Thread: Starting a second army

After I finish getting the terrain for the table for the house done, I'm thinking about starting a second army. Part of my motivation for doing a second army is to have something I can use to introduce friends to the game. My wife's interest in Eldar was fleeting, so I'm thinking about a guard army. Good idea or bad idea? I haven't really had much experience playing against guard, so I'm not sure what direction I should go. The idea of going toward vets in chimeras seems a little too similar to tactical marines in rhinos, so I guess I would be playing blob squads. Based on that, this is a list I put together, allying in my knight to fill some points and provide some punch. To bring it up to 1850, I can add another infantry squad to each platoon and a squadron of wyverns. Thoughts?

(Pardon the crappy Army Builder formatting)

1500 Pts - Codex: Astra Militarum Roster

Total Roster Cost: 1495

: Combined Arms Detachment (62#, 1120 pts)
. . 1 Leman Russ Command Squadron, 0 pts
. . . . 1 Knight Commander Pask's Leman Russ Punisher, 210 pts
. . . . 1 Leman Russ Battle Tank, 170 pts
. . . . . . Heavy Bolter sponsons
. . 1 Ministorum Priest, 25 pts
. . 1 Ministorum Priest, 25 pts
. . 1 Infantry Platoon, 0 pts
. . . . 1 Platoon Command Squad 130 pts
. . . . . . Meltagun x3
. . . . . . Vox-caster
. . . . . . Chimera
. . . . 1 Infantry Squad, 70 pts
. . . . . . Plasma gun
. . . . . . Vox-caster
. . . . 1 Infantry Squad, 55 pts
. . . . . . Vox-caster
. . . . 0 Heavy Weapons Squad, 75 pts
. . . . . . Autocannon x3
. . 1 Infantry Platoon, 0 pts
. . . . 1 Platoon Command Squad 130 pts
. . . . . . Meltagun x3
. . . . . . Vox-caster
. . . . . . Chimera
. . . . 1 Infantry Squad, 70 pts
. . . . . . Plasma gun
. . . . . . Vox-caster
. . . . 1 Infantry Squad, 55 pts
. . . . . . Vox-caster
. . . . 0 Heavy Weapons Squad, 105 pts
. . . . . . Lascannon x3

: Oathsworn Detachment (1#, 375 pts)
. . 1 Knight Paladin [KNI], 375 pts

i feel bad for your mother... i mean your guard

I think I like the idea of guard. I'm not sure I would like their play style. I want something that does more than my Ultramarines. I know there are more powerful builds than what I typically run, but I'm afraid of being That Guy. I want something shooty that will kill things. I'm not sure I would ever feel good about picking up handfuls of models, as I'm sure would be the case with blob guard. I like the aesthetic of guard. Considering I collect a lot more than play these days, I've got to like the models and I dig the Cadians. I'm open to suggestions for other factions. Something that I could ally with my marines or knight would be preferable, but I won't rule xenos or chaos out. When I got back into the hobby, I picked Ultramarines very naively. I love the army, but I'm getting bored with it, and it seems like there are a lot of factions that are better at doing stuff than marines.

Originally Posted by noodlers

ok now that makes a lot of sense. yes you are correct ultramarines are the most boring version of the most boring army which is space marines.

i have a large guard army and if you want to shoot stuff then you came to the right place. they have tanks and artillery for that purpose which are fun to use. also, the heavy weapons teams can take orders which are fun to use as well. while 2 wyverns will kill a lot and scare people, the rest of the stuff is mediocre from a power gaming perspective, so no matter what you do you wont be that guy.

i actually did the same thing you are contemplating, which is start with space marines and move to guard. i found it a lot of fun and improved my game as you have to use cover with guard as well as you can get swept. like necrons space marines have a large room for error when protecting your models.

so, i would say go ahead and start with all of the tanks and artillery as opposed to getting a blobs worth of men based upon what you said, in addition the blobs require a lot of finesse as the artillery and tanks do not.

here's an overview

https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Warhammer_4...rial_Guard(7E)

I can never see imperial guard working without at least 1 giant fearless blob.

Everything in Guard is extremely fragile in melee because AV 10 rear armor on 150+ point tanks and sweeping advances. You need a giant durable tarpit to play guard without being tabled turn 3 against any fast army like biker armies etc. it is also bubble wraps your army agains tturn 1/2 melta drop pods etc.

In other words Dandy. Drop the 2 heavy weapon teams and make one of those infantry platoons a 50 man platoon. (with krak grenades +melta bombs if you can. 50 dudes with krak grenades is hilariously effective).

So maybe one blob and two vet squads for a little more obsec?

Originally Posted by DandyPandy

So maybe one blob and two vet squads for a little more obsec?

It can all work. But you will need 50 fearless dudes against almost any army.


From my epxerience with Guard I can say the following are amazing and are a staple in all my IG lists.
-50 man blobs with priests. (krak grenades + melta if its guardsmen. conscripts are also amazing just due to the cheapness of it)
-platoon squad with 4 flamers in a Vendetta. (backfield ObSec scoring unit which is EXTREMELY hard to do with guard. and it gets your 5 man kill point off the ground!)
-Wyverns... avoid if you are going purely for casual fun. If you play against anything remotely competitive these things can level the playing field extremely well. Easily one of the most broken units in the game.


Useful allies
-Knight Crusader. This dude solves almost everything guard can't deal with. Murders battle companies. Guard provide it with awesome bubble wrap from melta. It also doubles as a solid counter charge unit. Guard and Crusaders perfectly compliment each other. Knight Paladins aren't a half bad second option though.
-Librarius conclave with divination. Divination is extremely powerful discipline for gaurd. Forewarning on a 50 man squad is amazing. Misfortune giving 150+ 'ignores cover' lasgun shots rending solves almost everything. Scriers gaze is AMAZING for such a slow army playing maelstrom. Foreboding is actually good on 50 gaurdmens. and perfect timing is always nice. so 5/6 powers are great for guard. Also if the conclave is white scars that 50 man blob gets hit and run... which is hilarious against parking lots of vehicles and monstrous creatures with 50 krak grenades...
-Inquistor with Servo Skulls + grenades. Servo skulls really ****-block alot of fast biker armies which gaurd are afraid of. They also work very well with all the blasts IG can throw down on turn 1. Rad/Psykotroke grenades in a 50 man blob is also extremely useful. Also makes his unit LD10 for orders I believe.

I haven't tried the whole Pask Punisher thing yet but it sounds great on paper as long as you can keep it bubble wrapped against Melta/Assault

As an ex guard player I can tell you the army is really fun at first with all the different stuff going in the list that is drastically different than SM. However I got rather board of the static and cumbersome play style and really grew to dread the sheer number of models and tanks I would have to lug to the game store every week to play with. An 1850pt army can easily have 100+ infantry and 10 vehicles. Be prepared for one of the more expensive and time consuming army projects out there. Saying that, I still really love their tanks and do miss my Demolisher with triple heavy flamer sponsons! (Back in 4th edition tanks were hard to kill in combat so this thing was insane, especially the turn after an unsuccessful assault and the enemy was all bunched up on my front armor!)

I played IG a lot in 3rd-5th, quite a bit in 6th, and not very often in 7th. The reason I don't play guard often in 7th ed is the model count is high and 7th ed takes a little longer to play. So, I play SW most of the time. IG is still fun to play, can still win, and there are tons of alternative IG models available now.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Victo...62170277152776

http://madrobotminiatures.com/zencar...roducts_id=119 My favorite