The Big Guns . . . or things that go BOOOM! in the night.
Ah the most enjoyable, at least in my opinion, aspect of playing the guard army is the application of the Ordnance Template to the opponent’s forces. While the days are long since passed when a consternated opponent would bemusedly whine “What do you mean you can put that wherever you want?” It still warms my heart to watch a 5” deviation still hit a Land Raider. Without a doubt the Big Guns of the Imperial Guard can go a long way towards achieving victory all on their own, but unless used correctly their full potential will never be achieved on the battlefields of the 41st millennium. I’m only going to be covering the straight codex guns here, none of the wonderful additions made in Imperial Armour, perhaps I’ll get to those in a later appendix. Right now, I just don’t know enough about them. So on to what I can talk about! When thinking about the Big Guns you need to think about the four T’s – Target, Timing, Threat, and Tenacity. Target – what you’re shooting at. Timing – when you should and shouldn’t take the shot. Threat – the level of damage the unit can cause to you if you don’t kill it. Tenacity – the likelihood that the enemy unit will still be a threat after you hit it with your Big Gun. Keeping the four T’s in mind, let’s look at what we have.
Missile Launchers and Lascannons
Yeah, yeah, I know they’re not REALLY Big Guns, but they are what should be keeping your Big Guns safe. Priority number one on your list of Targets for these guns should be anything that can penetrate the 14 AV of your Battle Tanks (Very High Threat Value). While it would seem to make sense that you would want to fight fire with fire and blast the enemy’s Predator with your Battle cannon, you’ll be better served if you manage to knock out their tanks with Missiles and Lascannons instead. Between missile launchers and lascannons you’ll want to strive for between four and six shots at the enemy armor, or two shots per enemy tank. Once the enemy can’t fire, they’re no longer a threat for the next turn, so go ahead and move on from there. Make sure you pick your targets based on the likelihood that they will kill your tanks. A Predator Annihilator with lascannon sponsons is a much bigger threat to your Guns then a Land Raider Crusader. Once you’ve eliminated the threat to your tanks, they’ll be able to fire with impunity and clean up any mess you let get away. Like the rest of the Guard force, timing is important when it comes
to firing off your anti-tank weapons as well. If you are progressing up the “strength-o-meter” while firing at the enemy’s transports you should be done disabling them by the time you reach these guys. If not, keep firing. There is absolutely nothing more important then stopping the enemy from assaulting you.
Once you’ve dealt with the transports, start in on the enemy armor in the same fashion, lowest strength up. You may be surprised at how many tanks your autocannons disable once they’ve finished off the transports. Then lastly move on to Anti-Tank Weapon carrying squads, such as Devastators and Anti-Tank Squads. You should fire all of your Heavy Weapons that are going to target Vehicles before firing your Ordnance. This will sort out whether you need to fire your Ordnance at a particularly stubborn vehicle or if you can move on to other targets. Once you’re done targeting vehicles, move on to the Ordnance Weapons, then come back to the Heavy Weapons again for final clean up. This will play into the Tenacity factor. A vehicle (even hull-down) which is hit by a missile launcher or lascannon stands a solid chance of being rendered unable to fire. A Squad on the other hand will probably lose “chaff” members leaving the Heavy Weapons just as functional as they were before the round of firing. However, if you wait until the Battlecannon has landed on the same squad, there may be few enough survivors that a single shot or two from your Heavy Weapons can eliminate the threat.
Leman Russ Battle Tank
The “generic” Russ is probably the single most identifiable vehicle in an Imperial Guard army and not without good reason. No other vehicle in the 40K universe can match the Leman Russ’ Battle Cannon in range, firepower, and survivability. A great many can come close in one, or even two, of the categories, but in the long run, the Russ is the one tank that will never let you down. It takes a well-disciplined general to restrain themselves from just letting fly with the Ordnance as soon as the opportunity presents itself, but discipline is the key to winning with the Guard. When it does come time to fire care must still be taken in directing the Battle cannon on the correct targets. Despite all appearances the Leman Russ is not, primarily, an anti-tank weapons platform. Instead the Battle Cannon excels at smashing the enemy’s troops. At S8 AP3, even marines are left smoking by the “Pie Plate of Doom”. When choosing targets for your Russ, cycle through this list: Assault Troops in Range of Your Troops, Transports that are not Empty, Hull-Down, or Smoked, Anti-Tank Infantry Units, Large Groupings of Valuable Enemy Troops,
Transports that are Hull-Down or Smoked, and lastly Enemy Armor. By applying the Battle Cannon appropriately you can devastate the enemy’s morale very early in the game.
Like the Missile Launchers and Lascannons, you’ll want to look at getting rid of the largest threats first. However, don’t forget to take into account things like armor saves better then 3+ and cover. This is especially true when the enemy is Hull-Down, smoked, or if for any reason you can only score a glancing hit on the target vehicle. Here’s where the Tenacity Factor kicks in. Don’t waste your Ordnance Fire on anything you can’t annihilate. Glancing hit only vehicles, Terminators, and multi-wound creatures with a T5+ are all poor choices of target for your Russ. Keep looking and only come back to them if there is no other better option. A quick word on sponsons – Don’t. In general you will be firing your Ordnance which makes them thoroughly useless, however the lascannon in the hull does make for a nice Anti-Tank gun when you need to move. The possible exception to this rule would be going with 3 Heavy Bolters. This combination is fantastic for
downing Squadrons of light vehicles (Speeders, Jet Bikes, etc…) and costs out the same as a lascannon.
