Howdy fellow whammerhammer nerds, Mr.MoreTanks here today to talk about one of my favorite, if not my actual favorite, 40k armies in the game: the Imperial Guard.
Mr.MoreTanks writes in an adult tone and uses adult language. -Ed.
Before you go all, “Astra Militarum” on me, let me remind you that that name is fucking stupid. This is going to be a long one, but I’ve know people have been interested in an article on this subject for a while now so buckle up.
I’ve been playing 40k for a little over a decade now and have enjoyed owning a Guard army for about eight of those years. The game has changed quite a bit since 4th edition and the Guard has adapted along with it. One of the greatest strengths of the book today is its flexibility and options that are always at least solid choices that help the book to keep up with competitive metas and new codexes.
So I’m going to go through this book and talk about what the Guard can do in the competitive scene of the game. I play almost exclusively under the ITC for just at home games and tournament events, so keep that in mind when I’m talking about playing to the missions or dealing with common lists or other unique aspects of the ITC. This includes looking at how Forgeworld plays into making the Guard an even stronger book, though FW is hardly a necessary inclusion to keep the Guard competitive in my own humble opinion.
So how do you build a list with Guard as the primary and still maintain a competitive edge? I’ll throw down a list that I think can do well in the ITC format and tournament scene and break it down and show you why it has the tools to succeed.
1,849pts. – Imperial Guard
344pts. – HQ.
145pts. – Commissar Yarrick
65pts. – Lord Commissar
25pts. – Priest
25pts. – Priest
84pts. – Ordo Xenos Inquisitor, Psyker level 1, force sword, 3 servo skulls, Tome of Vethric
1,050pts. – Troops
45pts. – Platoon Command Squad, 3 flamers
75pts. – Infantry Squad, power axe, meltabombs, flamer
75pts. – Infantry Squad, power axe, meltabombs, flamer
75pts. – Infantry Squad, power axe, meltabombs, flamer
70pts. – Infantry Squad, power axe, meltabombs
70pts. – Infantry Squad, power axe, meltabombs
30pts. – Platoon Command Squad
75pts. – Infantry Squad, lascannon, meltabombs
75pts. – Infantry Squad, lascannon, meltabombs
70pts. – Infantry Squad, lascannon
70pts. – Infantry Squad, lascannon
30pts. – Platoon Command Squad
75pts. – Infantry Squad, lascannon, meltabombs
75pts. – Infantry Squad, lascannon, meltabombs
70pts. – Infantry Squad, lascannon
70pts. – Infantry Squad, lascannon
325pts. – Fast Attack
170pts. – Vendetta
155pts. – Vulture, twin-linked punisher cannons
130pts. – Heavy Support
65pts. – Wyvern
65pts. – Wyvern
Let’s start with the HQ, first of all I love Yarrick, he is in my humble opinion one of the best characters in the game right now. If he’s your Warlord he also becomes a point that is very difficult to give up to an opponent between Eternal Warrior, Independent Character, and Iron Will. Plus all of his normal Commissar morale buffs and rules means that he will never be swept in combat; but what REALLY takes the cake is orders.
Orders are what make the Guard win. Between Ignore Cover, Monster Hunter or Tank Hunter against MCs and Vehicles, as well as the infamous First Rank Second Rank orders, you’ve got some options in your toolbox, and that’s not even going into the other orders that while not seemingly your first choice every turn, allow more flexibility and can help the Guard out of tight spots. Split Fire, Get Back in the Fight, and Forwards for the Emperor! are all great orders that are all too often forgotten and underappreciated. These orders help to counter what is popular and strong in the meta-scene right now. Everyone HATES Ignore Cover, from Wave Serpents, to Bugs, to Tau battle suits in ruins, to White Scars. Ignore Cover lascannons will fuck you up.
So with all of the positives of Yarrick, it seems obvious to make him your Warlord right? Even his Warlord trait is amazing, especially when playing with a Guard army that pulls MSU. At first I was making this common mistake with Yarrick, immediately making him the Warlord to deny points and get a reliable solid Warlord Trait, then my friend pointed out something magical.
