Imperial Guard Tactics: Colonel Iron Hand Straken

Ok so lets talk about someone that I am big fan of, the Colonel, Iron Hand Straken.  He is the commander of the Catachan II and an all around badass.  The IG have few combat characters that can actually kick ass, but the Colonel is one of them.  Now I am a fan of good ole creed and he is my usual commander for my army, but straken is in many ways the opposite of creed, he punches stuff till its dead and works out the tactics along the way.  He gets in there and wins his battles with his guns and fists.  Now Creed is a great choice for IG, but he really does lack in any sort of fighting capability in any way and unfortunately the best you can hope for is for him to hid in his coat.  Now this is where the Colonel comes in, he has no coat to hide in.

Holiday Progress: New Fortications for IG & Painted Models

Happy holidays everyone!  I hope you all had a good week, whether or not you celebrate any of the holidays or not.  I had a great time with family and it was refreshing to get away from blogging a 40k in general for a week.  It was good to relax and not worry about getting things painted or preparing for the next game.  But now back to the hobby and I am certainly happy.  I got what I was hoping for and that was a significant portion of the Wall of Martyrs with two trench sections and one heavy weapon section.  I also have the bunker on order so I should have that before the end of the week.

Happy Holidays and Thank You

Hello everyone, I want to wish you all merry Christmas and happy holidays.  I am taking off today to visit my family for the holidays so posting will decline dramatically for the next week.  I will do a few posts if I find the time but it is going to be busy for the next week.  I over promised in delivering tactics articles, I did not expect so much time to be taken up preparing for my trip but thats ok, I'm sure you all will survive a few weeks, its not like tyranids are coming out or anything.  I want to thank everyone that reads and comments on this blog, it is an awesome experience to have different people from around the world sharing in the same hobby and enjoying the Imperial Guard.

Review Forge World Escalation: The Other Imperial Guard Super Heavies

By request I will be going over the other super heavies of the Imperial Guard.  These are the so called "pocket" super heavies as they are cheaper, smaller, and less powerful versions of their bigger baneblade brothers.  Key note here if you have the books, structure points are worth 3 HPs apiece.   I actually like a lot of these and think if you are going the super heavy route, this is a great place to look.  FW isn't cheap but they make some awesome models and make great centerpieces.  The other thing is that since most of these have about 6 HPs compared to the standard 9 for Baneblades, they are easier to kill and will be an easier pill for your friends to swallow and you won't feel as bad bringing one.

Escalation Review: Quick One for Imperial Guard

Ok so I have gone over Escalation a few times, but I haven't really reviewed it either.  Not going to go through the whole book, but I will go over what is important for the Imperial Guard.  Now see my previous post on FW PDF update if you want to know a little more about all the additions to escalation.  So just in this book, IG come out the best with just about every baneblade variant where other armies only have one or two.  Now the FW update adds a lot more so its not so lopsided.  But There are a lot of choices here for IG if you are looking for some massive firepower.  Now few things to go over first.  One if you take one, your opponent gets +1 to his sieze roll and can roll on the lords of war warlord trait table.  Also he gets a VP for every 3 HPs knocked off your super heavy.  So you have to watch out as there are some decent disadvantages to taking one.  2 super heavy vehicles are not affected by results on the damage table, they just keep on going and lose one HP from the pen, an explodes just causes D3 HPs damage in addition to the one from the pen. 

The Competitive Cop-Out

One thing that bothers me about certain competitive players and the way they play at the competitive level is how they complain about the OP armies, and then immediately take those armies, and then justify it by stating that well I'm only taking it because its the only way to stay competitive.  That BS, that's excusing lack of skill for good army choice.  I'm sorry, the good players that compete that I know, win with all the armies that they play.  What bothers me more about this attitude is that these usually are the same people complaining about how boring it is playing the same armies.  Well guess what, it starts with you, play a different army, and you know what, maybe other people will play different ones too. 

40k Current Events: That Escalated Quickly

More changes happened over the weekend.  If you are not aware, Forge World released the Escalation approved PDF this weekend found here.  Here is the short of it.  All super heavies can be taken as a lords of war in escalation.  This is not as horrible as it seems, it adds all the xenos armies stuff, granted their are some ridiculous choices (manta).  The escalation book, more aptly called codex: Baneblade w/a few other super heavies, lacks a lot of choices for other armies besides Imperial Guard.  So yeah you can take a reaver, and they are awesome, but really what it means is all the little things like the eldar Lynx, the Malcador tanks, the DE vehicle can come to the fight as well.  These guys are powerful sure, but they are much less on the scale as say a revenant. 

