In this section we will be looking at the Imperial Guard Fast Attack units and their tactics.

The Imperial Guard are not designed as a fast attack army, their main strength in numbers and big guns. However Imperial Guard fast attack units come in hand when the big guns have broken the enemy and you need units to chase down the remnants

Scout Sentinel Squadron

Sentinels come in two types. The lighter Scout Sentinels and the heaver Armoured Sentinels.

The lighter Scout Sentinels are designed to move forward and find the lay of the land. As such they are more lightly armoured be have some sneaky tactics.

Sentinels as Scouts

How good is this? a vehicle that has the scout special rule! This means that you get a special move at the start of the game, or they can be held in reserve to out flank!

If you deploy them and use their special move. This could be used to tease the opponent, for example you place the sentinels where it draws your opponent to set up where he can shot at the sentinels, and then at the start of the game you move them in to cover, leaving your opponent with nothing to shoot!

Another tactic would be to use the special move to claim some strategic point at the start of the game.

As reserves. The sentinel can come on behind the enemy armour and gun down the weak rear armour, or harass rear heavy support troops!

Sentinel Weapons

The Sentinel has a selection of weapons to choose from. The Multi-laser is the default option, and a very good choice for a scout squad. The Multi-laser gives the Sentinel three S6 shots which is good for providing some mobile heavy weapons support for troops on the move, specially when in comes to thinning out assaulting attackers before they reach your units.

If you are looking for an alternative weapon on your Sentinel you can switch to a Heavy Flamer for the same points. The heavy Flamer is a good weapon if you are fighting is dense woodland, jungle, or built up areas. Be aware though that as the Flamer is a sort range weapon you may to use it for mopping up reminisces of units hiding in the shadows rather than tackling full squads. This is so that you do not get overwhelmed by and counter assaults from survivors.

Autocannons are available for an extra 5 points. These offer two S7 shots at 48″. If you are facing fewer tougher troops, like Space Marines or Chaos Space Marines, or Monstrous Creature heavy Tyranids and you are fighting on a more open table, then the upgrade may be worth it. When fighting swarm armies the Multi-laser wins out.

I like Missile Launchers. This offer two different rounds, the anti-personnel Frag Missile, and the Anti-tank Krack Missile. This means that you get two weapons for the price of one, or for the 5 point upgrade in this case. Highly recommended!

The last weapon listed is the Lascannon. This Lascannon is a great tank hunter weapon. If you arm the Sentinels with these then you are changing the role of the Sentinels to tank hunters that can nip in and out of cover taking pot shots at the enemies capital ( high points cost) targets. The upgrade cost is 10 points, but if you need some sneaky tank killers then these may be the ticket!

Armoured Sentinel Squadron

The Armoured Sentinel is not as sneaky as its lighter brethren. It is armour makes this Sentinel a much tougher cookie! The extra 5 points gives you and enclosed hull and 2 points tougher front armour however you loose the scout and move through cover rules. Your playing style will determine if the upgrade is worth the points.

Weapon Upgrades

The Armoured Sentinel has the same weapon options that the lighter Scout Sentinel has except that there is also an option to take a Plasma-Cannon as an upgraded weapon.

Rough Rider Squad

Rough Riders make great counter strike troops. Once the enemy assault has lost it’s impetus as your rank and file troops slow the attack down, that is the time to charge the Rough Riders in to the enemy’s flank.

Hellhound Squadron

Hellhounds are short ranged chemical weapons mounted on Chimera body with some extra side armour and a beefed up engine to make the hellhounds fast tanks. You can find the rules for fast vehicles on page 88 of the Warhammer 40k Rulebook.

Hellhound Tactics

Hellhounds are the original flame spitting variant. It has a Inferno Cannon. This is +1S better that the heavy flamer and it is a torrent weapon. The Torrent rule means that you can place the flamer template 12″ away from the Hellhound as long as

Devil Dog Tactics

The Hellhound Devil Dog with a Melta cannon. This is a melta weapon with a 24″ range and a blast template affect area.

