Feudal Guard Tactics

Feudal Guard
Setting:	Grimdark Future
Games:	Grimdark Future, Grimdark Future: Firefight
Species:	Human
Version:	v2.50

Note: as v2.50 is in constant development the following might not be accurate.

Why Play Feudal Guard

The Feudal Guard is a more elite variation of the HDF. While your army still persists of a large mass of bodies, your forces aren't as prone as folding to a stiff breeze.

Pros:

• Lots of Activations
• Your heroes are vital for buffing your troops
• Your force is entirely Fearless
• Cheap AP(1) on your entire army's melee
• Tougher vehicles

Cons:

• Your troops are not very sturdy. Not HDF flimsy, but still
• Your troops aren't as massive in size
• Limited vehicle options
• Your forces aren't HDF cheap

Army Special Rules

• Ballistics Console: The model and any attached unit get a +1 to hit when shooting.
• Bird of Prey: You get a free shooting attack each turn. Upon activation, an enemy model within 36" must roll a d6, taking an AP(1) hit on a 2+. Really, this just gives you some light sniping, nothing more.
• Feudal March: When this model is activated, you can pick one of four boosts (+3" range on guns, +1 to shooting or punching, or +1 AP on guns). This gives you a lot of ways to improve your forces, though you'll need to make sure that you pick the right one each turn.
• Feudal Standard: Grants two friendly units within 12" a +1 to morale check, letting you effectively reinforce squads of infantry on top of Fearless.
• Field Radio: If the unit contains a hero with the Commander rule, you can instead give its benefits to another unit with a Field Radio within 24". You NEED to get one of these if you intend to do more back-seat slave-driving.
• Medical Training: Provides the unit Regeneration. While very helpful in keeping your troops alive, keep in mind the costs it intails.
• Purity Scroll: This unit can block psychic powers as if they were psychic.

Psychic Spells

• Foresight(4+): Friendly unit within 12" takes +1 to hit with shooting. With how limited your shooting can get, you'll be needing every shot to count.
• Flame Breath (4+): One enemy unit within 12" takes two AP(2) hits.
• Expel (5+): One enemy model within 12" takes a single AP(4) Deadly(3) hit. Pretty much all you can ask for when sniping a hero or heavy weapon.
• Protective Dome (5+): An friendly unit within 12" gains regeneration when they next get hit.
• Psychic Speed (6+): One friendly unit within 12" can immediately move 6". This gives you a desperate escape button or possibly an easier charge.
• Tempest (6+): Enemy unit within 6" take a hit per model, making this hell for mobs of grunts.

Unit Analysis

Heroes

• Feudal Leader: Your leader is more than effective with a 4+ to quality and defense, making them capable of handling whatever you throw them at. This guy has limited access to weapons, limiting between stock Rifle or the CCW+Rifle loadout with options for a Plasma Pistol to pop armor and either an Energy Sword or Energy Fist depending on what you're facing. Uniquely, you also get the option for a Feudal Steed to make a true cavalry commander with Fast, while the Energy Lance gives an effective combat weapon with more Impact to devastate on the charge.
  • Buffs: As with the GDF leaders, you have a list of special rules that seriously influence your playstyle. Watchman offers Purity Scroll for cheap spell-blocking, which can be handy if you're more worried about tons of psychic casters. Battle Mystic gives Psychic if you intend to be more active on the casting game. Strategist has the Ballistics Console, giving you a sizeable boost for dedicated gunlines. Falconer provides Bird of Prey for some out-of-turn shooting. Commander gives Feudal March, letting you shuffle your smaller squads around without worrying about the sizes.

• Elite Leader: Effectively your Feudal Leader with a tanky 3+ defense. Their offensive repertoire remains as limited, even lacking the lance and option for a horse, but in exchange you get a stock Heavy Rifle or Heavy Pistol with AP(1) to take down light infantry. Even better, they're only 5 points more expensive than the leaders, letting you include them far more easily without much issue.