I love the Guard Warlord table and think it can be considered close to on par with any other Codex Warlord table, it has some really awesome stuff on it if you know how to build an army to properly take full advantage of it. In this list above, we’ll make the Lord Commissar our Warlord and take advantage of the flexible options that gives us. The Warlord table gives us a few great options, for starters, you have a third of a chance of getting another character that can issue orders while hiding inside a nice cozy Guard blob. As previously discussed, orders win games, so the benefits here go without saying. Another option is to gain the Relentless special rule, you know how awesome it is to move 40 Guardsmen and shoot 4 lascannons at full BS? It’s fucking great. Another chance we have of rolling is Draconian Disciplinarian, the same as Yarrick’s. We pointed out that Yarrick’s is already a plus for helping to counter morale, which is always a serious concern for the Guard, and thus we have a less then favorable trait, but a useful one none the less. Another gives Preferred Enemy to the Warlord and his unit against a whole Codex. Fuck yeah, ignore cover lascannons with Preferred Enemy? I’ll take that any day. Finally, perhaps the least exciting for this army list is the D3 Outflanking units. Still, our combat blob may like the ability to Outflank or maybe our fliers. A Vendetta and Vulture Outflanking will cause more than some headaches for many opponents.
So we have a Warlord table that buffs our army in a variety of excellent ways, and a Warlord that can help us take full advantage of those traits by not locking us into a single set choice. To help keep the army built the way we want it, the Lord Commissar stays nice and cheap. He’s going to be tucked safely away into whatever lascannon blob Yarrick doesn’t end up in, and so doesn’t really need any extra toys.
Next we have the Priests and man are these things awesome! They can turn a moderately annoying close combat unit into one of the most dangerous assault units in the game. Because they’re pretty fragile despite having a rosarius and a 2+ Look Out Sir! roll, we’ll take two. Can’t be too careful. These guys go straight into the combat blob to dish out some serious buffs. On the charge, your blob could be re-rolling to hit, wound, and their own saves. This ability is also awesome because it applies to all models in the Priest’s unit, so when playing with Allies, they also benefit from the prayers as well. While Leadership 7 is far from the most reliable thing, have two Priests means that you have an excellent shot at getting off the hymn that you REALLY need. Fearless keeps the blob around, and while not being able to Go to Ground can be a hassle, usually its fine in the end. You have so many models in the combat blob that you’re really not too worried about Going to Ground; besides, it’s a combat blob, you want that thing moving at all times.
Finally we come to the one unit that isn’t from the book, the Inquisitor. This guy offers some more great toys that continues our trend of buffing blobs from somewhat meh units into death dealers. You roll on Divination, and this can influence where he goes. Usually you’ll be sticking him into the combat blob. The chance of a 4+ Invulnerable save or Overwatch at full BS are excellent buffs. Only have one additional psychic dice can be an issue, but in my experience your opponent will either be bringing so many dice it won’t matter, or nothing so it won’t matter there either. If you don’t get either of those powers then Prescience on a lascannon blob is still an excellent option. Prescience is less needed on the combat blob, because the Priests buff allows them to re-roll to hit in the first round of combat no matter what. One option you can consider is cutting the 3 flamers from the PCS and give the Inquisitor rad-grenades. This essentially will always commit him to the combat blob, but something losing a Toughness value while in combat with a blob that re-rolls to hit and potentially to wound will ruin just about everything. It also makes the buff to the Inquisitor’s strength though the force axe even more significant. While not necessarily a requirement, this choice could REALLY help the combat blob. I have to test this list more to see where the Inquisitor usually ends up to see if the switch is worth it. I’m leaning to switching it, but we’ll see. The last important point worth mentioning that the Inquisitor brings is the addition of the Servo Skulls. These guys deny Scouts and Infiltrators which can make all the difference for your army by giving you more time to kill scary or annoying units at range.
