Hey guys, time for rubber to hit the road! I’ve got a crackpot list, let’s get started!
Hey guys, BigVik here. After weeks of talking about how to keep your cool at the table, to practice mindfully, to gage your weaknesses and strengths, etc. etc. I’m finally talking practice as opposed to theory.
Today I’ll be talking about my list, my perceived strengths and weaknesses for the list, my cheat sheet on how to play it, and how I plan to test the list.
My List
Battalion (Imperium, Astra Militarum, Cadian, troops obsec, CP+5)
HQ
Knight Commander Pask w/ Executioner cannon, plasma cannons, storm bolter, heavy bolter
Tank Commander w/ Executioner cannon, plasma cannons storm bolter, heavy bolter
Troops
Infantry Squad w/ mortar team
Infantry Squad w/ mortar team
Infantry Squad w/ mortar team
Supreme Command (Imperium, Astra Militarum, Cadian, CP+1)
HQ
Company Commander w/ Kurov’s Aquila, Warlord: Supreme Strategist
Lord of War
ShadowSword w/ 4 heavy bolter, lascannon sponsons
Vanguard (Imperium, Adeptus Astartes, Blood Angels, CP+1)
HQ
Sanguinary Priest w/ boltgun, jump pack
Elites
13 Death Company w/ Chainsword, bolter, 2 thunder hammers, jump pack
5 Death Company w/ Chainsword, bolter, 1 thunder hammer, jump pack
5 Death Company w/ Chainsword, bolter, 1 thunder hammer, jump pack
Total: 2000 pts, 10 CP’s
What the list does: This list is a combination of combined arms, threat overload, and death by math. The Blood Angels total to less than half of my Power Level, so I can deep strike all of them if I feel the need to.
There are 3 primary packages in the list; the blood angels are meant to meat grind dudes, the tank commanders and guardsmen are an anti-big things package, and the shadowsword with 2 psykers and engineer are the centerpiece of the list, meant to kill other centerpieces.
The List’s Strengths: This list can kill just about anything, it has plenty of units to throw onto objectives, has LOTS of CPs due to the recycling center that is the company commander, which ensures the blood angels have plenty to play in the sprinkler with.
The List’s Weaknesses: I have a lack of chaff, however with the new faq this is not as much of a problem, I still feel this list will have a VERY high mastery cap.
This list is also very vulnerable to terrain set up. In the upstate NY meta, where I play, there is a lack of proper line of sight blocking terrain, that shadowsword is IMPOSSIBLE to hide, meaning the list really wants to go first. However, with 14 drops, that will happen about 40% of the time, meaning I have to learn to play around this, or to see what needs to be ripped out of the list to get a Taurox or Chimera in the list to get those characters consolidated into 1 drop.
My Cheat Sheet/Plan of Execution by package:
Pask and bro: they need to find a central point, sit there, and shoot. Stratagems: Overlapping fields of fire
Super Heavy and support staff: the support staff hides behind Monsieur Brick, and he tries to survive and/or block my opponent up and/or kill every large targe he can get to, this will of course be while the psykers make him +1 to save and -1 to hit him, while the commander hides in a corner. Stratagems: Overlapping fields of fire, Defensive gunners, Crush Them
Death Company Package: these guys troll, they slam into my opponents line, they grind up low value dudes, or assault snipe vulnerable large targets using the thunder hammers, they use their jump packs to grab objectives, they take prisoners and make my characters impossible to target, etc. etc. Stratagems: Forlorn Fury, Auspex Scan (probably never), Upon Wings of Fire (objective grabbing), Descent of Angels (3d6 re-rolling is a THING), Vengeance for Sanguinus (for exploding 6’s or 4+’s depending on opponent), Honour the Chapter (Swing Again!!), Only in Death Does Duty End (Kill Lamartes in Assault, F***ing DO IT!)
What testing this list needs:
- What do I have to look out for, other than my super heavy getting killed top of 1?
- How much can I keep alive in the list for late game objective scoring, or will I have to go for progressive scoring?
- This is a personal thing, I need to grind at least 5 games in each ITC scenario, that’s 30 games, before I can truly feel that I’ve got the list PARTIALLY mastered
- I need to see about finding every tourney winning meta list, proxying, and playing against them, every single one. It’ll be challenging just from a logistical standpoint, but let’s see how well i can do it!
Well that’s it for today! Post in the comments what you’re up to from a competitive standpoint, what are your testing goals, what are your tournament goals?
Do you have an idea for an article in this series? POST’EM!
