Just a wish list thread for the 5th edition imperial guardsman

1) If designers intend to keep the basic guardsman at 6pts per, weapons options at current costs, and Kill points as listed
2) If designers intend to keep the basic guardsman at 6pts per, weapons options at current costs, and Kill points are one per platoon
3) Flexible on points costs,but kill points as listed
4) Flexible on points costs, and kill points are one per platoon

Intent 1) Guardsmen would need to be given fortification special rule where all cover saves are +1 until unit moves. Units in the open would be granted a 6+ cover save They would also need str4 ap - lasguns, and a special rule to allow them to shoot through units with out granting enemy units a cover save.

Intent 2) Honestly, the rumored shoot through units special rule would be all that is needed to balance them. I can think of some crazy tactics to use to keep the IG fighting.

Intent 3) 4pt guardsmen...... Cost cutting on heavy weapons as well

Intent 4) Hrm, this is hard. Personally I lean to Intent 2 as the best way to balance the guardsman. But if there is no shoot through units rule, then 5pt guardsmen and a points adjustment to the heavy and special weapons.

The problem with Guard lies in the fact that they too good at what they do. What I mean by that is you can get so much out of a squad of Guardsmen (because they're so cheap) that there's little reason to spent points on toy units.

You made Guardsmen 4 points each and reduce the costs of their special/heavy weapons, and there's no reason to bring anything else. 350+/- points for a 55-man platoon. I could bring 5 such platoons to the table at 1850 and still have 100 points left for my HQ.

That's, assuming 15 point Lascannons and 8 point Plasma Guns (which is what they should be), 25 Lascannons, 25 Plasma Guns and (minimum) 280 models on the table. The army is also worth 6 Kill Points (God I hate those things...). Throw in some flamers, HBs and Autocannons instead of the Plasmas and Flamers, and you get even more points back.

You'll win just due to sheer attrition. Even Orks maxing out on Sluggaz top out at 180.

They can't be 4 points each unless they're worth 1 KP per squad and/or they have no 'platoon' ability to fire through their own guys without penalty.

BYE

So your basically saying you agree with me? If each squad is one kp, and barring any rules chaged, that each guardsman is worth 4 points and the weapons upgrades need to be reduced.

Sorry, it is always interesting to me to get in the mind of the designers. I figured they will go down one of four roads. The question is what they will do if they choose a particular path.

foil7102 wrote:So your basically saying you agree with me? If each squad is one kp, and barring any rules chaged, that each guardsman is worth 4 points and the weapons upgrades need to be reduced.

I'm saying that the compensation for having such a KP-heavy army will have to be great, or Guard will just be unworkable.

BYE

I think that Guardsmen are overpriced at 6 pts, but may be underpriced at 4 pts. I like Guardsmen at 5 pts.

I think Platoons should be 1 KP a single unit. But I'd like to see a secondary squad-to-squad cohesiveness requirement -- Platoon squads must have at least 1 model within 6" of another model, or they automatically go to ground if not falling back.

Fortifications are a horrible idea for Guard. Guard already tend to be static. Providing further benefit only makes the static play style worse.

S4 Lasguns are unnecessary. They're flashlights, not AP- Bolters. Let the Guard have their flashlights and leave it be.

Heavy & Special Weapons are priced OK. They don't need to be cheaper, as Guard are just fine as a static shooting army.

What Guard need is for their Chimeras to become a *lot* cheaper, and more available so that mobility becomes a reasonable alternative to stand-and-shoot. Right now, Chimeras are punitively priced, to the point that they are non-competitive and a huge penalty in a KP game. It would be nice to see a 1 KP Squadron-type option for Guard Chimeras.

Personally, the more I think about it, the more I think that a guard platoon needs to cost 2 kp. 1 kp for the platoon command squad, and 1kp for the remaining squads. The idea of a suicide command squad never really sat well with me, even if you could argue that the platoon LT was some hot shot trying to make a name for himself.

While I agree with you on the command squad counting towards KP, I have to say the "Suicide Command" makes plenty of sense depending on the army. Sure a Savlar chem Dog LT might be a behind the lines type of officer, but most imperial officers are supposed to be leading from the front, setting the example, ect.

I will however endorse the fortification idea. It would at max give the guard army a turn or two of semi protected firing, but would still require maneuvering and strategy to capture objectives and whatnot. A guard army is supposed to stand and shoot, thats what they do.

the four point guardsman is a little extreme imo. a five point guardsman with the fortification gives them a cost less than the 6pnt ork boy with T4 and base 2 attacks, and a little something to keep them from destroying themselves with givng the enemy cover saves.

I certainly wouldn't mind them balancing in some fortifications rules, however I would like to see some similar balancing in of mobility as well. It would be nice if you had the option to play the army one of several different ways. That's one of the beautie fo the game, so many options.

I agree that, fluff wise, the guard are a pretty static force. WWI trench warfare springs to mind as a comparison. Trenching rules to support that would be kinda cool. However, in the end, we'll see what we get. I would not be suprised to see points costs drop for the general guardsman in some shape for or fashion, simply b/c it will encourage sales (in theory).

6 pt guardsmen, but free vox caster and free close order drill. KP only on the platoon command. Making platoon command decapitation something that realistically should be avoided.

COD is free already.

Dexy wrote:COD is free already.

Yes in the current Codex it is. In the new IG codex they are getting rid of the doctrines apparently shifting to platoon upgrades. In such a case COD should come standard and for free.

With the improved templates, COD is worth less than before. But if IG can stand next to each other to become better, why not SM or CSM? Why not some army with the kind of Ld rating that this kind of thing would make some sense?

And as before, let Fortifications / Trenching be a scenario benefit, not an army rule. The last thing we need in 40k is to encourage players to play WW1 trench warfare. We had that in 2nd Edition, and bringing it back would simply be horrible.

JohnHwangDD wrote:With the improved templates, COD is worth less than before. But if IG can stand next to each other to become better, why not SM or CSM? Why not some army with the kind of Ld rating that this kind of thing would make some sense?

With the abundance of cover saves, I'd say it's about evens out. Previous edition had 4 guardsmen getting hit with no save, new edition has 8 guardsmen getting hit with a 4+. And Guardsmen don't HAVE to be in closed ranks the entire time. You can stay spread to avoid blast fire within your officer's leadership bubble and then close ranks to receive the assault on turn 2 or 3.

Again, if a fighting square works for weedy Guardsmen, it surely works better for MEQs.

Yea some defensive scenarios would be nice.

Hey if the Daemon army always gets its wierd deployment rules why not defensive rules for the IG of some sort?

JohnHwangDD wrote:Again, if a fighting square works for weedy Guardsmen, it surely works better for MEQs.

Orks... too much a rabble.
Tau... no emphasis on close combat training.
Eldar and Dark Eldar... martial arts style combat requires a little space to work.
Marines and Chaos Marines... killing machines whose fighting prowess is such that fighting in a formation would restrict there movement.
Tyranids... effectively mindless creatures working as a swarm.
Necrons... maybe

Thats why guardsmen work and others don't. My idea was that vox casters and COD would be very minor freebies to balance out a very slight IG overprice. I think IG as they are should cost 5.5 points each, so a few minor freebies were intended to bump them up to a whole number point value.

I agree, trenching rules would be contrary to what seems to have been a point of 5th ed. breaking up and ending the very static warfare.

Guardsmen have more blasts at their disposal than the average MEQ army so the lack of partials benefits them more proportionately.

Guardsmen also gain more from cover saves as they protect them from both high and low AP shots whereas MEQ only gains protection from low AP fire.

I disagree. SM & CSM are heavy infantry. The most successful close-fighting force in ancient history were the Roman Legionnaires. They fought in tight formation using tactics to obliterate phalanxes.

Therefore, by extension, SM would easily beat Guardsmen in COD.

JohnHwangDD wrote:Heavy & Special Weapons are priced OK. They don't need to be cheaper, as Guard are just fine as a static shooting army.

I know you can't read my post, so I say this for the benefit of everyone else:

What are you smoking John?

HW's are priced 'ok'? Lascannons took a major hit in 5th. You now require 12 Lascannons firing for 6 turns straight in order to kill an AV14 vehicle in cover.

They're not worth 25 points. Hell, I'd debate if they're even worth 15 at BS3...

BYE

foil7102 wrote:Personally, the more I think about it, the more I think that a guard platoon needs to cost 2 kp. 1 kp for the platoon command squad, and 1kp for the remaining squads. The idea of a suicide command squad never really sat well with me, even if you could argue that the platoon LT was some hot shot trying to make a name for himself.

I hate KP's, but that's a great idea. |

BYE

JohnHwangDD wrote:I disagree. SM & CSM are heavy infantry. The most successful close-fighting force in ancient history were the Roman Legionnaires. They fought in tight formation using tactics to obliterate phalanxes.

Therefore, by extension, SM would easily beat Guardsmen in COD.

I don't even know what you're trying to say here. Roman infantry tactics are completely irrelevant to 40k balance, and even more completely irrelevant when comparing marines with guard. It's like if I jumped into a debate on tank shock with "Elephants weigh as much as a truck. Therefore if a squiggoth is tank shocked it should be able to return a hit with a +1 as if it was a tank."

Of course space marines are going to beat guardsmen in the assault. Duh. CoD is a great doctrine because it's free, and it allows the guardsmen to kill 1 or 2 marines before they're all routed. The ability to kill something before you die is better than the nonability to kill anything before you die.

I think John's problem with COD is he wants an explanation of why IG do it and SM don't.

Simply SM fight like big pro-wrestlers, try standing shoulder to shoulder with someone and doing wrestle style body throws. A space marines size also makes it difficult to stand so closely together in that sort of formation and fight.

Roman legionaries are not a good example of heavy infantry for these purposes, better to look at medieval French knights, who often fought on foot, they didn't rank up in formations they moved as skirmishers. They moved spread out to maximize their space and lethality in individual combat.

A marine is so formidable he'd stand a better chance one on one against his average foe; guardsmen do not so they rank up forcing larger enemies to take on multiple guardsmen at once. If SM were as outclassed as IG they might try to form rank, but it would be a lot more difficult for them.

H.B.M.C. wrote:

foil7102 wrote:Personally, the more I think about it, the more I think that a guard platoon needs to cost 2 kp. 1 kp for the platoon command squad, and 1kp for the remaining squads. The idea of a suicide command squad never really sat well with me, even if you could argue that the platoon LT was some hot shot trying to make a name for himself.

I hate KP's, but that's a great idea. |

BYE

Agree. I am not sure why some armies easily have 17 KPs at 2000 points while others easily have 7. I mean I can make a competitive footslogger army with less than 10 KPs while most assaulty SMs can have upwards of 20. And I guarantee my KPs are harder to get than his are.

Kinda makes IG basically default winner for Kill point fights.

WRT COD, it seems like people are just making up Fluff to justify a rule that they like. COD is underpriced, and shouldn't be free.

Nor does it make much sense - people are saying that SM wouldn't fight smarter to crush the IG? Nonsense. Standing shoulder-to-shoulder, a SM should be able to lop off 2 or 3 heads with each swing of his power sword, so I guess that we should multiply the hits scored on COD units to balance things out... I think it might be a fair start to simply double all shooting and HtH hits scored on units using COD.

The guard doctrines flat out need work. CoD and ID are great, and probably underpriced. Hardened Fighters and Bionics are terrible, and most certainly over priced. Giving people options and trade offs is excellent and should be the baseline for all codexes. The entire purpose of the doctrine system was to give rules to represent fluff.

Space Marines standing shoulder to shoulder wouldn't even be able to swing their chain swords. Go try to hit tennis balls while standing shoulder to shoulder with 10 guys also trying to hit tennis balls. Regardless, this 'should Marines get CoD' is an entirely separate topic and should be in another thread if you feel so passionately about it.

The Doctrine system simply threw rules out there. They don't represent Fluff at all unless one backs into it. In which case, no, it doesn't represent Fluff - it represents a ret-con.

Roman Legionnaires did most of their killing up close with short stabbing blades, relying on their superior armor and discipline to allow them to get the job done.

Space Marines have similar (or greater) relative advantage in armor with ATSKNF. They can use their chainswords in similar close-in fashion.

In any case, my main point is that free doctrines like COD are stupid from a design point because there's no trade-off and no modeling representation. Also, that COD doesn't much belong unless you let everybody benefit, or that it contains an appropriate drawback like doubling hits.

JohnHwangDD wrote:The Doctrine system simply threw rules out there. They don't represent Fluff at all unless one backs into it. In which case, no, it doesn't represent Fluff - it represents a ret-con.

Roman Legionnaires did most of their killing up close with short stabbing blades, relying on their superior armor and discipline to allow them to get the job done.

Space Marines have similar (or greater) relative advantage in armor with ATSKNF. They can use their chainswords in similar close-in fashion.

In any case, my main point is that free doctrines like COD are stupid from a design point because there's no trade-off and no modeling representation. Also, that COD doesn't much belong unless you let everybody benefit, or that it contains an appropriate drawback like doubling hits.

The COD doctrine represents the combined squads implementation of IG bayonet's; no one else has bayonet's, SM don't have them anymore. Is that a good enough reason? Its true all current IG have bayonets on their belts or lasgun. The trade off is if you stand in close order formation and your blast template chow. Its a +1 ld and +1 Int, +1 ld because the tighter formation allows the sgt to better direct the troops, the +1 int is because the spear like use of their bayonets would allow them to strike at the approaching unit. COD represents a distinct fighting style common to WWII and wars previous; it is a fighting style that maximizes a weaker units strength against a stronger enemy. A marine is an example of the stronger enemy who benefits from picking off individuals by maximizing his lethality in a large striking zone.

Also your Space Marine example still fails, a chainsword is a hacking weapon with the length and function of a broad sword, broad swords existed at the time of the romans, roman cavalry would sometime use them but the legionnaires did not because a broad sword is impossible to use in a tight formation, hence the roman use of the gladius a shortsword. German greatswords and French knights both more heavily armored than Romans fought in a skirmishing configuration exactly because of the limits that being tight in brings to their fighting style, swinging a broadsword.

JohnHwangDD wrote:The Doctrine system simply threw rules out there. They don't represent Fluff at all unless one backs into it. In which case, no, it doesn't represent Fluff - it represents a ret-con.

Okay, then let me ask how you would represent fluff without some series of mechanical bonuses at an appropriate cost without a free-form system like doctrines? Doctrines has its problems, mostly due to the way things are costed, but if anything representing a broader range of fluff should be done with more doctrines, not fewer.

aka_mythos wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:The Doctrine system simply threw rules out there. They don't represent Fluff at all unless one backs into it. In which case, no, it doesn't represent Fluff - it represents a ret-con.

Roman Legionnaires did most of their killing up close with short stabbing blades, relying on their superior armor and discipline to allow them to get the job done.

Space Marines have similar (or greater) relative advantage in armor with ATSKNF. They can use their chainswords in similar close-in fashion.

In any case, my main point is that free doctrines like COD are stupid from a design point because there's no trade-off and no modeling representation. Also, that COD doesn't much belong unless you let everybody benefit, or that it contains an appropriate drawback like doubling hits.

The COD doctrine represents the combined squads implementation of IG bayonet's; no one else has bayonet's,

Also your Space Marine example still fails, a chainsword is a hacking weapon with the length and function of a broad sword, broad swords existed at the time of the romans, roman cavalry would sometime use them but the legionnaires did not because a broad sword is impossible to use in a tight formation, hence the roman use of the gladius a shortsword.

German greatswords and French knights both more heavily armored than Romans fought in a skirmishing configuration exactly because of the limits that being tight in brings to their fighting style, swinging a broadsword.

The fact that IG are WS3 S3 I3 in CC can be attributed to their having bayonets in the first place. If not, they'd be WS2 S2 I2, and be butchered even more quickly than they currently are. Tacking on additional bonuses make no sense when they already *have* the effect of using a bayonet. In any case, granting the bonus, but not taking any penalty or having any cost is weak design.

The way I see it, a chainsword is typically modeled with the length of a longsword, and may arguably be counted as similar to a claymore. But then again, if you look at how a bolt "pistol" is modeled, the whole thing starts to fall apart... Claiming it's a broadsword equivalent is you forcing fluff because you want a certain result, not what the Fluff actually says.

German greatswords weren't necessarily in heavy plate armor - Landsknecht are often pictured in only light armor.

In any case, if you want IG to have a COD benefit, then you must necessarily create a fairly severe "enveloping" and/or "flanking" penalty for skirmishing forces who wrap around them. If you're pretending to have historical justification, then that COD unit needs to roll up just like any other historical formation.

sourclams wrote:Okay, then let me ask how you would represent fluff without some series of mechanical bonuses at an appropriate cost without a free-form system like doctrines? Doctrines has its problems, mostly due to the way things are costed, but if anything representing a broader range of fluff should be done with more doctrines, not fewer.

Define which "Fluff" you think needs to be represented. I'm pretty sure that we are going to disagree very strongly on what needs to be represented.

In my case, I think I only need the following Troops:
- Infantry Platoons as we currently have (e.g. Cadian, Krieg)
- Mechanized Platoons as a standard full-platoon option (e.g. Armageddon)
- Light Infantry Platoons in Cameoline (e.g. Tallarn, Catachan, & Tanith)
- Grenadier Platoons in Carapace with 2 Specials (e.g. Stormtroopers, Vostroyans)
- Conscript Platoons with LP&CCW standard (e.g. OOP Beastmen)
and (maybe) Drop Platoons that Deep Strike (e.g. FW Elysians).

I don't need or want COD, Sharpshooters, or ID. Nor Chem-Inhalers. Or distinction between Jungle Fighters and Light Infantry and Cameoline. Just stuff that is easily represented on the model, with clear and simple in-game effects.

JohnHwangDD wrote:

aka_mythos wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:The Doctrine system simply threw rules out there. They don't represent Fluff at all unless one backs into it. In which case, no, it doesn't represent Fluff - it represents a ret-con.

Roman Legionnaires did most of their killing up close with short stabbing blades, relying on their superior armor and discipline to allow them to get the job done.

Space Marines have similar (or greater) relative advantage in armor with ATSKNF. They can use their chainswords in similar close-in fashion.

In any case, my main point is that free doctrines like COD are stupid from a design point because there's no trade-off and no modeling representation. Also, that COD doesn't much belong unless you let everybody benefit, or that it contains an appropriate drawback like doubling hits.

The COD doctrine represents the combined squads implementation of IG bayonet's; no one else has bayonet's,

Also your Space Marine example still fails, a chainsword is a hacking weapon with the length and function of a broad sword, broad swords existed at the time of the romans, roman cavalry would sometime use them but the legionnaires did not because a broad sword is impossible to use in a tight formation, hence the roman use of the gladius a shortsword.

German greatswords and French knights both more heavily armored than Romans fought in a skirmishing configuration exactly because of the limits that being tight in brings to their fighting style, swinging a broadsword.

The fact that IG are WS3 S3 I3 in CC can be attributed to their having bayonets in the first place. If not, they'd be WS2 S2 I2, and be butchered even more quickly than they currently are. Tacking on additional bonuses make no sense when they already *have* the effect of using a bayonet. In any case, granting the bonus, but not taking any penalty or having any cost is weak design.

Actual WS and BS are attributed to basic training. Conscripts and untrained IG have been represented with a WS and BS 2. S3 and I3 are an average humans strength and initiatives not S 2 or I 2. Thus why they get the bonuses for additional training. COD adds +1 Ld for a Sgt being able to better coordinate and +1 Int because using a bayonet allows them
to engage in close combat slightly sooner than an IG just using knife. I'm talking about adding this as standard for IG because they are slightly over costed and something should be added to justify the slight over cost. Its not that it has no cost, its just the cost is so marginal it can't be given a numerical value.

"And they shall Know No Fear"... thats a Marine ability thats granted with absolutely no cost. Chaos space marines are identical in every way, they don't have that rule and have exactly the same cost. So don't think slight gains can't be tacked on for "free".

JohnHwangDD wrote: The way I see it, a chainsword is typically modeled with the length of a longsword, and may arguably be counted as similar to a claymore. But then again, if you look at how a bolt "pistol" is modeled, the whole thing starts to fall apart... Claiming it's a broadsword equivalent is you forcing fluff because you want a certain result, not what the Fluff actually says.

No a claymore is a two handed weapon, chainsword clearly one handed. From the 4th ed Codex space marines, the great weapon represented a two handed close combat weapon, a claymore by adding +1 to Str. You're missing the point that you can't use that type of weapon in a tight formation, just try and someone looses an eye.

JohnHwangDD wrote: German greatswords weren't necessarily in heavy plate armor - Landsknecht are often pictured in only light armor.

In any case, if you want IG to have a COD benefit, then you must necessarily create a fairly severe "enveloping" and/or "flanking" penalty for skirmishing forces who wrap around them. If you're pretending to have historical justification, then that COD unit needs to roll up just like any other historical formation.

Yes I know about German great swords, who even with just a solid steel breast plate were more heavily armored than the romans like I said. You clearly missed the point: that you can't form up into ranks with a hacking weapon longer than your forearm. Physically Impossible.

This is 40k not a historical reenactment, GW developers decided that the level of detail of 40k incorporate such things as flanks more generally and more abstractly. 40k takes the approach of representing such things in a more general way, but if you must know the penalty for being flanked in 40k is not all your models being within 2" and thus not all getting to attack in the assault phase.

JohnHwangDD wrote:

sourclams wrote:Okay, then let me ask how you would represent fluff without some series of mechanical bonuses at an appropriate cost without a free-form system like doctrines? Doctrines has its problems, mostly due to the way things are costed, but if anything representing a broader range of fluff should be done with more doctrines, not fewer.

Define which "Fluff" you think needs to be represented. I'm pretty sure that we are going to disagree very strongly on what needs to be represented.

In my case, I think I only need the following Troops:
- Infantry Platoons as we currently have (e.g. Cadian, Krieg)
- Mechanized Platoons as a standard full-platoon option (e.g. Armageddon)
- Light Infantry Platoons in Cameoline (e.g. Tallarn, Catachan, & Tanith)
- Grenadier Platoons in Carapace with 2 Specials (e.g. Stormtroopers, Vostroyans)
- Conscript Platoons with LP&CCW standard (e.g. OOP Beastmen)
and (maybe) Drop Platoons that Deep Strike (e.g. FW Elysians).

I don't need or want COD, Sharpshooters, or ID. Nor Chem-Inhalers. Or distinction between Jungle Fighters and Light Infantry and Cameoline. Just stuff that is easily represented on the model, with clear and simple in-game effects.

Well this system was established so players could come up with their own fluff and assign attributes appropriately. Many of those things you'd leave out are based on the fluff first and then were made by GW. GW designed it as a way to allow more distinctive and fluff based IG armies, to represent things that had been drawn or talked about in fluff but never had an effect and just because it doesn't match your sense of reality you think it should be thrown out. Jungle fighter were established in their own codex and "Light Infantry" is based off the units in the Gaunts Ghosts stories making them both distinctly different (jungle fighters don't rely on snipers like light infantry). You just choose to ignore what you deem the less convenient fluff.

