AGPO:
Week 1: Infernal Guard
Welcome to the first chapter in the Daemonsmith’s Handbook! Please post your Infernal Guard tips and tactics here.
Some suggested topics for discussion:
- How to equip your units
- Ideal unit size and number of units
- Which characters/items work best with Infernal Guard
Nurion:
Castellan in any unit of Infernal Guard to make them stubborn or a prophet/daemonsmith with the crown of command.
I like units of 10 with Fireglave’s to protect warmachines and to keep hobgoblins from suffering from animosity.
25-30 in a unit with hand weapon & shield, full command and maybe banner of swiftness/lichborne/razor banner accompanied with one of the characters mentioned above.
30+ in a unit with blunderbuss. I haven’t tested this yet, but atleast make sure that there’s 20+ when the enemy reaches you for max effect of the stand and shoot.
I would guess 30+ for IG with GW as well, but i haven’t tested this either. I would probably put banner of swiftness on them and have a castellan join them.
For magic lores to support them; Hashut’s signature spell for hw & shield/great weapon or glittering robe from lore of metal. IG with 1+ save against shooting is awsome!
Thommy H:
AGPO:
Personally, I love blunderbuss units as an anvil since they gained shields. You should be getting two rounds of shooting off (about four shots per model on average) followed by combat where you have a 3+ save and a 6+ parry at WS4 and T4. If you take a castellan then the unit becomse stubborn, which means you can deploy as a horde without worying about steadfast and take advantage of those re-rolls to wound with your shooting.
As Thommy has said, HW+S IG are a bargain at that points cost. I haven’t tried hellglaives yet, but unless I need the extra core or don’t have the special points left over I’ll always go for Ironsworn over GW Infernal Guard. You effectively gain +1S, +1I, magical attacks and a 6+ ward over GW Infernals for just +2pts.
nilbog:
Roles:
to not die; as a bunker for your sorcerer; to kill things; deny steadfast; to act as an anvil; to act as a hammer.
How to achieve this?
HW&S is the best option for not dying and also to act as an anvil. Take them in a unit of 30, 6 ranks deep, and they will most likely be steadfast or deny steadfast for your opponent (unless they’ve got 100 slaves or night goblins). If you’ve got a castellan in there, you could horde them seeing as he’s stubborn.
GW are overpriced but does mean they can kill stuff as well; I’d use these as a hammer, although not a very good one. Adding the razor standard to a normal HW&S unit would be a similar alternative.
Fireglaives are ok in small units as a ‘detachment’ or to fill up core if you don’t like hobgoblins.
Blunderbusses need a unit of 30 to benefit from the special rules even after taking a few casualties. Easily avoided or blocked though, but if your metagame is three big blocks, they will do ok.
Other things: lichebone pennant works well with the 5+ ward vs fire if you get hit with fireballs or lore of metal. A bsb in one unit is mandatory.
Summary: 30, HW&S, FC
Vogon:
I run and have had good success with A block of 20 HW&S FC with a castellan and 2 units of 10 FG protecting the Warmachines and Daemonsmith.
Cheers
Vogon
MLP:
My new preference for Infernal guard is to horde. 30/40 with hand weapons and shields have awesome staying power when joined with a castellan battle standard bearer. Combine this with the extra rank of attacks from hording makes a very good core unit. This also works with Blunderbusses equiped but deploy in two ranks and reform after the first turn of combat.
Modelling tip: Always check your models rank up whilst building them. They are VERY tight to fit on 20mm bases.
Vogon:
Modelling tip: Always check your models rank up whilst building them. They are VERY tight to fit on 20mm bases.yes this is probably the best single piece of advice on this page (and number them on the underside of the base so you can remember which one goes where ;)
MLP
Bolg:
I Have to try the Horde yet but so far the best result for me was:
35 of them with Handweapon shield (incBSB and Sorcerer)
I put them 7 wide to get some extra attacks (5 wide is only for slaves).
I normally love greatwepons but the are to expensive and you miss the 3+ save 6+ parry save.
Singleton Mosby:
Over the last half dozen games I consistently use two units of 23 IG with Blunderbusses. One of them has a Castellan, the other my general with crown of command which makes both of the units stubborn.
HW&S is makes them the toughest, the blunderbusses can deal a lot of pain to anyone comming close or charging.
Tactic I use is to set them up amidst the warmachines in blocks of 6*4. When my opponent comes close I reform to a 12 wide horde and fire away. 69 dice with a re-roll to wound makes any opponent scared :hat
Chico:
For my IG I run 3 set ups. 1st is always included but the 2nd and 3rd are one or the other dependent on list.
1st set up:
38 strong IG with Full Command, joined by BSB and SP. The will deploy in Horde formation with the Warmachines deployed either behind or to one side.
2nd set up:
30 strong IG with Full Command and Blunderbuss’s. Again they will deploy in Horde to maximise the use of the Blunders.
3rd set up:
10-24 strong IG with Fireglaves. There to protect Warmachines and stop out flankers. I find that these can be replaced by Hobgoblins for a cheaper if unreliable option.
Nicodemus:
Modelling tip: Always check your models rank up whilst building them. They are VERY tight to fit on 20mm bases.Further to this idea, I found that I could still get some great dynamic poses (weapon arm swung over head or swung across the body), provided I was careful with how things were lined up. If you really can't get some of your poses to rank up nicely, move the worst of them to the edges or corners of the unit where you have less to worry about.
MLP
evilskull52:
a unit of 30 or more infernl guard/iron sworn with great weapon(if infernal guard) and 2 two units of 12-20 infernal guard with firegliave to protect flanks and to flank other large units. keep warmachines(death shreikers) in the back to pick of foes slowly(if heavily armored troops). A BSB in the back to rally any fleeing units and a SP LV4 to kill and disable anything. and a bag of Cheeze Itz and a Dr.Pepper to satisfy you hunger and thirst to keep you in the zone.
