Looking for 1v1 IG tips

[Oddnerd]

Hi all

After 900 hours of playing 3v3 I want to play some 1v1. I played maybe 30 games of 1v1 in 2009 and then maybe 30 or so against a complete newb since I started Elite mod - so I don't have the knowledge of each race and its standard tactics that I do for 3v3.

Could anyone fill me in on the major differences between playing IG in 1v1 and 3v3? Even just the basics would be great. If there were still thousands of people playing I would jump into ranked, but because there are so few games nowadays, I don't want to waste peoples time while I learn from scratch.

Any advice is appreciated. I will be watching 1v1s as well.

[Crewfinity]

IG in 1v1 lives and dies by their T1 sent play. thats your greatest source of mobility as well as bleed capability, so much of how games go are reliant on how well you use your sentinel(s) in t1. you always want to be shooting something or decapping with it, while gm squads can repair behind it or solidify map control. this is true in 3v3 as well but in 1v1 theres a lot less firepower generally so sentinels can be a lot more oppressive. you can use them to make your enemy pay for every step they take forward.

in general good BO's these days are 3 GM, sent, and a t1.5 unit. some players like to get sergeants on 2 of their GM squads, and use the third for genbashing/map control with flamers. hero wants to be leading the pushes and tying up the beefy ranged squads like shootas or tacs. sent and GM squads are how you deal with melee, you generally want to keep them at arms length. since there are fewer melee units on the field you can afford to kite them endlessly and stomp if they get too close.

I tend to prefer heavy weapons team to catachans but YMMV. autocannons and the bubble shield they get are just sooooo good right now. spotters are another excellent unit that can lead your pushes and cost very little upkeep or bleed.

[Torpid]

Catachans are only really useful if you feel like you need anti-melee. If you don't they suck and a HWT or spotters will be better.

Abusing las-turrets in IG mirrors, vs eldar, and non melee based nids/orks is a necessity. For the melee heroes the upgraded t1 weapons are really basically no-buys.

Chimeras I don't really like these days tbh. I find myself getting fast ogryns or a bunker far more often. Some match-ups make bunkers quite silly as your foe will lack any real means to take it out. Ogryns + bunker is always nice, as is ogryn + heavy turret as LG because the latter thing forces them to get AV which is then useless vs the ogryns and it doesn't set you back much cash.

Pro tip - unfinished bunkers block line of sight. You can cancel them before they fully build to get some of the req/red cost back. You can use this to pop a bunker down in front of a lascannon team to stop it from finishing off your sent/chim/leman, or even ogryns (especially bionic eye ogryns will low hp that want a wipe) to allow them to close on set-up teams or ranged blobs without taking as much damage.

3x guardsmen counters ranged spam builds such as 3x DA, however that gets rekt by melee + suppression as the melee forces catachans which in turn are ass vs SUT. Bottom line, drop gens/turrets first, they are good vs everything early game, wait for them to go t1.5 before you do unless you are in a tourny game and you want to play it a bit risky by expecting what your foe will do...

[Oddnerd]

Thanks for the tips guys. I am definitely too reliant on catachans and not enough on spotters at the moment, gonna have to condition myself to make the switch.

[The Licking Boogyman]

If you would go heavy Tier 1 try 3 GM 1 catach 1 as is very annoying to deal with witouth enough melee.