Battle Report: Imperial Guard vs Slaanesh CSM/Deamons 1850pts





Alright I got a game in last night and was able to use some new tactics with my psykers, though sadly not against Tau.  I did play a beautiful Emperor's Children theamed Chaos Space Marines/Deamons army.  I sadly forgot to take pics, got caught up in the game and it was late so we tried to rush through it.  Suffice it to say that they were great looking and his converted Deamon Prince was awesome, lots of green stuff and if I catch his army again I will def take pics.  So we played 1850, had corners deployment and played big guns never tire, which meant nothing since neither of us had heavy support.  I won the roll off for deployment and there was no night fighting.

Veteran Players...Stop Whining

 

I am going to rant here a little bit.  I have been playing 40k off and on for over a decade.  I don't necessary consider myself a veteran player, but I guess I am a veteran 40ker.  Having started in 3rd edition and gone through the editions since then up till now, I have played with many different communities of players and 40kers.  I have moved around a lot, which is a blessing, I have had the privilege of being a part of multiple communities of gamers.  I have experienced good and bad, you have both no matter where you go.  But what bothers me the most, and to be fair they are on the internet the most, is the bitter whiny veteran players.  You know the type, the game so much better way back when, they haven't had a good codex since 3rd, GW price gouging!!!

Fighting the Tau!

Note the following is all theory hammer

So I have been thinking all week about different tactics to fight the Tau menace.  I learned a lot from the recent game and have quite a few tactics to try out.  In the near future I will post a full on anti-tau tactica, but for know I will share my recent epiphany.  If you have already come to the same conclusion and use this already, sweet you are ahead of me.

Tau are a tough nut to crack, we all know this.  They do have weaknesses however and a big one is that they have low leadership and initiative.  So while I was thinking about this I was looking through the rule book and was thinking about bringing some psykers.  And then I say psychic shriek, oh my, yes I want that.  Psychic shriek is a Ld based attack, so you roll 3D6 and minus your opponents Ld and they suffer the remaining number of wounds with no armor or cover saves.  Now this sounds ok, but then you have another unit in IG called the psyker battle squad, which has weaken reslove, ie lower targets ld by number of psykers.  Well now that just got mean.  So using this in conjunction with a primaris psyker with telapathy, namely the shriek, you can go around mind raping the Tau.

6th Edition: The Edition of Synergy

With all the talk about 6th edition and us being a little over a year into it, so many have said that it is the edition of shooting and that shooting armies are king.  Well I disagree, and I notice the selective memories that people seem to have about 5th when they are comparing it to 6th.  For one it was very shooty as well and as many are aware, IG was king for quite a while in that era.  Shooting was certainly a major factor in 5th.  The rules for 5th were more simple and streamlined, and vehicles were very strong.  This led to limited ways to play and options to use, so armies tended to rely on certain methods to win.  This led to an edition of specialist armies.  All Assault armies, Mech Melta Vets, biker nobs, and many others.  The point being 5th was no less shooty just that it did it in a different way.

Sniper Rifles...I Want to Love Them

As the title would suggest, I want to love sniper rifles.  They should be really good, they have decent rules for them.  They are precision shots, rending, and pinning, all very good things.  But time and time again they have failed to truly do anything.  For the guard there are two main problems with sniper rifles, this having to do with how the weapons themselves work and how the stats of a guardsmen fit into that.  First sniper rifles have no BS modifiers, which is fine but with a BS3 army (a few BS4), your hitting 50/50.  Then you have to wound, which is always on a 4+, so agian 50/50, so if you have three sniper rifles, you are lucky if you even get one wound out of that shooting.  This becomes a numbers game and to use them effectively you need to get them in large numbers to get through this numbers guantlet.  Personally I think they should wound on a 3+, this is more realistic to the sniper rifle's effectiveness when it actually hits, plus since most are in the AP6 to - range, this won't upset the balance.  You would still get armor saves most of the time and rending wouldn't change.  I just feel that most of the time sniper rifles don't perform.

Battle Report: Imperial Guard vs Tau 1850!

Ok so I got in a game against the infamous Tau.  I have played a few games against the new Codex, but they were small and against inexperienced players with limited lists.  This was my first against fairly optimized list and an experienced opponent.  Apologize for lack of pictures, forgot to take them till the end.  As you can see not much survived till the end, the buildings across the board hide two fire warrior squads and though you can't see them there are remnants of my mortars and command squad below the icarus, as well as scattered guardsmen.

He got the first turn, I didn't seize.  We played hammer and anvil, mission the scouring, no night fighting.  So he deployed across the way, the missile sides with his Commander in the center.  He had an Ion Head behind them, the rail head was on top of the blast marker in the back.  Pathfinders deployed in the left and right buildings.  Riptide was in the open area in the left building, with a crisis team on the left board edge.  He had piranhas behind the right building. And had Kroot w/hound in reserve, Crisis team deep striking, and a firewarrior squad.

Rough Riders...who uses them?

Okay if you haven't been following my blog then you aren't aware that I am not a fan of rough riders.  This has nothing to do with their rules or how they play.  It is a fluff thing for me, they stopped riding horsies to battle after the poles tried to fight tanks with knights and it didn't work out so well for them.  So it's just stupid IMO that the imperium of man couldn't provide, idk bikes for their soldiers, I mean even a man powered one would be better, doesn't need food or crap everywhere.  But I digress.  The point of this article is a question.  Who among you out there use these guys?  How do you use them?  I have theory hammered these guys and they aren't horrible IMO, but the models are horrible and I just can't bring myself past the fluff part to actually field them.  We'll see though, my feudal world is calling and I may be able to bring them.