Quote of the week: “How can you think and hit at the same time?”- Yogi Berra
And as always, Frontline Gaming sells gaming goodies at a discount, every day!
Frontline Gaming will buy your used models for cash or store credit!
Let me know how this list works out for you, I have a similar list with my traitor guard except I have an imperial knight instead of the tanks, more infantry, and an additional primaris psyker.
Will do! I think I need more screens as the guardsmen will just fold, and I’m looking at whether the death company can deliver enough damage.
So 5 games to figure out what the list does, and 5 games with documentation on what the units accomplish and/or how they force my opponent to act, after that, I’ll consider changes. Gotta take my own medicine, lol
If your meta is that bad for protecting the Shadowsword, is there any reason you do not move the company commander over to the other Cadian detachment, add another Primaris to the Supreme Command (or alternatively drop them completely and just use an auxiliary super-heavy detachment) and make the Shadowsword Tallarn? You can still outflank into your own deployment zone turn 1 so you should not lose much shooting. It is certainly less killy but far more survivable, plus a lot of big things you want to shoot it at are either Chaos (so you will be using Vengeance for Cadia) or titanic and you get +1 to hit anyway.
Since the regiment doctrines would not be essential for either model you could actually keep the whole thing the same and just change the of the Shadowsword if you wanted to. Your company commander would lose the Cadian doctrine but I cannot imagine that coming up much. No Tallarn doctrine on the Shadowsword is not great but not game-breaking.
What is your game plan against opponents with Nurglings/Scouts/Tau infiltrators/Alpha Legion/Raven Guard? They should be able to box you out of a good deep strike zone and can potentially lock up most of your shooting T1. Do you keep the Blood Angels on the board behind the Guard in deployment and then Forlorn Hope as needed based on mission/first turn/what the opponent actually puts on the table? Or is there another game plan?
Just some thoughts/ideas as you test. I am trying to stay more pure Guard myself but always nice to see what everyone is doing out of our Codex.
Hey man! Thanks for writing!
Yea, I used to field the shadowsword as vostroyan so I could use the heirloom weapons doctrine to give +1 to hit if I wasn’t using vengeance for cadia. I was looking at making the super heavy tallarn as well, I’ll get a couple games in using that!
Part of my experiment with this list is just how little bubble wrap there is, with the new faq, I should be able to get 2 turns of high quality shooting, and proper target prioritization should have any assault hammer having to assault into the brick that is the shadowsword. The reason why this works in my meta is that there is a fundamental lack of truly line of sight blocking, so pretty much any assaulter will be partially within line of sight for the shadowsword to remove the unit when it tries to charge.
The death company will be a hammer against non assault armies, and a counter charge/extra tarpit against assault bricks/ a super heavy killer if my opponent can kill off my super heavy.
Depending on what I need, forlorn hope can be used as a deep strike mitigator, or just a way of killing off chaff infiltrators. Or they’ll be deep striked as need, as discussed above.
The guardsmen are JUST for keeping deepstrikers off my army, they’ll spread out on the line if my opponent doesn’t have a ton of shooting, or scatter to the winds using orders from ruins and what not for deep strike prevention depending on the match up and the table.
Again thanks for posting, and post up the list you’ve been playing, I’d love to see it!
The last GT I played in I used this list:
2,000 pts. Imperial Guard: 12 CPs* [113 PL]
Detachment I: Supreme Command
Headquarters
Wolf Lord On Thunderwolf: Thunder Hammer, Storm Shield 144 pts. [8 PL]
Wolf Lord On Thunderwolf: Thunder Hammer, Storm Shield 144 pts. [8 PL]
Wolf Guard Battle Leader On Thunderwolf: Thunder Hammer, Storm Shield 130 pts. [6 PL]
Detachment II: Super-Heavy Auxiliary
Shadowsword: Volcano Cannon, Twin Heavy Bolter, Storm Bolter 406 pts. [26 PL]
Detachment III: Brigade
Headquarters
Company Commander: Laspistol and Chainsword 30 pts. Warlord Trait: Grand Strategist Relic: Kirov’s Aquila [2 PL]
Primaris Psyker: 46 pts. (Nightshroud, Psychic Maelstrom) [2 PL]
Primaris Psyker: 46 pts. (Psychic Barrier, Psychic Maelstrom) [2 PL]
Fast Attack
Rough Riders – x9 with Hunting Lances 90 pts. [5 PL]
Rough Riders – x9 with Hunting Lances 90 pts. [5 PL]
Rough Riders – x9 with Hunting Lances 90 pts. [5 PL]
Elites
Astropath: Laspistol 30 pts. (Mental Fortitude) [1 PL]
Astropath: Laspistol 30 pts. (Psychic Maelstrom) [1 PL]
Platoon Commander: Laspistol and Chainsword 20 pts. Relic: Relic Of Lost Cadia [2 PL]
Troops
Conscripts – x30 120 pts. [4 PL]
Infantry Squad: Mortar, Plasma Gun 52 pts. [3 PL]
Infantry Squad: Mortar, Plasma Gun 52 pts. [3 PL]
Infantry Squad: Mortar, Plasma Gun 52 pts. [3 PL]
Infantry Squad: Mortar, Plasma Gun 52 pts. [3 PL]
Infantry Squad: Mortar, Plasma Gun 52 pts. [3 PL]
Heavy Support
Basilisk: Heavy Bolter 108 pts. [7 PL]
Basilisk: Heavy Bolter 108 pts. [7 PL]
Basilisk: Heavy Bolter 108 pts. [7 PL]
*Includes -1 CP for first additional relic.