You want the doctrines to represent the army or the platoons organization. The creator wanted it to do more, representing different specialized training and equipment.

Space Marines are so proficient at close combat they gain the benefit of close order drill even when not in base to base contact. This bonus is already included in their profile.

Just a random thought - what about bumping them to seven and a half points apeice, +1 LD, +1 I (basically COD built in) and generate NO kill points?

Well COD represents a particular use of IG in a specific way. The +1 LD is because the Sgt. can better coordinate in a close formation and the +1 I is because of the combined affect of IG with bayonets working in a tight formation to stave off incoming close combat assaults, which isn't always the case with IG receiving assaults.

No kill points I think would be too drastic a rule and would throw the balance so overly in favor of IG; the cries of cheese would be heard around the world.

There seem to be two main issues that you bring up:

Imperial Guard have too many doctrines

I don't need or want COD, Sharpshooters, or ID. Nor Chem-Inhalers. Or distinction between Jungle Fighters and Light Infantry and Cameoline. Just stuff that is easily represented on the model, with clear and simple in-game effects.

Well I do. Let me rephrase this question:

Do you have any valid argument for a force that, based on established background material, employs specific tactics and wargear beyond simple organizational patterns to achieve specific effects to not be properly reflected within the rules other than 'it's not clear and simple' enough?

Space Marines should be able to utilize CoD if Guardsmen can

And again, you can't swing chainswords in closed ranks. If you still think you can, get nine of your buddies and try playing tennis shoulder to shoulder.

I think there should be a flexibel weapon 'slots' for each IG standard platoon, like 4 slots for 10 soldiers.
All heavy weapons, plasma gun and melta use up 2 slots each, flamer and grenade launchers use 1 slot.

This would give the possibility to form specialized special weapon standard platoons:
So, like a flamer squad with 10 men and 4 flamers at the front and a supporting squad with 4 grenade launchers.
On the other hand, you could have 2 heavy weapons, like a heavy bolter and a las cannon, if you wish.

Drop Troopers should get heavy stubbers as heavy weapons. same profile like stated in the codex; crew of 2

Chimera and all leman russ variants should be cheaper.

Leman russ vanquisher and exterminator must have a come-back in the new codex

Sentinels should get their assault cannons back and the possibility to add plasma cannons as an alternative

Special weapon teams should get 2 demo charges

Eisenkeil wrote:I think there should be a flexibel weapon 'slots' for each IG standard platoon, like 4 slots for 10 soldiers.
All heavy weapons, plasma gun and melta use up 2 slots each, flamer and grenade launchers use 1 slot.

Why would plasma and meltas take up two slots?

Don't put arbitrary restrictions in. It just makes for bad Codex writing.

BYE

Is there any other kind?

H.B.M.C. wrote:

Eisenkeil wrote:I think there should be a flexibel weapon 'slots' for each IG standard platoon, like 4 slots for 10 soldiers.
All heavy weapons, plasma gun and melta use up 2 slots each, flamer and grenade launchers use 1 slot.

Why would plasma and meltas take up two slots?

Don't put arbitrary restrictions in. It just makes for bad Codex writing.

BYE

just for background reasons ... plasma guns (and meltas) are valuable and therefore not available to the unexperienced soldiers en masses.
for vets only 1 slot point

Eisenkeil wrote:

H.B.M.C. wrote:

Eisenkeil wrote:I think there should be a flexibel weapon 'slots' for each IG standard platoon, like 4 slots for 10 soldiers.
All heavy weapons, plasma gun and melta use up 2 slots each, flamer and grenade launchers use 1 slot.

Why would plasma and meltas take up two slots?

Don't put arbitrary restrictions in. It just makes for bad Codex writing.

BYE

just for background reasons ... plasma guns (and meltas) are valuable and therefore not available to the unexperienced soldiers en masses.
for vets only 1 slot point

Why not just have them be completely separated altogether?

Special Weapons: Up to two guardsmen not equipped with a special weapon or operating a heavy weapon may take a flamer at +6 points or a grenade launcher at +8 points. Up to one guardsmen not equipped with a special weapon or operating a heavy weapon may take a plasma gun or a meltagun at +10 points.

So a guard squad can have up to three special weapons, only one of which may be a plasma or a melta gun.

Or why not just allow one heavy and one special, as has been part of the Guard organisation for longer than I can remember.

Look, the fluff supports only one plasma gun per squad (they're rare so they can't give them to whole squads, only one per squad), but they're no different to any other special weapon. They wouldn't take up more 'slots' or whatever other imaginary and arbitrary constructs you want to create to limit special weapons.

The current system already works, and there's nothing wrong with it, so why bother attempting to fix it when there are far greater issues affecting the Guard as a whole, like the fact that Kill Points make the army worthless, that Lascannons are 10+ points overcosted in 5th, how the Doctrine system is a complete joke, or that lots of the 'toy' units in Guard armies are complete junk.

BYE

I'd like to have a possibility to mass up grenade launchers and flamethrowers, without creating an inflation on plasma guns.
I see you don't agree in this point.

I'd love to see some kind of doctrine, skill, upgrade, etc that would allow lasguns to fire "hotshots" at S4 but they become "Gets Hot!" for that round.

I think the defining aspect of the Imperial Guard needs to be how it handles troops.

What I personally would like to see is the whole Infantry Platoon system flushed down the toilet. Because of the mandatory nature of it makes most Guard Armies stick to two troop choices because of the massive points commitment that is. The Fifth Edition philosophy tends to design codexes in a way to encourage certain play styles than enforce restrictions to create play styles.

So instead of making Guard Players take massed troops with the current system, why not just make the basic Infantry platoon good? Or at least good enough that players would be willing to fill 6 troops slots with them.

Also, I think there are way to many command squads on the table. Do Guardsmen really need that much leadership? Think about it, you have a sergent in each Infantry Squad, a mandatory commander per two squads, and a mandatory HQ. In the current list you literally have a 2 to 3 ratio of command to squads as your mandatory choices. Way to much in my opinion.

So here is my optimal Guard List to reflect how you can create a fluffy unique army that encourages rather then restricts:

HQ
*all of these are independent characters*

Supreme Commander - Essentially a Lord Macharius-type. Has a higher points cost and access to many wargear Items. He will be tempting because he will be the only Leadership ten commander that can spread that to his troops.

Commander (JO or whatever you want to call him) - He will be a standard cheaper commander option, limited wargear and leadership 9.

Lord Commissar - Will have all the benefits of being a commissar (see below), and leadership nine. Has access to limited wargear.

Command Platoon - Is a squad like the current codex and can be purchased as a retinue for the three choices above or any special characters. Does not allow you to purchase support squads anymore (see below).

Support HQ
*You may purchase these for each command squad or Infantry squad purchased, they count as an Independent character and do not take up a FOC slot similar to DA techmarines*

Commissar - Leadership 9, his shoot a squad member rule basically becomes the same as an Ork Boss poll. Can have Power Weapons, fist, etc.

Santioned Psyker - Can actually choose his power or has them built in. His power will be more deadly but a lot less predictable, things like a powerful shot that is he rols a 1 to hit, it is resolved against him sort of thing. He will have a rule called "Mind in pain - Any enemy Psyker within 24" of a Santioned Psyker takes all there psychic tests at a -2 leadership"

Preacher - Comes with Evisorater standard. Confers Furious Charge, Fleet, and Rage to any unit he joins.

Elites

Veterans - Stay the same but slightly cheaper points cost and weapons cost.

Ogryns - Gains toughness 5 base. Squad leader has access to a power weapon or power fist. Same points cost.

Rest of the elites stay the same.

Troops

Infantry Platoons - 50 points a squad with cheaper heavy weapons. Loose the requirement to take a command squad. 2 per troop choice with options to add 2 more, a support squad, and/or a heavy weapon squad similar to Ravenwing squadrons where each unit purchased counts as the same troop choice. Each squad can purchase a Chimera at 50 points a piece. Leadership 7 standard.

Conscript Squad - 40 points a piece, has option to take LP/CCW instead of Lasguns. Same Stats.

Storm Troopers - Same points cost but gets Deep Strike and Infiltrate Free. Guns become Str. 4.

Fast Attack

Sentinels - Same as now but cheaper.

Hell hounds - stay exactly the same.

Rough Riders - Stay the same but comes with Scout standard.

*Rest of the Fast attack stays the same*

Heavy Support

Leman Russ - Becomes one entry with the option to upgrade the battle cannon to multiple varients.

Basilisk - Minimum Indirect fire range reduced to 24". Becomes a 3 in 1 FOC choice.

Heavy Weapon Teams are replaced with Artillery Teams similar to the Forgeworld Version. Becomes a 3 in 1 choice.

Griffons become availible again, but doesn't have infernus shells or at least has a downgraded version of them.

JohnHwangDD wrote:WRT COD, it seems like people are just making up Fluff to justify a rule that they like. COD is underpriced, and shouldn't be free.

Nor does it make much sense - people are saying that SM wouldn't fight smarter to crush the IG? Nonsense. Standing shoulder-to-shoulder, a SM should be able to lop off 2 or 3 heads with each swing of his power sword, so I guess that we should multiply the hits scored on COD units to balance things out... I think it might be a fair start to simply double all shooting and HtH hits scored on units using COD.

I think this is the issue that has plagued IG for 4 editions. Whatever special item IG have will be immediately grabbed by the SPZ MARINESS HURR! crowd as saying they should have as well.

Actually COD is supported by guard fluff, not marine fluff. Its a nifty little rule for guardsmen, which should be the key concern, nice but not overpowered.

aka_mythos wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:The fact that IG are WS3 S3 I3 in CC can be attributed to their having bayonets in the first place. If not, they'd be WS2 S2 I2, and be butchered even more quickly than they currently are.

In any case, granting the bonus, but not taking any penalty or having any cost is weak design.

Actual WS and BS are attributed to basic training.

I disagree. And you're still not addressing the fact that standing shoulder-to-shoulder has liabilities, even in HtH.

aka_mythos wrote:"And they shall Know No Fear"... thats a Marine ability thats granted with absolutely no cost. Chaos space marines are identical in every way, they don't have that rule and have exactly the same cost. So don't think slight gains can't be tacked on for "free".

No, there's a cost, it's just very low. Chaos Marines have BP&CCW standard, which grants them an extra attack in HtH. CSM also have access to Marks and variable squad size of 5-20. So at a high level, CSM and SM are balanced.

aka_mythos wrote:No a claymore is a two handed weapon, chainsword clearly one handed. From the 4th ed Codex space marines, the great weapon represented a two handed close combat weapon, a claymore by adding +1 to Str. You're missing the point that you can't use that type of weapon in a tight formation, just try and someone looses an eye.

You're missing the basic point that the occasional inclusion of a weapons bit, or particular modeling choice, isn't a strong basis for rules. And you seem to have ignored that Chainswords as modeled have the length of a longsword (or greater).

But that is a good catch - if the Chainsword has that kind of length, then the added length is worth +1S. So SM should be S5 vs IG.

And given that SM Fluff says they spend their non-sleeping/praying time in drill, I think it's safe to say that SM might practice to fight in close quarters with their weapons. You should be aware that skill and practice allow people to use large objects effectively in surprisingly small spaces.

aka_mythos wrote:Yes I know about German great swords, who even with just a solid steel breast plate were more heavily armored than the romans like I said. You clearly missed the point: that you can't form up into ranks with a hacking weapon longer than your forearm. Physically Impossible.

How convenient then that the standard SM Combat Knife can be attached to a Bolter like a bayonet...

aka_mythos wrote:Well this system was established so players could come up with their own fluff and assign attributes appropriately.

You want the doctrines to represent the army or the platoons organization. The creator wanted it to do more, representing different specialized training and equipment.

That doesn't mean that it was a good system, or that it should perpetuate past the single Codex. Look at Traits - isn't that essentially similar? And won't it be going away? So why should Guard be "special"?

Do you have a link to an explanation from the creator of Doctrines?

If not, then your interpretation is no more definitive than mine.

And that's really what this is, a disagreement of opinion.

And furthermore, GW has the right to change their mind. They did so with Craftworlds and Legions, and are expected to do so with Traits. So I don't know why you complain so much.

sourclams wrote:There seem to be two main issues that you bring up:
Imperial Guard have too many doctrines

I don't need or want COD, Sharpshooters, or ID. Nor Chem-Inhalers. Or distinction between Jungle Fighters and Light Infantry and Cameoline. Just stuff that is easily represented on the model, with clear and simple in-game effects.

Do you have any valid argument for a force that, based on established background material, employs specific tactics and wargear beyond simple organizational patterns to achieve specific effects to not be properly reflected within the rules other than 'it's not clear and simple' enough?

Do you have any valid argument that those minor deviations are actually worthy of "special rules" that would be sufficiently utilized, well-balanced, and clear to one's opponent that the would warrant inclusion into a Codex?

Most Doctrines were poorly thought out, and rarely used. Focusing on Doctrines when the basic Platoon needs work, along with the Chimera is a poor idea.

IMO, the first priority should be getting the basic Platoon fixed. That means, getting Guardsmen down to around 50 pts per squad, with more rational and reasonable weapons costs, along with an appropriately inexpensive Chimera.

Getting worked up on insisting on Doctrines of dubious value is not helpful.

sourclams wrote:
Space Marines should be able to utilize CoD if Guardsmen can

And again, you can't swing chainswords in closed ranks. If you still think you can, get nine of your buddies and try playing tennis shoulder to shoulder.

If we were superhuman Space Marines who drilled all day, every day of our lives, I think we would do just fine.

JohnHwangDD wrote:

aka_mythos wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:The fact that IG are WS3 S3 I3 in CC can be attributed to their having bayonets in the first place. If not, they'd be WS2 S2 I2, and be butchered even more quickly than they currently are.

In any case, granting the bonus, but not taking any penalty or having any cost is weak design.

Actual WS and BS are attributed to basic training.

I disagree. And you're still not addressing the fact that standing shoulder-to-shoulder has liabilities, even in HtH.

aka_mythos wrote:"And they shall Know No Fear"... thats a Marine ability thats granted with absolutely no cost. Chaos space marines are identical in every way, they don't have that rule and have exactly the same cost. So don't think slight gains can't be tacked on for "free".

No, there's a cost, it's just very low. Chaos Marines have BP&CCW standard, which grants them an extra attack in HtH. CSM also have access to Marks and variable squad size of 5-20. So at a high level, CSM and SM are balanced.

It really is easy for you to argue when you exclude points critical to my point. In the context of what I said I pointed out that COD should be effectively the same sort of thing as ATSKNF in that COD should have a marginal price that would justify the IG's cost, which most people see as slightly too high.

aka_mythos wrote:No a claymore is a two handed weapon, chainsword clearly one handed. From the 4th ed Codex space marines, the great weapon represented a two handed close combat weapon, a claymore by adding +1 to Str. You're missing the point that you can't use that type of weapon in a tight formation, just try and someone looses an eye.

You're missing the basic point that the occasional inclusion of a weapons bit, or particular modeling choice, isn't a strong basis for rules. And you seem to have ignored that Chainswords as modeled have the length of a longsword (or greater).

But that is a good catch - if the Chainsword has that kind of length, then the added length is worth +1S. So SM should be S5 vs IG.

Just to keep the discussion on line and save the mods from having to lock this: we're proposing rules for a system very deliberately based on nothing, not even model sales. (that's the rules as they are) Analogies to examples of real-world fighting are totally irrelevant to 40k proposed rules unless the proposed changes go so far as to throw out the very skeleton of the game. Since we're not talking about trying to represent a command structure, flow of information/what information a real commander could react to, or even the working of any of their equipment, we'd all do best to couch our arguments in our experiences of what makes a balanced and fun game. Realism has never been part of 40k and never will be. (no disrespect to people who write their own rules for 40k pieces)

Right.

Anyhow, getting back to the start, I'd like:
- 10 Guardsmen for 50 pts
- rational Heavy & Special Weapons (15-pt Lascannon & 10-pt Plasma)
- rational Chimera (45 pts for AV12/11/10 w/ Multi-Laser & HB)
- Platoon-based special rules, rather than squad-based or army-based special rules.

I don't have 5th ed yet, so I don't have a feel for some of the changes. However, somethings I thought would be good for Guard:

Vehicle upgrades: LR and its variants can take side armor upgrade in place of sponsons, increase side AV by 1. points 10? Chimera can take same, loses the las gun ports on the side.

Coaxial stubber or SB for LR variants, gives same effect as from Apocolypse.

Troop upgrade: Hasty fortifications. 10 pts for any squad, they improve their cover save by 1. If they move from their location the benefit is lost.

Some thoughts.

CE

Cameoline is 10 pts and improves cover saves by 1 at all time...

JohnHwangDD wrote:Right.

Anyhow, getting back to the start, I'd like:
- 10 Guardsmen for 50 pts
- rational Heavy & Special Weapons (15-pt Lascannon & 10-pt Plasma)
- rational Chimera (45 pts for AV12/11/10 w/ Multi-Laser & HB)
- Platoon-based special rules, rather than squad-based or army-based special rules.

I think 50 pt guards only work if you make taking a platoon type doctrine mandatory so that the costs of those upgrades bring the general cost back to or beyond the 60 pt squad mark, this helps to keep down the already swollen model count; ie Mechanized Infantry +cost of chimera; Drop Troops +10 or whatever; Light Infantry +10.

This kinda goes back to what I said before that the cost per unit is about right relative to the army but its the lack of abilities on the part of the guard that bring them down. By giving them access to fluffy special rules for what is effectively free (relative to current cost) this cost to benefit comparison can be better balanced.

I doubt GW will change the armor stat on the Chimera as much as I'd love to see it. I think for the purposes of keeping the players of other armies happy, GW would probably do what CadianEversor recommended, where the +1 side armor is a vehicle upgrade.

CadianEversor, I like your recommendations I think they'd all work very well and really fit the IG. The hasty fortification would probably work as a single benefit of taking some upgrade like "Combat Engineers." Especially how Space Marines got this sort of fortification rule tossed around to some units I wouldn't be surprised to see some form of it in IG.

I suppose a Platoon-wide "Doctrine" wouldn't be a bad thing, but I don't think that Mechanized would be at the expense of Carapace:

1 Sergeant w/ 9 Guardmen for 60 pts
includes *one* set of equipment:
- Carapace (Sv4+)
- Cameoline (+1 to cover)
- Warrior Weapons (LP&CCW, Frag, Krak)
- Vox (may test on any Officer)
then may pick *one* at cost:
- Drop Troops (Deep Strike for +10 pts)
- Mechanized (Chimera discounted by 5-10 pts)

But 5-pt Guardsmen won't break anything, I don't think. It's not like 4-pt Conscripts are hugely popular.


I think GW will be forced to bump the Chimera to AV11 sides if they want Guard to be playable in Objectives missions. Otherwise, they're perpetuating the failed static Guard approach.

Reg COD. It would be wasteful to train your Space Marine to fight in close order. The typical SM force sent to relieve a warzone is what, 2/3 companies?? That's 200/300 marines in total for a worldwide conflict. Your typical strike force (in a game) is only about 40 marines. And you're going to train them to line up in ranks of 10 and fight shoulder to shoulder?

WHY? They don't need it to increase their combat effectiveness, and they don't need the presence of their mates to improve their leadership.

I think it would be game-fair to give Guard free COD, since the new blast rules are a compensation. However, It's not fluff-fair, as COD represents a very particular style of guard training, which wouldn't be given to your Catachan or Tanith regiments.

Besides, with the new blast rules, no-one would opt to do
it anyway...

Otherwise, I support cheaper heavy weapons, except maybe missile launchers and mortars, as they are now more effective. Cheaper Chimeras are a no-brainer. 'Toy' units I'm not so bothered about - they're mainly interesting choices for fluffy armies, not 'competitive' units, and I wouldn't like to see EVERY IG army taking Ogryns because they've suddenly become more effective.

I also think the 'doctrine' rules (whichever way they implement them) should be per-ARMY, not per-platoon. I don't like the idea of people fielding one platoon of droptroops, one platoon of light infantry, one platoon mechanised etc. IG only fight as a 'combined' force at a much greater scale - a small game-size force would realistically all be from the same regiment, and trained the same way.

JohnHwangDD wrote:I suppose a Platoon-wide "Doctrine" wouldn't be a bad thing, but I don't think that Mechanized would be at the expense of Carapace:
1 Sergeant w/ 9 Guardmen for 60 pts
includes *one* set of equipment:
- Carapace (Sv4+)
- Cameoline (+1 to cover)
- Warrior Weapons (LP&CCW, Frag, Krak)
- Vox (may test on any Officer)
then may pick *one* at cost:
- Drop Troops (Deep Strike for +10 pts)
- Mechanized (Chimera discounted by 5-10 pts)

But 5-pt Guardsmen won't break anything, I don't think. It's not like 4-pt Conscripts are hugely popular.

I think GW will be forced to bump the Chimera to AV11 sides if they want Guard to be playable in Objectives missions. Otherwise, they're perpetuating the failed static Guard approach.

I think we'll see something where there are formation upgrades and then equipment upgrades. One item from either list must be taken, but multiples items from the equipment can be taken. Somehow I only think Drop Troops and Standard Infantry should have the carapace armor option.

Follwoing the current format for options it'd look like this:

Any IG platoon may take a formation upgrade:
Formations: Mechanized Infantry (adds Chimera), Light Infantry (adds infiltrate or scout), Drop Troops (add deepstrike), (where Standard infantry is taking no upgrade)

Any formation may take a Vox for +X points/sqd.

Any of the following formations: Light Infantry, Drop Troops, and Standard Infantry may take
Camelione +X points/sqd
Warrior Weapons +X points/sqd
Carapace Armor +X points/sqd.

ArbitorIan wrote: I also think the 'doctrine' rules (whichever way they implement them) should be per-ARMY, not per-platoon. I don't like the idea of people fielding one platoon of droptroops, one platoon of light infantry, one platoon mechanised etc. IG only fight as a 'combined' force at a much greater scale - a small game-size force would realistically all be from the same regiment, and trained the same way.

The rumors are that platoon wide "doctrine" like rules is what IG will get in 5th ed which is why its come up often. GW idea appears to be that it will accentuate the fact that often the collective IG forces sent to a combat zone are adhoc and come from diverse planet-scapes, so that within a "army" you'd see several different planets represented. GW seems to working on the idea that most planets in the Imperium are very specialized to a particular way of fielding and to have a cohesive and effective force they use combination of those specialized forces. Light Infantry as the Scouts, Droptroops as the fast responders etc.

ArbitorIan wrote:Reg COD. It would be wasteful to train your Space Marine

COD represents a very particular style of guard training, which wouldn't be given to your Catachan or Tanith regiments.

Besides, with the new blast rules, no-one would opt to do it anyway...

Cheaper Chimeras are a no-brainer. 'Toy' units I'm not so bothered about - they're mainly interesting choices for fluffy armies, not 'competitive' units, and I wouldn't like to see EVERY IG army taking Ogryns because they've suddenly become more effective.

