Guard OP!? Why is the faction suddenly so GOOD? | Astra Militarum | Warhammer 40,000 

Please lambast me for using the last thumbnail for the 1K points list! I have not realized that I did use that for this video today and have quickly switched it as soon as I saw it. Very sorry for the confusion!🫡

It's because we have faith in the emperor. We have been rewarded for our loyalty

You say this but the good ol' 39% winrate haunts my dreams

Have you considered your own effect on things? People listen to your advice on army lists and what you took to tournaments and won with.

Im 90% sure this is because a bunch of grease-based lifeforms on reddit started it the minute their armies started losing to guard

I don't care about being good or bad I simply want to bring the brunt of the guard and cleanse all heretics

Mordian, my dude I have been on the Guard is GOOD train from the start of 10th ed. I am a new 40k Player, started last 4 months of 9th so I don't know if my take means much. I picked up the Guard because they are my favorite faction and when I cracked open the 10th index I said to myself, wow we got alot of stuff! Born soldiers got kicked in the shins, but useable occasionally. I then compared what was in my index vs what everyone else in my club was excited about, and noticed, oh I can do that stuff too! And then I found your channel. you are like the only Dude on the Internet I have found that knows how to put guard to use. I'm rambling , Point is Thank you. Cadia Stands!

One of the sad things about all options being free is that there really isn’t any point in taking a minimally equipped unit or one with “sub-optimal” equipment because it’s the exact same points as one with all the bells and whistles.

The beachhead brawl was an outlier. The next best guard placing was 46. Every now and then someone will win a tournament with the least fun list possible. The nerfs to the top dogs helps guard, but we're a mid tier army. Not bad, not great.

I distinctly remember last year the other guard player in my area, a real old hand sort, told me that Guard was very good in 10th, it was just that our bad matchups (and I wish I remember what armies he mentioned) were currently top of the meta. He told me that once they got a nerf you should expect to start seeing guard doing really well.

Just like Martinphillpot2010 said, It’s been YOU Leading us to victory.

Commissar, is this what is called a “psyop?”

Actually, it was your meme list batreps that convinced me the faction was good. After a couple of those outings and meeting good results without the fine tuning, I thought "Wow, this faction might just be sleeping."

Guard are just awesome… regardless of meta Controversial thought… Catachans are the best infantry option. Their scouting and screening is so important that they are more critical than any other infantry ability / choice

Also I think the thumbnail might be wrong for this video mordy!

I reckon the recent guard s tier meme could be translated into: there’s a few s tier lists in the index but not everyone wants to use them/has the models. But really, isn’t this the same as many other armies? (With the caveat that the guard does some things very well like indirect). Chaos pre dataslate was lots of a few units

I just wanted to say thank you, I joined my first tournament, partly due to friends and also from watching your videos, and I managed to pull a 4th position with my Cadian 122nd I was very happy with my performance

I nearly tabled my schools Tabletop club teacher who's the definition of old guard, using Guard. This was my first full game.

The emperor TRUE finest !

I don't know if it's op or not but for sure a list like leontus, creed, dorn 2x3 scout sentinels, 2x10 infantry and heavy weapons against a for fun list of we is dirty, had the displeasure to go against it and the fact that the sentinels can respawn even if you manage to destroy them really brings down the mood Next time I use the guard I'm probably going to try an armoured list with 2x castellans with kasrkin on taurox, 2x vanilla leman russ and tank commander with double order But the fact that ursula is only 10 more points than a castellan is insulting

A ytber I watch proxhammer mentioned a good point, in a recent update GW changed a wording for the officers, they can issue orders as normal in the command phase 'and' as well as when they disembark. So a unit could be affected by the same order twice.

Bro, I'm sorry, but the whole notion that guard are extremely strong being held back by bad players playing weak lists is just absurd. Its complete delusion to think guard is the only faction that does this, every large faction has players playing whatever they want. Orks are one of the most meme, play for fun, playerbases and the faction is strong enough that its been above 51% winrate for like 6-8 months. I have no doubt that there are bad lists and players tanking the winrate, but that literally applies to everyone, the difference being extremely strong factions manage to stay high winrate despite that occurring group within the faction. By yalls logic, orks must truly be broken that they are only 51-53%. This whole, guard are insane is the worst take since custodes 9th release codex got called bad by the community before proceeding to dominate. I'm not saying guard is weak, but they aren't hanging with some of these insane factions. 100% community is trying to get us gutted because playing against guard indirect simply isn't fun.

we have always been the best.. DO YOU LACK FAITH IN THE GOD EMPEROR GUARDSMAN?