So now that we’ve gone through the HQ choices, let’s look at the Troops. Platoons are awesome, and anyone who tells you otherwise is stupid or playing some other game. Let’s look at the two identical Platoons. Platoon Command Squads can have their uses, in 6th I loved sticking a single mortar in them and hiding behind terrain on an objective and trying to snipe characters or special/heavy weapons. Didn’t always work, but at 5 points, who gives a shit? It was even better when the unit was occasionally pinned. With the changes to Barrage and Pinning, this option is less enticing, but still available. This time though I left them naked. Keep them in Reserves and just walk them on. If there are isolated and hard to get to Objectives and your Warlord gets the Outflank trait, maybe these guys can be an option. They don’t add a ton to your army and are a tax. Their order abilities are something to keep in mind, but they lack the best three and so aren’t too critical. What we really care about are the two lascannon blobs, in these we will stick Yarrick and the Lord Commissar. That takes care of morale issues and buffs these guys into the scary part of the list. 4 Ignore Cover lascannons are no joke. And with so many bodies, it’s pretty easy to stretch the unit out to make it to Objectives further out away from cover while the lascannons remain stationary, pumping out death. The meltabombs help keep things like wounded MCs and damaged Knights honest. There are only two, but we don’t really want to commit anything beyond that into them at this point as there really isn’t anywhere easy to cut points in this list. For the lascannon blobs it’s pretty basic, camp near or on some Objectives preferably in terrain, but more importantly with as much board coverage as possible, and go to work. Board control wins games, and while you lack the speed to control where the models go onto the board, you have the next best thing, being able to reach out and touch nearly everything you see. These blobs do work against all matters of vehicles and MCs, and on your first turn, you can really punish FMCs on the ground. During late game, if you have killed what you needed to kill, don’t be afraid to push out and grab Objectives if you need to.
Next we’ll look at the combat blob. I’ve been playing around with this guy for the better part of the last two editions now and I must say, I love it. There aren’t really any units this monster is afraid of. Sure, there are plenty of things that waste Guardsmen, but then they have to deal with a return of a ton of re-rolling power axes coming back at them or meltabombs. With the Priests adding their Hymns, this blob will clean house. MCs, vehicles, super-heavies, gargantuan creatures, deathstars, you name it; this thing eats them all. There are some short comings though to be had for sure. The first one is, it’s slow. With Orders you can boost the odds you’ll roll a 6 on your Run move, but that’s about as good as it can get with this list in speeding up the foot slogging. The second issue is that anytime something shoots at this unit, it will kill guys. You could save some potentially by sticking in terrain, but that slows the blob more. Your best solution here is to just take the casualties like any good Guard CO or Commissar would and not give a fuck. Push up fast and take up as much area as you can with the blob, getting into combat as often as you can with as many things as you can is critical. It ties up enemy units for a long time, and it will almost certainly kill them. Plus, the consolidation moves will help give you a little speed boost. A spread out blob also has less to fear from templates and can threaten more Objectives at once. This last point is key as it makes your opponent HAVE to deal with the blob. While you can only hold one Objective in 7th, you can make it so that your opponent can’t hold other ones. Just put Guardsmen on top of them and stretch the blob out so that it is holding multiple Objectives, denying all by pushing the enemy back outside of 3 inches and then you simply pick the Objective you need the most to win. If you pressure the enemy correctly with the rest of your army, you should have enough of the combat blob left to pull this on at least two objectives.
Next, let’s look at the two Fast Attack units and what they bring to the list. First off, the Vendetta. This guy is still doing just fine. Flyrants hate Vendettas, hell any MC hates them, vehicles aren’t too fond of 3 twin-linked lascannons coming their way either. To top it all off, this guy will be carrying your Platoon Command Squad with the 3 flamers (unless we cut them for the Inquisitor’s grenades, but even if we did that, we’d still stick one PCS in here). Late game you drop into hover mode on an Objective so far away that everyone forgot about it a put 5 dudesmen on it, in cover if possible. If Night Fight didn’t happen at the beginning of the game, make sure you check it for late game, as it plus some cover could save the PCS’s lives. If they have flamers, these guys are perfect for clearing the last remnants of an enemy scouring unit off of an Objective, especially one your opponent chalked up as safe and left nothing else to support. The Vendetta meanwhile will be picking off models where ever you need. While this is essentially your best and some would argue only answer to fliers, the Vendetta is pretty sturdy with 3 hull points and AV 12 on the front and sides. At 170pts, it’s affordable and fairly priced. Even though we miss our 12 model transport capacity, we can make 5 work. The Vendetta has a lot going for it, the transport ability, speed, survivability, weaponry, and reliability all make it something that every Guard player should keep in mind while list building.