I also think the 'doctrine' rules (whichever way they implement them) should be per-ARMY, not per-platoon. I don't like the idea of people fielding one platoon of droptroops, one platoon of light infantry, one platoon mechanised etc. IG only fight as a 'combined' force at a much greater scale - a small game-size force would realistically all be from the same regiment, and trained the same way.

You do realize that, by Fluff, SM spend a fair amount of time fighting is confined quarters - ship-to-ship space boarding missions... So by Fluff, SM should be trained to fight shoulder-to-shoulder so they can maximize their killing potential at choke-points within a ship, right? Otherwise, they'd bog at something as simple as a corridor or doorway.

If COD cost 10 pts, and traded against another option (e.g. Carapace / Cameoline), then that would make more sense, representing one Doctrine vs another.

With 4+ Cover, +1 Cameoline, and +1 Go to Ground giving a 2+ covers save, COD is still useful for the +1 Ld.

But really, if you're going to give something non-WYSIWYG to the Guard for "FREE", why not integrate Vox? Vox is something that would actually make some kind of sense and actually be usefully distinctive. Plus, it would simplify the rules by removing those stupid 12" Ld bubbles.


Ogryns *should* be something that see play. They're characterful and fighty, something the Guard need. And being Elites, they top out at 3 units - smaller, if they use Chimeras. Much smaller in volume than Guard Platoons


Doctrines should be by platoon, rather than by army. A platoon is basically a mini-army in its own right. And in a universe of Skittles Daemons and Skittles Cult Marines, Skittles Guard by Platoons is not unreasonable or unfair. Besides, when you look at points, you're not going to have so many Platoons to begin with. And then when you look at effectiveness and theme, players are probably going to concentrate on one or two Platoon types. That is, if you have 4+ Platoon Doctrines available, the odds of a player taking all 4 are low from a buying / modeling / fielding / effectiveness standoint. Skittles Platoons basically mean the player is fielding combined / collected remnants from a battlefield where the main regiments have lost a lot of guys, Lost Chancers / Black Legion / MoCU style.

JohnHwangDD wrote: You do realize that, by Fluff, SM spend a fair amount of time fighting is confined quarters - ship-to-ship space boarding missions... So by Fluff, SM should be trained to fight shoulder-to-shoulder so they can maximize their killing potential at choke-points within a ship, right? Otherwise, they'd bog at something as simple as a corridor or doorway.

If COD cost 10 pts, and traded against another option (e.g. Carapace / Cameoline), then that would make more sense, representing one Doctrine vs another.

A marine ability to fight in close quarters isn't quite the same as the IG COD where the IG are effective ganging up on someone.
I do agree though that the COD might deserve an actual cost or in the very least a trade off on available upgrades. I think Cameoline is the one that fits most; you don't really try to hide if you're going to bunch up into a formation.

JohnHwangDD wrote:
But really, if you're going to give something non-WYSIWYG to the Guard for "FREE", why not integrate Vox? Vox is something that would actually make some kind of sense and actually be usefully distinctive. Plus, it would simplify the rules by removing those stupid 12" Ld bubbles.

I think that probably is the easiest thing to just say IG should automatically have; it also makes the most sense. In the 41st millennium does anyone have a reason they would not take to the field with a Vox or some communication device? Not at all, even feral worlders would take the time to learn how it works.

JohnHwangDD wrote:
Ogryns *should* be something that see play. They're characterful and fighty, something the Guard need. And being Elites, they top out at 3 units - smaller, if they use Chimeras. Much smaller in volume than Guard Platoons

The ogryn issues is a very difficult one, right now they die to easily and increasing their number or decreasing their cost doesn't make up for it. The lack of ability to perform in their designated niche is the problem. What ever change this units sees must be an adjustment to their survivability.

JohnHwangDD, as an additional thought if the "hasty fortification" weren't tied to a specific support unit, it could take the form of another equipment upgrade.
"Entrenching Tools" at the start of game the equipped platoon may fortify their position, where by they gain +1 to cover save if they move this bonus is lost.
I also just noticed you left off Cybernetics, from the list of equipment any specific reason? It is fluffy that some Imperial worlds employ cybernetic enhanced troops and with the number of Admech/IG players sprouting up these days it doesn't strike me as something that would be done away with.

Yes, fortification is easy to create rules-wise, but it's undesirable game-wise. So I wouldn't go down that road.

When Guard routinely have Sv3++ or 4++ in cover, an second 6++ from Bionics is pointless. OTOH, if Cyber gave FNP, that would be somewhat interesting on balance. I'd back that as an alternative to Carapace / Cameoline.

I think something like entrenching would be generally more suited for apocalypse where everything just dies and you need every little bit of help. It might also be suited as an upgrade for heavy weapon platoons as it would make sense that they'd want a cozy place to shoot from and wouldn't want to move to much.

Well looking at Carapace Armor, Cameoline, and Bionics they all approach the same issue of survivability. Carapace armor by modifying base save, Cameoline modifying cover saves, and Bionics a 6+ invulnerable save. Its a matter of whether you believe they should have the wide variety of options to modify their survivability. FNP is a bit of trade off for bionics as they are, FNP basically operates the same as Bionics but as a 50/50 chance instead of 1/6 chance while losing protection against insta-death. The importance of bionics and why they were even included seems to be to provide that protection from insta-death.

Here's another random thought to throw out there, in some hypothetical post-doctrine future:

(formatting may not survive posting)

(further notes in brackets are where my rules-writing ability fell through or where I wanted to insert a justification or a bit of colour)

(yeah I know the stuff about "overall" command teams could be confusing but I wrote this in about 15 minutes so I'm not about to try to dodge the semanticians on that one)

Imperial Guard Platoon - HQ/Troops/Heavy Support

Imperial Guard WS BS S T W I A LD SV
Vet. Command Team 5 3 3 3 7 4 7 9 5+
Command Team 25 pts. 3 3 3 3 4 4 5 8 5+
Weapons Team 30 pts. 3 3 3 3 4 4 4 7 5+
Heavy Team 30 pts. 3 3 3 3 2 4 2 7 5+

Structure:
An Imperial Guard Platoon consists of a single Command Team backed by two to five Imperial Guard Squads, except when that Platoon is purchased as an HQ choice in which case the Platoon size becomes 0-5 Squads. Each Imperial Guard Squad consists of one Command Team, one Weapons Team and one Heavy Team.
A single platoon MAY be purchased as an HQ instead of a Troops choice. (Lords Solar, Inquisitors and other "Leader of Men" types will often override the usual company structure as part of their personal style of command) If the game is being played at 1500 points or greater, the "overall" (wording issues) Command Team of this platoon automatically upgrades to a Veteran Command Team at +0 points.
Any number of platoons may be chosen as Heavy Support. The squads in these platoons consist of three Heavy Teams instead of the usual one of each, but the platoon as a whole must still purchase a single Command Team.

Special Rules

Human:
Imperial Guard Teams may not Go to Ground or Run. (they're loaded down with MREs, ammo, tents, sleeping bags, etc., don't wear power armour, always work with the ground to the limits of their courage, and besides, who wants to try and tip a 60mm base on its side anyways?)

Teamwork:
Imperial Guard Teams are considered to have been sold mounted on a 60mm base regardless of their original packaging.
Imperial Guard Teams are Immune to Instant Death, are Small Targets and are Vulnerable to Blasts.
So long as a single figurine mounted on the base can trace LOS to a target, the whole Team is assumed to be able to trace LOS to the target regardless of the LOS restrictions to individual figurines as posed on the base.
Imperial Guard Teams are armed with multiple two-handed weapons which they are capable of using at the same time as all of their other two-handed weapons, in specific exception to the main rules as printed or errataed in the main rule book. (had to catch myself from using the word "normal" there, remembering how silly the debates around here get when someone's deluded enough to use that adjective in a 'dex or fandex)

Leadership:
The "overall" Command Team of any Platoon is not bound by Squad Coherency. Any Squad the edge of one of whose Teams lies within 12" of the edge of an "overall" Command Team may choose to use its LD characteristic.

Honour of the Regiment
Any Imperial Guard Squad which could substitute the LD value of a Veteran Command Team for its own may also re-roll the dice on any morale test. (no Commissars in here yet but if the Hangman's around you can't reroll a successful morale test with this rule. Veteran Command Teams have LD9 because not only are they scary, kill-hardened m0f0s, they inspire the trust of their men and women, and they don't get that trust by getting them killed off in every pointless skirmish that arises.)

Equipment and Options:
Command Teams have three lasguns and one laspistol. Weapons Teams and Veteran Command Teams have three lasguns and one of: plasma gun, melta gun, flame thrower, grenade launcher. (note: same costs to reflect buffs to cover and hordes in 5th) Heavy Teams have one of: lascannon, master-crafted heavy bolter, autocannon, smart mortar, or both armour-piercing and incendiary missiles. Command and Veteran Command Teams may purchase a Guard Issue Power Fist (counts as servo arm) for +10 points. A Veteran Command Squad may exchange its plasma gun and servo arm with a power sword for no additional points. (because the Captain grew up poor and hangs out with scary-@$$ knife-wielding Savlars)

Weapon Profiles:
Incendiary Missile
R48" Heavy 1 S4 AP5 Ignores Cover Saves

Armour-Piercing Missile
R48" Heavy 1 S7 AP1

Smart Mortar
RG48" Heavy 1 S4 AP5 Treats all Scatter results as "HIT"

(end)

and there we have it. I think that rolls just about every decent doctrine and 2-4 list entries into one much more coherent whole, and makes the movement phase about 500% less painful without tacitly making a sales deal with GF9.

whhopsie. Two leetle things I can see wrong with that last post (not going to risk edit function, sorry for Double Post)

1) there's a reference in there to "Veteran Command Squad" that should read "Veteran Command Team"

2) in the "Human" Special Rule it should also read "In missions where Kill Points are in effect, each wound inflicted on the IG force counts for 1% of one Kill Point." The reasoning being that individual human beings, once killed, are gone for good - there's no salvaging a semi-functional suit of armour and some geneseed, for most regiments the best thing they'll be able to do for these poor ****s is to put a bolt in their brain and call it good night.

edit - this also assumes play without allies or Last Chancers in their current incarnation.

edit - this one might be overcomplicating things but would make an decent casual game rule: "When a Heavy Team is reduced to a single wound, if equipped with a heavy bolter the Master Crafting is lost. If it is equipped with any other weapon, it must reroll all successful rolls to hit." No autoloader, no machine spirit in the armour keeping the thing primed and ready - you rely on the man next to you to keep your weapon operational. It might also represent that a single man might not be able to load the weapon under pressure or unclog any potential jams.

aka_mythos wrote:I think something like entrenching would be generally more suited for apocalypse

Well looking at Carapace Armor, Cameoline, and Bionics they all approach the same issue of survivability. Carapace armor by modifying base save, Cameoline modifying cover saves, and Bionics a 6+ invulnerable save.

FNP is a bit of trade off for bionics as they are,

Agree. Entrenching would be a great Strategic Asset as counterpoint to Bunkers.

I don't have any conceptual issue with the mix, or having both Bionics *and* FNP as options. Though, I think it might be useful to add a "we just don't care how many die" as the final alternative:
- Carapace (Sv4+)
- Cameoline (improve Cover Saves by 1)
- Chem Inhaler (FNP)
- Cybernetics (Bionics)
- Psycho-conditioned (Fearless)

Points-wise, I see each option as similar in value, around 10 pts /unit.

wight_widow wrote:Imperial Guard Teams may not Go to Ground or Run.

No.

wight_widow wrote:Imperial Guard Teams are considered to have been sold mounted on a 60mm base regardless of their original packaging.

Oh, *HELL* NO.

I've got something like a dozen ML teams. They can go to ground and run, just fine. And they're on the 25mm bases that they were sold with. That is non-negotiable. If anything, the rule should be that Teams count as separate 25mm round bases, regardless of their original packaging because it simplifies the rules.

Did they change what small targets does? I thought it was +1 to cover saves for some reason. Kind of like ALWAYS having gone to ground but still being able to fire. 2+ cover is a leetle much IMHO. If that's a guy in a gillie suit, then what's a guy with a cloaking device? My bad for not being more specific - I was probably inadvetently referring to the 4th edition GSRs so I can understand how that might have confused you.

The fact that you have somewhere between dozens and hundreds of individual pieces to move around for even the smallest of engagements is the part that I have always hated about the GW IG rules. Really Orks and Nids ought to run the same way as well. Beyond the bucket of dice rules (okay, I'm an old Fantasy Battle boy, I can live with that) the utter inattention to detail and balance and the fact that over half the design team appears at least to spend their off hours freebasing, any game over about 500 points with an IG player attempting a movement phase using only current GW products feels like you're having hours subtracted from your life. Kind of like smoking a carton, except without the mildly pleasurable side effects.

But each to his or her own. This is the proposed rules forum, after all. GW is going to read this a little after hell freezes over. (I can tell they're hurting all ready from the decreasing quality of a lot of their media supplements and the reused sculpts getting ALL THE HYPE in WD...let's throw this drowning man a brick.)

That comment on how the rules ought to reflect on the pieces we each individually own is bang on - why would anyone in their right mind consent to playing with rules that put them at a disadvantage? The whole point of house rules is to have FUN. If I wanted to play with a Leman Russ that can move 48" a turn and has 7 attacks at WS10, then if that was what I and my group had decided was fun, that's how we'd play. If I want to play with marines with 6+ armour saves and boltguns that are S10, well, hey hell, it's a science FICTION game deliberately based on NOTHING. In the privacy of my own home or private club, I don't have to concern myself about shystering strangers to make back the investment on my moulds or about conforming to any idiotic notion of "composition." I can write fluff out of my ****hole that would make those powder monkeys over in Nottingham bawl their eyes out. In a game with a TOTALLY fictional setting, ideas about background are inevitably bound to be divisive, and everybody has their own idea of fun. I'd rather slit my wrists with a spoon than sit and watch my opponent carefully measure 6" for each individual infantryman then roll a d6 per squad that isn't within range, remeasuring that range as well...ugh...but, much as a heterosexual ought to be able to accept that some dudes just don't dig chicks, as a simple rules guy I have to accept that some people LOVE their complications and LOVE justifying those complications.

Free market system. God bless it.

I know full well what you were referring to.

And the whole rebasing thing is a major irritant from 4E.

The models stay on their original bases, and are legal that way.

If the player chooses to multi-base, that's up to them. Particularly as it causes more rules questions and problems than single basing does.

But please don't go around forcing players to multi-base or add new restrictions / requirements above and beyond the current rules.

If some sort of multi-basing were required of any army it'd be tyranids before ever being guards.

I don't run tournaments. I can't "force" anybody to do anything. Please read and make an effort to understand the post before responding to it. Seriously guy, this is like watching someone fail the Turing test.

Whatever, dude.

It's not like your proposal was made of awesome.

What about a 'without number' type rule, like gaunts get?

The fluff about how there are always millions more guardsmen would back it up.

Yes, but Guard aren't usually used to expend the enemy's ammunition before the real attack. Usually. Most Guardsmen are highly professional, disciplined and skilled soldiers that would wipe the floor with any modern military unit you care to name, and only seem crappy when compared to the genetically engineered monsters, armoured super-soldiers and alien killing machines. There might be trillions of Guardsmen, but according to the 4th ed Tyranid codex, there are at least a quintillion Tyranid Hive Ships out there, not to mention untold septillions of Orks, Grots and so forth, and the potentially infinite number of enemy soldiers emerging from the shattered threads of time in the Eye of Terror. The Guard are nowhere near as numberless as them. I stand by my idea that Guard need to be made to be worth 7 points somehow. (I support free defensive grenades and special weapons)

Are you kidding me? Right now guardsmen, as the are, cost 8 points a model. Who takes naked guard squads anyway? Basic squad with plasma and heavy bolter. Kills on average .444 +.333+.416 or about one marine per turn.... Compare that with your standard guardian.

Um, a Guardsman is 6 pts, not 8 pts.

A Guard Squad with ML & PLas is like this:
- ML (1/2 hit, 5/6 wound, 1/2 cover) = .208 kill
- Plas (2/2 hit, 5/6 wound, 1/2 cover) = .416 kill
- Lasgun (16/2 hit, 1/3 wound, 1/3 fail) = .888 kill
= 1.5 kills at <12" range

At the same range, a Guardian squad with Starcannon does:
- AGP (2/2 hit, 5/6 wound, 1/2 cover) = .416 kill
- Shuricat (18/2 hit, 1/2 wound, 1/3 fail) = 1.5 kill
= 1.9 kills at <12" range.

These are best-case scenarios, in which some Marines have wandered into that perfect killing range.

Now, let's look at costs... The Guard with their ML and Plasma upgrades are 85 pts total. The 10 Guardians are a whopping 80 pts *before* upgrading to take the Starcannon. And it isn't "free"

But it is also to note that the Guard have certain range advantages. The 24" Rapid-fire is an advantage, along with the 48" range on the ML, given that neither unit wants to engage in HtH.

No one buys guardsmen with out their add on weapons...
Buying them their weapons makes them 8 points a pop.
With their weapons the still kill less than equivalent points cost guardians at any range where they can both fire.

Except that Guardsmen can fire at ranges where Guardians cannot. Those Guardians are only good <12", where Guardsmen are usable 36" to 48". If you're saying that Guardians will consistently engage opponents in their magical 12" zone, that is awesome. How is that happening?

Guardians = 18 inch threat range they can move and fire.

In 5th edition, the guards men are realistically only going to get two turns to fire before close combat starts. During that first turn they will kill about .5 of a marine due to cover saves ect. I hate to say it but point for point guardians are killier, shootier, better in close combat, more mobile....

JohnHwangDD wrote:Whatever, dude.

It's not like your proposal was made of awesome.

Your surrender has been accepted, sir.

edit - lol I knew that was coming, You don't have to cry about it, you know.

More like:

"Meh, you're not interesting anymore".

IG guardsmen get kicked around by guardians. Their stats are appropriate but minor gains like "sharpshooter" or some of the other minor doctrines are at the level of additional "umph" needed to bring them up to a point value that's better balanced, while providing them with minor additional but specific gains.

H.B.M.C. wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:Heavy & Special Weapons are priced OK. They don't need to be cheaper, as Guard are just fine as a static shooting army.

I know you can't read my post, so I say this for the benefit of everyone else:

What are you smoking John?

HW's are priced 'ok'? Lascannons took a major hit in 5th. You now require 12 Lascannons firing for 6 turns straight in order to kill an AV14 vehicle in cover.

They're not worth 25 points. Hell, I'd debate if they're even worth 15 at BS3...

BYE

Dont worry HBMC I can help you there.

Btw John, do you play 40k? Im sorry if its inflammatory but that post was ridiculous.

I say make a guardsman 4 points and if you want to add special skills, they go up in points but 4 points basic guardsman without any special rules starting. The heavy/special weapons need to also go down in price to factor in 75% of the wounds in this game will receive cover saves.

4pt guardsmen don't make sense. 4pt Guardsmen equals a conscript being equivalent to Ork Grots. That's not what guardsmen are suppose to be.

High numbers of losses for IG are acceptable, it however doesn't preclude its mitigation. 4pt guardsman move such tactical decisions of sacrificing units from the realms of choices to a matter of necessity.

thehod wrote:Dont worry HBMC I can help you there.

No, you can't, because I'm not playing along.

thehod wrote:Btw John, do you play 40k?

Of course not. I spent my hard-earned money buying well over 20k pts worth of models and rulebooks to match, then spent a my limited and valuable spare time building and painting them so I can have a great collection of stuff for no good reason. :S

thehod wrote:Im sorry if its inflammatory but that post was ridiculous.

Unlike your proposal below? Riiight...

thehod wrote:I say make a guardsman 4 points and if you want to add special skills, they go up in points but 4 points basic guardsman without any special rules starting. The heavy/special weapons need to also go down in price to factor in 75% of the wounds in this game will receive cover saves.

I say 5 pts /model, with "free" Vox and access to *significantly* cheaper AV12/12/10 Chimeras, along with inexpensive equipment upgrades (10 pts/unit). The Special Weapons are OK at a max of 10 pts each. Heavy weapons might only warranty a 5-pt reduction, at most, as cutting their costs only encourages tactically boring static gunline play.

That is, I see the problem with Guard as:
1. Low mobility due to hugely overcosted, AV10 Chimeras
2. Excessive model costs due to emphasis on static shooting
I don't see any significant problems with static shooting that need corrections in greater priority over mobility and general costs.

So a ML/Plas squad in Cameoline might cost like this:
50 pts for 10 IG
10 pts for Cameoline
10 pts for Plasma
10 pts for ML
= 80 pts total vs 95+ pts today.

40 pts for AV12/12/10 Chimera w/ Hull HB, Smoke
10 pts for Turret Multi-laser
= 50 pts total

In other words, fix what's actually wrong with Guard, don't screw around with the stuff that isn't really broken.

JohnHwangDD wrote:
I say 5 pts /model, with "free" Vox and access to *significantly* cheaper AV12/12/10 Chimeras, along with inexpensive equipment upgrades (10 pts/unit). The Special Weapons are OK at a max of 10 pts each. Heavy weapons might only warranty a 5-pt reduction, at most, as cutting their costs only encourages tactically boring static gunline play.

That is, I see the problem with Guard as:
1. Low mobility due to hugely overcosted, AV10 Chimeras
2. Excessive model costs due to emphasis on static shooting
I don't see any significant problems with static shooting that need corrections in greater priority over mobility and general costs.

So a ML/Plas squad in Cameoline might cost like this:
50 pts for 10 IG
10 pts for Cameoline
10 pts for Plasma
10 pts for ML
= 80 pts total vs 95+ pts today.

40 pts for AV12/12/10 Chimera w/ Hull HB, Smoke
10 pts for Turret Multi-laser
= 50 pts total

In other words, fix what's actually wrong with Guard, don't screw around with the stuff that isn't really broken.

I agree with those changes you listed. Atleast we can agree that Chimeras are overcosted and I like 12/12/10. I meant Guardsmen to be 4 points base and if you want stuff like COD, or sharpshooters, etc then they start going up in cost.

Yeah, the Chimera stats and pricing really pisses me off. AV12/10/10 is simply horrible under 5th edition rules, because that means it's really AV10. Completely unplayable against and dies to Bolters. And then it costs nearly 90+ pts for 2 guns, extra armour, and smoke. In 5th Edition, Guard are actually *less* mobile than in 4th!

So anyhow, I used to think that the Chimera would be OK at 55 pts for AV 12/11/10 with turret Multi-Laser & hull Heavy Bolter. But now, I'm thinking that Mech Guard needs the side AV to be 12 like the Hellhound to be playable. And having to buy a *lot* of them means the points cost to drop another 5 pts, to a total of no more than 50 pts (i.e. same as a BA Razorback).

Indeed, given that the Guard don't have cheaper Rhino-class vehicles, nor precision-transport Drop Pods, nor uber AV14 Land Raiders, I could see the AV12/12/10 Chimera being "fair" as low as 40 or 45 pts.

JohnHwangDD wrote:Of course not. I spent my hard-earned money buying well over 20k pts worth of models and rulebooks to match, then spent a my limited and valuable spare time building and painting them so I can have a great collection of stuff for no good reason.:S

Clearly not one for the rhetorical, are we Jonny?

