Imperial Guard Artillery:
Note: throughout this post I refer to ‘artillery’ – note this is not the unit type Artillery (WH40K Rulebook) but just a blanket term used to refer to the non-Leman Russ vehicles in the Heavy Support section of Codex: Imperial Guard.
Hydra Flak Tank.
The Hydra in the fluff is the primary mobile anti-air defense of Imperial Guard armies. On the tabletop it has a wide selection of possible targets thanks to the decent Strength and rate of fire of its main weapons.
One of the cheapest and most effective tanks in the codex, you can purchase a squadron of two Hydra’s for the cost of one basic Leman Russ tank – I would not recommend squadrons of three tanks until you hit higher points levels (2500+) but squadrons of two kick out some serious firepower.
The Hydra is packing two long-range, twin-linked autocannons as well as the ubiquitous hull mounted weapon. Having two main weapons means that unless you want to sacrifice 50% of your firepower your Hydra will be staying stationary. This means good deployment is essential – get this tank a good field of fire along the paths you think the enemy transports will be heading and leave it there.
Unlike most of the other ‘traditional’ artillery pieces, the Hydra needs line of sight to its target – this also means it has to be in harms way. This is compensated for by being very cheap.
It is also worth mentioning the Hydra’s special rule that allows any shots fired by the Hydra to ignore cover saves for turbo-boosting/moving flat out. Sounds great in theory, however bikes and most skimmer models tend to be relatively small and easy to give a 4+ cover save to; even without zooming around – so you will not get to use this rule as often as you’d like.
I would also recommend taking a hull mounted heavy bolter, rather than the flamer – the tank will hopefully be stationary for the whole game shooting at targets that the heavy bolter can actually damage and can still take advantage of the special rule.
It’s also worth a mention that as of this date, GW do not currently sell a plastic Hydra model, so if you want ‘official’ then it’s the forgeworld one (which does look awesome) or convert your own. Or wait.
Targets:
Transports, monstrous creatures, light tanks, infantry.
Loadouts:
- Hull heavy bolter/flamer
Or
- 2x Hydra
- 2x Hull heavy bolter
Manticore Rocket Launcher.
The Manticore is one of the best* tanks available to Imperial Guard players. Almost a no-brainer choice for one Heavy Support slot and should always be, at least, considered for inclusion in any army.
Like most Imperial Guard artillery, it is a stupidly powerful main weapon system mounted on a fragile chassis and will need a modicum of protection by infantry or other friendly units to get the most out of it turn after turn.
So first off, the bad points;
- It has Limited Ammunition, so you can only fire the main weapon four times.
- It has a random number of blasts per shot, so you can never be quite sure what’s going to happen.
- You cannot take squadrons of Manticores – 1 per Heavy Support slot.
- It has an AP of 4, which isn’t great.
- Mounted on a fragile Chimera chassis.
Now the good points;
- S10 Ordnance – dominates long range anti-tank work; especially at AV14 and can Instant Death those pesky T5 models from the other side of the street.
- Multiple large blasts per shot (between 4 and 12 per game) for increased accuracy and forcing saves on tough infantry.
- It has a relatively small minimum range, can be fired directly and has a massive maximum range.
- Only 10 more points than a standard Leman Russ tank.
To address some of the bad points; the Limited Ammunition rule isn’t so bad – if your opponent has not destroyed your Manticore after 4 turns of firing chances are its done its job and weakened the enemy sufficiently. Chances are even higher they’ll make it a priority target in the next game though! The AP is mostly negated by having multiple blasts – forcing more saves on a unit to increase casualties and the fragile chassis can be hidden behind terrain for barrage firing.
There are times when it will let you down – like most things in 40K – if the dice are poor. I haven’t found this happens very often; maybe once in six games it will fire one shot each turn which will miss. Such is the price we pay for an otherwise excellent vehicle.
Targets:
Heavy vehicles, everything else except small units of 2+ save infantry and 2/3+ save monstrous creatures.
Loadouts:
- Hull heavy flamer.
* There is no ‘best’ tank, only the one used properly at the right time. However, the Manticore is excellent pretty much all the time.
Deathstrike Missile Launcher.
For a tank that’s sporting the most destructive weapon system in the entire game, it’s a massive let-down. For those of you reading this that like to win when you play and enjoy squeezing out efficiency and reliability from your lists, look away now. For those that play Apocalypse, enjoy a fun, fluffy, relaxed game, which enjoy having a handicap or just want to give some of the old codex books a chance, then this tank might appeal.
