Assembling and painting an Imperial Guard army is similar to fighting a war of attrition, with time and effort acting as your rank and file troops. You just have to keep throwing yourself into the meat grinder in order to take each objective.
The reason for this is the low points cost of individual troops and units in the guard. Take for example the Mortar Heavy Weapons team featured - the hours upon hours of painting culminates in a feeling of triumph from having finished a unit, only to be replaced with a crushing sense of futility due to the fact that you've added a whopping 33 points to your army!
Having said that, I love the idea of Mortar squads in an Imperial Guard army. The imagery of waves of Guardsmen advancing on the enemy while mortar shells whistle overhead is very cool. It's probably a throwback to all of the epic John Blanche battle scene illustrations back in the day.
While they might not be the most powerful of troops in the 40K universe, the humble mortar squad does allow you to fire indirectly from behind cover at units that the squad can't see.
So when you absolutely, positively have to drop the equivalent of 3D6 Bolter shots on the enemy, pony up the 33 points and call down that fire mission!
-Ran
Lovely job, painting and basing, very atmospheric!
ReplyDeleteThanks Phil! I like the bases to tell a little story of their own when possible.
ReplyDeleteAnd it's successful, no doubt!
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