The current guard box is laughably bad. Other than the sentinel, there’s nothing in there I’d want. I had to scrounge around on eBay for old cadian defense force boxes to get a decent army going

I love MG's optimism and positive outlook, but Guard wasn't sleeper good in 10th. There are enough very experienced and talented Guard players that they should have been able to get consistent results if actually powerful. Guard players are even a bit more loyal to their faction than average. It's a weaker faction with enough players that it will inevitably get some wins due to dice being dice. And that's okay. It's very lore accurate.

It's all about faith, armor, and artillery shells 🫡

I bought Lord Solar today should have my IG army ready in 6 months can't wait to fix bayonets for the Emperor

Guard does have issues but I think the biggest is that it is a harder army to execute. You can play space Marines and have a very easy game that's hard to mess up. Guard, like T'au, requires more precise positioning and coordination with all your units. Even if it is stronger you won't see it reflected in their winrate if the average player doesn't know how to make use of that power.

I regularly find myself playing my mate’s votann with my guard and we’ve got a real back and forth going on, despite how lethal votann are. The real game changer for me is when I bring my shadowsword along, and one shot his land fortresses. I still find it remarkable that this anti monster/vehicle behemoth is our cheapest super heavy. Even so our last game of leviathan I only just won by 3 points. Our games have taught me mainly that it’s not all about firepower, and the ability to control and deep strike are what get you the win.

I love this video topic! Thank you Mordian! Might want to double check the thumbnail though haha

I do not agree. I refuse to believe, Guard faction is the only faction, that has their win rates kept low because they lack skilled players more then other factions. Just look at the raw numbers. Also a Win at a large event (Beachhead) does not make guard a top tier faction all of the sudden. Remember the next guard player was rank 46! Look at the numbers and don't base you conclusion off your own experience too much

People have just been playing with them more and picking up the new tricks in that deep index. That and the fact some of the top dogs have fallen puts us in great position

Not sure I would include the demolisher in your example of a bad russ, it's one of the best all purpose profiles we have. Now things like the executioner and the punisher though...

By the emperor WE WON!

My guard lists are basic, but I mostly use a full leman russ company choice. It works well vs primarus marines I face most often.

Hi, great youtube channel you have, I have a pure infantry army (Bretonia, fantasy empire rebuilt with cadia) with a few horsemen. But I haven't played for ages. Now that the rules are online for free, I'm thinking about looking in again and the first thing I found out was that I have to swap my weapon teams bases. : D

Current index is just fun and thematic, with tiny little bit of house rulling you can recreate lists from 3ed with ease, you can make renegades and all sort of fun armies. I think its main reason people try running IG, even if you dont win you have good time with your minis.

Really Looking forward to hearing what your Adepticon list will be and how well you do. Would love to see a Guard win at Adepticon.

The Emperor protects His true finest.

Guard players need skill and experience to get the most out of their units. It makes sense that they would get better as an edition progresses.

Funny enough, I've yet to win a game of tenth with my Guard and I play twice a month. Closest I come to was a tie against my friend who tried dakka Orks.

Guards strength is it can win a game with all tanks, or all infantry, or with all artillery. That's the best part of guard is it that it is flexible and diverse. Still for as many people that run it at tournaments, can't say it is good as the top ten has 1 guard at best.

I have two armies, tyranids and my guard. So far my guard in tournaments have a much higher win rate and been doing far better than my nids. And my only thing I wish was for the valkyrie to go down in points or some change so I can bring it to tournaments rather than just for fun games, rest I feel is in a good place.

Guard OP? Good! The stronger the prey, the sweeter it is to break them #JustNightLordThings

I play exactly the worst list for hybrid guard 😂😂 Cadia Stand !

I'm by no means a veteran guard player (only started playing seriously with 10th) but I did go 4-1 in a GT. I think you are right that the massive number of options blinds guard players, plus some of them are not obvious how they are best used. For instance, people are just starting to pick up bullgryn even though they're essentially unchanged from the start of the edition. This "Guard is S Tier" talk is an overreaction - people are realizing that guard has some genuinely good tricks other than artillery spam and scout sentinels. I don't have bullgryns but my list abuses Reinforcements really well.

I've always thought that the guard is an anti-meta army. Through the sheer amount of datasheets and options, the guard always has an answer that, while it is not the best in the game, it works well against the meta. The problem of course is finding those units, adding them to the collection and learn how to use them. What I have seen is that, many imperial guard players (myself included) play exclusively with the guard, whether it is at the top or at the bottom of the meta. This gets the players used to working around the meta instead of switching armies. Of course, this is just like.. my opinion maaaaan.

Platoon Command Squad Command Structure aura is much more important now they clarified using reinforcements on a battle shocked unit.