Cadian 438th 1850 Army List

Alrighty, so following my back story of my army here is what I am currently running, with minor tweaks sometimes but the core remains the same.  All guard no allies at 1850 pts

The Cadian 438th!

So I realized I have err'd, all this time I really haven't talked about my army and its history.  Sorry about that.  So I have been collecting Imperial Guard for over 10 years now and the above is only a small part and example of what I currently have.  As over a decade of collecting will do, my army is mostly uniform in colors, but I still have yet to finish basing.  Part of this is due to buying new models, selling old ones off and such.  Bur it is a labor of love, and the 20+ black guardsmen sitting in a pile waiting to be painted are giving me accusing stares, slowing going to get through them.  As I'm sure most of your armies, mine has grown as cash and game needs allowed.  But my infantry count still far exceeds my armor count, but it is getting up there slowly and one day I will have my Armored company, Mech company, and air assault company.  For now I will have to make do with an infantry army with a little support from everything else.

A Fluffy Army: Feudal World Regiment

So I have had an idea for a Guard Regiment for a while and as of yet have not started it, but really think it would be cool and fluffy.  So the basic idea is that it is a regiment recruited from one of the many feudal worlds, basically almost no technology and what they do have barely works.  Army would be heavy in basic infantry, but would also make use of rough riders (knights), psykers(mages), ogryns(ogre slaves) and such.  Heavy weapons would be mounted on carriages and I would like to do a kit bash between a leman russ and steam tank, to represent some ancient tank that they have had but have slapped and repaired it so much over the centuries that it has very little of the leman russ it began as.

Imperial Guard Tactics: Leman Russ

Yeah the Leman Russ!  My favorite tank of 40K by far, it's large armored bulk and big guns, what is not to like.  Now some say armor is dead in 6th, and this is complete BS.  Armor is not dead it is just different.  IMO the addition of HPs actually made the heavier vehicles tougher, as a glancing hit is not as damaging as previous additions.  Yeah you can be glanced to death, but on your front armor this is not going to happen often.  The fact that glancing no longer rolls on the damage table is a huge boon to the leman russ, as a glancing hit can no longer immobilize it, shake or stun it, destroy a weapon, and AP1 weapons could still take you out on a glance in 5th.  This is often forgotten when people talk about the difference between 5th and 6th in regards to vehicles.  What this means is vehicles actually got faster and more durable to damage and getting one shotted.  Now medium and light vehicles got "weaker" because the breadth of weapons that could kill them opened up with being able to glance to death, but the chances of being immobilized or stunned decreased.

Forgeworld or No Forgeworld

 

So this guy has recently been released and if you have not read the experimental rules for this mother you should.   Kirby over on 3++ is the new black has a good review of him if that is what you are looking for.  What this has brought back into the forefront of my mind is how OP forgeworld can be and IMO why FW units should not be used in normal games.  Note I exclude FW models that exist in a codex but there is no plastic kit for.  That is different and not at all what I want to talk about.  What I do want to talk about is how the 40k approved units drastically change the nature of the game and also bring an unfair advantage to those with a large wallet.

Space Marines And Their Toys

 

Yes I know I am supposed to be an imperial guard blog, but I play with space marine players a lot, my brother being one and also a couple of my friends and regular opponents.  Playing with and against these space marine players I have noticed a few things about them that are unique to them (for the most part).  The biggest one, and the one I want to talk about, is that they LOVE their toys!  And they love to bring lots of them.  This isn't a bad thing on its own, but I have seen my buddy add wargear and weapons to his units without really thinking about whether what he is adding is worth the points and increases the effectiveness of the units he is adding them too.  I want to be clear that I am not knocking on marine players in general, its more of a puzzlement that I have in why a lot seem to do this.

Some thoughts on gaming after a weekend

So I have been busy lately and had a lull between posting.  But I have not been idle, as the pic will attest I have played a game with friends over the weekend.  Team battle, was a little lopsided, but we rolled randomly for teams,the dice gods were cruel though. IG and Tau vs Grey Knights and SM, so there was a lot of firepower on my side of the board, and not so much on the other.  1000pts each so nothing to crazy for each side though my Tau buddy still had plenty of shenanigans to play.  Now I only took one pic so this won't really be a bat rep as much as a discussion of tactics and theory hammer, using examples from the game.

Imperial Guard Tactics: Master of Ordnance

The Master of Ordnance is a controversial unit for guard players, many think he is worthless and others really like him.  I will admit I have been on the fence about him, but as I have used him more and more I have found the MoO to be an invaluable unit if used the right way.  What you get for 30 points is a S9 AP3 barrage with unlimited range.  That is the first thing that is nice about him, anywhere on the board can be hit, line of sight or no.  Now where he comes into the down side is that he scatters, alot.  If a hit is rolled, he still scatters that distance, if an arrow you roll another D6, for a 3D6 scater and with only BS4 that is hard to counter that potential for large scatter.  But as I have found out, there are ways to make him more effective and lets be honest, your getting a basilisk for 30 pts.