BYE

I agree the point value for Chimeras is the biggest off base point cost. Just to have all the basics for it, it costs more than a Predator with the basic trimmings. A predator has better armor a better gun; a chimera can carry 12 models and is amphibious. A Chimera is closer to practicality to a Razorback but priced like a Predator.

Chimera should be: 45 pts, comes standard with heavy bolters,
may upgrade: to flamers for free
multi-laser +5
autocannon +10

I think AV 12/11/10 would be the best we could hope for at this point value. A 12/12/10, would put it in the realm of being priced like a Predator, which isn't a solution I'd like.

I used to think that, right until I saw the Rhino and Razorback entries in the new SM Codex.

Let's talk about roles and intent:
- the Chimera is the *only* Transport available to the Guard
- the Chimera is supposed to be AV12 vs AV11 / AV14
- the Chimera is Open if passengers shoot
- the Chimera is dual BS3 vs twin BS4
- the new Rhino is 35 pts and the new Razorback is 40 pts
- the Chimera transports T3 Sv5+ meatsacks vs T4 Sv3+ monsters


There is a need to create differences between IG and SM, which is why the Guard no longer use Rhinos like they did back in RT. So I now believe that the Chimera needs to be AV12/12/10. If it is AV12/11/10, then most of the time, the enemy will shoot at the large AV11 sides, which makes it the same as a Rhino or Razorback, defeating the purpose of differentiating the two armies from a Transport standpoint.

The Basilisk, of course, can stay AV10 on the sides, as it deploys so far back that only the Front is ever a target.

Then the question is cost. The Chimera has essentially similar (at best, and worse options) firepower compared to a Razorback, so when you weigh it all, the Chimera should be cheap, at no more than 40 pts. Especially when you consider that IG would have to Transport considerably more SM to achieve similar results.

Well I think you're allowing the functional based costing to override the cost as balanced by the rules. The cost has to reflect the chimera's stats.
In the new codex SM, an AV13/11/10 Predator with autocannon is 60 pts and with 2 heavy bolters is 85 pts. A Razorback, AV11/11/10 with twin heavy bolters is 40pts.
So pricing of a Chimera relative to a Razorback, we have to account for the additional front armor, the extra heavy weapon, and the added troop capacity.

The comparison of a Predator to Razorback shows that for 20pt difference, a Predator gains a autocannon and 2 points of front armor. To put the comparison on equal footing, a hypothetical predator with troop transport of a razorback would be 5pts more. 25pts thus conveys the better weapon and armor. Of that I'd estimate 20pts to the armor and 5pts to the autocannon. So an AV12/11/10 chimera should cost 10pts over a Razorback for armor alone.

The comparison of of a razorback to rhino shows that the twin heavy bolters are minimally 5pts, 10pts if you consider that the the Razorbacks cost is brought down by the reduction in transport capacity. That would shows that a baseline heavy bolter on a basic Chimera should be between 5 and 10pts, more on the lower end since IG are BS3.

The additional capacity of troops cost in about 5-6pts over a razorback.

Their is a bit of ambiguity in costing due to the different minor rule differences of razorbacks and chimeras, that I have assumed cancel out or have negligible cost, ie 3 entry hatches versus one, amphibious, lasgun firing ports...

That said looking at the Chimera as a AV12/11/10 should cost 55pts (40+10+5-5+5) just by direct convention of comparison of marine vehicles taking into consideration the lower value or cost of weapons due to lower BS of IG.

An AV12/12/10 would be 60 to 65pts. With those stats and its weapons it begins to be less of a transport and more of a medium tank on par to a basic predator.

While by comparison a less practical Chimera as its rules currently are should cost in at 45pts.

So while I believe the Chimera should be cheaper and better its cost has to reflect its stats and rules relative to the costs other armies have.

oops double post.

The Chimera's weapons arn't even twin-linked though. It's hard to miss with the twin-linked bolters at BS4, while the Guard have to pay for two Heavy Bolters to get the same number of average hits, technically with the potential for a higher number of hits, but with a much greater potential for less hits. You have something like a 1/6 chance of missing just one shot on the Razorback, but a 1/6 chance of missing two shots with BS3 Heavy Bolter, and a 1/9 chance of missing with all the shots. It's early so my math isn't activated yet, but a Chimera firing six Heavy Bolter shots has a much, much higher chance of them all missing entirely.

aka_mythos wrote:Well I think you're allowing the functional based costing to override the cost as balanced by the rules.

And I think you're mistaken in your assessment of my costing.

aka_mythos wrote:The cost has to reflect the chimera's stats.

And I've done that above.

aka_mythos wrote:In the new codex SM, an AV13/11/10 Predator with autocannon is 60 pts and with 2 heavy bolters is 85 pts. A Razorback, AV11/11/10 with twin heavy bolters is 40pts.

Yes. You can downgrade a Predator's armor and remove it's main gun and weapon upgrade options.

aka_mythos wrote:So pricing of a Chimera relative to a Razorback, we have to account for the additional front armor, the extra heavy weapon, and the added troop capacity.

But you also have to account for the lower BS, the fact that it loses roughly 50% of its firepower when it moves, and the fact that those Heavy Bolters are about as good as it gets, and the fact that 6 Marines are a better payload than 10+ Guardsmen.

Chimera vs Razorback:
+ Front & Side to AV12 (medium) = +10 pts
- dual BS3 vs twin BS4 = -5 pts
- dual guns vs twin guns = -5 to 10 pts
- all guns are HB-class, no option for Assault Cannon / Lascannon / Multi-Melta = even to -5 pts
- Transports 60 to 100 pts of Guardsman vs 80 to 125 pts of Marines = even to -5 pts

The significant change is going from AV10 sides to AV11+ sides, as you become Bolter-proof when moving, and the Razorback already has that included in its cost. Going from AV11 to AV12 means you ignore Tau basic guns, along with Heavy Bolters - not a big deal, as these aren't purposed as anti-tank weapons. Going from dual BS3 to twin BS4 is a huge disadvantage in 5th Edition, as these aren't Defensive weapons that get free shots on the move in an Objectives-based environment. Also, the value of Transport has come down significantly for Troops transports - GW is encouraging Transport sales to support mobility warfare.

So relative to a Razorback, a Chimera should NOT cost more, and can be easily argued to cost LESS.

aka_mythos wrote:The comparison of a Predator to Razorback

The comparison of of a razorback to rhino

I'm going to ignore these, because you got the Razorback baseline comparison wrong, so secondary comparisions would necessarily be flawed.

aka_mythos wrote:Their is a bit of ambiguity in costing due to the different minor rule differences of razorbacks and chimeras, that I have assumed cancel out or have negligible cost, ie 3 entry hatches versus one, amphibious, lasgun firing ports...

I'll generally agree, but I'm going to take Amphibious OFF the Chimera moving forward. It's hardly ever used, and definitely NOT represented on the model. Actual Amphibious AAVs have a high prow-like nose and special tracks / dual-drive props, along with water sealing / skirting. These features are not present on the Chimera, so therefore not amphibious.

aka_mythos wrote:An AV12/12/10 would be 60 to 65pts. With those stats and its weapons it begins to be less of a transport and more of a medium tank on par to a basic predator.

No way. At 60 to 65 pts, a Predator-based Chimera is way undergunned and mis-purposed.

I'll do the Predator comparison, though.

Comparinng Chimera to Predator
- no BS4 Autocannon = -20 pts.
- AV12/12 vs AV13/11 = even
- all guns are HB-class, no option for Assault Cannon / Lascannon / Multi-Melta = even to -5 pts
+ Transport 12 Guardsmen = +5 pts

Losing the main gun is a clear disadvantage, unless you're assuming Guard will get Autocannons with Targeters as a Turret weapon option. AV13F is better for a long-range shooter while AV12S is better for a mobile transport, so I think this is probably a wash. Losing the Lascannon options are significant, and are a fair trade off against the transport capability.

So relative to a Predator, I have the Chimera weighing in at 40 pts.

aka_mythos wrote:While by comparison a less practical Chimera as its rules currently are should cost in at 45pts.

OK, let's compare the AV12/10/10 Chimera to a 35-pt Rhino:
- Amphibious vs Repair = even (or -5 pts)
- AV12/10 vs AV11/11 = -10 pts (or more)
+ 2nd HB = +5 pts
- Transport 12 Guardsmen vs 10 Marines = -5 pts

Amphibious almost never comes up as anything of importance, so should be ignored, whereas Repair is actually useful. AV10 sides mean the armor is clearly worse than a Rhino. The twin Bolter trades against the first Heavy Bolter. So you need to add 5 pts for the 2nd Heavy Bolter. But transport 10 Guardsmen vs 10 Marines means the Rhino wins on better payload. So points-wise, you have a Rhino with much worse armor, worse transport utility, but 5 pts for a better gun? Right.

An AV12/10/10 Chimera is worth 25 to 30 pts, definitely not more than 35 pts.

aka_mythos wrote:So while I believe the Chimera should be cheaper and better its cost has to reflect its stats and rules relative to the costs other armies have.

That's the first sensible thing you've said in the entire post!

open_sketchbook wrote:The Chimera's weapons arn't even twin-linked though. It's hard to miss with the twin-linked bolters at BS4, while the Guard have to pay for two Heavy Bolters to get the same number of average hits, technically with the potential for a higher number of hits, but with a much greater potential for less hits. You have something like a 1/6 chance of missing just one shot on the Razorback, but a 1/6 chance of missing two shots with BS3 Heavy Bolter, and a 1/9 chance of missing with all the shots. It's early so my math isn't activated yet, but a Chimera firing six Heavy Bolter shots has a much, much higher chance of them all missing entirely.

Yes thats why when I did the points for two heavy bolters I put the cost at 5pts each, instead of the 15pts for a twin linked heavy bolter. A twin linked heavy bolter will only ever be able to score 3 hits, while two heavy bolters have the slimmer chance of hitting 6. The more dice the more luck becomes a factor. You are right though that TL heavy bolters are more accurate they will probably hit more often due to the higher BS but they do not have the same volume of fire.

In two turns of play a BS4 TL HB will put out 6 shots, 5 hit; in the same two turns 2 heavy bolters BS3 put out 12 shots with an average of 4 hits; that's close. Due to independent odds there stands the statistical chance that a given two rounds of play are above the average, a run or a streak to use casino terms. With the Twin linked heavy bolter the best you can do is 6 hits, but with the standards bolters their is still a statistical odd you can hit 8 or even 12 enemies something the TL HB can not do. This is not to say its going to happen often, but there is a chance of a dramatic advantageous gain with the two heavy bolters not present with TL HB. Couple that with the fact that you'll never see more than 2 Razorbacks in a game, relative to the 5 or more chimeras that I see alot of IG players field. You open up the odds for luck to strike.

Also my cost assessment has not taken vehicle weapon upgrade options into consideration because that is a separate cost and a twin-linked bolter in the form of FW's would potentially be an upgrade.

JohnHwangDD wrote:

aka_mythos wrote:So pricing of a Chimera relative to a Razorback, we have to account for the additional front armor, the extra heavy weapon, and the added troop capacity.

But you also have to account for the lower BS, the fact that it loses roughly 50% of its firepower when it moves, and the fact that those Heavy Bolters are about as good as it gets, and the fact that 6 Marines are a better payload than 10+ Guardsmen.

+I do account for the lower BS in the weapons cost, I even said so in my post. 5pts for each heavy bolter instead of 15 pts for a twin linked bolter.
+You can't cost in the payload. The payload is a separate unit that pays for its self. This payload difference impacting cost flies in the face of convention. If this were a consideration for GW when they write rules there would be discounts dependent on which units are mounted; that clearly isn't the case.
+GW in general uses the basic pt. convention for transport capacity that a transport pays 1pt for each model it can transport rounding to the 5's or 10's of pts.

JohnHwangDD wrote:
Chimera vs Razorback:
+ Front & Side to AV12 (medium) = +10 pts
- dual BS3 vs twin BS4 = -5 pts
- dual guns vs twin guns = -5 to 10 pts
- all guns are HB-class, no option for Assault Cannon / Lascannon / Multi-Melta = even to -5 pts
- Transports 60 to 100 pts of Guardsman vs 80 to 125 pts of Marines = even to -5 pts

Thats very wrong.
+Pt pricing convention for tanks is 10pts per side per pt of armor above 10. for AV12/12 you're 10 pts short.
+Your taking off points twice for what is effectively the same thing. Two heavy bolter vs. twin heavy bolter; BS3 vs BS4.... a twin linked heavy bolter on a Razorback ends up only being worth 15pts and your method of point costing deducts 15pts for that difference. Two heavy bolters even at BS3 are worth more than ZERO.
+The lack of higher class weapon options are not direct cost on the vehicle, the cost of having those weapons are built into the upgrade to get them and not into the basic vehicle.

JohnHwangDD wrote:
The significant change is going from AV10 sides to AV11+ sides, as you become Bolter-proof when moving, and the Razorback already has that included in its cost. Going from AV11 to AV12 means you ignore Tau basic guns, along with Heavy Bolters - not a big deal, as these aren't purposed as anti-tank weapons. Going from dual BS3 to twin BS4 is a huge disadvantage in 5th Edition, as these aren't Defensive weapons that get free shots on the move in an Objectives-based environment. Also, the value of Transport has come down significantly for Troops transports - GW is encouraging Transport sales to support mobility warfare.

So relative to a Razorback, a Chimera should NOT cost more, and can be easily argued to cost LESS.

I think before upgrades they should cost the same and that a chimera should be AV12/11

A chimera is not intended to be a medium tank, ignoring those heavier hitting weapons by giving it AV12 on sided would make it a medium battle tank. A predator doesn't even have AV12 side armor.
Yes point values have come down significantly, 15pts fewer for a rhino, 30pts for a razorback. But to cost down a Chimera by more than 55pts while giving it the stats of a battle tank are ridiculous.

JohnHwangDD wrote:

aka_mythos wrote:The comparison of a Predator to Razorback
The comparison of of a razorback to rhino

I'm going to ignore these, because you got the Razorback baseline comparison wrong, so secondary comparisions would necessarily be flawed.

Please inform me how?

JohnHwangDD wrote:

aka_mythos wrote:Their is a bit of ambiguity in costing due to the different minor rule differences of razorbacks and chimeras, that I have assumed cancel out or have negligible cost, ie 3 entry hatches versus one, amphibious, lasgun firing ports...

I'll generally agree, but I'm going to take Amphibious OFF the Chimera moving forward. It's hardly ever used, and definitely NOT represented on the model. Actual Amphibious AAVs have a high prow-like nose and special tracks / dual-drive props, along with water sealing / skirting. These features are not present on the Chimera, so therefore not amphibious.

I see this as moot point it appears to be a negligible cost if any.

JohnHwangDD wrote:

aka_mythos wrote:An AV12/12/10 would be 60 to 65pts. With those stats and its weapons it begins to be less of a transport and more of a medium tank on par to a basic predator.

No way. At 60 to 65 pts, a Predator-based Chimera is way undergunned and mis-purposed.

My point was that with the stats you purpose it'd come to 60 to 65 points, it would be out gunned and mispurposed, which is why you should stay clear of giving such high stats because it puts it in a different league or class of vehicles.

JohnHwangDD wrote:
I'll do the Predator comparison, though.
Comparinng Chimera to Predator
- no BS4 Autocannon = -20 pts.
- AV12/12 vs AV13/11 = even
- all guns are HB-class, no option for Assault Cannon / Lascannon / Multi-Melta = even to -5 pts
+ Transport 12 Guardsmen = +5 pts

+A BS3 autocannon is 15pts. BS3 Heavy Bolters are 10pts each. Two heavy bolters to the one autocannon has a 5pt difference. Double that to represent BS4 autocannon and we have a 10pt. difference not the 20pts you have.
+AV12/12 vs AV13/11 are even.
+The price of weapons above the heavy bolter class are built into those higher cost weapons and not into the tank chassis. Otherwise the price between a Rhino and Razorback would be more than 5pts.
+By convention transport capacity would come in at 10pts. And whether its guardsmen is irrelevant because the vehicle could just as easily get used by other units such as Ogryn and thus cost of a transport can not account for the cost of the unit potentially in it.

JohnHwangDD wrote:
Losing the main gun is a clear disadvantage, unless you're assuming Guard will get Autocannons with Targeters as a Turret weapon option. AV13F is better for a long-range shooter while AV12S is better for a mobile transport, so I think this is probably a wash. Losing the Lascannon options are significant, and are a fair trade off against the transport capability. So relative to a Predator, I have the Chimera weighing in at 40 pts.

The main gun is but looking at how two heavy bolters stack upto and autocannon point wise its not that significant a difference. The have and have nots of options are not part of the cost of the vehicle but the cost of upgrade. You are mistaking tactical costs to physical costs with little regard to vehicle role. Not having a lascannon might be an issue if it weren't for the fact that chimera aren't suppose to fight other tanks.

Your costing of the Chimera is 20pts under.

JohnHwangDD wrote:

aka_mythos wrote:While by comparison a less practical Chimera as its rules currently are should cost in at 45pts.

OK, let's compare the AV12/10/10 Chimera to a 35-pt Rhino:
- Amphibious vs Repair = even (or -5 pts)
- AV12/10 vs AV11/11 = -10 pts (or more)
+ 2nd HB = +5 pts
- Transport 12 Guardsmen vs 10 Marines = -5 pts
Amphibious almost never comes up as anything of importance, so should be ignored, whereas Repair is actually useful. AV10 sides mean the armor is clearly worse than a Rhino. The twin Bolter trades against the first Heavy Bolter. So you need to add 5 pts for the 2nd Heavy Bolter. But transport 10 Guardsmen vs 10 Marines means the Rhino wins on better payload. So points-wise, you have a Rhino with much worse armor, worse transport utility, but 5 pts for a better gun? Right.
An AV12/10/10 Chimera is worth 25 to 30 pts, definitely not more than 35 pts.

+Amphibious vs repair, Disembarking pts vs 6 defensive lasguns are even
+If AV12/12 is equal to 13/11, why isn't a 12/10 equivalent to 11/11... guess what they are slap those 10pts back on.
+2 Heavy bolters should be 5pts each not total. (BS4 Twin Heavy Bolter is 15pts, divide by two we have 7.5pts for a BS3 Twin Heavy bolter, single heavy bolter comes in at 5.)
+Whose being transport shouldn't come into play, because you can not account for every possibility with the single point cost of a vehicle.

I see the biggest cost differences between us come from your way of costing the insubstantial attributes of other vehicles relative to the chimera. Things like whats being transported and what weapon upgrade options it has, are all things that are costed else where other than the basic cost of a vehicle. Yes there is a tactical value to those attributes but to assign all the negative point costs to vehicles that lack some options is absurd because its building a point cost on things thar aren't there. They're delusional negative costs.

A Chimera is AV12/10/10 and as it stands should only cost between 40 and 45pt... say 42pts with basic weapons. Minimally beyond a razorback.

Using a rhino as a starting point and assuming the point costs of different special rules and attributes cancel out.
Rhino AV11/11/10 with a BS4 is 35 points, shift a point of armor to the front, while adding marginally to troop capacity and add two BS3 heavy bolters you have over 40pts but under 45 points.

If you add armor its going to be about +10pts per point of armor per side; this is irregardless the other aspects of the vehicle.

I say we should get an AV12/11/10 Chimera for about 50pts.

An AV13/11/10 Predator with only a BS4 Autocannon is 60pts. A 12/12/10 Chimera would have pretty much the same armor, it has two heavy bolters instead of an autocannon and is BS3 instead of BS4 but can transport 12 models. Break even on advantages and disadvantages for it.

grrr. double post.

Make me sick!

Close order drill - did not exist until the last IG codex. Cute and useful but at a point cost. Make it free and let's call this Napoleonic 40k.

ALL should have it? Well let's just put all IG in napoleonic uniforms and buy Warhammer formation trays. Napoleonic tactics/formations should be worthless in the modern battlefield and more so in the 40k universe. Liveable fluff but pay for it.

Only the IG has bayonets? Haven't looked closely at a dark eldar warrior lately I guess.

How should guard dominate? .

In the end... "Sergeant, give me the casualty reports." "120 dead out of 132 sir." "Well done, we have eliminated those 50 pesky chaos marines. Send a message back to the general. Mission accomplished and send up the next regiment while we go to the repo depot and get another 120 conscripts... They have had their 24 hours of intense training I hope..."

If you want to solve the KP problem... go back to requiring some math...

Marines 9 KP and lose 6 67% casualties

IG 27 KP and lose 15 55% casualties.

The IG are still a more effective force they win. But do this and now should all the other armies go home and say they can't win 1/3 of the scenarios when the steamroller guard is their opponent?

I know all about DE. Well both DE and Kroot have their own spikey weapons, yes, DE are too old to have had any thought of this sort given them being carry overs from 3rd Ed. Also by being pirates they aren't going to stand in any sort of formation. Kroot have their own unique advantage because of the fact that they don't use theirs like spears.

Umm... bayonets were used extensively up through WWII, at which point even the japanese were using them in charges. WWI, troops going over the top, bayonets fixed.

If anyone gives COD to their guards and keeps them in formation the entire time their an idiot. The COD is for a last ditch effort, something you move your guard over into when you see you're gonna get charged. So you're not going to be moving in Napoleonic formations. COD is not as much a tactical centerpiece as it is another ability of the IG to improve survivability.

IG coming from so many diverse worlds its important to realize the Imperial Guard is not homogeneous. Not all IG are conscripted and those that are have their own set of rules.

The way IG are suppose to dominate is not just in the number of men but also number of vehicles and the number of heavy weapons. IG win by attrition tactics. Being attrition based they are willing to take a higher level of casualties, may be not to the extent of your hyperbole, but non-homogeneous IG. That should be reflected in the KP system without changing the system or requiring it to be reinterpreted. The way to fix kill points is to simply not count platoon squads as KP, only the command units as 2. IG squads don't have the squad size of horde armies they're somewhat softer and die relatively easily. That said the platoon command would be protected by his whole platoon and then finally the other player would be working as hard for my kill points as I work for his.

Indeed bayonets were used in WWI and WWII.

That the Japanese did banzai charges ... sure. Vicious and scary to face but they rarely succeeded. Usually the success rate was low.
WWI? Alright, casualty rates for gaining hundreds of yards... Machineguns or in our case heavy bolters and flamers rule the day.

The IG is an attrition army agreed. It wins by firepower. If you want guardsmen to be able to stand up to space marines in hand to hand, pay for it. Or do it the guardsmen way and blast them into oblivion with a number of weapons that a marine would die for. (And often does.)

There is a small problem with the command squad being worth 2 and the platoon squads being worth 0. I am a marine... so behind this line of 20 guardsmen stands 5 command figs... I order my devastator squad of 4 heavy bolters to unload on... you guessed it, the command squad. So now we have 12 shots, 8 hit and probably 7 wound. Hope you are good at 4+ saves. The other issue is if you field the 5 squad platoon, you only have 2 points out there. Cheese in reverse.

