Imperial Guard Stratagems
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Forward Spotters (Dirty Tricks)
The Imperial Guard are famed for shelling cities with heavy ordnance, lobbing shells high over intervening buildings to flatten the enemy from afar. However, such attacks are highly inaccurate as they are fired blind. Imperial Guardsmen are trained to act as the eyes of mortar and ordnance teams, relaying coordinates of enemy units and calling in artillery strikes through the vox-net.
The Forward Spotters strategem is applied to all infantry units that include at least one model with a vox-caster. If all models with vox-casters are killed, the unit immediately loses the Forward Spotters ability.
• Any unit firing a barrage or ordnance barrage weapon counts such weapons as twin-linked, provided at least one Forward Spotters unit has a line of sight to the target. -
'Killdozer' Tracked Ordnance Device (Armoury)
The force is fortunate to have access to a supply of munitions mounted upon small tracks that can be used to destroy buildings and clear streets of obstructions. Such equipment has many names, a favourite amongst Imperial Guard units is 'Killdozer'.
• Any Elite infantry unit in the army may be accompanied by a Killdozer, which should be represented with a suitable counter or conversion. The Killdozer itself is always ignored when measuring ranges to or from the unit and is not involved in any way if the unit is the target of shooting or engaged in an assault.
• Once per game, any one city ruin within 6" of the unit may be destroyed at the beginning of the Shooting phase on a roll of 2+. If a 1 is rolled, the Killdozer has failed to detonate and is useless for the remainder of the game. -
Las-cutters (Armoury)
The unit has been issued a highly limited item of industrial machinery that is on occasion turned to a tactical use on the battlefield, particularly in the claustrophobic environs of a cityfight.
• Any infantry unit may be issued with a single las-cutter, and the model carrying the item should be indicated in some way. This stratagem allows the unit to move through impassable terrain as if it were difficult and dangerous terrain, so long as the unit can be moved through the terrain piece in a single move. Place a counter at the start and end points of the move - subsequent units may use the 'tunnel' created by the las-cutter so long as they can roll high enough on their difficult terrain test to move through in one go. -
Scroungers (Armoury)
By cannibalising wrecks and intercepting resupply shipments, the crews of the unit's vehicles have upgunned their transports, the better to deal with threats emerging from the close terrain.
Any transport vehicle in the army that already has access to pintle-mounted weapons as a vehicle upgrade may take up to two more than normally allowed, for no additional cost. These extra weapons are only usable while there are passengers being transported by the vehicle. -
Heavy Ploughs (Armoury)
Many Imperial Guard regiments maintain a stock of combat engineering stores, including heavy ploughs and dozers that can either be fitted to specialist vehicles or issued to line units.
• The heavy plough counts as a Wrecker (see Cities of Death stratagems). It may be fitted to any tanks apart from skimmers.
• The heavy plough only works if the tank moved over 6" in its Movement phase. -
The Light of the Emperor (Key Buildings)
Anticipating an attack on their position, the defenders remove searchlights from any and every vehicle they can find, pressing them into service so illuminate the area all round to prevent the enemy from approaching unseen.
• If the Nightfighting scenario special rule is in use, no Nightfighting rolls are made by any unit occupying the city ruin to which the stratagem is applied.
• Enemy units must still roll to target units in the ruin - this represents the dazzling effect of all the lights. -
Vox Booster (Key Building)
The building's power supply has been re-routed to power a vox booster, allowing Imperial Guard Commanders to transmit encrypted, tight-beam orders through the dense city streets without interference.
- The Vox Booster stratagem is used in the owning player's Shooting phase.
• If there is an Officer within the city ruin, he may increase his command radius by +12". -
Comms Relay (Key Building)
Communications between regimental and company officers is maintained via powerful comms dishes and amplifiers housed within this location. Using a comms relay, Imperial Guard commanders can better coordinate the deployment of their tactical reserves and call for reinforcements.
- Provided a unit is within the city ruin the owning player may re-roll any of his own reserve rolls he wishes.
