Warhammer 40,000 Conquest Card review type thing, Part 2

So again I'm writing avout conquest cards.  This time we have the Astra Militarum *ahem* Imperial Guard.
So on with the show.  NOW WITH NUMBERS OUT OF 5!!
Starting with The Warlord and his Signature Squad

Colonel Stracken
He makes all Soldiers and Warriors at his location harder with +1ATK.  Another has to stick around for benefit warlord, so vulnerable to ganks.  But lets look at the number of units he can affect presently
Strackens Command Squad, Caidan Mortar Squad, Captain Markis, Elysian Assault Team, Stalwart Ogryn
Blood Angel Veterans,  Daring Assault Squad, Iron Hands Techmarine, Tactical Squad Cardinis
 Burna Boyz, Goff Boyz, Rokkitboy, Shoota Mob, Tankbustaz
And of course the humble Guardsman token
Thats a lot of dudes.  the Marine selection is meh, but all those Orks are great with +1atk.  5/5 for this warlord.

Strackens Command Squad
2/2/1 for 2 is a great, they benefit from Strackens aura of awesome and when they die you get a free Guardsman.  Whats not to like?  5/5

Omega level Zero Command
Whenever you win a command struggle you get a guardsman.  It's huge.  Sadly you only get one.  Games when you do get it early are going to be way different (and easier) than ones when you don't see it.  My only gripe with it.  5/5

Glorious Intervention
Sacrifice a dude to save another one. The poor sacrifice gets to do a last gasp with his atk damage as well.  Awesome guard.  Amazing card if you have the spare dudes available.  4/5

Strackens Cunning
Attachement gives +1atk and when he dies you draw 3 cards.  Nice enough.  3/5

Loyal Units

Cadian Mortar Squad
1/3/2 Ranged.  A nice unit.  Whenever a friendly dude dies you get to ready them.  Ping some dudes to death, why not? 4/5

Leman Russ Battle Tank
The MBT of the Imperial Guard.  4/6/4 for 5.  Makes it's presence felt. 4/5

Captain Markis
I don't think the card pool is quite there to support this guy.  But if you have excess tokens, sacrificing a bunch of them to exhaust the opposing army can be huge.  3/5

Enginseer Augur
Ugh. 2/2/0 for 2, already a bad deal.  Has a reaction when he dies to search the top 6 cards of your deck for an IG support costing 2 or less and put it in play.  If was when enters play maybe better.  He can get you a Omega Level Zero Command, Rockcrete Bunker, Imperial bunker or the Catachan Command Post.  Avoid 1/5


Preemptive Barrage.
For 1, give 3 of your IG units Ranged until the end of the phase.  Auto 3 of in every IG card IMO 5/5

Bodyguard
When an friendly unit takes damage, attached unit MUST absorb one of it.  Some good combos with this card.  Blood Angels Veterans for one.  Can also give it to Leman Russes, or Land Raiders.  Who doesn't want a pet tank as a bodyguard? 3/5

Rockcrete Bunker
Can absorb 1 damage a turn assigned to your units.  It's ok  2/5

And the Rest

Ratling Deadeye
1/1/1 Ranged for 1.  Not terrible.  Not great either. Still, 1 cost hammers are rarely unwelcome 3/5

Sanctioned Pysker
No attack but 2 hammers and 4 HP.  Not going anywhere soon thats for sure.  Handy dudes.  IG kinda need them for the hammers.  Also play nicely with the +2atk from catachan command squad to dissuade attempts to remove them. 4/5

Mordian Hellhound
3/3/2 with AOE 1 for 4.  A bit too all round.  But the only AOE that IG have.  Would probably always take 1.  they are a solid enough unit.