Infantry

• Feudal Guardsmen: The humble frontliner. While not so cheap as the HDF, you get the 4+ quality and defense, which would require going for Storm Troopers. Alongside the melee weapons given to the heroes, you also have access to a special weapon, giving you a measure of flexibility, as well as your choice of either a Feudal Standard, Field Radio, or Medical Training. Unique to this unit is the ability to actually purchase and add AP(1) to their melee.
  • Shooting: Alongside the options one model has like the Feudal Leader, you can also provide a special weapon, any of which have their place depending on what you intend to use them for. The Plasma Gun offers you a cheap means to pop armor while the Fusion Rifle offers inexpensive tank-busting power at short range. The Flamethrower provides you with a good number of hits at short range while the Shred Rifle offers rapid-fire with the chance of Rending for high AP. The Grenade Launcher gives a small blast made to handle crowds. The Sniper Rifle in particular provides you extreme range that exceeds even the base rifle with AP(1) and Sniper to pick off key models.
  • Weapon Teams: Alongside the standard guardsmen is a pack of heavy weapons. Available as a squad or as a lone attachment to an feudal guardsmen/elites squad, these are essentially Tough 3 soldiers toting a single heavy weapon. Each of these are quite impressive with range, so it's better to keep them as far away as possible. This is especially true of an attached weapon, as you'll be vulnerable to Deadly and Sniper.
    • Heavy Weapons: Each Weapons Team comes with a Mortar for long-ranged bombardment with small blasts but Indirect. The Heavy Machinegun gives you a more direct long-range fire, gifting AP(1). The Burrowing Torpedo is a unique weapon for your army, giving you a large blast at the cost of a bit of range. The Missile Launcher gives you the means to hit a tank with AP(2) Deadly(3) with Lock-On to get through any cover as well. The Laser Cannon has greater range with the same anti-tank power. The Autocannon essentially gives you an amped-up Heavy Machinegun with better range and AP(2) to handle something like Battle Brothers.

• Feudal Engineers: Your guardsmen all have shotguns, assault rifles with halved range and two attacks. Combined with Scout, this means that they must reach close range as quickly as possible. Your only option for weapons is a heavy weapons model with a Burrowing Torpedo. This gives you a slightly long-range artillery weapon that has a very large Blast 6, though Indirect makes moving for the rest of the squad to shoot a difficult idea.

• Feudal Specialists: Your soldiers can now grab whatever special weapons they want...at the cost of anything else. If you grab them, it's because you really need a certain weapon badly enough that one just won't cut it. Also helping matters is the fact that they have Relentless, making their dedication clearer.

• Feudal Elites: Your elite troops. Each of them comes with a 4+ quality and 3+ defense, putting them above even Storm Troopers. Their base Heavy Rifles and Pistols also get AP(1), so they can take on infantry even when taken stock. You can buy up to two special weapons, and while they can take the guns most soldiers can, they can also grab the Squad Machinegun for more rapid-fire AP(1). Like the regulars, they can also grab a Feudal Standard, Field Radio or Medical Training, which might make them even more valuable depending on how you rely on them.

• Feudal Snipers: Whatever you do, DON'T LET THEM STOP SNIPING. These guys were actually even worse than conscripts outside of sniping. Make use of their Scout and Stealth rules and move to the best position possible.

• Feudal Ogres: Big beefy walls of meat with Fearless and Tough(3) to soak up blows. Furious makes melee a good fit for their AP(1) CCWs, though you can also replace their guns with Heavy Batons for some additional AP(2) swings to crush the enemy while replacing their stock CCWs with shields gives a few weaker attacks with a very powerful 2+ save. Their shooting is limited to either the stock Mini GLs for crowd control or the shorter-range Heavy SMGs for AP(1).

• Feudal Cavalry: Your troops are now Fast and have Impact(1) in order to give some better charges. They are incredibly melee-centric, with their only options being either buying Energy Swords for some potential Rending or Energy Lances for guaranteed extra Impact hits.