The KP system does burn all armies but the IG does take the brunt of it. I do think the percentage system is more balanced. An ork comes at you with a warboss and 6 maxed boyz squads. We are talkiing 7 KP and he has at least about 1200 points out there. Yet if he loses 5 killpoints we are talking a big bite out of his force. IG will probably go through 10 or 12 KP worth of squads to stop it but they should still have 10 or 12 KP of stuff still left. Others have some very high cost figs that can eat up points and are worth it for their effect. The percentage system would penalize the hoarder and also penalize the unbalanced size forces. (e.g. 4 squads of 20 necron warriors and 2 3-base scarab units)

The big thing I think every army is struggling with is the right force structure for 5th ed. and how to have one that is fieldable in all
the scenarios. The guard is not alone and where one cheezy marine force may own you in a kill point game they may struggle mightily to survive a guard army in an objective scenario.

The biggest problem I see with the guard is that while your front line provides cover for your second, third, forth line of troops it also provides that same cover to your opponent. I think this is where 5th ed. really screwed with the IG and every other army to a lesser degree. An acceptable to me would be that an IG platoon does not block LOS/provide cover to an enemy) if it is firing over another squad in it's platoon. This would force the IG to deploy platoons in depth and not penalise them for doing it. OTOH, they fire over another friendly unit and too bad, you are stuck with the same problem as everyone else.

The other problem I see is the new Ork codex. It is great, it really makes the orcs a force to be reckoned with but the cheapening of the base trooper from 8 or 9 to 6 really did a disservice to a lot of armies but the guard, some eldar, and kroot stand out. An ork - that is T4 and S4 when it charges and has a rapid fire S4 18" 2 shot weapon and 2 attacks base in hand to hand. Should not be costing the same as an imperial guardsmen. Space marines are gaining freebies like grenades, bolt pistols and their cost is staying the same. Meanwhile eldar guardians, kroot mercs, DE warriors and the IG are forced to slog on as the rest of the universe either improves in their kit or the GW gods have decided they were 33 to 50% overvalued. If an Ork should cost 6, I would say both base Eldar should cost 6 or 7. An imperial guardsmen should be costing 5. (You can argue 4 but I shudder to think of IG even being feasible in a 2-hour tournament round when you have 250 men to deploy/move/shoot not mention to buy and paint.) The problem is worst for the guard because unlike the eldar guardian or kroot merc. The IG is the core of your army no option. The kroot are an option for a tau the guardians are valuable in their place but the dire avenger is a more capable trooper. Between their cost being the same as an orc and the fact that your 10-man squads provide cover to the on rushing 30 orc mobs, the IG pays a horrific price.

When soldiers are wearing cloth uniforms and wielding steel bayonets, I'll agree, charging is a bad idea.

When soldiers are wearing high-tech reactive armour that makes kevlar look like paper and wielding plasma steel bayonets with edges sharpened down to single digit molecule counts, maybe bayonet charges have their place.

The Imperial Guard is no conscript army, they are highly trained and disciplined troopers. You want to know what a conscript army looks like? It's leadership 5 and BS 2. The Guard are by the nature of the best soldiers humanity has to offer. (Space Marines aren't really human anymore, and there are only a few million Sisters, and as few as a hundred thousand) You want crappy, throw a million men into the meat grinder? That's the job of underfunded PDF forces. The Imperial Guard do what they do because they've had ten thousand years to get good at it. They fight the way they do with a longer military tradition than we've had civilization! If bayonets and bright uniforms are being worn, then for whatever reason it works in the Forty-First Millennium. Even the regiments that do casually throw lives away, like the Death Korps of Krieg, arm their soldiers to a high standard and train them well, and fight the way they do because it's the best way to do so within their realm of specialty, ie attrition warfare in trenches.

The Guard employ, and since their first codex have employed, combined armed tactics, high technology, and sophisticated strategy, but unfortunately the perception of the Guard and their abilities is warped by a combination of how the Guard play within game mechanics, the low-tech look of their equipment (the perception fallacy) and the fact that their abilities are shown in comparison to genetically engineered combat monsters who kill solar systems for fun, sufficiently advanced aliens, evil sufficiently advanced aliens, the mechanically animated souls of ancient sufficiently advanced aliens, super soldiers wearing tank armour wielding automatic rocket launchers, possessed super soldiers wearing tank armour wielding automatic rocket launchers, a swarm of giant insect dinosaur combat creatures that eat planets, insane warrior nuns with flamethrowers, energy beam throwing gray aliens with giant mecha, and devils from hell itself. Warhammer wouldn't be interesting as a game to show every time the Guard go up against some random rebel planet, walk through their assault fire fire like the enemy were throwing flowers, and blow them apart with laser guns or slice them apart with chainsaw swords.

A wonderful recruiter for the IG you are.

In comparison to all the other armies out there... they are the disadvantaged, the numerous, the Imperial Guard.

Alright you have your reactive super-high tech kevlar. You might of the Imperium form up in close order ranks like the soldiers of Frederick the Great. Your sergeant tells you no one can stand up to the might of the imperium. (As he should or the commissar would shoot him dead.) You charge ... let's see...

The 7-foot tall mutated humans who wear some form of armor that is better than a WWII tank had for protection.

The dying race of eldar who are uncannily faster than any normal human but by the sheer fact that you have a pointy stick he quakes in his boot and doesn't shoot you apart with this monomolecular edged disk thingies that are poisoned... Oh and they ruled the galaxy when humans were in animal skins so you obviously have the superior technology. (Eldar fluff)

The genitically mutable race of bugs/reptile thingies that seem to take on the strengths of their opponents as time passes.

The 7-foot tall over muscular big toothed green beasties that seems driven only by fighting themselves if not some convenient opponent.. in this case you. Oh and in numbers, they never show any fear.

The guardsman you describe sounds like he is packing a lasrifle that should be rending with a power bayonet that can cut through anything. That guardsman should cost at least 10 points each.

In the reality of the 40k game you are fielding the cheapest trooper barring a spinegaunt with no modifications. Despite what the imperial commissar told you, your armor is worthless against a necron gauss rifle, a marine's bolter or an eldar's shuriken catapult.
You are superior to one race in the universe, a cow ahh I mean a tau firewarrior. Oh, but his leaders gave him a better type of armor and arguably the best standard weapon in the universe. Live with it, the guard are the bottom of the barrel in the world of 40k. Embrace it and make it work.

The space marine chapters are a 1000 or so strong. When we refer to the Imperial Guard it is always as regiments. That implies 2500 or more men and while there may be 1000 chapters of space marines, it seems to me that Cadia alone has fielded some 300+ regiments. You are not as good as a marine and the game system tries to account for that by giving you 2.5 guardsmen for every 1 marine that is on the field. Now you want to argue that a marine is 3 or more times more valuable than a guardsmen perhaps. That a guardsman is not the equal of an ork, agreed. Worse than an eldar guardian... in some instances yes. Just don't make a guardsman better than half the base troopers in the universe. Face it you are a 3 strength, 3 toughness trooper armed with a 3 strength weapon in a universe that abounds with 4 strength, 4 toughness enemies with 4 strength weapons. You ARE good, you ARE the finest that unaltered humanity has to offer. You are just not the equal to all the mutated monsters that float around the universe. That is why the emporer, in his wisdom sends regiments of guardsmen where he might send part of a space marine chapter.

I think one issue with the imperial guard is the fact that the army they're best at fighting are other imperial guard. While that makes some sense, not really a good thing.

As the IG are now they are organized and play like an analogue of semi-modern military force, somewhere between WWII and Persian Gulf War, in term of the complexity of these things. Mostly because GW's drawn their inspiration from war movies with that setting. IG have better technology in some ways, but without the complexity of its application, hence why Tau kinda have the technological leg up.

Back to kill points. I still believe that making the command platoons the sole sources of the KP is the best way to deal with it. I think its inevitably how it will be dealt with. I also believe that when its done with the new rule book GW will simply write in a rule that causes multiple intervening units of the same platoon to generate some sort of cumulative cover save, ie one squad +4, 2sqds +3 with some maximum. It puts an emphasis on the willingness to take losses, with an emphasis on requiring leadership decapitation tactics to break the highly structured guard. It also brings the IG closer in line with the number of KP with other armies.

So yes marines would go after the leadership of the platoons, which makes sense, but ignoring 50 guardsmen only works for so long. Any guardsmen player is also going to be smart enough to put their command squads in places where they won't get shot first turn, behind or in terrain/tanks (kinda like real life) not in front to be shot dead turn one.

DAaddict, the fact of the matter is that, most of the time, the Imperial Guard aren't fighting any of the other factions, except maybe the Orks. Among the interesting factions, yes, the average Guardsmen aren't much. But that doesn't mean that they're useless untrained idiot conscripts.

Close Orders Drill doesn't necessarily have to represent ranking up Napoleonic-style, but just sticking close to one another when the assault comes and tag-teaming the larger, scarier stuff, using their numbers, training and teamwork to best a threat greater than themselves, which reconciles our viewpoints nicely. You get your numbers, and I get my trained infantry.

Quite frankly, COD needs to go away from a game differentiation standpoing. If someone wants to play humans standing shoulder-to-shoulder when they fight, GW makes an entire game system that revolves around that very concept.

That is, let them play Fantasy, with its tight ranks and files, instead of 40k with its open formations.

____

Oh, yeah, I'll readdress Chimeras later - much to say, no time to say it.

JohnHwangDD wrote:Quite frankly, COD needs to go away from a game differentiation standpoing. If someone wants to play humans standing shoulder-to-shoulder when they fight, GW makes an entire game system that revolves around that very concept.

You are such a narrow minded person, you know that DD?

You see Guard as one thing and one thing only.

Guard are a massive conglomerate of many, many historical and movie cliches. Some of them are like American GI's in Vietnam, some of them are like the Mobile Infantry from Star Ship Troopers, some of them are Russians, and some of them are British Red Coats in pith helmets.

But once again you want to dictate how Guard should be, and your argument is pointing out that there's a different game system people can play if they want ranks of people.


You've seen Zulu right? You've seen the ranks of British gunmen firing. You've heard of the American Civil War, where they all marched up to one another and fired guns into each other? Some people like the idea of ranking up gunlines and blazing away. Some people love the idea of fixing bayonettes and charging. COD represents this perfectly. There is no reason to remove it.

BYE

At this point its just important to say that the Imperial Guard codex is intended to represent soldiers from a diverse number of worlds. All the worlds have various states of technologies and understanding of their application. If troops can be feral worlders with warrior weapons why can't they be feudal worlders with COD. Even beyond the concept of feudal worlders their is a viability in what COD represents, this comes from the abstract level of detail the game has.

The way the IG are, they are intended as an analogue of the armies of the last 100 years of history with futuristic technology thrown in to tie them to the setting. With in the last 100 years, even with in the last 50 years modern militaries have utilized these sorts of COD tactics.

The continual insistence that COD is about marching your troops in tight formation is stupid. It is merely an abstract representation of how guardsmen utilize their weapons to gang up on enemies in close combat to compensate for their lack of individual abilities. COD only requires that they be in formation when they assault or are assaulted.

I'm not convinced at all that IG *should* be feral worlders with Warrior Weapons.

Nor am I convinced that COD belongs except as an artifact reminder of GW doing a piss-poor job of playtesting and balancing Doctrines. If COD were properly (over-) costed like Warrior Weapons in the last Codex at +20 pts per unit (+1 pt cost per stat point increased), or Independent Commissars, nobody would be interested in the option.

Because all of you keep talking about training and such. Such additional training is represented by additional points costs. In other words, if COD really is so good and characterful, are you willing to pay appropriate for it?

Or would you rather have those same points be applied to something more modern and generally useful like universal Vox as standard?

foil7102 wrote:Just a wish list thread for the 5th edition imperial guardsman.

When ever I look at the IG I have always though that the concept of doctrines was neat idea if poorly handled.

A top down redesign of the guard would be nice with a focus more on themes. I have always seen IG being fielded in certian configurations.

1) Ground Infantry - IG on foot with either artillery or air support support.

2) Mechanzied Infantry - Focus on Tanks and Armored Personal Carriers

3) Airborne Infantry- Focus on Drop Troops, Drop Ships, & Gunship Deployed IG

4) Special Forces - Focus on IG Elite Units

Any IG Codex needs to be able to flexible enough to allow you to field any of the above. Which it does now but currently makes some builds hard to field or not very effective. I think you can simplify doctrines by combine then in the four above. How you would do that I am not sure.

You pick one and build your army around that theme or doctrine

Other Changes that I would like to see

1) Drop the Baskilsk, This is more suited for Apoc

2) Bring Back the Griffon Mortar.

3) Bring back the tarantula, the rapier, the thud gun, and the mole mortar.

4) Allow the option for IG to take Rhinos instead of Chimeras (I wish GW had never brought this out. the rhino was just fine)

5) Allow Dropships and Gunships for the IG

Things I can wish for but will NEVER see.

1) Proper Penal Legion

2) Human Bombs

3) IG Robots and Dreadnaughts

4) IG Bike Squads

5) IG Beastmen Regiments

Evil Eli wrote:When ever I look at the IG I have always though that the concept of doctrines was neat idea if poorly handled.

Believe me, you're not the only one.

I mean, my main man DD above me says that COD shouldn't be free. The counter to that is that it wasn't free, you needed to spend a doctrine point. Sadly, the Doctrine system was so hopeless you weren't actually ever giving anything up in order to take COD, so in the end it was free. If the Doctrine system actually forced you to make hard choices, and if the restricted troop types were actually worth taking, then COD (and Drop Troops for that matter) would not have been free as you would have to give up something equally important.

But the Doctrine System was a waste, there was no choice involved as you just took the best ones and ignored the rest (and most of the Doctrines were crap anyway - Cybernetic Enhancement anyone? Warrior Weapons? God-damned Hardened Fighters).


So, in the end, Jonny-boy is right when he says that COD shouldn't be free, but it shouldn't cost points either. It should cost you something else.



And this is why Doctrines need to be done on a Platoon by Platoon basis. CoD can continue to be free, but taking it needs to stop you from taking other things. So no COD combined with Light Infantry, Drop Troops and half a dozen things. Each platoon does something. Some things can be combined (Cameleoline + Light Infantry, Drop Troops + Carapace Armour), but otherwise taking one item forbids that unit from taking the others.

BYE

H.B.M.C. wrote:


You've seen Zulu right? You've seen the ranks of British gunmen firing. You've heard of the American Civil War, where they all marched up to one another and fired guns into each other? Some people like the idea of ranking up gunlines and blazing away. Some people love the idea of fixing bayonettes and charging. COD represents this perfectly. There is no reason to remove it.

BYE

In all fairness, after by the time of the US civil war, that style of warfare had become...slowed. Generals stuck to it for a while because they didn't know anything else, but by the time of the Siege of Petersburg it was done for, most great powers just didn't realize it until WW1. What's more, CoD really feels like an off-hand add-on (as always, *IMO*) that doesn't really fit with any IG army that GW has done since the beginning of 3rd ed, I'd even go so far as to say much of 2nd ed as well.

Sure there are Praetorian armies out there, and man are they stylish, but they don't really fit in well with any other IG army or mesh with IG fluff. GW hasn't done anything to fit that style since they released that line, and none of the IG codex's and fluff really support the whole "US civil war/Zulu" themed army.

Bayonet charges? Sure, we still have that, but really the IG codex shouldn't be trying to design IG armies around a style of warfare that was always rather silly and forced upon armies by poor weaponry and communications. Once telegraphs, radios and rifles became available, it went bye-bye, for good reason, and trying to force that into a setting 38,000 years in the future takes too much from the game I feel, sorta like armies with a real world theme (e.g. IG armies using kits of US army tanks for Leman Russ and Chimera's) take the player out of the setting and take away from the imagery.

If you look in the IG codex, the only sample regiment with warrior weapons that is given, the Kanak Skull Takers, they are "fierce barbarian tribes" that are "like many regiments of the imperial guard..." If that doesn't spell out that warrior weapons are intended to help a person field Feral worlders I don't know what does. Oh wait how about the the entry for warrior weapons itself... first line... "the unit is recruited from primitive worlds"... that's going to Feral or Feudal worlds.

With COD its a trade off in several ways. As it is now taking it means you have fewer doctrine points to spend on other things. It also presents a trade off because in the turn before you're assaulted you have to move you're guys from being scattered in skirmish lines into formation or move them into assault in formation, doing so will prevent you from firing heavy weapons or firing all heavy weapons and rapid fire weapons. Either are significant, but if you brace for the assault you open yourself up to bombardment from templates.

The above is also a reason it has no point cost. The other reason it has no point costs for the +1I and +1LD is because they are conditional on them remaining in this vulnerable formation. If a player by shooting or assaulting the unit breaks up the formation by lets say splitting the formation into halves they lose the benefits of the bonuses. That's the big reason they can't be treated as being the same as a normal stat upgrade.

Options should never be intentionally over-costed. If a unit takes an option or by its nature is an upgrade of another unit and the benefits and downsides of it cancel out it shouldn't cost anything. If the benefits and downsides cancel out than the points the player pays are paying for just the downside. An example of this was 3rd ed. Possessed Chaos Marines, ignoring poor models as a factor, few people took them because the benefits of the different mutations canceled out the randomness but they having to pay double cost on the marine for he benefit and the downside didn't add up. Another example 3rd ed. Hellhound, all glancing hits were penetrating, but you were still paying for a chimera that effectively had 1 point less armor all the way around. Warrior weapons is also an example, you trade off being able to shoot further out for better close combat attacks; this is a negative even without the point cost, you're pay 2pts a model to sacrifice one ore two strength 3 shots before the unit gets into assault, for a single extra str3 attack in the assault. That is at best dead even trade off, at worse you're losing out on a few shots, but to pay for the downside is just stupid.

The correct implementation of an option similar to warrior weapons is with Witchhunters where stormtroopers can drop hellguns and take shotguns, direct trade off. There exists a fundamental shift in how the unit is used, an upside and a downside. No point cost.

Take the new marine codex for instance, Assault Marines only cost two points above standard marines, two points barely cover the jump packs, so they obviously aren't paying for the fact they have the marine equivalent of warrior weapons going for them. And don't get me started on the fact that by not taking those jump packs that only cost 2 points they get a free rhino or droppod... do the math at 5 models you pay just 10 points for a rhino or drop pod.

My point if their is a pure benefit with no downside you should pay for it, but if their is a built in downside any pay in should be minimal. Whether it should be in or not is a different issue than what it costs. IG already have so much going against us do we really need more against us?

Because there is a trade off in using COD even if IG had it not everyone would use it. It would just be a tactical option.

And to the idea that bayonet charges don't work or have no function in he modern age look up an incident by the Scotish Highlanders in Iraq, 2004 in which 2 squads with fixed bayonets charged and killed 30 Iraqis militia.

I do agree though that Vox casters make the most sense as a built in cost of unit adjusting equipment.

aka_mythos wrote:

And to the idea that bayonet charges don't work or have no function in he modern age look up an incident by the Scotish Highlanders in Iraq, 2004 in which 2 squads with fixed bayonets charged and killed 30 Iraqis militia.

I see this example used a lot for things (and the Scots were certainly badass for pulling it off), however you have to take into account all the variables involved and how *exceptional* and *rare* this is in modern warfare. It was two squads of well equipped disciplined troops with at least some hand to hand combat training against an opponent that had a lot of potential shooting power, but very little discipline and no hand to hand combat training, all in a very close quarters environment, there is no charging across fields of fire with fixed bayonets, the bayonet charge was only initiated at the point of entry, and they certainly didn't didn't march up to the house in a block or line formation with the intention of charging in with bayonets leveled far before they reached the enemy.

That doesn't diminish the fact that almost every major western military still train its soldiers in the use of the bayonet and that its still perceived by those militaries as a viable tactic against less disciplined units. Few consider it in the field because when engaging in modern warfare its all ranged combat... but in a universe of giant hulking green monsters, blue bugs, and space elves who want to get up and personal and fung shua your internal organs, it isn't all ranged combat. In a universe where larger tougher enemies are charging wildly across a field to rip you many new colorful orifices that some degree of close combat training would be granted that would prepare them tactically beyond just knowing how to stab, that they can function as a squad even in close combat. When all the other armies in the 40k universe get to defy reality and make every battle about close combat why are guard left as so defenseless. In a universe with such an emphasis on close combat despite the contrary nature of it to modern warfare is it really so hard to believe a group of soldiers would cluster together to get whatever smallest benefit they can against things that would scare a modern soldier shi+less?

And once again COD doesn't require you to march in formation, just that when you're engaged you're packed up.

aka_mythos wrote:+You can't cost in the payload. +GW in general uses the basic pt. convention for transport capacity that a transport pays 1pt for each model it can transport rounding to the 5's or 10's of pts.

That was how 3E costed, but it isn't appropriate for 5E, and it isn't appropriate for Marines. Being able to transport 10 Marines might be worth 10 points. And being able to transport 5 Terminators might be worth an additional 5 or 10 pts. But being able to transport 10 Guardsmen is NOT worth 10 pts. It's only worth 5 pts.

aka_mythos wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:
Chimera vs Razorback:
+ Front & Side to AV12 (medium) = +10 pts
- dual BS3 vs twin BS4 = -5 pts
- dual guns vs twin guns = -5 to 10 pts
- all guns are HB-class, no option for Assault Cannon / Lascannon / Multi-Melta = even to -5 pts
- Transports 60 to 100 pts of Guardsman vs 80 to 125 pts of Marines = even to -5 pts

Thats very wrong.
+Pt pricing convention for tanks is 10pts per side per pt of armor above 10. for AV12/12 you're 10 pts short.
+Your taking off points twice for what is effectively the same thing. Two heavy bolter vs. twin heavy bolter; BS3 vs BS4.... a twin linked heavy bolter on a Razorback ends up only being worth 15pts and your method of point costing deducts 15pts for that difference. Two heavy bolters even at BS3 are worth more than ZERO.
+The lack of higher class weapon options are not direct cost on the vehicle, the cost of having those weapons are built into the upgrade to get them and not into the basic vehicle.

First and foremoest, it appears that you are basing your points on the 3E VDR. That is a *huge* mistake.

The only vehicles for which the 3E VDR may be consiered "accurate" are FW Imperial Armour, and that is because those vehicles were calculated using the 3E VDR. However, compared to even the old points cost of 3E Codex vehicles, VDR was grossly overpriced by 20% or more. This is why, in general, none of the FW Russ variant tanks are even close to being competitive with the standard Russ or Demolisher.

With the price revisions in 4E and now especially 5E in C: SM, VDR points costs may be off by a factor of 2 or more...

For example, a VDR (WD251 & WD 256) Rhino costs:
+45 pts for AV11 (+5) / AV11 (+15 +15) / AV10 (+10)
+10 pts for Closed Top
+10 pts for "normal" movement
+10 pts for Transport 10
+5 pts for BS4 Storm Bolter
+ 1 pts for Searchlight
+ 3 pts for Smoke Launchers
+ 10 (?) pts for Repair
= 94 (?) pts total for Rhino.

