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Thursday, April 22, 2010

How to: Hybrid Imperial Guard


So MasterSlowPoke (come on, we all know Scyther was the best) wanted me to go a bit more in-depth on the Hybrid Imperial Guard, so here we are. First, Hybrid IG uses IG tanks & protects them with an infantry bubble-wrap. Read that link for a more in-depth analysis of what bubble-wraps do but quickly the infantry bubble-wrap keeps opponent’s at arms length from the tanks. IG don’t like you getting close to them as they operate at peak efficiency from farther away (long range and lots of blasts combined with some min ranges). Whilst this has been alleviated in the new codex by being able to take hull heavy flamers on every tank chassis for free, IG would still prefer you to die far away and the bubble-wrap infantry platoon allows you to do this.

What then do we want in our bubble-wrap? Infantry platoons are the obvious answer with an attached commissar as you can combine them for a huge footprint and lots of bodies. It’s hard to make the unit move with Stubborn and Ld9 and 30+ members which you can order to ground for +2 to cover or shoot 3-4 autocannons as you see fit with a dash of meltaguns to scare off tank shocking. Plop this in front of your armour and bingo! Protection for ze tanks. This is the hybrid aspect of your army. From that point on you essentially need your downfield fire (you can go pure downfield fire) and/or meltaguns (or you can add in some meltagun Vets through Chimeras or Vendettas).

So with Hybrid IG you’re keeping the opponent at arm’s length with the bubble-wrap and otherwise firing across the table at your opponent, that’s your basic Hybrid IG. This means tanks and units like PBS in Chimeras, Manticores, Medusas, Devildogs and Lemun Russ variants are your best bet all using blast and generally having significant range followed up with Vets or Infantry Platoons in Chimeras. You can add in Vendettas w/Demo Vets for a first turn alpha strike if it’s offered (I prefer this as it can change your opponent’s deployment) or if you won’t be able to get within melta range, leave them in their Chimeras and use Vendettas as fire support whilst pushing the Chimeras midfield as you need. Again, the point of the Hybrid part of IG is to keep your opponent as far away as possible for as long as possible and thus protect your main tanks.

So let’s apply this to an army list.

We want that bubble-wrap so we shall buy them first. Let’s take 3 infantry platoons w/2 meltaguns, 3 autocannons and a commissar. 235 pts. Need the PCS as well. Let’s put them in a Chimera w/an AC for another 105 pts.

We also want 2x PBS in Chimeras to add to our blast fun. Full squad + Chimera is 165 x2 = 330. We also need a CCS (dur) so let’s add one in a Chimera w/AC and 2x meltagun; another 135 pts so we’re sitting at 805 pts atm.

We need to start adding in some heavier hitters but are still short on the Troops so let’s take 2x Vets w/AC, 3 mgun and a Chimera for 330 total; still not at 1k and we’ve got pretty good suppression fire with the ability to move into midfield with meltas if needed. Let’s add some bigger guns.

2x Medusa for 270. I’ve chosen Medusas over Manticores here as I want to pack in 2 squads of Russes if I can and the Medusas can be taken in a squad. We shall then take 2 devil dogs as well for 240. 520 pts left. Not really enough for 4 Russes. Let’s see what we have.

CCS w/2 meltaguns, AC, Chimera

2x PBS w/Chimera

2x Vet w/3 meltaguns, AC, chimera

PCS w/AC, chimera

3x Infantry w/2 meltaguns, 3 AC, Commissar

2x Devildogs

2x Medusas

9 tanks, 7 AC, 6 blasts and 81 infantry. Need to up that across the road reach I think. Let’s skip on the Russes for this list and take another Medusa and 2x Vendettas moving the Devildogs into one squad. 125 pts to play with.

Point playing time! Let’s drop 2 psykers from each PBS and add another PBS for 145. Still have 20 points to play with then. Not going to have enough to give the Vets demo so we’ll add 2 meltaguns in to the PCS so they can move into midfield if needed as well. So let’s see what we ended up with.