Leman Russ Demolisher
Second only to the vanilla Russ for destructive power, the Demolisher’s two other big disadvantages are its relatively high points cost and the short range of it's Demolisher Cannon. Where the Demolisher excels is in denying a section of the battlefield to the enemy. You can also compensate for the short range by tacking on plasma cannon sponsons. Let me tell you, marine players won’t forget the first time they park 26” away from your Demolisher thinking they’re safe only to eat 2 AP2 blast markers and a lascannon sandwich. So where does the Demolisher fit in the firing doctrine? Well, unlike the vanilla Russ, the Demolisher kills armor dead. So right after you’ve fired the Anti-Transport weaponry take a look and see what targets are in range of your Demolisher. If you have an enemy vehicle (that is not smoked) within 24” Demolish it! Start with enemy tanks with enough armor to give your other guns difficulty (Land Raiders and Russ variants being excellent examples) and Dreads which are a threat to your Demolisher then move to Transports. If there are no vehicles within 24”, then the Demolisher can wait for the rest of
the army to fire and lend it’s fire to whatever target needs to be squashed. Tenacity is not much of an issue when it comes to the Demolisher, but watch out if you are firing on Terminators (invulnerable save), troops in cover, T6+ multi-wound creatures, and glance-only vehicles. Anything else, is toast.
The Basilisk
Number Two on the “most identifiable” list and possibly even Public Enemy number one in the minds of your enemy is the Basilisk. A no-brainer here is to spend the extra points for the Indirect Fire Capability. Safely out of the Enemy’s line of fire, the Basilisk rains fiery death down on whatever it chooses, brutal. Timing with the Basilisk is simple, it has to fire first, so be sure to make that shot count. Take a step back for a second and plan out the rest of your shots. When you come to a unit that you need to kill, but don’t have enough shots at or can’t shoot at all, you’ve found your target. Key on this list are Enemy Indirect Fire Units – Whirlwinds, Griffons, and especially Basilisks. Your army doesn’t have the maneuverability to get back there and knock these things out. You need to kill them before they kill you. Next up, look for Full Enemy Transports that are not smoked, probably because your opponent thought they were safely out of the way, or Enemy Assault Units which are about to attack. If none of these targets are available, look for clumps of enemy and high AV vehicles. Like the Demolisher, there
is little to worry about in the field of Tenacity, just stay away from that same list of targets. A couple notes on killing vehicles - in all but the rarest of cases the rear armor of a vehicle is significantly worse then the front and side, don’t be afraid to “overshoot” by intentionally guessing for the back of the Vehicle. Also, open-topped vehicles take double hits from template weapons, which includes your Ordnance. Ugly no?
The Griffon
My own personal least favorite the Griffon is a nice weapon if you know you’re not facing a power-armored enemy. You can seldom make that assumption. I would apply the Griffon in the same manner as the Basilisk. Park it out of sight and then move through the list of targets for the Basilisk. Don’t underestimate the Griffon Mortar. It’s a S6 Ordnance Weapon. That means you’ve go a 2/3 chance of penetrating AV 10 (the back of a Rhino or Chimera) and a 1/3 chance at AV 11. Just remember to shoot for the rear of vehicles and you’ll be doing fine. Tenacity is a much bigger problem for the Griffon then any other Big Gun against power-armoured armies. With only an AP of 4, marines tend to shrug off hits like water. On the upside, if a single casualty can be caused you may pin the entire unit. It’s really a mixed bag with the Griffon, and I’d rather have something I can always rely on.
The Conqueror
What a great idea for a huge game, say one where you’ll be able to get your hands on more then three Heavy Support choices and won’t mind spending twice the points for a slightly spiffier vanilla Russ. The long and short of it is that the Conqueror shouldn’t be necessary in your army. Save the points and use them to buy more Anti-Tank weapons for your squads.
The Exterminator
The Space Wolves use these bad boys to devastating effect. The Space Wolves don’t have a BS3 to cope with. Leave em home. You can get better light-HW support for less in the form of Fire Support squads.
In the end, you’ll want to max out your Heavy Support in almost every game. I’d minimally look in the range of one Big Gun for every 750 points. Anything less would be like bringing a tack hammer instead of a sledge to drive railroad spikes. You’ve got it. Use it. Good, Bad, you’re the one with the Guns. I’d say you couldn’t do much better then a Demolisher, Russ, Basilisk combination. That’ll give you a solid anti-tank weapon (the Demolisher), a solid anti-personnel weapon (the Battle Cannon), and a dual-purpose Indirect Fire Weapon (the Earthshaker). Your enemy will be hard-pressed to survive all three.
Enough of pounding the enemy, now you need to win the game. Where do you look? Mother Green and her Mean Machine…
Part 4 - The Ground Pounders - "Fleet does the flyin'. MI does the Dyin'!"
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