Da Crusha:
typically I like to run a 2 units of 25 or so infernal guard with hand weapon and shield and full command in a 2500 point game. on occasion I am happy to bring great weapons on the units instead. today I tried a unit of 26 blunderbuss and the unit performed way beyond my expectations. the unit took out about 1000 points of WoC killing nurgle ogres, nurgle marauders and Kolek Suneater. I was always skeptical about how they would perform but since my opponent didnt want to face a destroyer, I was nice and juggled the points around to field my blunderbuss unit, needless to say he brought kolek suneater and thats when the mighty chaos dwarfs stopped playing nicely.
I have not brought fireglaives to the battlefield yet so I cannot comment on them.
thrawn:
i agree with tommy, best bang for your buck is HW&S. i have played a dozen games with a unit of 30 with full command and war banner. i find they can take on most any other unit in the game. why you ask? with a 3+ AS and a 6+ WS not to mention T4 they are really resilient. they will not inflict damage though, so that is why the war banner is essential. this unit wins combat with static combat resolution. most enemies will struggle to wound them, and at best will inflict a few. however your infernal guard are going in to combat with +5 combat resolution. all you need to do is inflict a couple of wounds (which should not be hard with WS4 and S4) and you should be winning combat. put them only 5 across to minimise your opponents attacks, remember your winning with static combat resolution not attacks, you do not need to maximise your attacks.
samael:
I’ve been using a 30 dwarf strong unit with Blunderbusses and the Banner of the eternal flame, added to them are the army standard bearer and the Prophet.
Yes it’s expensive, yes it’s all your eggs in one basket, but it’s a VERY sturdy basket that rocks in the shooting department, especialy when Ash Storm is working, gets all the bonusses of hw+shield in close combat and a rerolable stubborn lvl 10 leadership.
Nicodemus:
I've been using a 30 dwarf strong unit with Blunderbusses and the Banner of the eternal flame, added to them are the army standard bearer and the Prophet.Blunderbusses are still my favourite Chaos Dwarf weapon, but it's not because of the rules.
Yes it's expensive, yes it's all your eggs in one basket, but it's a VERY sturdy basket that rocks in the shooting department, especialy when Ash Storm is working, gets all the bonusses of hw+shield in close combat and a rerolable stubborn lvl 10 leadership.
samael
Hashut’s Blessing:
Regardless of equipment, it can be of massive use to try and get them in contact with whichever enemy unit has the Banner of Eternal Flame - don’t underestimate that 5+ Ward Save against flaming attacks, in addition to a solid 3+ armour save (sometimes 4+ in combat).
I quite like have a unit armed with Hailshot Blunderbusses - combine that with Ashstorm and you can decimate a unit before it hits you and then hold it all game. I find a horde is good (plus a few extras for wound soaking), but it’s not cheap. That being said, it quickly fills out your minimum of 25% core and a large unit like that can easily tempt a lot more attention away from the really dangerous stuff in the army: if it doesn’t, they can be left to add tonnes of lead to the foe. They have the added benefit of a parry save which can help them with a prolonged combat.
propervillanz:
I’ve tried units of 24+ with hand weapons and shields/great weapons/blunderbusses, a unit of 30 with great weapons (supported by hobgoblins) and units of 10+ with Fireglaives.
My favorite set up is 4 units of 10-12. I give 2 units blunderbusses and the other 2 Fireglaives and support them with war machines, hobgoblins and K’daii. I also give them a Musician and Standard Bearer (points permitting) for the quick reforms and more combat res.
They can put out a great amount of fire (when chance favors you) and if all works well can absorb a charge long enough for your other units to counter charge. They also make great counter chargers themselves. Ideally i want my opponent to charge my blunderbuss units or my K’daii units and counter charge with my Fireglaive units.
Singleton Mosby:
Undoubtedly the blunderbusses get better the more of them there are, and re-rolling missed to-Wound rolls is fanstastic, but you need to be shooting with 30+. Yikes.You need 20+ to re-roll wounds, not 30+.
My real challenge (personally, as the person playing the game) is with using the big block of blunderbusses to the best advantage. They are a huge points sink with only a 12" range, and you're only making use of those extra points spent on the blunderbusses if you're shooting and taking your opponent's points off the table. With such short range you're only shooting if something is already within charge distance, and chances are that what ever it is is already charging you anyway - in which case you could be in close combat afterward for a turn or two and those extra points for the blunderbusses are wasted. If you're trying to maximize shooting you may even have them deployed laterally, in which case for their first round of close combat (assuming the enemy didn't Panic and flee after losing 25% of its unit) they aren't going to be setup for maximizing the combat res. bonus for extra ranks... although you can reform even from defeat if you haven't fled.
Don't get me wrong, I've had some great successes with them, but from personal experience, don't waste the points on them in low-points games. I've used a block of 26 of them in a 2500pt game, and the same number of a 1000pt game (the latter was just for fun). At 1000pts it was just a total waste, and I kind of knew that going in. The other bit to keep in mind is that sure they have AP, you're firing D3 shots per model, but they're only S3. It's nice that they don't suffer any modifiers for standing and shooting or for firing at long range if you have enough guys firing, but they still aren't effective against high toughness opponents... that being said, they'll cut squishier units to ribbons very nicely. I've used them to greatest effect against Skaven and Empire so far, and when playing against Tomb Kings my opponent wouldn't bring his skeletons anywhere near my blunderbusses ;) They're not a Swiss army knife though, so if you need them to be able to stand against a range of opponent types, or if your army needs another tool in its toolbox, you're better off investing those points elsewhere.
~N
Nicodemus