HQ -

Company Command squad w/2x meltaguns, AC, Chimera

Elites -

PBS x7 + Overseer w/Chimera

PBS x7 + Overseer w/Chimera

PBS x7 + Overseer w/Chimera

Troops -

Veterans x10 w/3x meltagun, AC, Chimera

Veterans x10 w/3x meltagun, AC, Chimera

Platoon Command Squad w/2x meltagun, AC, Chimera

Infantry Platoon w/Commissar, AC

Infantry Platoon w/meltagun, AC

Infantry Platoon w/meltagun, AC

Fast Attack -

Devildogs x2

Vendetta

Vendetta

Heavy Support -

Medusa

Medusa

Medusa

Totals: 2000 points
Tanks: 14
Infantry: 85

We’ve got 7 AC, 6x TL LC, 7 multi-lasers, 2 melta blasts and 3 S10 pie plates coming downfield on T1. If you get the opportunity you can load those Vets up and alpha strike other wise you use your suppression fire on to stop your opponent’s shooting and Medusas to knock people out of tanks. Once that starts to happen you rain blasts on them. You can move into midfield with your meltaguns or let them splash across your infantry bubble-wrap and mass shoot/flame them next turn (all the Chimeras are ML/HF btw).

The great thing about IG IMO is you can change so many things around and keep a good list so there are a lot of changes that could be made here but I hope that helps explain IG Hybrid a bit better as that was the ultimate goal of this post. So did it do that SlowPoke?

6 pinkments:

MasterSlowPoke said...

Wow, thanks. I always wanted an excuse to build up a few Medusas, and this can't hurt.

I've tried out bubble wrapping a few times since I've read about it on here, but I found that I couldn't get past my own trenches. The missions were objective based and it simply took too long to drive my Chimeras around the wrap and I lost out on the midfield objectives. I was definitely killy enough - maybe one fast unit made it past the 24" line. It'd probably be better if my Vendetta wasn't destroyed the week before - a light fixture fell from the roof at my FLGS and landed a direct hit on the plane.

I'm kind of surprised you like PBS so much - accounting for Psychic tests and scattering 1 inch or less, they have barely better than a 1/3 chance of landing a direct hit on a vehicle, and a single S7 hit is not all that scary. Leadership bombs are definitely a lot nicer and you're not going to miss a chance with 3 squads so that's a plus.

How will the Devildogs work? Their range is too short behind the bubble wrap so I assume they push onto the midfield.

Unknown said...

Most of the time you don't need to move past your bubble-wrap, you just shoot the enemy off the board. If you do you have your Vens to start taking and holding midfield whilst you open up path ways for your tanks to move through. Also remember you don't always need the bubble-wrap. Against some armies it's plain useless or not as needed so you can only put one squad down as bubble-wrap and combine the other 2 for firesupport.

PBS are really anti-infantry. It's another large blast that wounds most infantry on a 2+. It has a bit of duality against tanks with it's medium strength but it's not reliable as you pointed out.

Devildogs allow you not to have to move into midfield against Raiders all the time and are another blast. This is all about blast. Blasts blasts blasts. Again if you need to move into midfield these guys can lead the Chimeras with their fast ability.

It again comes down to your ability to pop tanks and then just smoother what's inside. You've got a 2+ save? That's nice here's a bunch of blasts. The vendettas and ACs then keep the majority of your opponent's armor suppressed and are going to get a tank pop or two in there.

Chumbalaya said...

Hooray for hybrids. Good stuff, Kirbs. I'm not a huge fan of the PBS thanks to the prevalence of psychic defense. Creed, Kell and some HWS would fit in nicely and give you a lot more firepower on the ground.

Anonymous said...

The first list looks a lot like what I normally run. You make a good point about including a melta or two in the blob for tank shocking.

Black_Rose said...

I know this thread is old put I wanted to build this army today and your 2000 point list adds up to 2135.

To get it back on track I dropped a PBS with chimera.

Unknown said...

o.O My bad. Good fix though.

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