Surviving the D: Options For Beating the New Bigs Boys of 40K

Since superheavies are the new big boys and D weapons the biggest baddies of them all, you are going to probably have to deal with them.  That's ok, the dirty D is not the end of all that is good in 40k.  As Imperial Guard, we actually have a lot of great options to counter Super Heavies in general.  Now I know I don't like to publish lists online, but I think this is one of those times for an exception, granted the following won't be too detailed so you can fill in the blanks.  Also this will combine survivability with offensive power as well, as its great and all to be able to kill the titan, you need to actually survive to shoot it also. 

This Whole Blog Thing

So first off I want to thank everyone that has visited, commented, and sent anything.  I only recently got into this blog thing I have to say it has been something that I have come to enjoy.  Its been only a few months but I have gone from just talking to myself to actually having conversations with some of you out there.  This is probably the thing I enjoy the most about this.  Despite what I may say, I am not the keeper of all knowledge, and hearing others thoughts and ideas is awesome and its great to be able to share the knowledge, whether someone learns something on this blog, or I learn it from one of you.  Now where is this blog going?

Review: Stronghold Assault

Ok I know I promised some advanced infantry tactics articles, but I have not had any time to take pictures this week, work and other errands taking up time right now.  Have no fear, they will come, probably next week or maybe even by this weekend.  So I am going to go more in depth in to Stronghold Assault, ie fortifications part II.  I have made it clear that I don't think the new releases are a big deal and 40k is fine and TO are certainly within their rights to decide on how to organize their games.  I don't think comp or banning is necessary.  I do really like stronghold and I really think its going to affect this game in the long run far more than super heavies will.  Here  is why, its cost effective, in points and money.  You don't have to drop anywhere near as much money as you would on most superheavies.  Yes if you go all in and get a massive fortification setup you will be out some money.  But most options at the base are going to get you out 50 bucks or so.  Or some have no models and you can make them as cheap as you want too!  So more people can bring these and their effects on the game as a whole will be greater.

The Players That Make the Game: A Word on Power Gamers, Fluff Bunnies and How They Make The Game

So since everyone is going to town on escalation and the community seems to be splitting either for or against Escalation(Stronghold Assault seems to have been accepted with little question or fan fare) I want to take a step back and talk about the community as I see it, with a look at the online community as well as the "regular" community.  For me I am a recent addition to the online community and while I do enjoy trolling blogs and seeing what people are doing, there is definitely an interesting difference between the community on and off line.  Views are far more extreme for one, I will say that.  But its not just that simple.

Battle Report: Imperial Guard vs Tau Empire 1850 pts

Alright got a game in this weekend, tweaked my army a little bit, wanted to see how it would do minus a CCS squad and add weapons and gear across the army to compensate.  Three of the vet squads have plasma guns now, took an astropath, and a few other things for my platoon and the Inquisitor.  Nothing too major just the lots of little things that make a big difference.  So I faced off against one of the regular gamers against his Tau army.  He does not play the typical Tau list and I really like his and think a lot of Tau players are missing out with some of the great options in the book by going with the "standard" build.  So he had commander batman, no iridium armor, two riptides, a crisis team, two fire warrior squads (9-12ish), two kroot squads with 3x krootox and hounds, a large drone squad with markerlights, two pathfinders in devilfish's with their special drones, and a sniper drone team with three controllers and three sniper drones.  We played dawn of war deployment, the scouring, night fighting first turn, I won the roll of and deployed first.

Escalation and Stronghold Assault: The Game and The Imperial Guard

OK, things have been changing rapidly over the last month or so.  The latest changes have included formations, Inquisition mini codex, and now Super heavies and more Fortifications.  Now a lot of people are mulling this over and I am certainly one of them.  I have always tried to take the stance of play to have fun and the more options are better.  But the latest releases have seen the FoC circumvented significantly with Inq and Formations, and the balance shifted with D weapons in Escalation and Stronghold.  I will admit that D weapons are a bit much and I don't know whether they were really needed.  A while back when rumors were coming around that IG might get a baneblade, I took the stance against this, saying it was not necessary and superheavies should stay in Apoc where they belong.  Well they are here to stay now.  What are you going to do?

How To Win at Everything Forever

Ahaha I have discovered the secret.  If you have been searching for the secrets of victory, I have discovered it.  Behold the revenant titan and all its D weapon glory!

The Escalation of 40k and Random Randomness

So its the end of the week and its been an interesting one.  Afraid not much hobby stuff has gotten done.  I have a bastion and weapons that need painting but oh well.  The holidays are coming shortly and all that is required for that has demanded time this week, combined with work meant I could do little more than write a few articles.