Next up, one of my favorite fliers in the game, the Vulture. This guy packs a mean punch. The same survivability of the Vendetta gives it something to be proud of. Rolling in with a Heavy 20 twin-linked gun that has the Strafing Run rule is just badass. It’s going to put some serious hurt down on whatever it unloads. Plus, Vector Dancer ensures that you will nearly always be shooting at something valuable. FMCs don’t like this guy either, and against some of the less armored fliers, Strength 5 is still something to be worried about. I don’t have too much more to say on this guy, because I don’t really have to. It’s fast, maneuverable, tough, and killy, especially if your target is on the ground.
Finally we come to the Heavy Support choices. Let me first get some bitching out of the way; FUCK YOU GAMES WORKSHOP FOR TAKING AWAY MY ORDNANCE BATTERIES!!! NOW I HAVE TO FUCKING MAKE SURE THAT FORGEWORLD IS OKAY BEFORE I USE MY FUCKING AWESOME MODELS! But I’m not unreasonable, GW did give us something wonderful in return. When you’re down on points, but need something that can still give you kill power, look no further than the humble Wyvern. I fucking love these things. I can’t count on my hand the number of times I haven’t made my points back with this thing. Twice, and both times it was killed before I got to shoot it. I don’t have to tell you guys that 4 twin-linked Strength 4 AP 6Ignore Cover Shred barrage shots are good. I will anyways though, this thing is good. Even though barrage losing Pinning is an annoying cut, sniping out special weapons or characters has never been easier than with the Wyvern. All of those shots are going to be accurate with all of those re-rolls to hit, and when you do start covering models, you’re going to get a ton of wounds on a unit because you’re re-rolling to wound. The Ignore Cover part is a blessing from above, as pesky DE bikes, camo-cloaked Scouts, Mantle Bikeseers all fear the might of the Wyvern. So we brought two. Plus, these things go to town on really anytime of Infantry, even MEQs worry about the number of saves they’ll be taking when the dice start to roll. I don’t need to tell you guys that the Chimera chaise isn’t anything special to write home about, so make sure you’re sticking these things behind some cover facing forward, if not behind some LOS blocking terrain. At 65pts a pop, there really isn’t a good reason not to take one, and they fill a hole that this list had.
So let’s review what this list has going for it. Tons of Ignore Cover lascannons, tons of Ignore Cover blasts, tons of cheap Objective Secure bodies, little to no concern with Morale, decent anti-air capabilities, strong close combat capabilities, resilient Kill Points (or ways to hide the ones that are not), and excellent board presence all make for winning points. There are some concerns with the list, mainly speed. In the ITC, the Secondary uses a modified Maelstrom mission set, and on some of those missions, it’s going to be extremely difficult to get those points early to mid-game depending on where the Objectives are laid out and which Objectives are rolled up. If you’re just trying to kill things though or hold your own deployment zone, you’ll do fine. It can be very tempting to put your blobs or units out of place or in vulnerable positions in order to score a point or two on the Secondary, DON’T! This will help your opponent far more than it will help you. You need your models in the correct positions to dish out all the pain they can. Unless you can make it to that Objective in one turn, and camp it while still retaining dominance of the battlefield, forget about it.
While I’m certainly not under any delusions about what armies are considered the best right now, I do think that Guard are often underrepresented and under appreciated when talking about the tournament scene. This list may not take top spot at the LVO, but it will certainly be competitive. It has the tools to challenge the top units and builds and earn a smart player wins. What do you guys think? Can Guard be competitive? Do they rely on FW to do so? Will Superman save Lois Lane from Luthor? All this and more in the comments section!