Wanting to see what the backbone of the Imperium will be bringing to the table? Get ready to see tons of bodies and tanks!
Warhammer Community revealed some of the rules for the Imperial Guard in 40k Apocalypse. Let’s go over the rules and see just how useful they could be in-game.
Imperial Guard Faction Focus: Apocalypse 40k
Astra Militarum armies in Apocalypse have some of the best and most varied armoured units in the game, capable of crushing their foes with a dizzying array of tanks and walkers of all shapes and sizes. With the scale of Apocalypse, you’ll be able to field an army of tanks where each unit fulfils a distinct role – columns of Bane Wolves and Devil Dogsincinerating infantry while Basilisks and Manticores devastate your foes at extreme range.
Digging into the characters, a bunch of them will come with the Officer rule. While they may not be anything more than just a normal human, they can still show off high-level forms of thinking and tactics. Your Warlord will be able to generate two command assets instead of one!
Speaking of command assets, we’ve got two that we can look at for now. Psychic Barrier can only be used if you’ve got an Astra Militarum Psyker but it lets you add +2 to the save rolls for all faction units within 6″ of the Psyker. That’s pretty potent.
The Catachans will be on the table flexing their hard-earned muscles. If you use this asset on a Catachan squad you can add +1 to wound rolls. +2 if you use this on a character. (Straken might be looking real good right now). And lastly, if you’re not running any Catachans and still end up generating this asset, you can still use it to reroll a hit roll.
Classic Guard Armor
Grinding Advance is still essentially the same as it is in 40k. This only applies to your Leman Russes but when you consider how many of these you’ll be able to field in your Apocalypse games, you’ll be able to really bring the heat.
Baneblades will be stocky considering that they have 5 wounds and a 6+ save (on a D12). But the Baneblade has tons of variants to pick from. Luckily for us, the newly previewed Baneblade kit will have all the variant bits inside.
The Deathstrike missiles are the Imperial Guard’s trump card. If they need enemy units uprooted from an objective or enemy armor blasted to pieces, this is always a great option. You can play these in regular games of 40k but they have such a cooler feel in a large game like Apocalypse. To give you an idea on how deadly these are, you don’t even roll to hit. You just pick a point within 200″ and let loose a disgusting, earth-shattering missile. You’ll want to pick a point where everything is clustered up and close together because you roll for the blast markers on each separate unit.
Guard are shaping up to look very strong from this batch of previews. Of course, there is still tons of army options that weren’t even mentioned. That being said, what faction will you be playing in Apocalypse 40k? How many points of Guard do you have? Let us know in the comments of our Facebook Hobby Group.
About the Author: Wesley Floyd
