The Guard List: What I Saw

During Mechanicon I finally got to play against Imperial Guard. 60+ games into this codex and I've never played against the same type of army I was fielding. Not only did I get to play against Guard, I got to play against Rob Baer's Looted Guard. Rob wasn't fielding them - Kelsey was borrowing them.

There were a couple of Guard armies there besides mine. With the exception of my tank-heavy list and an Inquisitorial list (really good paint job on it, too), the other armies I saw - including the Looted Guard - were a basic and balanced list. 

A basic Guard list consists of the following:

1. The obligatory Leman Russ tank. Can't leave home without at least one, but too many will make the list unbalanced.
2. Command Squad. Orders, orders, and more orders. It's all about issuing orders.
3. The Surprise. This can consist of many different things. 
4. The Focus. Some element of the army must focus towards an element of a common enemy.
5. Troops. This is the easiest to get carried away with due to the potential size of a platoon.
6. The Delivery. This is how the army will get the far reaching objectives.

The Leman Russ Tank

Every Guard army has some Leman Russ variant. The most competitive is probably the Demolisher. However, if you have an element in your army that can accomplish the roll of a Demolisher, then you can have fun here. The Executioner with Plasma Cannon sponsons is expensive, but a whole lot of fun. Five plasma templates is fun to throw around. 

Command Squad

The ability to make a missile launcher team count as twin-linked or cause a unit's shots to ignore cover saves is just too hard to resist. 

The Surprise

This is something that will cause your opponent to quake in his boots - literally. I saw a lot of Psyker Battle Squads being fielded. This squad can lower the leadership of an enemy to 2. So you fire into a squad, forcing 25% casualties, do the Psyker Squad thing and the squad falls back. And, in case that isn't enough, the squad can throw a S9 template at your opponent. 

The other surprise is fielding an Inquisitor Lord with two mystics. One mystic allows the Inquisitor to shoot at anything that is Deep Striking within a certain range - AS IT ARRIVES. Two mystics allows him to nominate another unit to do the shooting. So park the Inquisitor next to a Demolisher and anything Deep Striking in his range will be looking at a S10 AP2 pie plate in his face while he is in that nice Deep Strike formation (which, surprisingly, will always be completely covered by the large blast template). Surprise!

The Focus

This is a unit or combination of units that will focus on a certain aspect of the opponent's army. Three Hydra tanks, for example, will wreck havoc on bikes and skimmers hoping to get an extra save by moving really fast. A couple of Banewolfs will destroy Marines with it's poisoned 2+/AP3 chemical cannon template. 

Whatever scares the general the most will be what he focuses on. The problem is that you can only focus on one thing and keep a balanced list due to point restrictions. So, what scares you more, skimmers making their saves, hordes, Marines, etc?

Troops

Normally, this will be a platoon with the minimum size of one command squad, two infantry squads, and a couple of heavy weapon squads. A veteran squad or two will be thrown in to make up the second troop choice. The heavy weapon squads sit in the back and take the orders from the CO. 

Most troops these days will be riding in Chimeras for protection, but a balanced army will not have all troops locked inside of boxes.

The Delivery

Since a balanced Guard list works best when it doesn't move, you will need something to quickly deliver scoring units to the far-reaching objectives. This can be the Valkyrie or a Chimera. 

What does this look like in practice? Below is the Looted Guard list that I played against. It came in second place this year. This isn't the same list that was used in 2009, even though it was the same models. 

• Two Company Command Squads in Chimera with some plasma
• Inquisitor Lord with dual mystics and a heirophant
• Psyker Battle Squad in a Chimera
• Three Veteran Squads in Chimera, two with Lascannons and meltaguns, on with three meltas
• Infantry Platoon with the command in a Chimera and the two squads running naked
• Manticore
• Three Hydra Flak tanks
• Leman Russ Executioner with plasma cannon sponsons

Playing this list requires that you castle the deployment, hide the Hydras, and send a vet squad or two forward to get the far objectives. The two naked platoon squads are to stay behind and keep any objectives on their side of the board. The Hydras take out the fast movers. The Executioner is the fire magnet. 

The Veterans with Lascannons sit in their Chimeras and just blow junk up. The Psyker Squad is just to mess with the opponent. The Manticore makes your opponent seriously reconsider castling. 

This is the balanced Guard list. You will see variants, such as heavy weapon squads instead of the Manticore or Hellhound variants instead of the Hydras, but this is about as balanced as you can get. During the tournament I saw three variations of this list and all of them did very well. 

The biggest trick to this army is knowing how to deploy and having the discipline to sit there and prioritize targets. There is no moving around the board, outmaneuvering your opponent, or chasing anyone down. That is not what this list is built for. 

This list wins when played correctly. If the player jumps forward, divides the forces, or doesn't recognize and prioritize targets properly, it will be torn apart. 

I will never play this list. Part of the reason is lack of discipline. The other reasons are... well, you will need to wait for the other reasons in future posts. 

I do not begrudge anyone who plays the balanced Guard list. They are much better than I am. They are playing the codex the way it is suppose to be played. I just find it a bit boring. 

So, sometime within the next few days I'll let the world know what my list is and why it is the way it is.