You can find a write-up here: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/754573.page
I am going to a major in June and the post-FAQ version is looking like this:
2,000 pts. Imperial Guard: 14 CPs* [113 PL] *(Includes 1 additional Relic)
Detachment I: Super-Heavy Auxiliary
Shadowsword: Volcano Cannon, Twin Heavy Bolter and Storm Bolter 406 pts. [26 PL]
Detachment II: Brigade
Headquarters
Company Commander: Laspistol and Chainsword 30 pts. Warlord Trait: Grand Strategist
Relic: Kirov’s Aquila [2 PL]
Primaris Psyker: 46 pts. (Nightshroud, Psychic Maelstrom) [2 PL]
Primaris Psyker: 46 pts. (Psychic Barrier, Psychic Maelstrom) [2 PL]
Fast Attack
Rough Riders – x4 with Hunting Lances, Sgt. with Hunting Lance and Plasma Pistol, x2 with Plasma Guns 85 pts. [5 PL]
Rough Riders – x4 with Hunting Lances, Sgt. with Hunting Lance and Plasma Pistol, x2 with Plasma Guns 85 pts. [5 PL]
Rough Riders – x4 with Hunting Lances, Sgt. with Hunting Lance and Plasma Pistol, x2 with Plasma Guns 85 pts. [5 PL]
Elites
Astropath: Laspistol 30 pts. (Mental Fortitude) [1 PL]
Astropath: Laspistol 30 pts. (Psychic Maelstrom) [1 PL]
Platoon Commander: Laspistol and Chainsword 20 pts. Relic: Relic Of Lost Cadia [2 PL]
Troops
Conscripts – x30 120 pts. [4 PL]
Infantry Squad: Mortar, Plasma Gun 52 pts. [3 PL]
Infantry Squad: Mortar, Plasma Gun 52 pts. [3 PL]
Infantry Squad: Mortar, Plasma Gun 52 pts. [3 PL]
Infantry Squad: Mortar, Plasma Gun 52 pts. [3 PL]
Infantry Squad: Mortar, Plasma Gun 52 pts. [3 PL]
Heavy Support
x2 Basilisk: Earthshaker Cannon and Heavy Bolter 216 pts. [14 PL]
x2 Basilisk: Earthshaker Cannon and Heavy Bolter 216 pts. [14 PL]
x2 Basilisk: Earthshaker Cannon and Heavy Bolter 216 pts. [14 PL]
Hydra: Hydra Quad Autocannon and Heavy Bolter 108 pts. [7 PL]
hey man, thanks for reading. This list looks pretty good! as there is definitely a comnbined armes approach which I really like!
A quick thing, I’m pretty sure astropaths are 36 points due to the cost of their staves which they have to take, probably a typo, but otherwise this list keeps pretty much in line with the metrics that I derived for guard when the codex first came out!
Tell me how play goes with that list as it looks like a scenario monster!
Fortunately you can replace the staves with laspistols to keep them at 30 pts. If the list does anything interesting in competitive play I will provide an update.
I feel like the posted list really lacks screens. Any list that wants to close on your tanks and tie them up in melee really isn’t going to have any difficulty doing it, especially if you go second and the BA are still sitting in reserve on you opponents turn 2.
Yes, that is a problem for this list, an alternative list I’ve been looking at changes over to a brigade. I want to see if depending on the match up I can use the death company as a kind of “pressure screen” where the superheavy forces you to deal with it, while the tanks use infantry squads with death company just behind, unless the opponent has a gun line, where I’m probably hiding the super heavy as best I can while throwing the death company either at your line or your objectives, whichever is more annoying for my opponent.