Bane Wolf Tactics

Some times brute force is not enough to kill your target. The Bane Wolf comes with a Chem Cannon. This is a template +2 poison template weapon. To make this weapon effective you will need to get close to your target before vomiting poison death on them.

Poison weapons are good for killing monstrous creatures and other tough things with a toughness score. Don’t bother attacking anything with a hull point. The poison will just bounce off.

> Also see: Warhammer 40k Tank Tactics

Valkyrie Assault Carrier Squadron

Vendetta Gunship Squadron

In this section we will look at the troop choices available to the Imperial Guard army and Imperial Guard Troop
Tactics.

Infantry Platoon

The hart of the Imperial Guard army is the Infantry Platoon. The platoon system means that you can deploy a lot of troops and infantry heavy weapons (points permitting). It is very rare that you need to deploy more than two platoons.

Platoon Command Squad

A Warhammer Cadian Company Command Squad

An Infantry Platoon needs one command squad. Command squads can be configured in different ways. Some people like to configure the command squads with heavy weapons as a small heavy weapons team, and some configure the Command squad as an assault squad. As an assault squad it will not have enough grunt to dent most army’s but it could be useful as a counter assault squad if your guards get assaulted.

First Rank fire, 2nd Rank Fire!

This order allows the assigned squad to fire more shots. It only works for lasguns and not heavy weapons. This order will work best when used on large squad. It may be best to use this order with the new ‘Combine’ Imperial Guard special rule.

Move! Move! MOVE!

This allows the selected squad to roll three dice and select the highest when running in the shooting phase. This means the chance of rolling a 6 is 3:6 or 50%. You will roll a 5 or 6, (2/6+2/6+2/6 = 6/6) every try (statistically speaking). Remember that this move ignores difficult terrain!

This works best on squads that you want out of, or in to trouble. Assault troops come to mind first.

Incoming!

Infantry Squad

Imperial Guard Infantry Squad

Each Infantry Platoon need at least 2 ten man Infantry Squads.

You can have up to 5 Imperial Guard Infantry Squads per Troops choice, that’s 300 regular Imperial Guard. If that’s not enough, you can top they up with elite and heavy weapon squads!

Imperial Guard Infantry Squad Heavy Weapons and Special Weapons

Upgrading your Infantry Squads with heavy weapons and support weapons is optional. Most players take heavy and special weapons, so why would you not take these upgrades?

There are two main reasons why I might drop the upgrades. The first is the points cost. Dropping the upgrades can release a few extra points that I can use elsewhere. The 2nd is if I want the squad to be mobile. If you are expecting your squad to shield tanks that are on the move ( Tank Dogs) then the Heavy weapons don’t get their chance to fire with full affectiveness. Even then I usually take a special weapon, usually a flamer.

What is the best Special Weapon for an infantry squad?

Well it really depends on the job you are expecting them to do.

For squads with a heavy weapon I usually choose a grenade launcher. These have a 24″ range so they can target anything that your lasguns can. Also grenade launchers can fire frag or Krak like grenades so you can take on squads or light armoured vehicles.

If you expect to get up close to the enemy then a flamer maybe your best option, specially if there is a lot of terrain. It can be surprising how many troops a well placed flamer can take out. Flamers are also good if you are assaulted, The wall of flame rule means that you will always hit one of the assaulting unit (if you get chance to over-watch) .

Heavy Weapon Squads

You can have up to 4 heavy weapon squads per troop choice, each with three heavy weapons. This means you could have up to 84 heavy weapons, plus any you add to your Infantry Squads and Command squads!

Remember that all the weapons in the heavy weapon squad have to shoot at the same target.

Special Weapon Squad Tactics

Special weapon squads are fairly small (6 man squads) that has three special weapon in it. The codex briefly suggests some tactics for Special weapon squads (page 38). One thing to be aware of is that flamers meltaguns and demolition charges are short range weapon and special weapon squads do not come with frag grenades.

It is usually best to not mix types of weapons in a special weapon squad too much. Short range weapons work well together (flamer, melta’s and demolition charges), or medium range weapons work together (plasma guns and grenade launchers), but mixing a short range weapon with medium ranged or long ranged weapons (sniper rifles), does not work well. As always, if you have a special reason to mix types then that may over-ride this advice.

