A Guided Tour Through an Imperial Guard Rifle Platoon

Some of you may notice the Tom Clancy book reference there, if not, check out his book "Marine" it's a fantastic read for military buffs, or proud Americans. Now I am going to take you through the backbone of my Imperial Guard army, the infantry platoon.

For starters, we have the Lieutenant and his bunch, consisting of five lads, we have the Lieutenant himself, who only carries a chainsword and bolt pistol into battle. Next we have his adjutant, a young chap, who has earned the right to carry the platoon standard, which has my trademark, Aquila-planet-anchor (note another Marine reference) symbol as well as a platoon designation. Then we have two Grenadiers and a flamer or a meltagun, depending on how many points I have left. There we have our platoon command squad, perfect for hanging tough with the guys, and there to lead a charge or smash a light tank. The focus of this unit is to stay with the rest of the squads, and make sure they get the job done, no matter the cost, mission first, then troop welfare, then your own welfare, that's how we do it in the 325th.

Next in line are the poor dogfaced soldiers themselves, military men have never been pretty, but by God, we are dependable. Consisting of ten men, a Sergeant armed with a boltpistol, chainsword, and meltabombs, 8 men with lasguns, bayonets, and a whole lotta guts, and lastly a lone man with a grenade launcher. Now, you may be wondering, where in the galaxy are the heavy weapons? Well, they wouldn't be mobile infantry if they were afraid to move up, now would they? Guard are some of the fastest footsloggers in the game, with Move, Move, Move! they easily get the most out of their running. That all being the case, I take advantage of that, and don't bog my lads down with heavy weapons. It's easy to meld the two units together, but they are more effective separate, and prevents that static gunline that looks so good on paper, but in practice, not so great. I usually take three squads of Guardsmen, that gives me a large amount of men, but not necessarily overkill.

Special weapons squads are an often avoided choice by guard players. Most opt for a unit of veterans instead, favoring their higher ballistic skill. Well, when it comes to flamethrowers, ballistic skill doesn't mean shit. For more on my special weapons, search for my combat engineers, they are the subject of another article.

Lastly we have the heavy weapons teams, these are wonderful given the right circumstance, used improperly, and you've wasted your points, and more importantly, your money. Now, I prefer to take different heavy weapons per platoon, but there is one mainstay through out all of my platoons, and that's the autocannon, I field six of them for every platoon, that's two units of three for you numbnuts out there. The autocannon is my absolute workhorse, when I point them at you, you die, plain and simple, and with range 48, I can point them very far indeed. Now for one of my platoons I take a team of mortars, this provides the barrage, and pinning power my lads need to make sure they wipe the table with the softer units. For the rest of my platoons, it's lascannons I bring, they give my men the firepower to crack the toughest nuts.

Best of all, a platoon built in this way is almost exactly 500 points (508 to be exact), so it's easy to build lists. Now how do I use my platoons? Well, in the beginning of the game, I give each platoon a reasonable objective, such as securing a table quarter, or parking in the middle of the board making it difficult for the enemy to move around. Occasionally platoons will need support from other platoons, like in the event of an officer dying, or needing a few extra lascannon shots. Generally, I don't combine squads, unless it's annihilation, or I will be doing a lot of running, in which case one order gives you more bang for your buck when it covers thirty men, instead of ten. I don't combine my squads because I like the autonomy of a squad, if it needs more men, then they are there, if it doesn't, then they can go their separate ways. Multiple squads are also better on defense, where one can go to ground and survive that extra turn of shooting, or one can make a sacrificial charge to cover the retreat.

In the end, I like platoons because I like the men, and never forget the tired, aching, bloody infantry.