It has a one-shot weapon, which is fired randomly from the second turn onwards.
Chances are good that it will fire at some point in a game unless your opponent has dedicated anti-artillery units (i.e. Wolf Scouts). Even if it does fire, it is normally mid-late game when the enemy is likely to be spread out and not at full strength and there’s still a chance it will just scatter off and miss completely.
If it does fire early, you roll well for the size of the blast and get it on target then there shouldn’t be much left standing after the smoke has cleared.
The Deathstrike cannot be taken in squadrons.
Targets:
Right in the middle of the most expensive bunch of nasty things your opponent has left.
Loadouts:
- Hull heavy flamer.
Ordnance Battery.
The following artillery units can all be taken in squadrons of up to three vehicles and you can mix different units within a squadron.
I would recommend against the latter course of action – all the artillery have different ranges and optimal targets as well as some being able to direct-fire and some not. If you are going to run a squadron, don’t mix vehicles.
Also please note that all the vehicles below are Open-topped. Do not forget this when your opponent comes to shoot/assault them as the +1 damage modifier means a lot.
All vehicles also come with smoke launchers and searchlights.
Squadron upgrades:
The following upgrades are bought for the vehicles in a squadron.
Note: it is all too easy to spend lots of points upgrading vehicles in the Imperial Guard. I would recommend taking the bare minimum to allow for more points to spend for the rest of your army (i.e. 3x Extra Armour and 1x Hunter-killer missile are as many points as a Chimera – The extra Chimera is always more useful than those upgrades for a goodly number of reasons)
Camo Netting:
The Vehicle gains the Stealth USR if it remains stationary. On the surface this appears to be an excellent upgrade for (mostly) static artillery, further increasing their survivability. There are drawbacks. First and most importantly of all is the cost; it’s just too many points to spend to make a fragile vehicle a bit less fragile (in the right circumstances). Secondly; the vehicles this is best to take on (indirect firing ordnance) should either be hidden away or at least in cover anyway.
Enclosed Crew Compartments:
This upgrade increases the vehicles survivability by removing open-topped. It does not change any of the armour values however, so the tanks are still relatively easy to destroy. This upgrade should only go on vehicles that need line of sight to fire (and so will be seen by the enemy). It is worth considering if you have spare points and the vehicles you put it on are important to your army.
Extra Armour:
Really not worth the points on any vehicle that is not transporting an assault unit, and the ordnance tanks most certainly are not. Save points, don’t buy.
Hunter-killer missile:
Another over-priced upgrade; for the same amount of points you can get another special/heavy weapon in the rest of your army that can fire every turn.
Dozer blade:
This is another almost totally useless upgrade for static tanks. Unless you play a lot of Cities of Death missions and are using direct-fire tanks avoid this upgrade.
Griffon.
- Griffon Heavy Mortar
At first glance, the Griffon appears to be nothing special and new players would be forgiven for overlooking it in favour of the more obviously destructive artillery pieces. The Griffon is one of my personal favourites however, for two very good reasons:
- it is stupidly cheap
- it has re-rolls to hit
Because it is so cheap, this is a vehicle that I would definitely recommend putting in a squadron; two tanks will be fine – and do a lot of damage.
Let’s take a look at the weapon; it has a close-in minimum range and a max range of a lascannon and cannot fire directly. This is actually a very small threat radius for an artillery tank compared to the others but this is mitigated somewhat because almost all IG opponents advance towards you - staying at range is pretty futile.
It has a Strength of 6; nothing spectacular here but S6 is enough to wound 90% of infantry models on a 2+. Because it is Ordnance Barrage you get to roll 2D6 (pick the highest) + 6 vs. side armour of tanks which is well worth remembering.
It also has an AP of 4; pretty poor when compared to the other artillery pieces. This is rarely a problem, however due to the mortar’s special rule allowing re-rolls to hit and taking multiple Griffons you can end up forcing so many saves on a squad of Marines that there will be a lot of fails.
For example; a ten-man squad of Space Marines has just had to disembark from their Rhino which was just wrecked by something else in your army. Your squad of two Griffons now open fire on the tightly-packed squad – let’s be generous and say that both shots hit every Marine for 20 hits. 2+ to wound say around 17 saves… that should be about five dead Marines (unless you’re me, who could probably fail all of those) and a pinning test at -1. That’s not bad at all for an AP4 weapon. It also gets better as you need never worry about shooting a squad of Marines that would get a cover save, as they will be taking armour saves instead.
