Reproduced from DakkaDakka with the author's permission. Please note that this article was written for the first version of the Imperial Guard codex for Warhammer 40,000 v3, and may not be fully accurate now.
“For the Emperor!” – Imperial Battlecry
The Imperial Guard Commander
On the surface the Imperial Guard army looks like every commanders dream; cheap and plentiful troops with decent weapon and ballistic skills, unprecedented potential for customization, and the biggest guns in the Warhammer Universe. What more could a Commander ask for? Well, let me tell you right out of the box, that commander could ask for some hint as to how the army is meant to function. No army offers its Commander more rope to hang themselves then the Imperial Guard army. Other armies can fall back on their superior fighting skills, armor saves, or sheer brutality to make a showing for themselves in a game where they have brought the proverbial knife to a gun-fight, not so with the Imperial Guard. Built and/or played poorly the Imperial Guard army will fold like a stack of cards on a windy day.
The Imperial Guard commander must be resolute in their plan of battle. In many circumstances the road to victory will be paved with the blood of the forces you command. The Imperial Commander must be willing to sacrifice their forces in numbers that would decimate Space Marine Chapters. They must realize that The End Always Justifies The Means. And above all else they must have the utmost faith that the Emperor is with them. If you prefer not to remove casualties after a round of combat with both hands full, if you favor troops who can be relied on to do almost anything at almost anytime, if the concept of your forces fleeing in the face fear, find another Command. But, if you enjoy the overwhelming exhilaration of human triumph over insurmountable odds, if you love the look and feel of commanding a “modern” army in a futuristic setting, if you feel warm fuzzies at the very thought of obliterating entire squads of the enemy with a single shot, then read on. The Emperor’s Finest we may not be, but we’ve got the Big Guns…
Commanding the Common Grunt
Know yourself. Know your enemy. These are two of the biggest keys to success on the battlefield. The immediate response to getting an army is to throw it out on the battlefield and see how it works. This spells disaster for the Imperial Guard Commander. So what is the fledgling Imperial Guard Commander to do to when they watch their forces being driven before the enemy time after time. If we were dealing with Space Marines that might be simple question to answer, but with the Guard? The very nature of the Imperial Guard army means that you could have a half-dozen Imperial Guard armies side by side and never be able to guess that those armies were put together using the same Codex. This makes writing any tactical article for the Imperial Guard incredibly difficult as what may work to devastating effect for one army may be absolute crap as far as another army is concerned. It’s hard to rely on the Battle Cannons to devastate the enemy when you’re army is built without any vehicles… What I hope to accomplish instead is to take a look at the Imperial Guard army from a higher level view. Instead of looking at specific units
in a given army, their strengths and their weaknesses, I’m going to look at general roles on the battlefield and how specific units might be used to fulfil those roles.
So where do we start?
Diving right in to making an army list is a huge mistake with the Imperial Guard. I figured this one out the hard way - fourteen straight losses. Then I finally got my head screwed on straight and tried to figure out what exactly it was that was kicking my butt and how I could stop it. It all starts at the top.
Command and Control – Captains and Colonels
Right from the beginning the Imperial Guard army demonstrates just how different it is in relation to every other army in the 40K Universe. This should serve as a warning to anyone looking for a quick and dirty army to command. While most commanders are mulling over the benefits of a chaplain versus a standard commander, the Imperial Guard player has to decide on Commissars, Fire Support teams, Sentinel squadrons - each with a dozen possible upgrades. Boy what a nice noose to hang ourselves we could make out of all that rope. Let’s try and break it down a bit.
The actual commander – the choice here is down to a Colonel versus a Captain. Which to take depends heavily on how you intend to use your commander – either in a combat role or in a support role. The principle difference between the two is the additional point of Leadership. In the support role your commander is going to be standing near the back to provide a guiding light for your army. In this role the Colonel is a good investment, as your command squad will serve a solid core of high leadership from which the entire army will base it self. You’ll definitely want to
consider including a standard bearer to further strengthen your army’s resolve and probably stick with longer range / heavy weapons to fill out the weapons options in the squad. You may even want to tack on a medic to reduce the inevitable casualties that will be forced on this unit. Be careful not to make your Colonel too big a target, however, as the enemy is sure to be looking for him. The other option is to take a slightly more aggressive approach with your CHQ. A Commander with the Death World Veteran upgrade makes a decent counter-attack unit. In this case, I would suggest going with the Captain, as they are just as efficient on the offense for a lower cost. Look for more on Assaulting with the CHQ in the Tactics of the Battlefield section.