I’m starting to finally play Warhammer 40k your videos inspired me to do guard back with Infantry only. I’m so hyped, although it is 3D printed as I’m broke, but I want to know what a competitive list could be. I’m thinking a couple 20 man Deathkorp units and a few Earthshaker cannons on those treads (I forgot the name) Anyway nice to know I’ve got a good chance to beat my two friends who are also starting with space marine armies. Any advice on how to beat them?

Guard have always been the best (commissar is close by)

Take 3 kasrkin scion platoon and then nothing but flyer spam and some demo vehicles

"Ever since 10th came out my tournament results have went up all around. And I haven't gotten any better as a player." The politest way to say : lol skill issue.

Great vid as usual Mordian, I just want to point out one thing about sniper rifles, correct me if Im wrong, please, but using them to me doesnt seem as such a waste as other people think, because if you open your volley with them, and you randomly manage to get a wound through (yes I know, doesnt ever happen, but if youre going infantry guard, you get to potentially try multiple times in a turn onto different targets if, for example, your lascannon squads got sniper rifles which you split fire with), now all the other guns will be going into that character, sniping them out of the unit, since it was the model that took damage in this phase. Or am I missing something? :)

Guard is always the best faction, sometimes the win-rates just don’t reflect that

Our faith in the emperor is why we have won, do win and will continue to win. SAH!

WOOOOOOOOOOOOO

It's because we can order our chaff to elite and elite units to devastating after deep striking or exiting vehicles O7

Double orders helps!

Ok I'm sorry Guard community but I believe Mordian is 100% CORRECT on this discussion. All in all Guard has a high skill ceiling and a low skill floor. 1. Look at the majority of lists ran by people who send in their army or your avg guard list: they arent including the armored fist squads of catachans and scions. Most don't have 1/2 x 3 Scout sentinels. A "5th" pillar I consider in Guard 10th ed that even Mordian overlooks in every single list. Not trying to harp on you Mr.M but it has to be said. 2. Not necessarily indicative of the competitive side of the game but 90% of Batreps on YT a Guard commanders are ignoring orders, unit abilities, weapon profile abilities, everything. I mean I just watched a 'chat plays' livestream where the guard player had Kasrkin with 2hot shot volley 7 rifles and a pistol. And kept saying "Guard is shit this edition. They made everything shit, kasrkin r shit, Leman Russ r shit..." And I looked at the list and how he was playing and it all made sense. So I totally see that perceived notion that Guard is just bad. People haven't warmed up to all the techs yet. Still wanna see Mordian build a list around Straken and Nork in a big fighty blob. And I still cant wait to see chicken walker spam(lite)

I think netlist guard suffer from a similar problem to netlist marines. 40k 10th is not fought on planet bowling ball where everything sees everything and the circles don't matter.

I literally only started playing guard because I think the Wyvern looks cool... I wish it was good... :(

LET'S GO BOYZ!!!!!!! GOIN IN WITH THE FIRST WAVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The meta broke before the Guard did!

Im building a guard army rn, all krieg with GL's, Plasmas, and meltas, command blob with leontis and command squad, im not sure if ima run most units in squads of 10 or 20 yet but i think i am gonna do at least one 20 man with a psyker and a death korp marshall to give them 4 up invuls and a 5 up FNP to make them a tanky unit if i need it. Then 2-4 lemun russ's depending on if im bringing a shadowsword or not and a couple basilisks....maybe some sentinels too. gonna play around with the different configs for 2k. Im brand new to guard but Ive heard from local guard people that this is a decent list, maybe people here can give opinions. Ive also been considering a second command squad, chimeras, using an assassin and maybe getting gaunt's ghosts? but idk.

A few points, guard has very cheap bl choices like krieg that can take units of 20 and a good number of special weapons. You can field more than 300 boots and have room for some characters. No other faction can do this as easily. The game is about objective control. Good luck trying to shift 6 units of 20 krieg standing on circles. Scions have great dakka and can deep strike, kasrkin are solid too. Most armies cannot do enough damage to shift guard infantry blobs from an objective without serious focus fire and over exposing units. Guard can also drop over 20 vehicles at 2000 pts, or 4 super heavy tanks. Again, good luck trying to out shoot all the heavy weapons in an armoured company. Guard can have a balanced list with redundancy, a dead infantry blob can be replaced with a strat. Tanks can be repaired with a tp es. Lots of elite lists will lack answers to infantry hordes. Unfortunately new players will find the infantry heavy list super expensive to collect, compared to 300gbp for a 2000 pts grey knight army that would not be too off meta in a tournament nowadays - including silver spray paint and glue. (Yes, just 3 combat patrols)

Hey mordian i highly doubt you'll see this but maybe it is because of the new changes to orders from my understanding mech guard can potentially get double orders off since the orders can be done in the command phase AND a turn in which we dismount/enter the field. So guard gets orders from characters in a chimera, and chimera dismounts guve more orders

