My Imperial Guard Mecha ListConcept:When I first got into 40k, it was the dreadnought that sold it for me. Huge armoured beasts striding through the masses of infantry, laying waste to all before them. Of course, way way back then, vehicles were few and far between, and only the foot sloggers mattered. Then came plastic rhinos, metal landspeeders, and ugly landraiders, and so on. But it was the dreadnought that I loved. Why have wheels or tracks when you can clamber over piles of debris and push through stands of trees? To help us mech-heads White Dwarf even published useful rules articles (yes, this was that far back! can you even concieve of such a time before it was just faked battle reports and sprue diagrams). This allowed players to customize their dreads. Your movemnt speed, weapon points and so on were up to you. You picked the stats and paid the points. Long leg marine dreads, short legs, missile or laz-cannon? And of them all, the wraith-lord ruled, standing tall and proud over the others with its two guns and two arms. Ork ones had that too, but lets face it they weren't wraithlords let alone a spirit warrior.
Each blister pack had to be picked up and considered for it's contents – what guns do the arms have?Did it have two adapters to plug into the body for guns and arms. Did the ork one have the middle section? Great days.
To this day, no matter the intended army build, I always try and slip a dreadnought into my army lists. But as my armies grew my ability to take dreadnoughts shrank. Tau get crisis suits and broadsides – fine, orks get dreds and kans – cool, eldar... well even if they call it a creature, it's still a dreadnought to me. Likewise, for tyranids too. Guards get sentinels – meh!
Last year, for a challenge, myself and my gaming buddies did the tale of four gamers and each put together an army.
http://www.40konline.com/index.php?topic=176107.0Knowing the new IG codex was due out it seemed like a plan. Now I know everyone raves about the new codex, leafblower this, mech that, but the old codex gave me a 1/3 more stuff, cheap ogryns, decent hellhounds etc. anyway, ramble ramble ramble. The point is, they had no dreads. Lots of tanks and things that go boom! but no dreds. Sentinels are fine and have legs and all, but no arms, not even a measly combat blade thingamy anymore.
Then a while back I saw the range of mechs from Paolo Parente's Dust game and fell in love. These were the gritty, clunking mechs of the Imperial Guard for me. Not the super-heavy knight titans or stompas but a proper 40k scale tank-mech. The other influence over this army project was an old game PS2 called
Ring of Red. In this the Cold War was fought over a divided Japan with a variety of basic mechs. They had that early Battletech feel, rather than the glossy Gundam/Marcoss/Transformers slick look. From then on it was just a simple case of working out what they could stand in for, and working out how to put in as many walkers as possible.
The List HQ – Primaris Psyker 70pts
El – Sly Marbo 65pts
Troops – Veteran Squad – 3 x grenade launchers 85pts
Troops – Veteran Squad – 3 x grenade launchers 85pts
Troops - Veteran Squad – 2 x Melta-guns 90pts
FA – Scout Sentinels 2 x Heavy Flamers 1x Auto-cannons 120pts
FA – Armoured Sentinels 3 x Auto-cannons 180pts
FA – Vendetta 130pts
Hvy- leman russ Squadron 2x exterminator – heavy bolter sponsons, pintle stubber 180pts
Hvy- vanquisher heavy bolter sponsons, pintle stubber 185pts
Hvy – Medusa 130pts
Tactical notes: The army uses a mix of outflanking and fast moving troops and vehicles to attack objectives at the back of the board – scout sentinels, vendetta with melta veterans and psyker on board. The exterminators and armoured sentinels would give it some anti-armour/MEQ punch. The list looks pretty balanced and fairly tough. Admittedly, an assault army packing a heavy powerfist load-out would be a nightmare for it with all those squadrons, but when isn't that going to be a problem (Answer =Gretchin/gaunt hordes)?
It also only has three fragile troop units which is a problem but I figure it's a mech army and that's the point of it.
Anti troop – psyker ,scout sentinenls, exterminators, medusa & grenade vets
Anti mech – medusa vanquisher vendetta melta-vets marbo, other auto-cannons / grenades on the rear armour.
Objective clear / capture – medusa, vets, scout sentinels, armoured sentinels.
Ojective hold / contest – vets, vanquisher, medusa, exterminators
Conversion Notes:The exterminators will be based on Gunthers from the Dust range. Yes, I know that the twin-linked Auto-cannons are on sponsons not the turret, and conversely the three hvy bolters are but this isn't a tournament army but a pure vanity project.
The vanquisher will be another Dust mech. The possiblilites are:
Another Gunther but with the single cannons on it's arms – not sure how to get this frame though, or whether I'd just convert one.
The plastic Luther from the forth-coming Dust Tactics
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/images/boardgame/36367/dust-tacticsThe orginal resin Jagdluther
http://www.dustgame.com/products_d.php?nid=2&id=22 The “Fury of Ivan” mech
http://www.dustgame.com/products_d.php?nid=2&id=28 is also a possibility. Either way, this'll probably be the last bit I'll do for this army
The medusa will be based on the four legged mechs from the old PS2 game Ring of Red. My plan is to use the chassis from a Defiler to give it four legs on the corners. The middle leg hole would get covered by “gubbins”. This would then be topped out by the Forge World Vanaheim pattern Medusa. Not too sure how this is gonna work, but plasti-card and bitz will help.
So that's the plan, I'm going to try and post a comprehensive unboxing and build guide for most of this army. Hope you like it and feel free to critise etc.