If you want to beat Imperial Guard with Space Wolves you have to accept one undeniable fact. You're going to get shot -a lot!So with this in mind, it's time to drive forward in your Rhinos, pop smoke and pray you can make it through the storm of bullets, shells and energy beams, leap out of the burning wrecks and beat puny humans to a bloody pulp with your Grey Hunters.
You're going to be outnumbered, you're going to be outgunned. But all you need is an armour save, some decisive close combats and a lot of luck.
Based on my gaming experience, I'm going to explain how to beat Imperial Guard with Space Wolves while explaining what to look out for and how to best utilise your units to deal with each threat.
IMPERIAL GUARD ARMY STRENGTHS
Mechanised Madness
If you ever get drawn against an Imperial Guard army that isn't all mounted in tanks, then it's a happy day for the Space Wolves. However, every competitive Imperial Guard army will be fully mechanised with Chimeras and Valkyries backed up by all manner of Manticores, Hydras and maybe even a Leman Russ or a Hell Hound.
More importantly, this gives the Imperial Guard lots of mobile heavy weapons which can make life hard for any army. So be sure to bring melta guns, lots of melta guns, 'cos you're gonna need them!
Thousands of 'em!
Always numerous, Imperial Guard armies will always outnumber Space Wolves. Sometimes you just feel like you're drowning in enemy units -especially when there are just tanks all over the place.
But just remember that the quality of Space Wolves troops will see you through and should make a bloody stain of even the best Imperial Guard units. You just need to get across the board and charge. There's nothing quite like the safety of not being shot at in close combat!
Unlike other armies, the Imperial Guard can't really pile everything into one big close combat to try and tie you up, because they will get slaughtered.
Shooting
As the kings of firepower, the Imperial Guard are all about shooting. So while you will be able to take out key targets like Valkyrie Vendettas and light vehicles with your missile-spam Long Fangs, at the end of the day, they are going to blast you off the board if it comes down to a shooting match.
So pick your targets as a means of giving your Grey Hunters covering fire as they advance. The goal is to get those Grey Hunters into close combat and by limiting the firepower coming their way with your own long ranged firepower is the best way to ensure success.
IMPERIAL GUARD ARMY WEAKNESSES
Poor Quality Troops
Imperial Guard only have one weakness and that's the quality of their troops. However, it's also a great strength of theirs because they have so many expendable units. Because these units will crumple in close combat, it also means that if you charge, you're likely to wipe them out and be stuck in the open to get shot at in the Imperial Guard player's turn.
However, by the time you get to them, your squads will have probably taken quite a few casualties. Regardless, you can still be confident that you'll win close combats. Or at the very least, you can sit tight in a nice prolonged close combat, safe from all those nasty guns, although you may need to be lucky with your armour saves to survive.
TYPICAL IMPERIAL GUARD ARMY LIST
This is what most of the Imperial Guard armies I have faced have been like. Manticores and Hydras with some Valkyrie Vendettas for lots of lascannons, plus Psyker Battle squads to make my squads break and run. It's really not any fun to play against, but if you can keep fighting your way forward with true Space Wolf tenacity, you will get there in the end!
HQ Command squad
Commander with power sword and 3 melta guns
(X2) Psyker Squads:
9 Psykers and 1 Priest
Chimera
Imperial Guard Platoon:
Command squad with 3 melta guns
10 Imperial Guard with melta gun
10 Imperial Guard with melta gun
Veteran Squad:
6 veterans, 3 melta guns
Veteran Squad:
6 veterans, 3 meltaguns
2 Valkyrie Vendettas
2 Valkyrie Vendettas
2 Valkyrie Vendettas
2 Manticores
2 Hydra flak tanks
Imperial Guard Army Strategy VS Space WolvesWhen playing any army which relies on shooting, target priorities are what will make or break a game while praying for the first turn!
Chances are that the Imperial Guard player will be forced to ignore the Space Wolves Long Fangs for the first turn as they concentrate on taking away the Space Wolves' mobility by destroying all of their transports.
Once mobility has been limited, they will then turn to long ranged firepower threats, before finally turning their guns on the Space Wolf Grey Hunters while utilising the Psyker Battle Squads to force fall backs whenever a Grey Hunter pack has to take a morale check.
Any attacks using units with melta guns will be used to stop Space Wolf units dead in their tracks from advancing. These melta units will be sacrificed of course, but when the Imperial Guard army is fairly numerous, this is a small sacrifice to make.
Space Wolves Strategy VS Imperial Guard
Start by deploying those Long Fangs in cover and simply get everything on the board, regardless of whether you have the first turn or not. You need to bring everything to bear, so reserves really aren't an option.
Having the first turn gives the Space Wolves an important advantage as you can drive all your Rhinos forward, fire your smoke launchers and take down a few of the Imperial Guard high firepower units with missiles from your Long Fangs and lascannon shots from your Razorbacks.
If you don't have the first turn, sit tight and take the hits on your tanks. There's not much else you can do. Just get ready to run those Grey Hunters across the board, hugging over as best you can.
As I've said, you're going to get shot and get shot a lot. Simply accept it and push forward as best you can. Keep your eye on the mission objectives and you just might do it. But you will have a much easier time if you get that first turn.
Also remember that unless an Imperial Guard unit is on foot and totally unsupported, it is always best to assault rather than rapid fire them. Assaulting will ensure that a unit gets wiped out and if you're lucky you may even avoid a round of Imperial Guard shooting by having your Grey Hunters locked in close combat, which they will of course win during the Imperial Guard turn.