But a 5E Rhino costs only 35 pts in C: SM. Even if you devalue Repair down to 1 pt, the 3E VDR values give costs at least twice what they cost in 5E, and in this particular example, the VDR Rhino is well over twice the points of what the Codex charges.

If you convert that VDR Rhino to a basic twin-HB Razorback, the costs change like this:
-10 remove Repair
-4 reduce to Transport 6
-5 remove Storm Bolter
+20 Heavy Bolter
+10 twin-linked
= +11 pts adjustment
= 105 pts for Razorback.

But a 5E Razorback costs only 40 pts, or less than 40% of what VDR predicts. That is so far off, it isn't even funny.

So I have to say that your costing method of using the 3E VDR just doesn't work for 5E. If you look at the cost, the entire 5E vehicle costs less than the VDR armor by itself.

Anyhow, getting at your comments:
- Even by 3E VDR, WD256 prices AV11 sides at 15 vs 20 for AV12, so the net cost increase of AV11 to AV12 front & sides is +5 pts + 2x +5 pts = +15 pts.
- twin BS4 HB is clearly better than 2 BS3 HBs - as a move-and-fire weapon, it hits twice as often (5 pts for accuracy), *and* isn't penalized in a move-and-fire situation (5 pts for utlity). That isn't double counting, as accuracy and utility are two different things entirely.
- in 5E, costs aren't broken out the same way, which is why Tactical Flamers and MLs are "free", because many costs are embedded into basic vehicle.
- being only able to transport Guardmen just isn't as valuable as being able to transport Marines

aka_mythos wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:
The significant change is going from AV10 sides to AV11+ sides, as you become Bolter-proof when moving, and the Razorback already has that included in its cost. Going from AV11 to AV12 means you ignore Tau basic guns, along with Heavy Bolters - not a big deal, as these aren't purposed as anti-tank weapons. Going from dual BS3 to twin BS4 is a huge disadvantage in 5th Edition, as these aren't Defensive weapons that get free shots on the move in an Objectives-based environment. Also, the value of Transport has come down significantly for Troops transports - GW is encouraging Transport sales to support mobility warfare.

So relative to a Razorback, a Chimera should NOT cost more, and can be easily argued to cost LESS.

I think before upgrades they should cost the same and that a chimera should be AV12/11

A chimera is not intended to be a medium tank, ignoring those heavier hitting weapons by giving it AV12 on sided would make it a medium battle tank. A predator doesn't even have AV12 side armor.
Yes point values have come down significantly, 15pts fewer for a rhino, 30pts for a razorback. But to cost down a Chimera by more than 55pts while giving it the stats of a battle tank are ridiculous.

And I disagree. A Chimera needs AV12 sides because the guys inside are only T3 Sv5+. If they were Marines, they could get away with AV11.

A Chimera *is* a Medium Tank. That's why it's AV12 vs AV14. But it isn't a battle tank, because it doesn't carry Ordnance like a Russ or Demolisher. And whether a Pred has AV11 or 12 sides doesn't matter when looking at a Chimera, because that Pred has AV13 up front. A Predator is a Tank Hunter more than a MBT. It fires from a prepared position, rather than moving forward and engaging the enemy.

Again, I'm not arguing for a Battlecannon on the Chimera - it still has the crappy HB-class guns. It just has a lot of armor to protect the Guardsmen being transported. So it is a medium tank, but it's not a battle tank - it's a battle transport.

And the cost adjustment shouldn't be factored at the +/- relative to older points, because that Chimera has always been far more grossly overpriced than the Rhino. In 4th Edition, that Chimera was easily 20+ pts overcosted. Now, it's even more overcost. That is why the cost needs to be taken against similar vehicles, like the Rhino or Razorback. And by and large, a Chimera is like a Razorback that trades firepower for transport.

aka_mythos wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:
I'm going to ignore these, because you got the Razorback baseline comparison wrong, so secondary comparisions would necessarily be flawed.

Please inform me how?

See above and original post. I think my post was abundantly clear. Whether you agree or not is irrelevant.

aka_mythos wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote: OK, let's compare the AV12/10/10 Chimera to a 35-pt Rhino:
- Amphibious vs Repair = even (or -5 pts)
- AV12/10 vs AV11/11 = -10 pts (or more)
+ 2nd HB = +5 pts
- Transport 12 Guardsmen vs 10 Marines = -5 pts
Amphibious almost never comes up as anything of importance, so should be ignored, whereas Repair is actually useful. AV10 sides mean the armor is clearly worse than a Rhino. The twin Bolter trades against the first Heavy Bolter. So you need to add 5 pts for the 2nd Heavy Bolter. But transport 10 Guardsmen vs 10 Marines means the Rhino wins on better payload. So points-wise, you have a Rhino with much worse armor, worse transport utility, but 5 pts for a better gun? Right.
An AV12/10/10 Chimera is worth 25 to 30 pts, definitely not more than 35 pts.

+Amphibious vs repair, Disembarking pts vs 6 defensive lasguns are even
+If AV12/12 is equal to 13/11, why isn't a 12/10 equivalent to 11/11... guess what they are slap those 10pts back on.
+2 Heavy bolters should be 5pts each not total. (BS4 Twin Heavy Bolter is 15pts, divide by two we have 7.5pts for a BS3 Twin Heavy bolter, single heavy bolter comes in at 5.)
+Whose being transport shouldn't come into play, because you can not account for every possibility with the single point cost of a vehicle.

- In practice, Amphibious and Lasguns are worse than Repair and extra access points, even though Lasguns are Defensive, by virtue of being only S3... But for the sake of argument, I'll continue to hold them as even.
- AV12/10 is NOT equivalent to AV11/11. I went over that in my original post. AV10 sides on a vehicle that moves means that you are really talking about what is effectively AV10/10 due to the extreme vulnerability of having large, thin sides in 5E. AV10 sides are *much* worse than AV11 sides because of the broad prevalence of S4 weapons which can still glance. This is at least a 10 pt adjustment.
- OK, fine: 2 HB at 5 pts each = 10 pts, vs 5 pts for Storm Bolter = 5 pts net, as I calculated originally.
- and you are completely wrong here. It matters *immensely* what you can Transport. If you have a RT-era Rhino, you can carry 5 Terminators or a Dreadnought. But as of 3E, that isn't an option. Being able to transport simply isn't as valuable as being able to transport Marines. And I don't need to be able to account for every possiblity, because the army list does that for me. The Guard list doesn't have Marines or Terminators. In theory, the best cargo would be Ogryns. Except Ogryns suck, too. So there simply isn't anything awesome you can put in a Chimera that makes it's Transport capability worth as much as a Razorback's or Rhino's Transport capability.

aka_mythos wrote:I see the biggest cost differences between us come from your way of costing the insubstantial attributes of other vehicles relative to the chimera. Things like whats being transported and what weapon upgrade options it has, are all things that are costed else where other than the basic cost of a vehicle. Yes there is a tactical value to those attributes but to assign all the negative point costs to vehicles that lack some options is absurd because its building a point cost on things thar aren't there. They're delusional negative costs.

Those negative costs are functional costs, and they are real. But what you're missing is the fact that I generally don't assign much actual cost impact to them in the comparision.

The only final comment I'll make is that you're out of your mind if you think a AV12/11 Chimera is worth 65 pts under 5E rules. It's a non-Scoring vehicle transporting crap infantry that needs to be taken en masse to make up for the poor holding ability of Guardsmen. And worse, it competes with 3 different types of 35-40 pt transports (Rhino, Razor, Pod) that carry far tougher models (SM) that are no less efficient in Objectives Missions due to Combat Squads.

Under such conditions, a Chimera needs to be AV12/12 and cost no more than 40 pts to still be competitive.

aka_mythos wrote:That doesn't diminish the fact that almost every major western military still train its soldiers in the use of the bayonet and that its still perceived by those militaries as a viable tactic against less disciplined units.

Really? I would have thought most militaries would have been smart enough to move on to shovels like Spetnaz along with Trench Clubs like WW1 Trench Raiders. After all, those are the weapons which actually worked when modern militaries moved to actual close combat... :S

I'm not trying to nail down a true point cost in my analysis, I was making comparisons to the most similar vehicles to produce a range of costs based on relatively similar units.

Previously I said an AV12/12 is worth between 60 and 65pts in 5E, not an AV12/11 which I said would cost in approximately 10 points less. Like I said it the comparison is to create a range of costs based on relative properties, so an exact number isn't important just an approximation that remains consistent throughout. A predator with just an autocannon, BS4 is 65pts. So even a BS3 vehicle with comparable armor the benefit of two heavy bolters and troop transport capacity would cost in closer to the predator than the 25 point split difference you're insisting on. All arguments on comparisons to rhinos and razorbacks aside comparing your proposal for a chimera to a predator creates a unit that is only a marginal step below a predator but only 2/3rds the cost. I would love to be able to field that many predator equivalent tanks but I'd feel like dirt because it's a bit broken. On a fluff level I find it hard to believe that IG officers would consider guardsmen as being worth a level of protection superior to what marines have.

I think its a bit of circular logic for you to qualify a chimera as a medium tank because you have given it AV12 on the side. As an AV10 its obviously not a medium tank. Should it be a medium tank, maybe, but you can't really redefine the quantitative value of the chimera to match a criteria of a definition just to justify the original change in the values. It would be like me making the statement redefining that "a formula one race cars only need to go over 100mph"... "my car goes over 100mph"... "thus my car can be a formula one race car." Just because you redefined a chimera does not mean a chimera is necessarily a medium tank. Historically tanks assigned to direct squad support have been light tanks, where heavier tanks were assigned to large support roles. The panzer was a medium tank do you really believe something akin to that would be assigned to many squads. I'm all for making the Chimera more worthwhile, but I'm not out for a steal.

With all the disadvantages of a Razorback and the advantages of your AV12/12 chimera, their is no way they can be equal. I mean if we're going to take into consideration abstract negative costs, what about the fact that a 6 man marine squad can't take any special or heavy weapons that's got to be worth a couple negative points.

What a vehicle can transport is only significant when it is a unique quality of the vehicle that defines its identity, i.e. landraiders and terminators. By your system marine rhino is 35pts, sisters of battle rhino 30pts? The vehicles are identical in every way except what they transport. Or how about a landraider and a Grey Knight landraider, grey knight terminators are that much more powerful than standard terminators, should their landraider be 270pts instead?

Point values of units are assigned in the context of their individual abilities and while that may relate to the army on the whole in a given way that skews comparison with armies it is never purposefully so drastic for two so similar things.

I still say 45-50pts for AV12/11 two heavy bolters.

JohnHwangDD wrote:

aka_mythos wrote:That doesn't diminish the fact that almost every major western military still train its soldiers in the use of the bayonet and that its still perceived by those militaries as a viable tactic against less disciplined units.

Really? I would have thought most militaries would have been smart enough to move on to shovels like Spetnaz along with Trench Clubs like WW1 Trench Raiders. After all, those are the weapons which actually worked when modern militaries moved to actual close combat... :S

Vaktathi was referring to the rarity of close combat in modern warfare. Rarity of opportunity does not diminish the viability of a tactic that is specific in its application. The fact that it has been used even in a limited capacity is proof of that. The insistence of the training of these sort of combat skills in the modern age shows a perceptions of its tried and true nature. Perception though is not enough. The point of it is that an organized disciplined force working in concert together in close combat perform better than less disciplined troops, that is as much a fact in close combat as it is in ranged combat. Trench fighting was far from organized and most often the discipline and training for that sort of fight was poor. Single handed close combat weapons like a trench club only outshine the bayonet in the trenches where its impossible to be organized in such a way as to exploit the bayonet's advantages.

Your comment proves your unwillingness to seriously consider this aspect of the discussion because you ignored the two main components of my response by making a puerile response.
1) That effectiveness in close combat its as much about the discipline and organization as it is the weapon
2) In a universe that is closer to fantasy than reality, where close combat is 100 times more common than a modern battlefield, basic infantry would receive training to optimize the advantage of number and organization over a less disciplined unit.

Well, I'mn going to throw in a few cents.

COD : Keep it free. I don't even use this doctrine, I see people who do, I've taken my Guard against people who do, and I'll say this, it only helps if you are intending on being assaulted, otherwise, you are jsut in trouble from template weapons, heck, even when being assaulted COD is a big risk. Watch someone using COD being assaulted and have their enemy open up on them with a flamer from the flank. It makes very short work of the unit. Fluff-wise, I do think it makes sense. If your opponent is not armed with mass fire weapons (or is not using weapons with any legitimate firepower) but are adept hand-to-hand fighters, like say the orks, then bunching up and getting ready to fight makes sense. A bare human like a guardsmen can not be a skirmisher against an ork, it just won't work. You need to overpower your opponent with either more advanced weapons or numbers. Since the Lasgun has little effect even on an ork, you don't got more advanced weapons.

The Chimera : I don't know anyone who plays guard who hasn't said that the Chimera transport was overpriced since the last two codexes came out. For a mechanized styel army it seems to do fine, but for anyone else who wants to just tack on a Chimera (as is the case with most players) the Chimera just isn't worth buying. Yes, more dakka from the bolters, increased likelyhood of pumping out 6 HB rounds a turn (similiar chances of pumping out 0 though), better FRONT armor than the Rhino, but lets face it, front armor, even when well positioned, doesn't always get used, and if you're using an anti-tank weapon (especially with setup rules as they are now) you will try to position your unit so it can nab that side armor of 10, in which case the Rhino is superior. And yes, payload DOES matter to points cost. I wouldn't be afraid of a Rhino full of equal points guard as I would be a Rhino full of equal points SM. Mobility multiplies, plain and simple.

I only see payload as a factor in the point cost when the unit that can be transported is relatively unique, like a Terminators in Land Raiders. Its an abstract variable that can not be consistent with the unit being carried. There is no mathematical evidence to show that payload is a factor of any vehicles cost beyond that of the Land Raider.

I believe the armor on the side of Chimeras should be higher than it is; just not better than the standard marine tanks.

aka_mythos wrote:There is no mathematical evidence to show that payload is a factor of any vehicles cost beyond that of the Land Raider.

There isn't any mathematical evidence, because GW doesn't use math to calculate vehicle points costs.

At least, if they do, it sure isn't based on the 3E VDR.

What points cost should equate to is some form of "dollars", as in: "the Imperium makes so many Lasguns and Flak sets, that they're effectively free compared to the cost of getting a trooper there in the first place."

or: "Chimeras are so common throughout the Imperium comapared to Rhinos and Razorbacks, that they cannot possibly cost more".


But as that isn't the case, we cost by functional utility. And that functional utility means that being able to carry Space Marines is more valuable than being able to carry Guardsmen. And being able to carry Terminators or Dreadnoughts is more valuable yet again.

Despite the notional transport space being the "same", clearly it isn't. Carrying 10 8-foot-tall superhumans clad in tank armor requires more space and sturdier flooring than what might be required to carry a dozen normal humans wearing more moderate armor. Reinforcing the flooring even further to support guys in battleship armor has even more cost. And then you bump cost again to make room for a walking tank.

aka_mythos wrote:I believe the armor on the side of Chimeras should be higher than it is; just not better than the standard marine tanks.

And I believe that the Chimera should be AV12/12, like a 4E Hellhound. Functionally, it needs to be heavier than on a Rhino or Razorback because Guardsmen aren't as survivable as Marines. So they need their heavy armor on the Tank, since they can't wear it themselves.

Does anyone have any clue what he's talking about? Does he???

Is he arguing against AV11 sides on Chimeras? Or for Marines?

I can never tell...

BYE

aka_mythos wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:I would have thought most militaries would have been smart enough to move on to shovels like Spetnaz along with Trench Clubs like WW1 Trench Raiders. After all, those are the weapons which actually worked when modern militaries moved to actual close combat... :S

Vaktathi was referring to the rarity of close combat in modern warfare. Rarity of opportunity does not diminish the viability of a tactic that is specific in its application.

You are aware that our troops also train in unarmed fighting techniques, and yet you're not clamoring for that... :S

aka_mythos wrote:The fact that it has been used even in a limited capacity is proof of that.

The very newsworthiness of the exception proves the rule. Akin to crowing about 70-year old women giving birth to sextuplets as "normal".

aka_mythos wrote:The point of it is that an organized disciplined force working in concert together in close combat perform better than less disciplined troops,

Nobody disputes that.

aka_mythos wrote:Trench fighting was far from organized and most often the discipline and training for that sort of fight was poor.

That is totally untrue. If anything, there was *more* preparation and discipline required. Trench raiders, German storm troopers / sturmpioneeren were elites and highly disciplined and trained above the ordinary guys manning the trenches. Taking a trench too considerable effort.

aka_mythos wrote:Single handed close combat weapons like a trench club only outshine the bayonet in the trenches where its impossible to be organized in such a way as to exploit the bayonet's advantages.

OK, then which is more akin to 40k warfare: bayonet-friendly combat in the open, or close-combat in cover?

aka_mythos wrote:Your comment proves your unwillingness to seriously consider this aspect of the discussion

Correct. Because it's not possible to take any 40k discussion seriously when it contains the word "bayonet".

aka_mythos wrote:because you ignored the two main components of my response by making a puerile response.

Untrue. To be honest, I considered the rest of your response unworthy of additional discussion. And as far as ignoring goes, aren't you the one who chooses to ignore the facts of "modern" close combat (i.e. last 100 years) because they don't support your position?

aka_mythos wrote:1) That effectiveness in close combat its as much about the discipline and organization as it is the weapon
2) In a universe that is closer to fantasy than reality, where close combat is 100 times more common than a modern battlefield, basic infantry would receive training to optimize the advantage of number and organization over a less disciplined unit.

The last time close combat figured heavily in anything close to the modern era was WW1. In this time, the most effective weapons were shovels and trench clubs. Trench Raiders would leave their rifles and bayonets *behind*.

In the current era, bayonet drill is more discipline and show than anything else. Most (non-American) militaries goose-step when they march. That is discipline, not practical. Or are you next going to argue that goose-stepping has some kind of in-combat utility?

I'm back to what I'm trying to pound home. Why in a world where there are all these creatures that want to rip people up in close combat would some if not all IG not receive close combat training that brings out their numerical advantage?

If the modern military were fighting in wars where they knew they'd be engaged in close combat in every battle they'd use bayonets or equally worthwhile close combat tactics. The fact that it is rare to see that sort of close combat in a modern fight does not mean that if constantly forced into close combat with every engagement they'd just throw their hand up in the air. My point is if the modern military still sees it as being beneficial to train bayonet and close combat skill when few enemies engage in that way then when they're placed in a setting where the enemy actively tries to engage in that type of fighting they would have actively prepared for it.

Hand to hand fight, martial arts, shovels and clubs are nice and all in close combat but those are what represent the normal single attack of a guardsmen. COD is representing an extended close combat ability that accentuates numerical advantage and the superiority of the IG.

COD is the IG attempt to impose order and organization to the mad and mostly disorganized brawl that close combat would otherwise represent to the IG command.

aka_mythos wrote:Hand to hand fight, martial arts, shovels and clubs are nice and all in close combat but those are what represent the normal single attack of a guardsmen. COD is representing an extended close combat ability that accentuates numerical advantage and the superiority of the IG.

Bingo. Couldn't have put it better myself.

BYE

I'm just going to quickly point out all the logical fallacies and dishonest debating tactics that our good friend DD is guilty of here.

JohnHwangDD wrote:You are aware that our troops also train in unarmed fighting techniques, and yet you're not clamoring for that... :S

Red Herring. Boarderline Strawman.

JohnHwangDD wrote:The very newsworthiness of the exception proves the rule. Akin to crowing about 70-year old women giving birth to sextuplets as "normal".

False analogy.

JohnHwangDD wrote:OK, then which is more akin to 40k warfare: bayonet-friendly combat in the open, or close-combat in cover?

Burden of proof.

Mythos is arguing what already exists within the game and the fluff. He doesn't have to prove what already exists. You have to prove otherwise DD.

JohnHwangDD wrote:Correct. Because it's not possible to take any 40k discussion seriously when it contains the word "bayonet".

*checks Guard models*

Wow! Look how many Guard models have a bayonette DD! Heaps of them!!

You fail.

Again.

JohnHwangDD wrote:Untrue. To be honest, I considered the rest of your response unworthy of additional discussion.

Ad hominem.
Changing the rules mid-argument.

JohnHwangDD wrote:And as far as ignoring goes, aren't you the one who chooses to ignore the facts of "modern" close combat (i.e. last 100 years) because they don't support your position?

Begging the question.
Strawman.

40K combat involves men armed with swords and fixed bayonette charges. Nothing DD says will change this, so he is attempting to skew things off course with meaningless nonsense.

JohnHwangDD wrote:The last time close combat figured heavily in anything close to the modern era was WW1. In this time, the most effective weapons were shovels and trench clubs. Trench Raiders would leave their rifles and bayonets *behind*.

Red Herring.

This has nothing to do with Guardsmen, who are shown to, in opposition to this, use their rifles and their bayonettes. Those not using these weapons, either have special/heavy weapons, or swords.

JohnHwangDD wrote:In the current era, bayonet drill is more discipline and show than anything else. Most (non-American) militaries goose-step when they march. That is discipline, not practical. Or are you next going to argue that goose-stepping has some kind of in-combat utility?

Red Herring.
OJ Simpson Defence (ie. post so much so quickly forcing your opponent to fight on your terms rather than you, yourself proving or disproving innocence).

And once again, none of this has anything to do with Guardsmen.

BYE

It seems to me that you can go pound sand all day long, and it still won't make any sense.

If the modern military were fighting wars with lots of close combat, they won't screw around with bayonets, that's for sure. They'll all be issued either shovels (weighted axes, really) or clubs, because those are the kinds of weapons that actually work. If the enemy is heavily-armored, they'll take a page from the middle ages and move on to pole arms or pick-axes, again, because that is what actually works.

My point is that you continue to focus on the stupid (*BAYONET* drill) part of the training, rather than the smart (bayonet *DRILL*) point of the training. The modern military sees no particular benefit in bayonet drill separate from marching *DRILL* or hand-to-hand combat *DRILL*, so it is foolish to consider it material.

Those modern militaries which actually do focus on close combat with weapons to actually kill people train in useful things like shovels (i.e. Spetsnaz). The rest of the militaries that train in Close Quarter Battles focus on things like pistols.

And even when you get around to bayonet training, they aren't practicing actually fighting that way as something like a pike square, because a modern rifle with a bayonet isn't long enough to really be useful this way (an M-16 is about 40" long; add a bayonet, and it's still less than 4' total length. Newsflash, but even a short fighting spear would be at least 6' long, and a proper pike would be far longer yet again. So really, you're better off swinging your rifle like a club...

Way back in the Napoleonic times, when troops were armed with 5' muskets and bayonets were 1.5' long, the total length is pretty comparable to things like Halberds which actually were in use.


So if you're pretending that the IG are somehow rational, when no other army in 40k is rational, then you should conclude that that IG won't waste time on close combat training because "sucking a little bit less" is still sucking. If bayonets aren't particularly useful for fighting against other lightly-armored humans, then they won't be useful for fighting against heavily-armored superhumans, giant walking fungi, space elves, or giant bugs.

