Versus Imperial Guard

Hey Fellow Archons,

I would value your input again. Somehow I managed to avoid IG in 5th (have played a couple of games in 4th years ago). Have any of you played against IG in 6th by now?

I know ofcourse they are a shooty army, who don't like assaults. Lots of range. Lots of blasts, ordnance, barrage.

But what are your experienced? What are things to look out for? What are clear do's and don'ts against IG in 6th?

Fire away...

Really depends on what sort of list your opponent runs. At the risk of stating the obvious, if he runs a tank list then your tactics will be very different to if he runs a foot list or a hybrid.

Luckily this time I know my opponent loves tanks. Plus he seems to bubblewrap his tanks with infantry.

What I don't understand about bubblewraps is, if I concentrate fire into one (like all those splintercannon-shots from our Venoms) wouldn't you be able to decimate them quite easily? Their armour values are 5+ or 6+ right?

I think the problem is that all the time you're shooting at his bubble wrap, his tanks are shooting at you!

flanking sentinels, flanking vendetty with melta vets, one or two leeman russes AttT, some heavy weapons, stroken, yarik, pask, mostly everything has camu-cloaks, and watch out for Nork! Some sniper ratlings.
some times platoons, if the points let him

remedy: cc and/or reavers, blasts, flamers

I played them on Tuesday, 1000 points, and faced a list which was mainly footslogging. The only vehicles were a Chimera, a Devildog and a Vendetta full of vets.
I had prepared a list to face basically everything with: one DL Ravager (another would have been needed), 4 Blasterborns in a Venom, 2 units of 5 Wyches with Haywires grenades in Venom and Raider, 8 Warriors in a Raider with Splinter rack, 3 Reavers with Calltrops (too little), as HQ fighting Archon (useless) and haemi with flamer.
His list was easy to deal with, Reavers are great to eliminate big groups of footmen, but you need 6 I think. Blasterborns in Venom are the good way to eliminate tanks, and Wyches with grenades are the next reliable option for this purpose.
DL can work or not, they are less efficient than the 2 previous units. So 2 Ravagers are needed to make sure you will eliminate some tanks. Concentrating their firepower is necessary, as AV12 is the worst we can meet.
Be very careful if you have to deal with 20 Guardsmen not to charge them. Units of 5 Wyches are far too little because of the counter-charge shooting. They are not the unit you can use for that, Reavers, Venoms and Warriors in racked Raider are the way to go. My assault has been incredibly poor due to that, even with the support of the Archon.
One really irritating unit is the Vendetta with Vets. It will land somewhere turn 2 and explodes one of your skimmer for sure, except if you have moved and succeed with your cover saves. The Vets get huge S8 grenade and meltas which will be a problem for another skimmer, so make sure they are not to close from each other. You have to plan it not to see your game ruined. Once this threat has hit, just eliminate the Vets and the Vendetta quickly, as the flyer has to get stationnary to disembark them. if you miss it this horrible plane will start to fly again and wreck all your skimmers one by one. In 1500 pts game you can expect 3 if your opponent wants to win, and maybe 2 Voidravens would be necessary.
Here is what I can tell you thanks to this experience. Hope it helps!

@Count adhemar:

Well, I'm planning on assaulting the weakened bubblewrap with 1 squad of Wyches and Assault the tank behind it with the other squad of Wyches with Haywire grenades ofcourse.

@Enfernux:

Blasts are on my Razorwing. I'm considering to keep the Monoscythes. Afterall, we are not dealing with powerarmour now. I could leave the Hellions at home and bring along the Reavers. Bladevaning them should be efficient.

Furthermore I'm planning to approach them as a form of Tau. Target saturation and by utilizing this I hope to be able to play a bit more aggresive, getting into CC asap.

@Inrit:

That helps a lot.

I hope I don't have to face 3 Vendetta's I don't own 2 flyers myself at the moment. Only a Razorwing (which I primarly kit out to kill infantry usually). So my best bet it to concentrate my DLs when it goes in hovermode to disembark contents.

2nd Ravager, check.

6 Reavers, check. Really considering right now to leave my Hellions at home in favor of the Reavers.

I'm hoping i'm able to weaken those 20 guardman bubblewraps so i cán assault them with 2 squads of 5 Wyches if need be (this'll make sure you álways have 5 Wyches in CC). They can't pull off 1st rank fire, 2nd rank fire in overwatch. Because it has to be done in their own shooting phase.

But you say his list was easy to deal with. So do you feel as if you were playing a weak list?