The Support Squads – In my mind the jury is still out on two out of three of these guys. Why? First and foremost is the cost. These squads pay through the nose for their weapons. In fact, they pay as much for a heavy weapon as a Devastator Marine would for the same weapon. That can’t be good, as they are much more likely to miss, don’t have power armor to protect said investment, and don’t benefit from ATSKNF. Guard morale being what it is you need to avoid taking morale checks. Inflicting two casualties on a Guard squad is not all that hard. More then three and you’ll be watching all those beautiful heavy weapons march right off the field without even looking back. Lastly, it’s just too sweet a target for your opponent. If you had a choice between shooting at a six-man squad with three lascannons or trying to dig those same three lascannons out of three separate squads of ten men, which would you prefer your enemy to field? For all these reasons, I would suggest strenuously against taking an Anti-Tank Squad.
Mortar Squads are slightly more feasible as they can fire indirectly, decreasing the enemy’s ability to drive them off the field of battle. However, they are also mostly ineffective against power armored armies. Depending on how often you face marines, you may want to consider them or not.
Lastly, the best of the lot, the fire support team. I think here is the proverbial lump of gold in the pile. Avoid the autocannons and go straight to a pack of heavy bolters. Other armies scoff at the Heavy Bolter, because they have a limited supply of heavy weapon selections. A marine army can take, maybe, six or eight heavy weapons if they try really hard. Spending one of those six choices on a weapon that can not penetrate heavy armor, doesn’t defeat power armor, and hardly wounds better then the standard marine bolter seems ignorant at best. The Guard, on the other hand, can have buckets of heavy weapons. For 80 points you can get nine S5 AP4 shots, even those power armored supertroops will eventually have to sit up and take notice. While other armies are trying to kill skimmers with missile launchers and lascannons, you’ll be able to lay down four times as many hits for less then half the points. Can’t beat that with a stick. I
always bring one squad along, I’m considering forming up a second.
The Sentinels – Hmm, I think maybe I’m a bit biased on this one. I don’t like anything with all-around armor that can’t stop a bolter shell. Two Sentinels point out at around the same cost as a Chimera with a multilaser and heavy bolter. The difference between the two in weapons in almost non-existent, you trade the additional AP of the heavy bolter for a point of strength on the multilaser. Either one is good in my book. But that’s the only place the Sentinels can hold a candle to the Chimera. The Chimera has enough frontal armor to shrug off everything up to and including a heavy bolter, can move faster to re-deploy and escape close combat, and can move troops safely across the battlefield – all for less then the two Sentinels. The only way I can see a value in the Sentinels would be if you have designed your army around an absence of vehicles (Jungle-World armies would be a perfect example). Then the Sentinels may be your only choice for some mobile fire platforms, but I wouldn’t count on them to stick around very long. Personally, if I wanted to watch my lads get blown apart by bolter fire I would have left them on
the ground where at least they could scramble for a cover save.
The Commissars – Last, but not least, the infamous Commissar. Loved by some for their “character”, despised by others for costing as much as an entire command section, the Commissar is indeed very much a matter of personal preference. Again I think your choice of a Commissar should depend on your plans for your CHQ for this is where your first Commissar will be positioned. If your going with the Support Role HQ unit, I don’t think the Commissar is worth it. You’ll be paying an awful lot of points for a character you, in all honesty, don’t want to be anywhere near the enemy. If your Commissar is in combat the enemy has already gotten deep into your ranks. Perhaps had you spent those points on something else your Colonel wouldn’t have to worry about defending himself. On the offensive, however, the Commissar can be absolutely devastating. For instance, give your Captain a Powerfist and your Commissar a Power Weapon. When your CHQ charges the enemy will (doubtless) strike first, but who do they gun for? The Captain with the weapon that will definitely kill them in droves, leaving the Commissar to lead your command squad,
or the Commissar to eliminate the leadership, at the expense of taking a brutal round of damage from your Captain. It’s a no win situation for the enemy unless they can easily kill both. After the first Commissar the value plummets severely. You can only afford to have so many of your command units engaged in Hand-to-Hand. More then one and you’re in big trouble in all but the largest games. My rule of thumb would be not to include more than one commissar for every full thousand points. They’re just too darn expensive.
All right, so you’ve got a general idea of what you want to do with your Command Unit, but that’s just the beginning. You’ve still got well over a thousand points to spend on your army and you’ve got no idea what’s next. After my own stinging defeats and listening to other commanders I heard the same thing, “We’re getting killed by assault armies.” So, let’s make that stop number one on the hit list.
Part 2 - Close Combat – Every Guard Commanders worst Nightmare
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