Seeing that and I am a little tuckered out from tactical writing, lets have a little fun. 40k is awesome, and by 40k I mean the universe as a whole, not just the game system(which I like too).  I love the darkness and far more serious nature of it and though it is certainly not "original" it is it's own thing and has been for a while and grown into what we have today.  And if you love star wars well your emperor is false and prepare for the emperor's mercy :). 

Imperial Guard Infantry Tactics: The Bloody Infantry PT3

So its on to the next part on our march through the Imperial Guard Troops and we have finally made it to the humble Infantry Platoon.  These are the back bone of many a IG Regiment and will be what most will be relying on to carry the day.  I think that the Infantry Platoon is hands down the best single troops choice in the entire game.  It has the advantage of large hordes, multiple squads, heavy weapons, special weapons, and conscripts.  The sheer number of models you can field in one troop choice is staggering.  You can have 137 models in a single troops choice (more if add in all the commissars too), that is just mind boggling in the amount of men you can bring to the field.  Added to the fact that this is all damn cheap, being 880 pts for all of this (no upgrades).  This means if you are looking to field endless waves of guardsmen, you have found what you are looking for.  The other wonderful bonuses to this is that you treat it as a single unit in regards to deployment and reserves.  So you can in theory have a seriously large flanking force for your opponent to deal with.  The other rule that is important is combined squads, which is sort of the reverse of combat squads for SM, you can combine infantry squads together at the start of the game, they then act as single unit.  This is where the often mentioned blob squad comes from. Now for this one I am going to break it down by the individual units within the platoon and then go over unit tactics and special characters.

Please not this is a longer read, I got a little more in depth than I planned.

Digital Releases and The Effect on The Game

Ok so time to jump on the bandwagon and talk about GWs recent releases that started this month.  Yeah I know everyone is talking about these (not just the one above) and I'm certainly not going to be spouting anything revelatory to you.  But I need a little more time to work on the next Troops Tactics article and this is a good filler and I happen to have an opinion on it so why not.

Imperial Guard Tactics: The Bloody Infantry PT2

Alright so got through the first part and now its time to keep on going.  This time the focus is going to be on veterans, some of my favorite guardsmen.  These guys are hands down your most versatile unit that you can field in terms of war gear and options to make them fit any role.  They do have some disadvantages though in that you can only ever bring ten, no more no less, and they do not benefit from the platoon command structure.  It would be great if the new codex would allow 0-1 veteran squads per platoon, and still allow them to be taken on their own of course.  But their are ways to work around that which I will talk about later.  The last thing that limits them is that you can only take 6 squads of them (Yes I said only), which limits their effectiveness.  The fact of the matter is that they are still guardsmen and 60 guardsmen are not that hard to kill.  Suffice it to say that veterans really only downsides are minor compared to their utility. 

Hobby Update: The Inquisitor

So I have finally got my inquisitor painted and based.  He is now ready for fighting the enemies of the emperor.  He is my Ordo Xenos Inquisitor and that is my custom needle pistol for him.  I wanted him to match the colors of my storm troopers colors so that they would match color scheme wise.  He is certainly not 100% and I will be touching him up for a while but he passes muster at this point.  Sorry I am by no means an expert painter so you will never find the most amazingly painted models here.  Maybe one day.

Imperial Guard Tactics: The Bloody Infantry

Ok so time to go back to tactics and its time to go through the most important part of the Imperial Guard army, and that is the bloody infantry.  These are the guys that win you the games, take your objectives, and die for the emperor.  I will admit I am biased, I love playing infantry guard and I know tread heads see these foot sloggers as a mere unfortunate requirement, but they are more than that.  An all armor army would be nice, but alas the current codex still requires you take infantry.  That being said you have the most flexible and useful troop choices of any codex that I can think of, in terms of gear you can equip them with and unit composition and their playability.  You have three choices: The Platoon, The Veteran Squad, and The Penal Legion Squad.  Now of the three, the one you will see the least is hands down the penal legion squad and its not hard to see why, they have no upgrade options and are dependent on a dice roll for their abilities.  They are far from useless though and I will talk more about them in a sec.  All in all this section is where you will be spending a lot of your money and points on and its where you will bring victory through.  There are so many ways to play with them too that you really are spoilt for choice when it comes to the guard.

Battle Report: Imperial Guard vs Grey Knights 1850pts

Ah and finally the battle was met, after my dry spell I was able to get a game in and try out my new inquisitor and more importantly my servo skulls.  Yes I was playing grey knights again, I know it seems like I play them a lot and I do.  My brother has them, but I wasn't playing him this time.  I played a long time GK player who is usually at the store, he has other armies but his GK are his favorite and that is what he had so that is what I played against.  We played normal table length deployment, big guns never tire, had 4 objectives spread out mostly in the middle, and there was night fighting turn one.  I won the roll off for deployment and going first.