Greetings all,

I've finally organised a game of NetEpic with Zap123 after only 3 years living in the same city. However I have not played Net Epic before. I played SM2/TL ages ago but have only played EA in the last 5 or so years.

Wed week i'm hoping to get a game in with Zap123. I think we'll be playing a smallish game of about 3000pts. I'm planning on taking Imperial Guard, what i need now is some advice on what's worth taking and what should be left in the box. I have access to a fairly wide range of models so should be able to build most formations.

ÃÂ

The Guard have access to lots of good medium tanks, but these will often be at a bit of a disadvantage against flashy (Eldar or Tau) or cheaper (Ork) tanks, and suffer at the hands of enemy fast attack troops too.  For me, the real strength of the IG is in their large and inexpensive infantry companies, their massed artillery and their superheavies.  I'd pretty much never leave home without a Tactical company, an Artillery company and a Shadow Sword company.  For 3K, I'd probably add Rough Riders for a manoeuvre element, and Hydras for air defense/shield stripping.  Last 250 points to taste.  If you want armour, you could instead add 2 Rus companies and some Rapiers?

Of course, you could take Predator and Vindicator companies, 2 Rus companies, a tricked up Reaver titan and some T-Bolts  

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Fire bad, tree pretty - Buffy

If i limit myself to my painted forces (very small percentage of collection sadly) I have the following.

Stormblade Coy   800
Destroyer Sqn    200
Whirlwind Sqn    150
Hydra Sqn        300

Stormhammer Coy  650
Robots Sqd       100
Demolisher Sqn   250
Ogryn Pl         125
Thunderbolt Sqn  250

By my quick maths that comes in at 2825, leaving room for something small. My concern, just by looking, is the army is too slow. Do you think I need to swap out some tanks for some fast cav units? or am I going to die with so few infantry?

As stated above this is simply what i have currently painted, I'm happy to add just about anything else.. I'll just have to dig them up and slap some paint on.

Hi, and welcome!

Id say get working on that infantry company. Its a long and tedious process painting all them troopers, believe me Ive just done it, still have some stands left to base. But using masses of infantry is always very cool and very "Epic". If you have enough minis why no paint up two cos of infantry? My army is pretty small, but the first thing Id add if the minis were available to me would be another infantry company.

Good luck in your game! Dont hesitate to share your impressions of the game and the strenghts/weaknesses compared to EA.

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"We are the sword of fire with which the Traitors shall be cut down."

Greetings!.. and welcome to TacCom Ortron,

Zap has pretty much said what I would do with the Artillery Company, Cavalry Company, Superheavy Company and Tactical Company. Titans added to this and the one thing you must not forget... leadership. The Guard are lost without it and I find the Psyker's Embolden and the Inquisitors Fearless abilities to be essential. I tend to steer clear of most Imperial Tanks when I can, they are not as good as propaganda would have us believe. Oh, Deathstrikes... they look and are cool, however, you need to know it is unlikely that you will have a target by turn two and maybe even not even on turn three... if the enemy knows what they are about/ So be warned they could be an expensive waist in a short game. Still, they can deter some players just by being present, so... you decide.

...and if you do play some games be sure to post them up in the Battle Report thread... we just can't get enough of them. Until then, good hunting.

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My head is full of War...

[img]http://i278.photobucket.com/albums/kk120/Warhead40k/Tyranid%20Swarm/DSC02262.jpg[/img]

If you want to limit yourself to what you have painted, yeah, grabbing a Bike company and leaving out the Whirlwinds would probably be a good idea.  However, it'd probably help get a better feel for the game if you weren't so constrained in choices, so I'm happy to bring my Guard along for you to use.  If that idea works for you, then you can add the following to your selection pool.

Tactical Co.
Heavy Co.
Artillery Co.
Bike Co.
Rough Rider Co.
Beastmen Co.  (LMK if you want these as they usually live in my Chaos box)
Shadowsword Co.

Plus misc. bits like a Leviathan, Deathstrikes, Psykers, Sentinels, Hydras, Ogryns and the like.

Sorry, no medium tank companies yet.  I've just about collected all the minis I need for my "Soviet 1st Shock Army" tank horde but have yet to start painting.  If you're ok with undercoated only I can add Predator, Rus and Vindicator companies to the list  

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Fire bad, tree pretty - Buffy

OK.. time to paint some infantry it seems. I've got the tac company there ready to paint but was hoping to aviod it.. Painting infantry in epic does sap my enthusiasm pretty quickly. Has anyone used the Storm Trooper Coy? I've got a bunch of GZG infantry that would fit the role nicely but they could easily become a heavy coy as well. I could easily do up an inquisitor to accompany them which would help with command and control.