A sniper-rifle special weapons squad costs the same as a rattling 5 man sniper squad but they are not as good. You only get three sniper rifles, their ballistic skill is not as good, and you do not get the special rules. You do get the chance to have more of them without using up valuable elite choice slots.

Conscript Squad Tactics

You can have up to one conscript squad attached to an infantry platoon. As untrained troops the weapon skill and ballistic skill of a conscript trooper is less than the normal imperial guard. The conscript troops do not have heavy weapons or special weapons option and the do not have transport. What they do get is numbers. A conscript squad can have 20 to 50 conscripts in it, and at 3 points per model that makes for very cheap cannon fodder.

Conscripts have a very low leadership score, however this can be fixed by adding a Commissar,  Lord Commissar, or a Primaris Psyker, as these have leadership score of 9 or 10. What’s more the Commissar (max one per Command Squad) and Primaris Psyker (max 3 per detachment ) do not take up HQ slots so you can have them and still have 2 regular HQ choices in a battle forged army. Also you could take a Ministorum Priest ( max 3 per detachment). Priests have LD7 and cost the same as a Commissar but you get a couple of extra close combat friendly special rules (see HQ section for details). My recommendation would be to add both a Commissar and a Ministorum Priest in the mix and you get a unit that can take and give out a good amount of punishment!

Imperial Guard Veteran Squad Tactics

Veteran Squad’s have moved from an Elite choice to being a troop choice in the 2009 Imperial Guard Codex. This means that you can have an army with your troop choices made completely from Veterans. This in turn means that it is possible to have very small, cheap armies, or to minimise the troop points cost to maximise on heavy support or other ‘beardy’ army configurations.

Veterans have a better Ballistic score that the regular troops. this means that any special and heavy weapons that use the BS will be hitting on 3’s. This will not affect flamer weapons. Note that heavy weapons cost more points that the regular troops heavy weapons, but the special weapons are the same cost. This makes the special weapons good value points wise.

Imperial Guard Veteran squads have much more flexibility with the weapons they take. They can have up to three special weapons, for example. This means that you can adapt them to meet specific roles. If you want Tank busters then arm them with meltaguns and the ‘Demolition’ doctrine. If you want a squad to cleanse forests and buildings, give them plenty of flamers.

Doctrines

Veterans can have Doctrines. Be careful with these as they came make the squads expensive. Make sure that you will use the skills if you pay the points for them.

Veterans with the “Forward Sentries” get camo-cloaks and defensive grenades. Defensive grenades will reduce the number of attacks an assaulting force has against you. To make best use of this, place your veterans where then will take the blunt of any assault (ie on the front line, but behind cover). Camo-cloaks give the squad the ‘Stealth’ special rule This improves any cover saves by 1.

In this section we will be looking at the tactics for the Imperial Guard Elite choices.

The Elite section is where you will find the more unusual option that can add ‘Flavour’ to your army. Keep your over all tactics in mind when you are choosing Elite units, and don’t over do it. They can be expensive and you may need your point for regular troops.

Ogryn Squad Tactics

The Ogryn are the Imperial Guard’s answer to the Space Marine Terminators. By this I mean that they are larger, tougher and more tooled up for close quarter fighting that the regular troops (Ogryns in Space Hulk anyone?).

You can have 3 to 10 Ogryn in a squad. 6 Ogryns is if optimal as they can ride in a Chimera.

General Ogryn Tactics

Set the Ogryn squad so they can protect / assault the most dense cover. Ogryns work very well in city fight and jungle fight scenarios.

If the densest terrain is not in or touching your deployment area, consider taking a Chimera to ferry the Ogryn to the most strategic location.

Ripper Gun

The Ogryn Ripper Gun is perfectly suited to the close quarter fighting style of the Ogryn Squads.

Ogryn Special Rules

Bulky

Ogryn take up more room in a vehicle. The positive side to this is that they get extra wounds, attacks and toughness over the normal Imperial Guard trooper.