Targets:
Infantry, light vehicles & vehicles with low side armour.
Loadouts:
- Hull heavy flamer
Or
- 2x Griffon
- 2x Heavy flamer
Basilisk.
- Earthshaker cannon
The Basilisk used to be a pretty standard choice for lots of Guard armies - now; not so much. The Basilisk suffers from “jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none” syndrome. Like the Manticore, the Basilisk has a wide range of targets that it can hurt. It has enough strength to penetrate Land Raiders and with AP3, seems like a decent choice to fire at squads of heavy infantry.
One of the major drawbacks this tank has is the massive minimum range if firing indirectly. This means that you’ll have to put this tank in harms way if you are going to be reliably firing turn after turn.
The other drawback, related to the minimum range, is the prevalence of cover saves in 5th edition. The AP3 isn’t as painful as it should be if your target is in cover. If you fire indirectly, the cover save is taken from the centre of the blast and area terrain grants cover universally, but you will almost certainly not be firing indirectly most of the time.
The Basilisk is cheap enough to squadron up although this does get expensive, but the points you spend on these tanks could be spent elsewhere to do the same job more reliably.
Outside of Apocalypse games where you can use the Basilisk to its full potential, there are few scenarios where I would want one of these tanks over say, a Leman Russ tank; for an extra 25points you get a gun with one less point of strength, but mounted on a much, much more durable chassis.
Targets:
Infantry, vehicles.
Loadouts:
- Hull heavy flamer.
Or
- 2x Basilisk
- 2x Hull heavy flamer.
Medusa.
- Medusa siege cannon
Another new addition to the 5th edition Codex: Imperial Guard, the Medusa mounts what is essentially a longer range demolisher cannon. Fantastic, although there is a caveat: no indirect fire. This means your tank will need to be able to see what its shooting – no hiding safely behind buildings for this tank – putting it in range and sight of the enemy AT assets from the word go. Therefore this is definitely a tank I would recommend the enclosed crew compartment upgrade for. It does make an already expensive vehicle more expensive but you can guarantee there will be a lot of fire coming their way so the extra protection is welcome.
The siege cannons have the same targets as the demolisher cannons, which is pretty much anything. AV14, Terminators, it’s really not that fussy. Point, shoot and kill.
Cover saves really should be mentioned (again) as that lovely AP2 can go to waste if not used properly, and even then it can be tricky to find a target that won’t get a cover save.
The Medusa is also capable of being upgraded to fire the bunker buster munitions to make it one of the most fearsome tank-hunters in the game (10 + 2D6, AP1, Blast – ouch!). Note that this replaces the usual large blast, etc, you cannot change the type of shells you fire mid-game.
If you can park the Medusa somewhere which will grant it a cover save, with good lines of fire and a supporting unit or two then you should be laughing. Your opponent, however…
Targets:
Heavy vehicles, heavy infantry, everything else.
Loadouts:
- Hull heavy flamer
Or
- 2x Medusa
- 2x Heavy flamer
- 2x Enclosed Crew Compartments
- (optional) Bunker buster ammo
Colossus.
- Colossus Siege Mortar
The Colossus is a specialised piece of equipment; perfect for taking out 3+ save troops hiding in cover in the enemy backfield (Long Fangs, Heavy Weapon Teams, Devastators, Havocs, Troops guarding objectives, etc).
The Siege Mortar cannot fire directly and has a minimum range equal to a boltgun max. range. This is painful when the entire enemy army is hidden away in transports and driving at your lines as fast as possible - you may not even get a chance to fire it!
Against a more ‘balanced’ or takes-all-comers list, the Colossus should have targets to fire at most turns. Against a fully ‘mech’ army you will have to dedicate enough fire to the transports to force the infantry out before you fire the Colossus.
Like almost all of the artillery, it is a bit of a glass-cannon. Incredible anti-infantry firepower, mounted on a fragile, open-topped chassis. It is also rather expensive and only taking one of these is asking for bad scatter rolls to ruin your fun.
The major downside to this particular piece is its specialised role can be filled by other units in the codex that are usually cheaper, tougher, not in a Heavy Support slot or all three! You can also get the same effect (or better) with a squad of two Griffons. The Griffons are more likely to hit (re-rolls) and should do twice as many wounds as a single Colossus which means the negating cover doesn’t really matter – pour on enough wounds and the targets will go down just the same.
Targets:
Infantry in cover, infantry, light vehicles.
Loadouts:
- Hull Heavy Flamer
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