I guess its fair to say that i'm going to have to bite the bullet and get into the infantry, expecially for NetEpic which has even bigger forces that EA.

Next, can you confirm that 1 unit in each guard unit is automatically a upgraded to a SHQ? i'm sure its written somewhere but i seem to have missed it on the last read through?

New force may look something like this:

Hvy Inf Coy        600
Inquisitor        100
 Destroyer Sqn    200
 Whirlwind Sqn    150
 Hydra Sqn        300
 Sabre Sqn        100
 Stormhammer      225

Arty Coy           600
 Robots Sqd       100
 Demolisher Sqn   250
 Bike Sqd         125
 Thunderbolt Sqn  250

This will give me a lot more units to move around/hold ground. I'll have to see how the infantry painting goes because i'm keen to take more super heavys as i like the models.

Cheers for the advice so far. I guess at the end of the day it comes down to whether you want a competitive force or just taking what you like the look of.

You should certainly lean to what you enjoy!  There are plenty of good candidates for infantry light armies too.  If you troll back through the battle reports section you can see one where a local Guard player had basically all tanks...3 companies of Leman Rus + ShadowSwords and some arty and air.  It was fun to play against.  The strength of the Guard in NE is their huge swarms of infantry and cavalry....but there's nothing to say you have to play to their strengths.  The other neat thing about the Imp Guard is they have such a huge selection of troops there's all sorts of armies you can build for them.

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Fire bad, tree pretty - Buffy

Morning,

allow me to jump in, Gentlemen.
Ortron, I am in the same situation. I will be playing my first game with IG versus a chaos army. Thanks to all the good advice given here, I have now some first ideas for an army list, methinks.

I got 2 questions, though. The codex states that one stand of a detachment automatically becomes the section HQ. But what happens if it gets killed? Do I appoint another stand to SHQ? Or is the detachment useless then?

Connecting with this: Is it volitional that moles are the SHQ for their detachments? Sounds a bit awkward to me, since they are easy to kill, being a monstrous tube in the middle of some Inf (and only having a save of 3+...)

Anyway, wish you lotsa fun in your first IG game. I hope you won't go crazy when painting those IG Joes    

cheers

sanjuro

Base 'em, spray paint em, paint the guns, faces, hands, helmets, and backpacks.
Stain em.
Flock em.

Done.

If the SHQ gets killed you're in trouble.  Unless there is a CHQ or a Commissar within coherency of the detachment then they are out of command.  So, no orders and can only fire in the Advance phase.

Moles are the SHQ because they contain the comms gear that allows the detachments to stay in command.  I figure the 3+ save and 3 CAF makes them a lot harder to kill than a Tactical stand....but they are easier to target, which is probably what you meant.  Just the trade-off you make for "deep striking" Imperial Guard troops I guess.

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Fire bad, tree pretty - Buffy

Thanks zap,

so then why would I take moles? Hellbore seems the better choice. for only 100 points more I get more flexibility, a harder to kill CHQ, and on top of it, the hellbore hits everything in a 12cm radius  

Haven't even had a chance to look at the tunnellers myself yet, but I don't have any models either so there isn't any rush on my behalf.

I have managed to paint the majority of a Heavy Mech Coy. I've also had another look at the army book and I'm actually surprised at some of the differences between the Netepic stats, and what I'm used to in EA and 40k(2nd - 5th ed).

For Eg the armour save of leman russ tanks is equal to that of chimera hulled types. The hellhound is slow and its inferno cannon isn't scary at all, especially when compared with the salamander.

Few other points (pdf is from the wiki):
If scorpian is modified tarantula, how come its not Light arty?
Zulu AA? not sure what this one is supposed to represent, likewise description would suggest Arty?
Hydra is not covered in the body text?
Griffons.. wow! they look powerful now.
Flier wpns rarely match up to current wpn loadouts (the old WYSIWYG?)

Please don't think of this as complaining, its just interesting to see how different some things are between the systems. I guess you get used to a unit filling a particular role/capability and its interesting when that perception is changed.

Regards
Geoff

The major issue I see with the Hellbore is there is only one....so it can only grab one objective...and how the heck do you get 30 stands away from it when they only move 20cm?  That's what I call a target rich environment

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Fire bad, tree pretty - Buffy

Do they all have to be in the transporting Hellbore at the start? Couldn't you move two Detachments normally with the Hellbore below ground safe and unreachable, then when the time comes it surfaces right under the defenders breaking their defensive line and disgorging the third platoon. Cheesy but could be argued. What do the rules say?

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My head is full of War...

[img]http://i278.photobucket.com/albums/kk120/Warhead40k/Tyranid%20Swarm/DSC02262.jpg[/img]