I mean... I won an event with guard after only 1 game of practice 😅 meta for sure

And here I sit not having won a single game with guard in 10th edition. ^^'

This will probably sound stupid because I'm a noob but I thought Cadians were useful because they had sticky objectives Kreig look cool and everything and are probably better but unless they get a new plastic kit the chances of new players getting them are slim to none

Mordians point was a bit of a stretch imo. I havent run into any issues with the 40k app but i dont run all armies. Id say a flag bearer multiclassing as a medic doesnt make much sense to me. I wouldnt mind playing against anyone running that build in a casual or tournament game tho. Rules as written 6/10 because it was allowed in 9th. Rules as intended is a 2/10 for me. I totally respect the thought process and reasoning because it makes sense to me. It just doesnt seem like the right rules imo. ❤

I’ve had a death guard player and an elder player lose to me in 1000 point battles and both now believe guard is op at 1000 points

An edition friendly to tanks for a very tank faction. Left that out

I think that guard is a top tier army when they abuse some of their more broken datasheets like medusa carriages or bullryn. They are also a very good army into many of the current competitive boogeymen, custodes and necrons, while a ton of the harder matchups like votann and CSM have caught a huge nerf.

The change to orders also has made a difference making more aggressive playstyles possible

I haven’t had a game with guard yet of tenth that I haven’t conceded end of turn two.

Lol, Nerf Hammer of Spite incoming.

The reason why the narrative is that Guard is top-tier exists is that it is just that: A narrative. The more I watch and read claims from other "Meta watchers" the more of them I write off as just listening in to the grapevine rather than reading the details for themselves. The top players are pretty much all just taking Catachans and Baneblades, which is a list that is cool once and lame after that, and extremely hard to deal with. Guard is low tier, but not massively so. According to Meta Monday was are at about 43% which seems on par to me. Your three ways to win are either the mentioned Baneblade Skew list, just being that good, or just being that lucky.

I've been catching up on your videos, so I'm not sure if you ever talked about this, but have you considered/tried a stormlord with 3x5 ratlings? Ratlings can disembark, shoot, then move after shooting right back inside the stormlord, at which point you get 15 more sniper shots from the tank's firing deck

Tehe

I have to disagree Mr. Mordian glory, yes we can win, we can be good, i have a win today agains SM, but i dont think we are OP, we are fine, and a little bit good, but i feel the guard weak as a faction. We can use tricks and win, yes we can, but we for the moment are not OP or GOOD, this is not an easy army to play and win, but is very satisfactory to get a win with it. what i mean is yes, we can be good, but we arent good right now. Maybe is because i dont have to many years playing guard, but thats my perspective, we can be good, but we arent in the moment, we have to use to many tricks to make it work and searching for them is not easy. So for me, we arent good, but we can be good.

Lethal hits has improved the damage output of infantry substantially in 10th edition.

I saw a guard player explaining what they can do to just an infantry unit and it made me glad i didn't continue into this emperorforsaken edition.

Obligatory Comment 🫡

Click bait thumbnail 😢. Where’s my 1000pts army list ?? 😭

Guard arent OP but our eternal balance is dog shite.

The faction is good? lmao. look at the win rates

There's some real problems with your logic here Morty. You basically say all these reasons why your experience is not generalizable, such as gaining experience and becoming better at the game (You say you didn't but then also you say you gained experience So you've contradicted yourself there) and then try to apply it to the faction which is not applicable to groups of people. You also don't really back up anything by statistics here, which is actual day that and how you convince someone of anything who is actually data driven and realizes anecdotes aren't data. God is taking the occasional win but still nowhere near the player representation. On the player representation point, guards high player count also contradicts your point about people not using them or experimenting with them early. You also say The data sheets are good but that is contradicted by your entire point that you started with of all the trap data sheets that are not good and will cause you to have 40% and lower win rates if you take them. Basically you can take this video and split the points in half and You would be arguing with yourself the whole time. I'm not really a guard player I'm just starting to build my force as my fifth army but none of these points you make are convincing in the least and frankly need to be supported with data. It really seems like guard has some paths to doing okay and using those plus just having one of the largest player bases means they will take qins occasionally, but on average the factions data sheets and rules are not strong enough. GW needs to focus a lot of attention on internal balance especially because guard is not getting a codex right away. I'm still of the opinion that anything that is not being used ever in competitive in the game should be getting a small points decrease every single data slate until it sees play. Do love the rest of your content though, So keep doing what you do.

10th is still a mess, i dont want to play a game when most units are unplayable bad. its very unfun when most units have absolutely no porpuse or just dont work at all, or got overpriced.

AoW smoking crack and shit scared of guard being relevent again

Helps that eldar got nerfed too. Hard to be a board control army when a predator just wipes you out even if you spread them across the board