Furious Charge

The Imperial Guard Ogryn get the ‘Furious Charge’ special rule. This is only an advantage if the Ogryn charge the enemy. Do what you can to make sure that the Ogryn charge in to close combat, even if you have to sacrifice a guard unit to slow the enemy down.

Stubborn

The Ogryn have the ‘Stubborn’ special rule. This makes up for their low leadership score, but don’t bank on it!

Ratling Squad Tactics

Ratlings are snipers. They need somewhere to stay that has a good fields of sight.

Ratlings have a slightly improved BS score over the normal guardsman. This will mean that they hit 66% of the time, so you will not need so many to hit your targets.

The Imperial Guard Ratlings are armed with sniper rifles. The Sniper rifles wound on a 4+ regardless of toughness. This means that you are far better going for tougher opponents, ie a T3 Gaunt and a T9 Carnifex both wound on 4+ !

Ratlings have an improved initiative score, but with a low strength and toughness, I do not recommend these as assault troops!

Special Rules

The Ratlings have a Infiltrate and Stealth special rules that will help placing them in a good position.

Psyker Battle Squad Tactics

The Psyker Battle Squad is a new option for the 2009 codex.

Storm Trooper Squad Tactics

The Storm Troopers are elite Imperial Guard troops.

In this section we will be looking at the Imperial Guard HQ tactics. As usual, you will need a copy of the Codex to make best use of this information.

General Imperial Guard HQ Tactics

There are 3 basic Imperial Guard HQ choices, there is the Company Command Squad, the Lord Commissar, which Yarrick is an example, and the Tank Commander.  Both the Company Command Squad  and the Tank Commander take up a large number of points, so If you are wanting to write up an army list for a smaller game the Lord Commissar is a worthy choice. For more regular sized battles ( 1500 plus points ) the Company Command Squad is very flexible, and for largest Apocalypse sized games fielding a tank only regiment headed by a Tank Commander can be fun too.

Company Command Squad Tactics

A Warhammer Cadian Company Command Squad

The Company Command Squad is the standard Imperial Guard HQ choice. For the points the command squad is very good value.

The Command Squad has a Ballistic Skill of 4. The means that they are as good as Space Marines at shooting. This being the case is worth wile tooling them up with better weapons. I highly recommend upgrading to a Lascannon team. The only reason not to is if you want to have an extra mobile or close combat squad (city or jungle fight?).

Despite the improved Ballistic Skill, I would be very nervous about upgrading to Plasma guns. If you do take plasma guns, take the carapace armour upgrade too.

Orders

The Company Commander gets the ‘Voice of Command’ special rule. This means that e can issue one order per turn. I  have covered these orders and how to use them on the General Imperial Guard Tactics page

The Company Command Squad can take Regimental Advisers.

Warlord Traits

The Imperial Guard Codex includes Warlord traits that you can use instead of the list found in the rule book.

The codex list has been created with a Guard army in mind, however there is not a massive advantage in using the Guard Codex so you may want to try both Warlord Traits lists to the see which you prefer.

Astropath

A Genestealer Hybrid Magus that I sometimes use as a Imperial Guard Psyker.

The Astropath is a L1 psyker that has t be part of the Company Command Squad and they have a limited choice of psychic powers to choose from too. However they are half of the points cost of a Primaris Psyker and offer the same psychic protection that the Primaris Psyker does. If you are expecting a lot of psychic attacks then the Astropath could be good value for the points.

Master of Ordinance

The Master of Ordinance is a very good value ordinance weapon. For 20 points you get a unlimited range S9 AP3  Large Blast weapon that you can use each turn. Highly recommended!

Be aware that the ordinance will scatter more than the normal ordinance weapons, so be careful which targets you choose. As this has to be the same target that the others in the HQ you may want to arm the heavy weapon team ( recommended if you are taking a Master of Ordinance ) with a longer range weapon like a Lascannon or Missile launcher.

The Master of Ordinance needs line of sight to call down a barrage strike, so get him the best view of the battlefield possible.

Officer of the Fleet

The Officers of the Fleet  may be an advantage if you have reserves. If you don’t have reserves, the Officer of the fleet is a waste of points.