Assault Valkyrie
Possibly the most cost efficient unit in the game. 4 atk and 4 (realistically 8 with flying) for 4 is an amazing deal.  Has flying.  5/5

Stalwart Ogryn.
2/2/1 for 2.  Is immune to enemy events.  Probably not a threat enough to ever get targetted by most events.  makes them immune to doom and exterminatus which is nice.  2/5

Penal Legionnaire
If this guy had a a hammer would be 5/5.  He doesn't.  He's garbage.  Doesn't even benefit from Stracken.  He is free, but you could of drawn anything else and it would of been better.  Opportunity Cost well outweighs this 0 resource cost. 0.5/5

Infantry Conscripts.
Pricey, but the chance to have a huge attack value.  Makes Promethium Mine worth having.  I don't like them, but your mileage may vary. 2/5

Elsyian Assault Team
Come into play from hand for free if a soldier or warrior dies.  Benefits from Stracken.  4/5

Suppresive Fire
When the IG get a good source of guardsman tokens, they are going to be huge.  Anyway exhaust a  unit you control to exhaust an enemy unit.  good stuff.  4/5

Hostile Environment Gear
+3HP for an army unit.  Not much else to say.  3/5

Imperial Bunker
The IG discount support.  Read what I wrote about the marine one and apply it here.  3/5

Catachan Outpost
Exhaust this support to give a unit +2ATK.  Best card by far that the IG have available for their allies.  Excellent.  5/5


IG have the tools to go far.  Beefy units to wage war, decent at the command struggle.  Going against lore, they cannot afford to lose units for needless reasons.  Racing for the first planet is probably a bad choice for them.  they also rely greatly on their Signature support which is an issue.

Sadly for this game, Orks are currently the best faction for IG to ally with (heresy!).  They just have so many warriors for Stracken to buff and the excellent Squig Bombin.  Marines really just bring Exterminatus.  Which is an average card.

so another loss

Yup.

The ap of system of 40k is bullshit and needs to be scrapped. Survivability is one thing, outright nigh-invulnerabilty is another.
People complained about 2nd editon being hero-hammer, but is nothing compared to what 40k is nowdays.
Becoming ever more disillisoned with it all.

Commander [INSERT SUBJECT NAME HERE] from [INSERT SUBJECT HOMETOWN HERE]

Best quality photo I'm ever going to get. This is my incompetent leader and a couple members of his command. Sniper rifles have done ok, and are somewhat lethal when combined with psyker battle squads. Good luck passing your pinning test on ld 2.
Master of ordance is yet to register a kill, but he stays mostly because hes painted and the squad is essentialy immobile. Biggest problem is you have to target something with the blast, and it always scatters. Be better if you could put wherever you like, you could at least gamble on the direction and maybe actually hit something. Also bendy sword ftl :(

Yes he has no name, as does the entire army, woo.

A game

Played my second campaign game last night. Did enjoy it, even though I lost. Eldar have way too many s6 shots. Got my armor saves v everything, and passed a hell of a lot of them, but somehow always managed to only fail exactly the right amount to lose the entire squad. Stupid crappy flak armour.
Was surprised when I found my psykers taking tests on 3d6, would normally be 15 points wasted against guard, but there you go.
A bad deployment leaving all my scoring units on a flank by themselves was bad bad move. But the risk you take when you deploy first I guess. keeping it all in reserve would of been better, being in chimeras would of made the slight loss of turns on table slightly less, and they maybe would of of been ripped to shreds as much. Should of definitely gone with my first plan of using Al'Rahem but meh, no vaguely good model to use.
Didn't really make use of my valkyrie as I should. After the veterans dropped of and suffered a deep strike mishap which resulted in them being left in front of scorpions, avengers and some jetbikes, bad day for them, I ended up using it as a poor gunship. Should of used it to extract my poor troops from their death trap, could of got 1 unit out at least.
Marbo was mostly useless due to how spread the Eldar were. Killed a wave serpent, then stayed in ruins for the rest of the game. No targets in range and no cover to advance behind without getting shot, lots.

What went right? Finally got some good rolls later on and killed troops, lots of them. One invulnerable wave serpent left me unable to get to one of the last two scoring units. Which won the game.

Hindsights a wonderful a thing

What really erked me though was how slow I was. My second turn really dragged. It's really hard to see why it's so. Only realised how bad I was after 3 hours and was only turn 4. Maybe just need to play more games? Dawned on me that I've only played ~10 games since 5th was released.

This isn't the update you are looking for.

I've run out of green paint >_>