Finally, don't forget to send those Land Speeders zooming up the flanks. Their multimeltas are great for taking out heavily armoured vehicles (or just downing Valkyries) and they can also work as a great distraction to keep all that firepower away from your main force. They are your only expendable units, so be sure to expend them well while causing the biggest distraction possible!
CONCLUSIONImperial Guard are hard for anyone to beat simply due to the sheer amount of mechanised units and the torrent of firepower that they can throw at you.
But when playing Space Wolves, being able to take the hits while striking back with your long ranged firepower to eliminate key threats is the real strategy for success. Just be sure to carefully pick your targets based on supporting your Grey Hunters.
Your tanks will explode. You need to accept this.
Your troops will get shot and die. You need to accept this.
Now that you've accepted that you're going to take a real pounding, you can get on with playing effectively.
Now get those Grey Hunters up the board and hug cover as best you can, while using your Long Fangs and Razorbacks to take out key threats and provide supporting fire. Once those Grey Hunters get into close combat, you'll make short work of all those Imperial Guard infantry.
Finally, if you take Wolf Guard Terminators or Lone Wolves in terminator armour, then you're going to have a field day if you're good at passing all those 2+ armour saves. So long as you don't get jumped on with a lot of focussed melta fire, they tend to do very well against the Imperial Guard thanks to being able to deflect a huge amount of firepower.
8 comments:
April 23, 2012 at 10:10 AM
I'm sorry, but this is a pretty poor article- if you want your readers to improve, you are going to need to give them far more specific information.
You say guard will target your rhinos.. which is true, with the anti-rhino weapons. What about the mass hbolters and multilasers from chimeras, hammering your long fangs? Have you suggested using your priest to deny psychic powers? What about suppression vs destroying the guard mech? Ie a shaken vendetta is a vendetta not bothering you too much.
Etc etc etc...
April 23, 2012 at 10:29 AM
>My face when the article didn't mention using Wolf Scouts with melta weapons. Even once. ONCE.
I actually knew that they wouldn't get a mention. Why should they? After all, Wolf Scouts that can come out of any table edge we choose is pretty bad.
I'm sorry, I just can't accept this article. This is more of a "How Not to Lose Terribly to Guard" and not a "How To Win against Guard" article.
April 23, 2012 at 10:40 AM
Agree on the wolf scouts. I run 2pw, 1 melta, two with pistols and ccws and a WG tooled out. I either blow something up, or assult something that didn't want to be asaulted.
Also, why no drop pods? Drop podding troops can get you across the board quickly and the pods themselves do a great job of contesting objectives and disrupting line of sight.
April 23, 2012 at 11:14 AM
I have to say, the lack of mention of scouts is without reason. Also, the fact that there is a mention of speeders zooming up the flanks is bad advice at best. Let's all be realistic here: Unless you're in a Land Raider and are 24" away from the Imperial Guard, you're going to have your ride shot out from under and you're going to get hammered by everything that doesn't want to shoot at tanks.
I played against 2 Imperial Guard lists this weekend at a Tourney and they were shocked to see 2 packs of Wolf Scouts. They rarely ever see them and when they did, the players mentioned it was only 1 pack. 2 Packs is guaranteeing what you want in their backfield dead will be dead or so out of position that they won't get the maximum use.
Another point to emphasize on this article is the lack of mention of Blob Imperial Guard. Those puny humans you so dismissively described are capable of having almost 60 S4 I4 Attacks on the charge if Straken is nearby. Also, god help you if there's a Commissar in that unit you just assaulted because unless you can guarantee you're killing it in the next assault phase, you'll have just locked yourself up for the next 2-3 turn due to them being Ld9 and Stubborn.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, expand a little more and don't hyper focus on 1 or 2 builds.
April 23, 2012 at 2:19 PM
The point of this article is essentially how to overcome a fairly generic Imperial Guard army with an equally generic Space Wolves army.
If you wanted to tailor your list to beat an Imperial Guard army, then you could easily do this. Otherwise I never considered Wolf Scouts worth their salt. I always had far more success with Land Speeders personally.
As clearly stated, this article is based on my personal experience, which included only generic meta Imperial Guard 'leafblower' style armies.
Yes, you can use Rune Priests to negate pyschic powers, but when there's a 50/50 chance of success it's not something that you can really count on as a strategy.
April 23, 2012 at 3:04 PM
Have to say I disagree with a lot of what you're saying. Having stuff in reserve is key to beating guard. You aren't going to out shoot them and by advancing in a nice line down the middle is going to get your grey hunters killed.
By drop podding something or outflanking you give them something to think about. If a squad of grey hunters arrives at their lines in a pod they cent ignore them which means the rest of your army can move up a lot more easily.
This is why so many ppl lose to guard, grey knights or even Tau. They employ a totally one dimensional strategy.
So far these articles have been pretty similar. Shit them with your long fangs and hope the grey hunters get into combat. This is why generic SW lists do so badly compared to expectations!
April 25, 2012 at 3:06 PM
I have to say, as both an IG and SW player, I would never play that IG list at all, and certainly not against Wolves. For one thing, it's illegal, in that veteran squads have 10 troops, not 6. I think you meant those to be Special Weapon Squads, which one would absolutely not take against an MEQ army. Second, where is the plasma? All that melta is great if you know your enemy is going to have tons of tanks, but then you have to have them in Chimeras to get in range. Third, where are the Russes? When I see MEQ, I want battle cannons, and then I want more battle cannons. 4th, 6 Vendettas? That's just crazy talk. I could go on, but my point is clear, if you are going to write an article on how to deal with IG, you should know something about IG.
April 26, 2012 at 9:13 AM
That guard list is actually illegal. You can't take units of 6 veterans, only 10. And if you mean sexual weapons teams, then fine, but then you have no 2nd troop.
Post a Comment