And quite frankly, the very notion that IG shoudn't simply roll over and die in HtH is quite distateful to me. The typical Guardsman should be distinctly inferior in HtH, in every way, shape, and form. They're just humans, and any notion of their ability to impose "order" in HtH against distinctly superior opponents is laughable at best.

Apropos:

JohnHwangDD wrote:It seems to me that you can go pound sand all day long, and it still won't make any sense.

That's kinda what talking to you feels like DD. Were you attempting to be funny there, or are you just unintentionally ironic?

BYE

JohnHwangDD wrote:If the modern military were fighting wars with lots of close combat, they won't screw around with bayonets, that's for sure. They'll all be issued either shovels (weighted axes, really) or clubs, because those are the kinds of weapons that actually work. If the enemy is heavily-armored, they'll take a page from the middle ages and move on to pole arms or pick-axes, again, because that is what actually works.

The advantage of a bayonet over alternative weapons is that minimizes the dead weight. It utilizes what a soldier already has to carry without adding to it. While a pole arm would be more useful as a spear in close combat the soldier would benefit to the exclusion from close combat. Once again though anything other than a pole arm or bayonet would be covered in the basic single guardsmen attack.

Obviously the GW designer believed it to be a viable ability and tactic in the 40k universe or it wouldn't have been included.

JohnHwangDD wrote:
My point is that you continue to focus on the stupid (*BAYONET* drill) part of the training, rather than the smart (bayonet *DRILL*) point of the training. The modern military sees no particular benefit in bayonet drill separate from marching *DRILL* or hand-to-hand combat *DRILL*, so it is foolish to consider it material.

Please clarify the distinction of stupid bayonet drills and smart bayonet drills.

The reason modern militaries continue to utilize bayonets is for a number of reason:
-effectiveness as a weapon for guards to oversee and coral prisoners as well as for crowd control
-effectiveness of training in building upper body strength
-effectiveness of the bayonet as a weapon of last resort

JohnHwangDD wrote:
Those modern militaries which actually do focus on close combat with weapons to actually kill people train in useful things like shovels (i.e. Spetsnaz). The rest of the militaries that train in Close Quarter Battles focus on things like pistols.

Close Quarters Battles are not the same as close combat. Close quarter battles as a military terms implies a short ranged combat, that can occur from a short stand off range and in to hand to hand combat. In 40k terms it would be the last 6" between two units, charge into assault is not a guarantee but highly probable. The focus of CQB is to violently take down an enemy before they have the opportunity to kill you or engage in hand to hand. This is why the emphasis by western militaries is pistols and other short ranged ranged take down weapons.

JohnHwangDD wrote:
And even when you get around to bayonet training, they aren't practicing actually fighting that way as something like a pike square, because a modern rifle with a bayonet isn't long enough to really be useful this way (an M-16 is about 40" long; add a bayonet, and it's still less than 4' total length. Newsflash, but even a short fighting spear would be at least 6' long, and a proper pike would be far longer yet again. So really, you're better off swinging your rifle like a club...

A lasgun based on its size relative to a guardsmen's height is 5ft long, with a bayonet its 6ft. Also COD is a squad based tactic and not a platoon wide tactic, it is only utilized on a squad to squad basis, unlike a pike square.

JohnHwangDD wrote:
So if you're pretending that the IG are somehow rational, when no other army in 40k is rational, then you should conclude that that IG won't waste time on close combat training because "sucking a little bit less" is still sucking. If bayonets aren't particularly useful for fighting against other lightly-armored humans, then they won't be useful for fighting against heavily-armored superhumans, giant walking fungi, space elves, or giant bugs.

It is not any sort of superiority of rationale; all armies in the 40k have a rationale of some sort and they excel in that area. The rationale is that IG would exploit their numbers and command organization. The bayonet is a weapon that has historically shown its worth against humans, but it is a weapon with a specific use and advantage that are of minimal consequence in modern warfare. It is the specific scenario in which those advantages excel that made it of benefit historically and it is those same situations present in the 40k universe and its close combat centric nature.

The simplicity of the rationale is this, guardsmen has big knife, guardsmen has 5ft long lasgun... hey look you put it together and throw in a couple of extra days of training while traveling through the warp and with a minimal amount of resources you've improved combat performance in area where the IG tradionally suffer.

JohnHwangDD wrote:
And quite frankly, the very notion that IG shoudn't simply roll over and die in HtH is quite distateful to me. The typical Guardsman should be distinctly inferior in HtH, in every way, shape, and form. They're just humans, and any notion of their ability to impose "order" in HtH against distinctly superior opponents is laughable at best.

Humans have always attempted to impose order in close combat and the ones who impose it best are the ones who succeed. Organized melees were the focus of combat till the advent of machine guns and explosives, but in the case of the 40k universe not everyone uses those things in preference to close combat. I by no means think a guardsmen is going to just roll over and die but that same rationale of survival is why I would believe the IG would take the pragmatic approach of utilizing their provided gear and historically based tactics to exploit their advantage. It might not be a big advantage, but it can make a difference.

aka_mythos wrote:I'm not trying to nail down a true point cost in my analysis, I was making comparisons to the most similar vehicles to produce a range of costs based on relatively similar units.

Then in that case, we can ignore the Predator entirely.

aka_mythos wrote:Previously I said an AV12/12 is worth between 60 and 65pts in 5E, not an AV12/11 which I said would cost in approximately 10 points less.

And I'm saying that you're wrong, and that your points costs are much too high in both cases. And at the end, you're suggesting *exactly* 15 points less for AV12/11.

aka_mythos wrote:All arguments on comparisons to rhinos and razorbacks aside comparing your proposal for a chimera to a predator creates a unit that is only a marginal step below a predator but only 2/3rds the cost. I would love to be able to field that many predator equivalent tanks but I'd feel like dirt because it's a bit broken.

To get a Chimera, you need to spend 50+ pts on Guardsmen, because it is a Dedicated Transport. You don't get to buy a Chimera by itself, like a Predator. You must always buy Guardsmen first, like a Razorback or Rhino.

But I suppose we could equalize the Chimera points cost at 60 pts. Hell, we could even charge 70 pts for a Chimera. However, we'd have to lower the cost of Guardsmen down to around 30 pts per squad in the former, 20 pts per squad in the latter.

And the result of doing so would make Chimeras unfieldable compared to foot-slogging or Deep-Striking Guardsmen of any type. Nobody is going to pay 60 or 70 pts for a Chimera when you can buy more than another full squad of Guardsmen with full weapons upgrades. Proportionally, you take the Guard a step backwards with this kind of thinking, as today, a Guard squad is roughly comparable in cost to a Chimera.

Any rational Chimera costing needs the Chimera to cost noticeably less than the Guardsmen within, because the Guard should be about the Guardsmen, not their Transports.

So I say, 45-50 pts for the Guardsmen, and 40 pts for the Chimera. This gives an appropriate total points cost per mech unit, and doesn't unduly bias against Mech Guard compared to footsloggers or Drop Troops.

aka_mythos wrote:On a fluff level I find it hard to believe that IG officers would consider guardsmen as being worth a level of protection superior to what marines have.

Marines have AV14/14/14 Land Raiders, and nobody is suggesting that Guardsmen have that level of protection available to them.

aka_mythos wrote:I think its a bit of circular logic for you to qualify a chimera as a medium tank because you have given it AV12 on the side.

Except, in 3E and 4E, for most intents and purposes, the Chimera was effectively AV12/12 because you could control which facing the opponent shot at, so you could limit them to shooting at the AV12 front instead of the AV10 sides. Also, because Chimeras never moved forward, but simply operated as an AV12 pillbox.

All of the forward-moving activity was done by AV12/12 Hellhounds, AV14/12 Russes, or AV14/13 Demolishers. Interestingly, all of these vehicles have AV12+ sides. Imagine that.

aka_mythos wrote:The panzer was a medium tank do you really believe something akin to that would be assigned to many squads. I'm all for making the Chimera more worthwhile, but I'm not out for a steal.

Standard US Doctrine assigns a Bradley to our mech brigades for heavy combat. The combat protection of a Bradley is very high. Much higher than something like a LAV. I'd say that a Bradley is like an AV12/12 Chimera.

The Israelis take this to an even higher level, converting their older Merkava I & II MBTs into Ambulances and APCs. So when you look at infantry protection in a very hostile environment, I think the Israeli example speaks for itself.

aka_mythos wrote:With all the disadvantages of a Razorback and the advantages of your AV12/12 chimera, their is no way they can be equal. I mean if we're going to take into consideration abstract negative costs, what about the fact that a 6 man marine squad can't take any special or heavy weapons that's got to be worth a couple negative points.

Except, that's not what the Codex says. The Codex simply says they can take their choice of Rhino or Razorback. So what you should be nothing is that a 10-man Marine squad with Heavy and Special can take a Razorback, leaving the 5 guys with the Heavy to stay put and provide cover fire, while the Sergeant and Special hop a ride in the Razorback. On net, the Marines have clearly superior options, because they don't have to be exactly 10 men, and if they are, they still have access to the Razorback, and they even have Combat Squads as icing on the cake.

aka_mythos wrote:By your system marine rhino is 35pts, sisters of battle rhino 30pts?

By GW's system, SM Rhino is 35 pts, which sets the reference point for everything else in the game. But if we were doing "exact" points, and pretended that Sisters at 11 pts were as fair as Marines at 16 pts (the Sisters are actually slightly under-points relative to 16-pt Marines), then I might price the Sisters Rhino at 33 or 34 pts, or split hairs even finer at 33.5 pts. However, because the 5-pt increments on which Rhino prices are set means that you can't make a price difference here. So a Sisters Rhino is also worth the same 35 pts when you round the prices to 5-pt increments.

aka_mythos wrote:Or how about a landraider and a Grey Knight landraider, grey knight terminators are that much more powerful than standard terminators, should their landraider be 270pts instead?

Except, Grey Knight Terminators with are *not* more powerful than standard Terminators. Or rather, 46-pt GK Termies with a 60+ pt Captain are not better than 40-pt Assault Terminators with paired Lightning Claws (the Assault Terminators are better against both MEQs *and* GEQs...). And certainly not when points are considered.

aka_mythos wrote:I still say 45-50pts for AV12/11 two heavy bolters.

Um, didn't you say approximately 10 points less than 60-65?

aka_mythos wrote:Obviously the GW designer believed it to be a viable ability and tactic in the 40k universe or it wouldn't have been included.

As a random thing that only exists in IG4, with Doctrines to be phased out in the next Codex? Or as something more meaningful?

If you have the old 40k3-era WDs with the Q&A letters column, the GW designers put the kibosh on IG Bayonets being actually deserving of bonus rules. But hey, far be it for me to contradict GW's actual statements on the topic.

aka_mythos wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:
My point is that you continue to focus on the stupid (*BAYONET* drill) part of the training, rather than the smart (bayonet *DRILL*) point of the training. The modern military sees no particular benefit in bayonet drill separate from marching *DRILL* or hand-to-hand combat *DRILL*, so it is foolish to consider it material.

Please clarify the distinction of stupid bayonet drills and smart bayonet drills.

Please don't be deliberately obtuse. I believe the *EMPHASIS* above to be exceptionally clear.

aka_mythos wrote:Close Quarters Battles are not the same as close combat. Close quarter battles as a military terms implies a short ranged combat, that can occur from a short stand off range and in to hand to hand combat.

In 40k, one would assume them to be the same, based on the scale of the game.

aka_mythos wrote:A lasgun based on its size relative to a guardsmen's height is 5ft long, with a bayonet its 6ft.

A lasgun based on its side relative to a Guardsman's height is also has a cross section larger than a 4x4... I don't think you should read anything into the specific scaling of the 40k weapons on models.

aka_mythos wrote:It is not any sort of superiority of rationale; all armies in the 40k have a rationale of some sort and they excel in that area.

In the case of IG, I take that to be their pie-throwing tanks.

aka_mythos wrote: The rationale is that IG would exploit their numbers and command organization.

Then give them free Vox, instead! Something that scales with their numbers and accentuates their command in all phases of the game. :S

aka_mythos wrote:The simplicity of the rationale is this, guardsmen has big knife, guardsmen has 5ft long lasgun... hey look you put it together and throw in a couple of extra days of training while traveling through the warp and with a minimal amount of resources you've improved combat performance in area where the IG tradionally suffer.

So I take it you'd be willing to pay at least 10 pts per unit for this abilty, to the exclusion of something useful like Carapace or Cameoline? OK.

aka_mythos wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:They're just humans, and any notion of their ability to impose "order" in HtH against distinctly superior opponents is laughable at best.

Humans have always attempted to impose order in close combat and the ones who impose it best are the ones who succeed.

And as we're talking about Guard, they're going to fail and die in the process. So why bother spending the points?

JohnHwangDD wrote:Then in that case, we can ignore the Predator entirely.

At Av12/12/10 with 2 heavy bolters the Chimera would have more in common with a Predator than a Rhino. Which is the issue I have with your proposal.

JohnHwangDD wrote:

aka_mythos wrote:Previously I said an AV12/12 is worth between 60 and 65pts in 5E, not an AV12/11 which I said would cost in approximately 10 points less.

And I'm saying that you're wrong, and that your points costs are much too high in both cases. And at the end, you're suggesting *exactly* 15 points less for AV12/11.

Well you misrepresented what I said and I was correcting you. You had said that my view was Av12/11 at 65 pts, when I had said AV12/11 at 50-55pts. This was a correction of a misstated fact. I stated one thing and you misstated it, so I was just correcting your misstatement.

JohnHwangDD wrote:
But I suppose we could equalize the Chimera points cost at 60 pts. Hell, we could even charge 70 pts for a Chimera. However, we'd have to lower the cost of Guardsmen down to around 30 pts per squad in the former, 20 pts per squad in the latter.

What basis is there to do that? Unit point cost are provided for individual units, unit entries for Chimeras and Guardsmen are separate and have no overlap in costing.

JohnHwangDD wrote:
Any rational Chimera costing needs the Chimera to cost noticeably less than the Guardsmen within, because the Guard should be about the Guardsmen, not their Transports

While I can agree with the sentiment, I believe a unit capabilities should impact the cost first and foremost. I believe that the Chimera at AV12/11 with 2 heavy bolters is as at least as effective as 2/3rds of a Fire Support squad armed with Heavy Bolters, which is 53.3pts, if not more. Av12/11 is still better than the Rhino and at 55pts costs less than a basic IG squad.

JohnHwangDD wrote:

aka_mythos wrote:I would love to be able to field that many predator equivalent tanks but I'd feel like dirt because it's a bit broken. On a fluff level I find it hard to believe that IG officers would consider guardsmen as being worth a level of protection superior to what marines have.

Marines have AV14/14/14 Land Raiders, and nobody is suggesting that Guardsmen have that level of protection available to them.

I guess you can't read the fact I was talking about predator levels of armor.

JohnHwangDD wrote:

aka_mythos wrote:I think its a bit of circular logic for you to qualify a chimera as a medium tank because you have given it AV12 on the side.

Except, in 3E and 4E, for most intents and purposes, the Chimera was effectively AV12/12 because you could control which facing the opponent shot at, so you could limit them to shooting at the AV12 front instead of the AV10 sides. Also, because Chimeras never moved forward, but simply operated as an AV12 pillbox.

Your arguments for why do not diminish the circuitousness of your initial argument.

I have played several games with my mechanized guard in 5th Ed and I've never taken a shot to my side armor before turn 3, at which point my troops are where they need to go. Transport vehicles are not about being blunt instruments of war, they require finesse; my chimeras move up flanked by better vehicles, just like transport vehicles are suppose to.

JohnHwangDD wrote:

aka_mythos wrote:The panzer was a medium tank do you really believe something akin to that would be assigned to many squads. I'm all for making the Chimera more worthwhile, but I'm not out for a steal.

Standard US Doctrine assigns a Bradley to our mech brigades for heavy combat. The combat protection of a Bradley is very high. Much higher than something like a LAV. I'd say that a Bradley is like an AV12/12 Chimera.

The Bradley is made of the same grade and thickness of Aluminum as the M113; the only improvement over the M113 were improved armor to the underside to protect against mines and the addition of ablative and eventually reactive armor and a steel armored skirt. In the case of the added ablative and reactive armor it was only added more than a decade after the vehicles initial implementation. In game terms the ablative and reactive armor are considered "extra armor" and the armored skirt "track guards."

JohnHwangDD wrote:

aka_mythos wrote:I still say 45-50pts for AV12/11 two heavy bolters.

Um, didn't you say approximately 10 points less than 60-65?

Yeah... sorry about that, I appreciate the fact check. Should read 50-55pts for AV12/11 with two heavy bolters. Its easy to make little mistakes at 4:00AM.

JohnHwangDD wrote:

aka_mythos wrote:Obviously the GW designer believed it to be a viable ability and tactic in the 40k universe or it wouldn't have been included.

As a random thing that only exists in IG4, with Doctrines to be phased out in the next Codex? Or as something more meaningful?
If you have the old 40k3-era WDs with the Q&A letters column, the GW designers put the kibosh on IG Bayonets being actually deserving of bonus rules. But hey, far be it for me to contradict GW's actual statements on the topic.

I do sir, I have all WD from the 320s back to issue 114. I will point out different rules different edition. 3rd edition was about a refined rule set to simplify the complexity of 2nd ed. While 4th was more about adding as many options as possible to allow people to create more flavorful forces. 4th ed superseded 3rd, so anything back that far has little input as we shift from 4th to 5th edition. With 5th GW is taking a lot of those flavorful elements and integrating them directly into units, a refinement of choices.

JohnHwangDD wrote:

aka_mythos wrote:Close Quarters Battles are not the same as close combat. Close quarter battles as a military terms implies a short ranged combat, that can occur from a short stand off range and in to hand to hand combat.

In 40k, one would assume them to be the same, based on the scale of the game.

As I pointed out CQB is predominantly about ranged combat in close quarters, with closing enemies. In 40k you can be up to 2" away from an enemy unit and still shoot, these are the sort of ranges CQB is really dealing with. Its the fuzzy space before getting into hand to hand.

JohnHwangDD wrote:

aka_mythos wrote: The rationale is that IG would exploit their numbers and command organization.

Then give them free Vox, instead! Something that scales with their numbers and accentuates their command in all phases of the game.

I already said I agreed that free Vox was a good idea. I'm not really arguing for COD as being the end all option, just that it has a validity to it being in the 4th ed codex.

JohnHwangDD wrote:

aka_mythos wrote:The simplicity of the rationale is this, guardsmen has big knife, guardsmen has 5ft long lasgun... hey look you put it together and throw in a couple of extra days of training while traveling through the warp and with a minimal amount of resources you've improved combat performance in area where the IG tradionally suffer.

So I take it you'd be willing to pay at least 10 pts per unit for this abilty, to the exclusion of something useful like Carapace or Cameoline? OK.

No, because it has an inherent trade off. It gives bonuses if you take a formation but you get blown up easily. Asking me to pay 10pts for this ability is like me asking you to pay 10pts for carapace armor if carapace armor also made you "move as through difficult terrain". No one would pay extra for a positive and negative effect where they at best break even.

I'm reading a lot of smoke being blown around. If we want to make an arguement of reality vs. WH40k, then assaults would barely EVER happen. The main reason these sorts of attacks went out of style after the American Civil War is because of rapid fire and increased accuracy weapons. Last time I checked the fluff and rules, WH40k has rapid fire and high accuracy weapons. So if I were a Guardsmen in the 41st millenium, and a mob of Orks was baring down on me, and I was the squad HB gunner, I'd find it a good moment to clamp down on that trigger and not let up until every greenskin was mowed down. In the books and fluff, this is usually how the IG defeat orks. Any other time, the IG gets clobbered (the phase where the Guardsmen would be banging out rapid fire is typically skipped). Yes, the lasgun is, ruleswise, woefully underpowered, but fluff-wise, is plenty powerful to engage most opponents (except for CSM and sometimes Orks and Tyranids, depending on the author).

From my experience in the military, bayonet training comes in for two reasons; discipline, and last resort. If you are in a situation where your life comes down to six-eight inches of hardened steel buckled onto the end of your empty rifle, having even just a single day's worth of training is vastly superior to having had no training at all. To my recollection, we actually spent half a week exclusively on bayonet training, and about two weeks worth of time on hand-to-hand, plus every Saterday morning at our advanced training schools.

While I don't agree that WWI style combat should be the base idea for the Imperial Guard, the fact of the matter is that Assaults are here to stay in WH40K, and if the IG don't get something to help them out, then they are going to be one of the most broken armies in the game (if they aren't already).

My wishlist for assaults in the IG would be the option to allow "Assault Platoons," which is basically just a platoon armed with laspistol and CCW. I don't think doctrines should be done platoon by platoon, as that doesn't fit with the fluff of the IG, however having specialized platoons does. Perhaps switching out the HW squads from HQ and dropping them in as a HW platoons (with a command section and at least two squads with three to five specialized/heavy weapons) would be a good way to help fill out the typically under used troops section in non-mechanized armies. Then cheapening up the Techpriest, allowing more in a unit and putting them in the HQ section and allowing them to take a transport. This makes more sense and also makes them useful. Next would be making the Veterans squads able to be a platoon with a veteran command squad. Last, cheapen up Ogryns and perhaps beef up their armor to 4+ (you'd think a big guy like an Ogryn could take the extra weight).

I do not want to IG to NOT be given the option of being a shooty army, this works well for many people (who are skilled enough to pull it off) but the option to defend themselves or even go on the assault would be great, and would definitely bring new gamers and even veteran gamers over towards the IG side more often.

Warhammer 40,000 is less of a Science Fiction game, and more of a Science Fantasy.

Those familiar with it's earliest incarnations will be familiar enough with the concepts of 'Space Dwarves, Elves and Orks' long before they garnered new, more futuristic names.

As for the Imperial Guard, it really doesn't matter what you feel it is or should be. It is established in the background that the Imperium is made up of Planets in wildly varying states of technological advancement. Some are positively Pre-Historic, others (shortly before the Adeptus Mechanicus throw a fit and flatten it) have Technology levels outstripping even Mars.

Because of this, different Regiments will have different Tactics and Strategies. There are Billions up Billions of Soldiers in the Imperial Guard, with Thousands of Home Worlds. Because of this, an individuals perception of what the Guard are/should be is at once completely correct, and utterly wrong.

The Doctrines were a nice idea, as they allowed players to tailor the Guard list to their view of how the force should work. Sadly, Hobbyists have fallen by the way side, and the second any kind of flavour is offered in a Codex, the cretinous Number Crunchers crawl out of their hiding places and immediately set about rubbishing some and lauding others, purely based on an imagine notion of efficiency. Thus, we Hobbyists who see things like 'Oooh. Warrior Weapons and that' and decide to raise a Regiment of our own design with a more primitive approach to War fall by the wayside, trampled by those purely in search of a cheap win.

I'd stop short of calling those who want effective lists as people out looking for a 'cheap win' Grotsnik. People who play this game with the aim to win are no less 'hobbyists' than you - they just like a different aspect of it.