I feet it could have been far worst. According to my mate, IG is the worst match-up for DE, because of the huge amount of AV12 tanks they are able to put on the table. DL main ability which is to low AV gets useful only against Leman Russ tanks and all the basic transports are hard to kill and deadly for our ships with their multilasers.
In the list I have faced, his 2 metal monsters have been wrecked turn 1, letting only little firepower concentrated in weak Guardsmen (2 autocannons and 2 missile launchers I think). For any well-built DE list, this is a dream.
The strong point of his list was the Flyer, and I can imagine how hard it is to fight against 3 of them and few AV12 around. Hydras which ignore covers are also horrible for DE.
Also the game was very positive as I could see well which unit was good for which purpose.
So in the end, I felt lucky he went on this list, which for an IG seems indeed weak!

I've got my own little IG army, so I can only say it the other way around:

If I were an IG player against DE, I would max out on multilaser scout sentinels! 3 S6 shots, move through cover, scout, armour 10 all around, at a mere 35 points. In the same vein I understand that the Chimera is a great weapon with its front armour of 12, meaning the plus of lance weapons becomes moot.

And I must say that I am curious about the effect of my beloved LR Exterminator. It did wonders on Tyranids, I wonder what that 48 inch S7 AP4 heavy 4 twinlinked cannon and its 3 front and side sponson heavy bolters would do on a charging DE wave...

@Inrit

That they can field a lot of tanks worries me indeed. The opponent I'm going to play is known for his love for tanks. I'm going to cram as much Dark Lances and Haywires in my list as possible again. Let's hope it's enough.

@Chaeril

And as a DE player, what do you feel is the weak link of an IG player. How would you counter your own IG list with DE?

tlronin wrote:

@Chaeril

And as a DE player, what do you feel is the weak link of an IG player. How would you counter your own IG list with DE?

Good question. Even while I am building my two forces to match each other, I am not tailoring either of them to be uber effective on the other, as that's not how I party. I chose what I find cool first, only then considering its effect.

I however DO know that the main armour of infantry is flak, at 5+, so easy to beat, yet equal or better than our own. I am building a 1500 point list with 20 wyches and 10 bloodbrides, I guess they will hit like a brick once they manage to assault. Against MEQ I guess armour will be a problem, against IG you should be having a proper massacre Plus, those reaver bladevanes must be awesome too. Never mind the armour, as 4+ carapace or force fields are rare, and 4+ grenadiers (+30 point veterans or storm troopers) very expensive point wise.

Biggest weakness? LEADERSHIP! Take out its special characters, the officers with their orders and high LD, and the rest must crumble quick enough. Perhaps the PLAYER will, as his/her senior officer, officer of the fleet and commissar are all gone. Decapitate the command and then concentrate on the infantry and tanks piecemeal. And yes, stun its tanks, make them incapable of shooting, then move to the next tank. Killing only when the rest is incapacitated.

Also, get your assault troops into assault and follow up whenever possible, as shooting forces cannot shoot on troops already in an assault.

I remember years ago that I was forced to throw in my command squad and an extra infantry squad to stem a wave of hormagaunts. That's not what IG is good at, bayonets against killing machines, at least without Ogryns (which are perfect targets for poisoned weapons). So give it to them and take the initiative! Get heavy weapon teams to redeploy or without a target, so they cannot shoot. Throw the wyches and others against the heavy and special weapons teams for quick pain tokens, and make it YOUR game, not his/hers. Dance around them and lobby for masses of terrain to hide behind. IG wants clear firing ranges, you want all kinds of stuff in the way.

I must say I have no experience with hydra's, hellhounds or flyers, so I cannot comment, I however think they are all very good against DE. And an 'ignore cover' barrage from Basilisks and such must be terrible too...

Part of the reason which brought me to DE is a frustration of a lack of mobility and close combat prowess in my IG army. So in both departments you are free to dictate the battlefield. Never EVER give up the initiative! Be a true archon and make the enemy respond in despair...

Make them feel like I did once when I faced Tau with my experimental conscript army: the longer ranges of the Tau guns and the fact that they jumped right back into cover after shooting, made my list totally ineffective and the slaughter total.

i would also recomend tormentors for -1 Ld

Enfernux wrote:

i would also recomend tormentors for -1 Ld

Sure. Kill the officers, kill the sergeant, use a tormentor and make them do LD checks on a 6...

Ah and even though I run 10 (wo)man squads of wyches in raiders, I believe that double that amount of 5 strong wyches in venoms might be sufficient to tie down all of the shooting and still come out victorious in the end against 10 strong IG squads. However watch out for that up to 50 strong combined IG squad with a priest or a commissar!