Bodyguards

Body Guards are above average close combat troops compared to the other Imperial Guard. This does not mean that they have game winning skills, but if you want to create a close combat HQ choice, then they are useful.

Commissar Lord

Warhammer 40k Imperial Guard Commissar Yarrick

You can have your army led by a Commissar Lord, It is more usual to have then as a second HQ choice.

Lord Commissars have the highest Weapon Skill and Ballistic skill of the whole Imperial Guard Army, they also bolster the moral of the troops around them. These skills make the Lord Commissar very desirable if you think that there will be close combat fighting. A Lord Commissar attached to a Ogryn squad makes for a formidable close combat unit. Remember that Imperial Guard close combat squads are best used to ‘mop up’ after the heavy weapons have shredded the opponent.

Tank Commander Tactics

An Imperial Guard Main Battle Tank. These are the mainstay of the Imperial Guard armoured units.

Having a Tank Commander as your HQ is great if you are wanting to field an Armoured Column style army. This is one where all your units are Vehicles or are mounted in vehicles. The usual reason for this is either that you like to see a lot of tanks on the battle field, or that you you are playing on a large ( Apocalypse ?) table and you need to make sure that your forces can move around the table quickly.

House Rules: Note that having a Tank Commander as your general does not allow you to field Leman Russ Tanks as Troop units. This seem a bit of an oversight and you may want to allow Leman Russ tanks as troop choices if a Tank Commander is your General. This will allow for a fully armoured army list.

Imperial Advisers

As well as your mandatory HQ choice that you need to lead the army, there are a number of additional HQ choices that you can take to add add additional skills to your army. Note that although these units are HQ choices they are also independent characters. This means that you do not need to attach them to your Command Squad. It is possible, and usually better to add the characters to regular units that have a special role to play, and possibly move from unit to unit as battlefield needs change.

Primaris Psyker

A Genestealer Hybrid Magus that I sometimes use as a Imperial Guard Psyker.

A Primaris Psyker can be chosen to lead you army, but they are usually taken as a second HQ choice. The main reason to add a Psyker to your army is for their psychic powers and psychic defense to the army. If you think that you have a unit that will be at the mercy of a psychic attack then having a psyker in the unit will give you a better chance of denying the psychic attack.

Ministorum Priest Tactics

An Imperial Guard Ministorum Priest

Ministorum Priests can not lead an army because they do not take up a HQ slot. The advantage of this is that you can always take Priests as an addition to your army (points permitting).

Priests are independent characters so you can attach them to a squad. The best squads to attach them to are close combat squads especially Veteran squads or Ogryn squads. You may want to load this unit in to Chimera to get them in to close assault as soon as the big guns have  softened up the target.

Ministorum Priests are Zelots, and they will pass this special rule on to the unit that they are with. The upside of this is that the unit will pass fear, pinning and regroup tests so they will be more predictable. Note that they do not automatically pass leadership tests so there is no additional help with taking orders here. The unit also gets re-roll for close combat attacks for the first round of combat. This can be combined with the war hymns the Priest can invoke for a more devastating first round of combat,

Tech-Priest Enginseer Tactics

Tech-Priest Enginseers are there to mend tanks and other vehicles that have become damaged during the battle. The more tanks you have, and the greater the need to keep them moving, the more valuable the Enginseer will be.

If the Tech-Priest is not repairing a tank this turn then they can still be handy to have around as you can have them firing an extra tank heavy weapon. If you arrange your forces well this could easily make up the 40 point cost that a basic Enginseer costs.

Tech-Priest Enginseers can be upgraded by adding a number of Servitors to his retinue. Armed  with servo-arms they can help the Enginseer repair tanks during the game. And with a full compliment of 3 Servitors you will be able to repair a tank on a roll of 2+. Again this will  be more useful as you have more tanks and vehicles in your army.

The other use for a Tech-Priest and Servitors is as a heavy hitting assault unit. Those servo-arms can dish out quite a bit of damage. The main downside of having the Tech-Priest as an assault unit is that they do not stand up to counter assaults well. However as a last stand option, or as an option to wade in to an existing assault, they may be worth a chance!