Blog Donation Part 3: The Search for Part 2

Hey all. Today, we've got another article by "TheNobleWolves". He's written an in-depth article on how to build IG lists for those of you who are new to the hobby or the Guard.

"And another little blog donation. This time, the subject is on list-building for those who are new to the hobby.

My father always said a list of pros and cons is the best way to start out, so let's take his fatherly advice:

IMPERIAL GUARD-Pros:
- A massive amount of cheap infantry.- Can field an equally massive amount of heavy and special weapons.
- No army can throw out the volume of fire like an Imperial Guard army
- The best all-round tank in the game, the Leman Russ chassis.
- Our new elite choices can actually do something
- Powerful characters.

Cons:
- Guardsmen are statistically pathetic.
- We need volume of fire to compensate for our crappy Ballistic Skill
- Our elites still can't compete with the Elites of most other armies
- The new codex throws so many options at us that list-building now seems like a chore (the "Its New So I Should Take It" syndrome)

So there we have it. Based on these Pros and Cons, any list that we make should be based on a majority of the following principles:

1. There are three types of armies you should base your force around: Airborne Drop armies with a lot of Valkyries; Armored Forces with a lot of tanks; or Infantry Companies with a lot of basic Guardsmen. No matter what it is, the mantra should be: TAKE A LOT!
2. No matter what army you take, remember when kitting them out: less is more. No other army, save perhaps Chaos, has as many kit options as the Imperial Guard. It can be tempting to load down an individual unit with a massive amount of kit, but that can be expensive and can lead to 'waste kit'- kit that, for some reason or another, is never used.- Example: Vendettas should never be used in a transport-primary role. Why? When zooming around the map delivering their payload, 66% of their lascannon payload can't be fired. That 40-50 pts. doing NOTHING.
3. ALWAYS compensate for a Guardsman's crappy ballistic skill. There are two ways you can do this: template/blast weapons, and redundancy.
-Template: These weapons will ALWAYS hit, no matter what. Heavy/Flamers will be your primary dispenser of these babies, so give them to troops you'll have on the front line
-Blast: These weapons will always get on the board, but because of scatter will sometimes miss. So many weapons are small/large blast that it'd take too long. For your troops, Grenade Launchers/Mortars will be your primary blast dispensers.
-Redundancy: BoLS's Goatboy is big on redundancy, and I'm also a follower. Whenever you take ANYthing, always take another. Not only will you be able to concentrate fire better (and thusly have more shots land) but you'll have doubled its survival chances by giving the enemy 2 things at which to shoot.
4. Never build a list around a certain unit. The Imperial Guard are renowned for being one of the few armies without a certain 'linchpin' unit. Kill our tanks and you still have our infantry to deal with. Pin our infantry and our artillery will get you. So and so forth.
5. The basic Guard strategy is the Hammer and Anvil technique- one portion of the army remains stationary to hammer away with heavy weapons(Anvil) while another, more mobile section sallies forth to meet the enemy head-on (Hammer). Keep this in mind when building a list, as well.


There you go guys. Wolves has promised me a list illustrating these concepts, so watch out for that in the future. Also, be sure to check out his blog, The General Critic, here.

Reds