat armies tend to screw Imperial Guard over pretty quickly. It depends on what type of Imperial Guard list you come up against though. Outshooting them typically won't work.

[Mr Mystery]

If you've got Sternguard, I'mma go ahead and state the obvious....

Melta and Flamer Combi-weapons. Should prove sufficient threat to attract their attention, and if you come in via drop pod, you can potentially do serious damage before the inevitable deulge of retribution fire. Key to this, as with many tactics is to try and spot his dependant units. If he has something he has obviously based his army around, removing that can prove painful. If you can time this correctly (tricky of course due to deepstrike!) you can do this whilst making an overall push with your army. Opponent is then left with the quandry of whether to split his firepower, and if not, what does he want to concentrate on.

IG deal exceptionally well with piecemeal attacks, even with just the humble lasgun. If you can conspire to approach with multiple threats, they face a much harder task.

For my Necrons (who are yet to face IG I admit) I intend to do this with Tomb Blades with the particle thingy (if I'm lucky, I literally can't miss!) and my fliers, whilst my infantry push forwards, or pull back as the battle dictates. I'd imagine my solitary Doomscythe will attract a lot of firepower, simply because it's Deathray can potentially bum a lot of tanks in a single shot. Tomb Blades should prove just resilient enough to draw significant firepower, especially if they can demonstrate just how nasty 5 S6 blast templates can be against infantry packed in a tight formation. Other than that, cross my fingers and hope my generally ubiquitous gauss weapons can mess him up!

[DarkLink]

Sternguard are an excellent choice. 2-3 combi-flamers and plenty of combi-meltas will let you hit squads in cover and kill a couple of his vehicles, and still have melta for a second round of killing so he has to deal with you. Dual squads in drop pods should work well, and you'd still have a third elite slot open.

[Judgeman]

I fought against IG recently with standard marines and BA allies in which I decided to go in flyer heavy borrowing a friends stormraven, my opponent simply could not deal with three flyers coming at him, like many IG army's I've played he relied solely upon blast templates to do heavy damage, with this nuteralised the army crumbled after a few turns of strafing his tanks and nailing command squads and other priority targets such as hydra's to protect his army. After which I was free to close in with rhinos meeting very little resistance.

[Sainhann]

I fought against IG recently with standard marines and BA allies in which I decided to go in flyer heavy borrowing a friends stormraven, my opponent simply could not deal with three flyers coming at him, like many IG army's I've played he relied solely upon blast templates to do heavy damage, with this nuteralised the army crumbled after a few turns of strafing his tanks and nailing command squads and other priority targets such as hydra's to protect his army. After which I was free to close in with rhinos meeting very little resistance.

Would be interesting to see how that would fare against a mostly Imperial Guard foot army that only has 4 Chimeras in it.

186 Guardsmen and the above Chimeras.

But depending on the type of Imperial Guard army that you expect to face would determine on just what would be good against it.

If tank heavy you would want fire power fire power so that you can hull/destroy them.

Against an Imperial Guard army like mine (heavy on the foot troopers) then Flamers and other blast templates weapons.

Yes close combat can chew them up but when there are 186 on the table and that you can only chew up one squad at a time with a single close combat unit that is not a good away to go.

Because after you chew up that squad your unit will the prime target for the rest of the army.

[DarkLink]

Multi-charge.

[Sainhann]

Multi-charge.

True, but a Imperial Guard foot army has lots of things to charge and when the Imperial Guard player know that his Guardsmen are nothing but cannon fodder and can care less if 1-3 squads get charged at the same time.

Because since they are guardsmen those ten guys will either be killed or they will break from the close combat.

Thus leaving the victors standing there to be shot at.

When you have 186 infantry models losing 40-50 of them still means that there will be 136-146 left.

The best model count that I can get with Space Marines is 54-63 models at 2000 points and most armies will have far less than this.

My Imperial Guard is design knowing that I will lose guys (they are just cannon fodder). Space Marine and many other armies are not.

[Pendragon38]

Thunder Fire Cannons = dead IGs, that's all I'm gonna say

[Force21]

Thunder Fire Cannons = dead IGs, that's all I'm gonna say

+1

I play mostly foot guard with abut 100+ guys & a few tanks...

thunderfire cannons/Whirlwinds & anything thats AP 5 or better & ignores cover makes infantry heavy army's (like mine) sad panda bear...

the biggest problem with trying to counter a Guard army is... what type oh army it is... like mine....mostly troops & some armor to back em up.

but you could run into full armored lists with like 6 Chimera's, Russ's or Hellhound's

Artillery lists can be real bad too...3 Basilisk's...Manticore's...ugh...that can be bad...


Now if you know what you are going up against...like going to a tourny that has alot of the same guard list...then it is not to bad, just focus on what the key/theme/or what carrys that army....like 3 Russ's blasting your army away... you should make a list that stops or half the amount of firepower that the tanks shoot like 1st turn...

or kill the Company Command Squad if the list is made around say like Creed/Kell or old "Iron Hand" Straken...or if its a Flyer list bring lots a AA... Etc...etc.

The Guard Codex I think is one of the most powerful as it has quite a few options...

anyway its a bit late & I may be rambling but... its just my .02 cents.