Building an Imperial Guard Army

Please note this is not a guide on how to build an Imperial Guard army list, but what I had in mind to build my own.

Before I sat down with the Imperial Guard codex, I had read through countless forums, articles, and blogs discussing Imperial Guard tactics and army list tips, being new to the 5th edition rules. There was a different army list for each minor variation of other armies in Warhammer 40k, and a lot of the same in the increasingly common leafblower and mechvets lists.

I wanted to avoid putting another of those on the tabletop, and to avoid the headache of coming up with a unit and its tactic to answer each other unit and tactic of all the other armies that could be fielded against me. So I changed targets from the armies to the player of those armies, with a psychological warfare mindset.

I do not mean to field a vast number of psykers. I mean a hearts and minds warfare, to affect and, in hope, control the motivation, reasoning, and behavior of the player behind the army. There are a few unit choices I wanted to have for this kind of wargaming; indirect fire weapons, a mass of template weapons, pinning weapons, and high STR low AP tanks with a snub-nosed fearsome impression. The Imperial Guard have these units in spades, and bring another important tool to the table, in an overwhelming force of men.

Of another few options I wanted to keep in mind, on the fluff side of building my army, was to avoid special characters. The Imperial Guard are an endless horde of common men. Those few heroes who rise to fame and glory in the name of their Emperor are well suited to the universe of Warhammer 40k, in books and other mediums, but on the tabletop it makes little sense to me that each small army of 100 men or less should have one. I wanted an officer who has lead his men to victories without notice. A lot of players will also use their command squad as an alternative to special weapon squads. While a viable tactical option, it is in my mind that the command squad should be there to lead the men, not to fight for the men.

I also had it in mind to avoid psykers, ogryns, and ratlings. I want a unit of Imperial Guardsmen, not a unit of men supported by xenos and psykers.

Their victories will be the victories of Man.

(picture taken from games-workshop website)