I put this together with the Online EA builder It is a bit artillery heavy, but I put this together as a spear/hammer setup. Comments/thoughts? This is a Steel Legion List army.


MECHANISED INFANTRY COMPANY - 825
Commander, 12 Infantry, 7 Chimera
+Tank Squadron (3 Leman Russ)
+Hellhound Squadron (3 Hellhounds)
+Chimera
+Hydra

SUPER-HEAVY TANK COMPANY - 600
Shadowsword
2x Baneblade
+Infantry Platoon (6 Infantry)

ARTILLERY COMPANY - 800
3x Basilisk
6x Manticore
+Griffon Battery (3 Griffons)
+Hydra

ARTILLERY BATTERY (BOMBARD) - 250
3 Bombards

ROUGH RIDER PLATOON - 150
6 Rough Riders

SENTINEL SQUADRON - 100
4 Sentinels

WARHOUND TITAN - 275

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MadMagician
Epic Tyranids

7 Activations is very low.

Not taking a supreme commander is suicide for guard.

Drop some (most) upgrades, upgrade to a supreme commander, and get a few more formations.

zobo is this a bit better? it moves out to 9 activations while still maintaining the spear and hammer effect I am looking for


REGIMENTAL HQ - 550
Supreme Commander, 12 Infantry, 7 Chimera
+Hydra

INFANTRY COMPANY - 300
Commander, 12 Infantry
+Hydra

SUPER-HEAVY TANK COMPANY - 500
2x Baneblade
Shadowsword

ARTILLERY COMPANY - 725
3x Basilisk
6x Manticore
+Hydra
+Chimera

ARTILLERY BATTERY (BOMBARD) - 250
3 Bombards

ROUGH RIDER PLATOON - 150
6 Rough Riders

ROUGH RIDER PLATOON - 150
6 Rough Riders

SENTINEL SQUADRON - 100
4 Sentinels

WARHOUND TITAN - 275

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MadMagician
Epic Tyranids

A lot better, though I'd swap out one of the rough rider formations for a pair of thunderbolts.

See, I'd take 9 Manticores every time.

lol I had 25 points available and nothing to do with it! Thanks for the tip on Tbolts though I will try that once I get some!

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MadMagician
Epic Tyranids

or drop the chimera and one rough rider platoon and take a pair of warhounds ?

I used to think differently, however now I would do the following:

- Replace the Baneblades with Shadowswords
- Remove the Artillery Co
- Add an Artillery Battery
- Add a Deathstrike
- With 275 left, another Warhound perhaps? Maybe an INF Co. with an upgrade...?

The above just boosted your activations to 10+ and did not leave you with a relatively weak BTS

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Frogbear is responsible for...
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See in Ethiopia, at an internet cafe and what do I end up doing?

Anyway - several flaws in your list. First off you can only add chimera to formations requiring infantry transports, you cannot use them as light tanks.

Otherwise there is no real attack in the list. You can send the mech forward but it will outpace the rough riders and super heavy tanks. You have a big firebase with 12 artillary pieces and the SHT's but if they get air assaulted or teleported on turns 2 or 3 you will be stuffed. You also lack AA so a good aircraft army like marines or tau will eat you alive.

Think of building the list this way - you want to counter your main weaknesses and have a good attacking force. Attacking wise speed 30cm troops are really needed - a very good attack for guard are a supreme commander formation and regular mechanised formation. These are backed up with warhounds, valkries, etc etc.
Your main weaknesses then are against teleporting troops, air, war engines and high activation armies.
In reverse order high activations are countered with maximising your support slots. This is most easily done with splitting up support companies. Single SHT's are very good as they can be fearless. 2 batteries of manticores put out more firepower than 9 basilisks - 4 templates as opposed to 3 - and yes less firepower turn 2 but hopefully as they are 2 separate targets with 0-2 bp each (depending on whether your fire all three turn 1 for the extra BM or just to to have one fire next turn) they would get ignored! They are also 150 points less.
War engines are dealt with by shadowswords, deathstrikes and often vultures for shield stripping.
For anti air duties always have a formation of thunderbolts - they are really for ground attack on isolated enemy formations but can also cap and intercept so are an excellent formation. Add a hydra to everythign that can take it! I consider around 500 points for anti air essential for guard. That normally means 2-3 single hydra, a hydra formation (or two - they are very fragile though) and a squadron of thunderbolts. The combination of Hydra and commissars means air assaulters aren't going to automatically beat you.
Then against teleports firebases and scouts are needed. I like to use infantry companies to both generate support slots and sit on overwatch guarding the artillery and other big guns. Sentinels are cheap activations and anti teleport pickets. Rough riders guard turn 0 but often are best moving up with the mechanised formations.

In addition to all this are fun extras. IG fire support infantry have FF4+ and 2 autocannon each for very few points - bargain! They can take chimera to. Chimera are excellent light tanks and some players love to bulk up mech formations with more. A good way of doing this are ogryns who need one chimera each - 100 points for 2 chimera and 2 tough infantry. Incidentally consider leaving them in the transports in the center of the formation - that way the chimera countercharge 10cm and the ogryns disembark a further 5cm getting them into close combat!

Common guard mistakes are including Leman Russ. Though initially effective once your opponent learns how to fight them they are a liability. playing corners means they will take forever to get anywhere as they are too slow, get suppressed easily and most awfully need a 3+ to activate against a worthy opponent who will bm them every chance they get to make you fail activation rolls. Due to speed they nearly always need to double which affects the firepower severely. If you want something like them for defence a company of baneblades are cheaper and the firepower is as good when doubling and engaging the sorts of targets that appear in your backfield.

Indeed, the single super sniping Shadowsword has served me well on several occasions. It packs a punch against all WE, is easy to get into hull down position, can't really be suppressed and is another relatively cheap activation.

Thanks for the IG treatise I need to really go back to the drawing board on my army for E:A. Now what I am a bit rattled by is this line here, is this a stats/cost problem? Why is the most Iconic IG tank basically useless? Do they need to be rebalanced?

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MadMagician
Epic Tyranids

Russes are pretty scary, but there are plenty of ways of dealing with them. Laying BMs on them (disrupt artillery) is the easiest as their firepower degrades very quickly, clipping air assaults is another (especially if you have artillery, as they'll spread out), buggering about with scout screens as Rug said is a good one too. Or even just laying a single BM a turn and ignoring them is relatively effective. They need to get close to be fully effective, so they'll be doubling and if they're firing into cover they're hitting with the big guns on 6s. All an opponent really needs to do is avoid leaving tasty stuff in sustain range (like revenants - poof!).

Rough riders, mech inf, thunderbolts, manticores, sentinels - start with those first then add stuff on