Vehicles

• Heavy APC: Unlike most armies, your tanks come with at least Tough(9) for survivability. This particular transport has no frills about being anything but an assault transport with only two Heavy Flamethrowers. That said, it lacks any protective options like Stealth or Strider, meaning they are quite exposed to anti-tank weapons.
  • Shooting: You can offer support with anti-aircraft Hunter Missiles or Twin Missile Pods for mid-range AP and the option for either a Storm Rifle or Heavy Machinegun for supporting fire. On top of that, you can purchase a Heavy Machinegun or a Heavy Rifle Array for long-range AP(1) firepower. While either Heavy Flamethrower with either a Heavy Machinegun or Laser Machinegun for long-range AP fire, but only one can go for either the Autocannon for longer range or a Twin Heavy Machinegun if you're not interested in buying more guns but still need the firepower.

• Heavy Support Vehicle: This tank carries Twin Shard Mortars, long range small blast artillery that can see it tear through plenty of targets without hassle. Depending on your preferred targets, you can upgrade that to either the Eagle Rockets (providing long-range AP(3) blasts to destroy forces like Battle Brothers), Twin AA-Cannons (Rapid-fire with AP(2) and Lock-On to target aircraft), the Artillery Cannon (carrying Blast(6) to handle hordes at long range), or the Ballistic Missile (a devastating Blast(12) AP(2) explosion that will disintegrate nearly any squad it sees). Fortunately, you have the two options of missiles to help with mid-ranged artillery on top of whatever you buy.

• Heavy Battle Tank: The beefy tank. Toting Tough(15) and a Nova Cannon to flatten mobs, this is a tank with combat potential. This cannon can also be replaced with a broad variety of weapons. On top of that and the Twin Heavy Flamethrowers, you also have the ability to purchase Commander for this tank, offering a seemingly-absent Rule, though it might be possible this was meant to be Feudal March.
  • Main Gun: The Nova Cannon, while impressive in range, has limited effect against small units and monsters. For this, you can replace it with either the Battle Cannon (providing a smaller blast and AP(2) to pop Destroyers), the Gatling Cannon (extreme rate of fire), the Anti-Tank Cannon (AP(3) and Deadly(6) to demolish most vehicles), the Heavy Plasma Cannon (A large blast with AP(4) to better handle Custodians), the Heavy Autocannon (Rapid-fire at AP(2) to handle most things) and the Siege Cannon (A sort of middle-ground between rapid-fire and bombardment with AP(3) Blast(3) but indirect).
  • Side Guns: If you plan to replace the Twin Heavy Flamethrowers, you could spring for a few alternatives. The Twin Heavy Machineguns offer long-ranged fire with AP(1). The Twin Plasma Cannons are a costly way for long-ranged bombardment with AP(4) Blast(3). The Twin Heavy Fusion Rifles gives an extreme way to demolish tanks. On top of that, you can purchase an additional Heavy Flamethrower, Heavy Machinegun or Laser Cannon to add another role to this behemoth

• Heavy Walker: Unlike the HDF's light walker, this walker can actually hold its own in combat. By default it has two impressive Heavy Swords, each with AP(1) Rending, but you could replace either one with a variety of other weapons or a shield so you could improve the walker to Tough(12), about as heavy as a battletank.
  • Weapons: The two Heavy Swords come with AP(1) Rending, making it a decent match against infantry and light tanks. If you're focusing more on chopping mobs, then you could instead get a Heavy Chainsaw for more attacks in exchange for Rending. The Heavy Flamethrower can do the same thing but at short range. The Heavy Machinegun gives you some long-range fire to cover most foes. The Missile Launcher gives you dedicated anti-vehicle fire with AP(2) Deadly(3) with Lock-On to hit aircraft. The Plasma Cannon gives you long-range artillery capable of blasting Battle Brothers. The Laser Machinegun and Autocannon give you high AP firepower for long-range while the Laser Cannon give you the best option to crack vehicles. While you can replace either sword for a shield and use that to make a Tough(15) walker, you're wasting your options since you'd be stuck with mere stomps - one shield is enough.

List Building & Tactics

General Advice

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Tactics

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See Also

• Feudal Guard
• Feudal Guard Quickplay Armies
• Grimdark Future List Building
• Grimdark Future Strategy
• Grimdark Future

Feudal Guard
Overview - Tactics - Firefight Tactics - Miniatures - Quickplay Armies - Firefight Quickplay Armies

Grimdark Future tactics
List Building - Strategy - Special Rules
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