And efficiancy is not imagined. Only cheese is imagined.

BYE

I am sorry, but why can we not have both? Why can we not have flavor, and competitiveness? That was the whole point of this thread? Would primitive world warrior weapons sqauds be cool? Absolutly. Would they be chrushed vs any other list. Yes they would. Ok so how would you balance them? What is the fair price for a guardsman with ccw and las pistol? How would you price them vs ork boys, or Space marines for that matter?

Depends entirely on what you have to sacrifice.

Orks don't get the Tanks and Artillery IG do. Or you could just accept that many items and options are there to provide some variation and fun for gamers less inclined towards Tournament and Competitive play.

foil7102 wrote:I am sorry, but why can we not have both? Why can we not have flavor, and competitiveness? That was the whole point of this thread? Would primitive world warrior weapons squads be cool? Absolutely. Would they be crushed vs any other list? Yes they would, O.K. so how would you balance them? What is the fair price for a guardsman with C.C.W and laspistol? How would you price them vs ork boys, or Space marines for that matter?

Thank you for getting this thread back on track.

To answer you question, Guards Men should be numerous, cheap, and expendable.

I refer back to my original suggestion and build a Codex based on the four core concepts of the guard army. They could be competitive and fluff. A win-win.

Four Core Concepts?

An uncaring Military Machine that is capable of winning by literally drowing the enemy in a tide of it's own Warrior's blood. A fighting force where discipline is meted out from the end of a Pistol? One based entirely on lying to the men lest they figure out just how unlikely their continued survival is?

It's a Science Fantasy game, for crying out loud. If you, or indeed anyone, is upset by an apparent lack of realism, there are wargames out there which cater to realism to the Nth degree you might get on better with.

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:Four Core Concepts?

An uncaring Military Machine that is capable of winning by literally drowing the enemy in a tide of it's own Warrior's blood. A fighting force where discipline is meted out from the end of a Pistol? One based entirely on lying to the men lest they figure out just how unlikely their continued survival is?

It's a Science Fantasy game, for crying out loud. If you, or indeed anyone, is upset by an apparent lack of realism, there are wargames out there which cater to realism to the Nth degree you might get on better with.

WTF, What's your problem? I don't think I ever said I wanted more realism or asked for it. I like my space opera, thank you very much.

Did you even bother to read my previous posts?

Here let me help you. This is what I posted before.

When ever I look at the IG I have always though that the concept of doctrines was neat idea if poorly handled.

A top down redesign of the guard would be nice with a focus more on themes. I have always seen IG being fielded in certian configurations.

1) Ground Infantry - IG on foot with either artillery or air support support.

2) Mechanzied Infantry - Focus on Tanks and Armored Personal Carriers

3) Airborne Infantry- Focus on Drop Troops, Drop Ships, & Gunship Deployed IG

4) Special Forces - Focus on IG Elite Units

Any IG Codex needs to be able to flexible enough to allow you to field any of the above. Which it does now but currently makes some builds hard to field or not very effective. I think you can simplify doctrines by combine then in the four above. How you would do that I am not sure.

You pick one and build your army around that theme or doctrine

Other Changes that I would like to see

1) Drop the Baskilsk, This is more suited for Apoc

2) Bring Back the Griffon Mortar.

3) Bring back the tarantula, the rapier, the thud gun, and the mole mortar.

4) Allow the option for IG to take Rhinos instead of Chimeras (I wish GW had never brought this out. the rhino was just fine)

5) Allow Dropships and Gunships for the IG

Things I can wish for but will NEVER see.

1) Proper Penal Legion

2) Human Bombs

3) IG Robots and Dreadnaughts

4) IG Bike Squads

5) IG Beastmen Regiments

@Eli :

We now have five pages of mostly good sized-large posts. I read the first couple pages and bridged through the rest. Perhaps Grotsnik was refering to others like DD or maybe even myself to a slight degree (I am not championing realism by intent, just trying to dispell how some aspects can be realistic).

I would agree with HBMC, except that there is a difference between Hobbyists and "cheap win" players. Those sorts of "cheap win" players are called "gamers." And yes, there are a lot of them in WH40K. The thing about most GW games and products is that it is a melding of gamers and hobbyists. A hobbyist is interested in making detailed and entertaining models (and/or scenarios in hte game as well), gamers are intent on winning, stream lining their armies for maximum effect. I am not saying you can not be a hobbyist and still be a gamer, there are plenty of examples of them as well. I, too, believe that an army that won't work or won't be fun to play, even if it is extremely fluffy and entertaining to think about, is not really going to be worth building for those of us who can't afford either the funds or the time to make such an army we don't feel will be fun to play on the board. This is the major discussion here.

It is already known how to help the IG increase their likelyhood of victory in the current codex, the optimum forces are already built. However, this pretty much boils down to a handfull of different strategies and army make-ups. So few in fact, they can be listed as two; Mechanized and Infantry. Either high numbers of tanks and mechanized infantry or just total out model clogging force. Sure, there are plenty of variations and some tuning here and there, but for the most part they are the same, and deviating from those lists is mostly a hinderance.

Making a better Codex will allow more flexibility in the lists, more fluff for the IG gamers, more sales of different troops for GW's hungry maw, and overall a more interesting army to play. There will be, of course, optimum forces and idealolgies, but it should be the skill of the player to be able to overcome such forces with niche units and pinache, subtlety and skill. These forces would also have their weaknesses to other tactics and force organizations, or just plain terrain and luck.

Essentially, more variety will create a better Guard. In my opinion at least.

foil7102 wrote:I am sorry, but why can we not have both? Why can we not have flavor, and competitiveness? That was the whole point of this thread? Would primitive world warrior weapons sqauds be cool? Absolutly. Would they be chrushed vs any other list. Yes they would. Ok so how would you balance them? What is the fair price for a guardsman with ccw and las pistol? How would you price them vs ork boys, or Space marines for that matter?

I am sorry for the Gigantor posts.

I agree competitiveness and flavor together would be great, and we should have our cake and eat it too. I guess its most important to to determine the flavor you want and then grounded in the reality of the setting determine the best way to portray it without going too far.

Warrior weapons are cool, and they make sense. I personally feel the fair price to be between 0 and 1 point per model. Pricing is going to be based on the relative gain the unit has over the same unit without it. Lasgun, or laspistol and close combat weapon, they're all strength 3. Unit armed standard will get 3-4 shots per model off by the time a warrior weapon model gets One. In close combat a standard guardsmen will only have One attack in close combat (no charging for rapid fire), warrior weapon guardsman would have 2 attacks (3 if he charges). You're looking at 3-4 Str 3 shots and 1 Str 3 close combat attack versus 1 Str 3 shot and 2-3 Str 3 close combat attacks. This is a pretty even trade off, strategically though most armies have better initiative and a bunch of those close combat attacks will never happen.

The trend in 5th edition is that they are taking the flavorful option of 4th edition that worked then and are building them into units directly. The other trend is the general reduction in options as a side affect of the first trend. With the Codex Space Marines they seem to be compensating for the lack of options by giving more units to choose from.

Skinnattittar wrote:It is already known how to help the IG increase their likelyhood of victory in the current codex, the optimum forces are already built. However, this pretty much boils down to a handfull of different strategies and army make-ups. So few in fact, they can be listed as two; Mechanized and Infantry. Either high numbers of tanks and mechanized infantry or just total out model clogging force. Sure, there are plenty of variations and some tuning here and there, but for the most part they are the same, and deviating from those lists is mostly a hinderance.

Making a better Codex will allow more flexibility in the lists, more fluff for the IG gamers, more sales of different troops for GW's hungry maw, and overall a more interesting army to play. There will be, of course, optimum forces and idealolgies, but it should be the skill of the player to be able to overcome such forces with niche units and pinache, subtlety and skill. These forces would also have their weaknesses to other tactics and force organizations, or just plain terrain and luck.

I agree with this sentiment. IG are rather limited to their overall army wide variations. The trick though is in what ways the IG can improve without losing their character. One of the characters of the IG is the general weakness in stats of their basic guardsmen. I play mechanized guard and armies still struggle to work through the number of models I'm fielding, which is why I have an aversion to making guardsmen cheaper. This brings us back in some way to the matter of how do improve the IG without increasing their cost or their stats too drastically. In 4th it was doctrines and the now the question is in 5th what will it be?

Actually doctrines came out in 3rd edition. Anyone who says the Guard codex was ready for 4th is a damn liar! It is true that the intent was that the IG codex would be the first ready for 4th edition. However, the number and type of changes they made from 3rd to 4th after the current IG codex was cemented and the limited amount of play testing made the IG codex woefully unprepared for 4th, leaving it in a sort of limbo or purgatory.

I think the next codex should be able to allow IG players to reduce the number of models on the field, not so much to remove the distinctive Guard feel, but to make it easier for the more active playing that is becoming more common and expected of assault driven play, as well as allowing more tactics of flank and maneuver. This would mean making higher points units more stationary (by either increasing their number of HWs or the lethality of these weapons) to take up points cost effectively while bunching units into transports (which need to be improved or given more variety) so they can move around the battlefield.

Ogryns come to mind, but their current points cost makes them too valuable to actually use, since they get diced up so easily. So either improving their armor, toughness, or making them resistant to instant death and/or rending so a single powerful hit doesn't take down your 25pt model (or worse a number of 25pt models as is usually the case). Perhaps mixing in "handlers" for the Ogryns to the squad so that they can sop up some of the wounds while moving into and during an assault. Ogryns could reduce the number of models on the field with a modile army.

Even though the IG codex came out in third most people consider the current IG codex to be 4th edition because it set a lot of the tone for 4th edition as far as codex design goes. Its the same way Chaos, Orks, Daemons are seen as being 5th ed even though they came out before.

The maneuvering thing is such a downside to IG and mob armies in general. I think the number of models the average IG army has is about right, the armies shouldn't get any larger, one reason I'm opposed to overly cheap guard. I think as it is there exist several ways to reduce the number of models on the table. Things like "Grenadiers" or taking an abundance of doctrines reduce the number of fielded models. The vehicle options are shaping up to be an interesting thing for IG, with rumors of a high number of tank options, and tank squadrons.

Ogryn I think exemplify the problem with IG overall, we have units that are suppose to be powerful relative to a guardsmen but aren't all that great overall and end up overpriced.

Chaos is not a 5th Edition Codex. Chaos isn't even a Codex...

BYE

What about this special rule for imperial guard?

Live to fight another day:
Units that leave the table either by falling back, voluntary movement, or are off the table waiting to deep strike at the end of the game do not count as destroyed when calculating kill points or VP's.

Fluff rationalization: Due to the size and nature of the imperial guard, damaged units are easily brought back up to full strenght, either through combining damaged squads, adding white shields, joining regiments, or even conscripting local PDF. As a result squads that escape the battlefield with valuable experience fighting the enemy are soon back into the fight.

Game Help: Makes putting your squads right on the table edge, and risky deep strikes a little less deadly. Automatically denies your opponent points and lets you "strategically withdraw" Heck we are humans after all, not 10 foot engineered killing machines. We can retreat from time to time. I think a good counter balace would be to really up power the commisar and make them easier to field. Make a general really think about this.

I like this rule! Though I do smell the scent that the Orks, Tyranids, and Tau at the least should be able to get this bonus as well. Orks and Tyranids expecially since there are just so many of the buugers when they go to war.

There would have to be some way of discounting this rule, since there will be missions where falling back is either not possible, or infact, lethal. What I do really like is that it allows the shooty of the guard to be utilized to more effect, without the drawbacks of having little assault defense/reprisal AND the risk of falling off the board at the drop of the hat. Perhaps an additional rally at the edge with additional leadership bonus, following the fluff that the unit knows that if they are picked back up later on, they are very likely to be facing the firing squad?

Ork's can't have this rule as Ork's are never beaten. They would always run screamin toward the fight.

Tyranids would never have it as I can not see them doing anything but attacking if it was at all possible. I can not imagine a tyranid tactical fighting retreat once the invasion of the planet has begun.

Tau can not have it as they have but few worlds and fewer resources.

I like it, foil7102 and agree completely with the rationale for it. Its almost necessary when you consider the addition of Valkyries and subsequent numbers of units they'll transport.

I would like to see something that makes the Leman Russ (most likely any varient considering the new rules) worth while taking. Either much lower points or able to move and shoot its defensive weapons... and by that I mean its heavy bolters, because that's what they really are for. Defense against infantry. Perhaps a varient with autocannon sponsons and hull mount, as well as turret... that would be pretty useful even stationary.

Unless some additional rule is made for sponson, in 5th, there is little reason beyond back up weapons to take them.

An ability like "Defensive Fire: any sponson not fired in the Shooting Phase may make its normal attack against a unit attempting to assault it; this is done after the charge movement but before any close combat attacks are resolved," would make sense, but would probably cancel out the majority of a cost down on Leman Russ tanks.

Just make all Sponson Weapons count as Defensive regardless of what they are.

And when other armies with sponsons complain, tell 'em to get in line behind the Dark Angel players who want their Storm Shield, Land Raiders and Cyclones to have the same rules as regular Marines.

BYE

Does anyone know why they made Defensive weapons S4? Are there any vehicles that actually have S4 weapons, besides the storm bolter and the Chimera's hull mounted lasguns only operatable by occupants... who have lasguns.

Skinnattittar wrote:Does anyone know why they made Defensive weapons S4?

Are you kidding? I doubt even they know why they did that. And if they do, it was probably Alessio who wrote that rule and his explanation as to why he wrote it will just raise more questions than it will answer them.

BYE

They made it S4 to universally cover the pintle mounted weapons.

I think you could make a case for Leman Russ' getting to use the sponsons as defensive weapons on the basis that unlike tanks of other races, IG actually have dedicated gunners manning those weapons.

I think only the sponson and not the hull weapon should be effected, by any sort of reclassifying on "defensive weapons."

aka_mythos wrote:They made it S4 to universally cover the pintle mounted weapons.

But they were already covered by the S6 defensive weapons. Nothing changed for pintle-weapons.

BYE

But they just wanted it for pintle weapons, therefore making pintle weapons worth more and reducing the fire output of moving tanks at the same time.

Honestly, if you hate the game so much, write your own ruleset and play with that.

open_sketchbook wrote:But they just wanted it for pintle weapons, therefore making pintle weapons worth more and reducing the fire output of moving tanks at the same time.

Honestly, if you hate the game so much, write your own ruleset and play with that.

I don't think anyone here has voiced the opinion that they hate the game. It seems most people's complaints or dispositions are out of bewilderment of the changes. Writing your own rules and playing them would be great, but the problem is, no one will play them on an even semi-regular basis, maybe once, maybe twice, if they like you.

Every weapon on a Leman Russ is supposedly manned by a human gunner (except for a HKM). What I was just wondering was; how does movement affect the gunner of one or most weapons, but not one or two others? Heck, even moving at speed it is still a tank, which are good stable firing bases, skimmers even more so. Heck, the whole point of a tank is to make a moving bunker and artillery position.

Here's one that I was also thinking of; make squad heavy weapons artillery. I sincerly doubt this will happen since the people at Games Workshop seem to have something against the Imperial Guard being a lethal fighting force, or even have any aspects of the Army being something worth fearing, but I think this rule would work with the fact that anti-tank weapons are more often than in any other army mixed in with regular troops. The only reason to do this, in any practical logic which is why I doubt it will happen, would be so the heavy weapon is defended against enemy infantry while it gets ready and in position to fire on hard targets. Well, nine lasguns is doubtful to have any sort of impact on any vehicle, this is just a situation where volume of fire can NOT make up for lack of quality of fire (and given how many times any IG player has let loose thirty lasguns on a CSM squad with rapid fire and still result in no enemy casualties, perhaps volume doesn't much make up for it either....). So pinging lasbolts against the hull of an oncoming tank is rather useless, so perhaps trying to pump those rounds into the supporting infantry of that tank to defend the lascannon that is drawing a bead on that tank would be more useful.

open_sketchbook wrote:But they just wanted it for pintle weapons, therefore making pintle weapons worth more and reducing the fire output of moving tanks at the same time.

Honestly, if you hate the game so much, write your own ruleset and play with that.

This is a stupid post for so many reasons. Here are some of them:

1. This is a proposed rules forum.
2. This is a proposed rules forum.
3. In a proposed rule forum, what GW wants or what they would do is irrelevant.
4. The 'if you hate the game' line such a pathetic line. If I, we or any of us actually hated the game, we wouldn't play it. Shouldn't it be obvious that we like the game a lot, enough that we would spend time discussing how we want it to be better?
5. You do realise that you just suggested that we write our own rules... in a proposed rules forum.

BYE

Skinnattittar wrote:Every weapon on a Leman Russ is supposedly manned by a human gunner (except for a HKM). What I was just wondering was; how does movement affect the gunner of one or most weapons, but not one or two others? Heck, even moving at speed it is still a tank, which are good stable firing bases, skimmers even more so. Heck, the whole point of a tank is to make a moving bunker and artillery position.

Worse is the fluff justification within the rulebook itself that says that firing the main cannon requires the 'attention of all the gunners'. Umm... what? There are 5-6 people in a Leman Russ. Why do the Sponson Gunners have to stop what they're doing to concentrate on the main gun firing?

BYE

The force of the cannon firing requires them all to brace for recoil? All I can think of really..

Skinnattittar wrote:Here's one that I was also thinking of; make squad heavy weapons artillery. I sincerly doubt this will happen since the people at Games Workshop seem to have something against the Imperial Guard being a lethal fighting force, or even have any aspects of the Army being something worth fearing, but I think this rule would work with the fact that anti-tank weapons are more often than in any other army mixed in with regular troops. The only reason to do this, in any practical logic which is why I doubt it will happen, would be so the heavy weapon is defended against enemy infantry while it gets ready and in position to fire on hard targets. Well, nine lasguns is doubtful to have any sort of impact on any vehicle, this is just a situation where volume of fire can NOT make up for lack of quality of fire (and given how many times any IG player has let loose thirty lasguns on a CSM squad with rapid fire and still result in no enemy casualties, perhaps volume doesn't much make up for it either....). So pinging lasbolts against the hull of an oncoming tank is rather useless, so perhaps trying to pump those rounds into the supporting infantry of that tank to defend the lascannon that is drawing a bead on that tank would be more useful.

The problem with that is it makes the heavy weapon much more vulnerable to enemy fire. As artillery, the first bolter round to come in could potentially knock the gun out. As infantry you have to burn through most of the squad before the heavy weapon is in serious danger. You may find it frustrating to let the awesome antipersonnel firepower of the lasgun go to waste so you can shoot the lascannon at a tank. I personnally would find it far more frustrating to lose the lascannon in the enemy's first shooting phase.

To give an idea of recoil....

Back...back through the mist of time, to a time when I was young, and you were either older or even younger....

The Demolisher Cannon, 2nd Ed, was move or fire despite being mounted on a Tank. Why? The recoil could flip the Tank if it was fired on the move.

As to the arguement, why SHOULD S6 weapons be considered Defensive. Why Should S5...that is the real question, surely?

@Raxmei's comment : Not a terrible point, in fact, it's a completely reasonable and valid point. Perhaps IG squad level artillery would require a special rule. There are ten guardsmen and only one gun, somewhat different compared to typical artillery and crew units (I can only think of the Ork artillery weapons that use the artillery rule, at the moment). So maybe artillery would only be hit on a 6 and/or confer an additional save as one of the guard crewmen get the option to sacrafice themselves for the gun. That's fluffy too!

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:To give an idea of recoil....
Back...back through the mist of time, to a time when I was young, and you were either older or even younger....
The Demolisher Cannon, 2nd Ed, was move or fire despite being mounted on a Tank. Why? The recoil could flip the Tank if it was fired on the move.
As to the arguement, why SHOULD S6 weapons be considered Defensive. Why Should S5...that is the real question, surely?

I think already defined why S5 weapons should be defensive. Something to also be considered, if a, maybe, 200lb guardsmen can handle a heavy bolter level weapon, why shouldn't a many dozen ton tank be able to?

Tank recoil IS massive, and I am not going to argue that perhaps firing a main ordinance weapon should not stop the firing of all the other weapons as they cling to the nearest hand-hold for dear life (just look at that massive bore on the model! If it were real, you could probably craw down it quite easily!), but should far far lighter weapons, which are able to be fired by infantry in a field environment, not be able to fire from a tank at all times, except maybe moving through difficult terrain at full tilt, of course.

I can only think it's because of the movement. Bouncy bouncy and all that, not exactly condusive to accurate fire.

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:I can only think it's because of the movement. Bouncy bouncy and all that, not exactly condusive to accurate fire.

If that was the reason then skimmers would always be able to fire all their weapons or there would be excusions for running on roads or not in difficult terrain. Even still, tanks weight, usually, in excess of fifty tons. The M1E3 Abrams weighs, when fully loaded, almost eighty tons. Even though they are on treads, anything they roll over gets crushed flat and the vehicle rides smoothly over it. I talked to a tanker buddy of mine, he ran over a few cars that wanted to cut him off in Iraq, he said he wouldn't have known it if he hadn't been in the commander's perch to see and hear it. Rocks and rubble, I've seen the Abrams turn them to gravel and dust and not shake at all.

A more likely reasoning would be to make tanks cheaper or limit their practicallity to be used in the game, making players take more infantry instead, which makes for more money in their pockets and a game based more on what they feel players want; which seems to be assaults.

When you look at all the armies affected by defensive weapon rule the only one that doesn't make sense is the IG (maybe tau), which is why their rules should include an exception to it.

From the GW perspective the ordinance firing thing is more a mater of trying to balance out the "fairness" of such a devastating weapon. The thing is the core rule book doesn't deal with the specifics of each army and leaves those up to the individual codex of that army. Thus any appropriate exception to the normal rules should be made there.

In the case of the IG "defensive weapons" and Ordinance weapon rule need to be adjusted in how they work. Defensive weapons needs to be amended to incorporate the heavy bolters and ordinance firing limitations on other weapons should also be to prevent all the other weapon on a Leman Russ from being useless.

"Dedicated Gunners: The tanks of the Imperial Guard are heavily crewed with men arming the many weapons on their mighty armored vehicles. For the purposes of moving and the number of weapons that may be fired in a turn, Leman Russ tanks do not count their main weapon as ordinance."

That way we would still be able to move and shoot our ordinance and some of our weapons.

That's not a bad idea, but I think perhaps the two should be seperated differently, IMO.

"Dedicated Gunners: The tanks of the Imperial Guard are heavily crewed and armed with many weapons. For the purposes of movement and shooting, all weapons may fire as long as one weapon of its type (Primary and Defensice) may fire."

Easy
Leman Russ = Lumbering

Lumbering would work. Its kinda the slow and purposeful equivalent for tanks is it not? That would make some sense. Does anyone see an issue with how Lumbering would create issues in 5th ed. since its not in the main rule book?

Also on the notion of artillery, it doesn't make too much sense because of the fact that the heavy weapons aren't as much a separate entity as the "Artillery" rules would make them out to be. I know someone who got to talk to the guy working on the IG codex said he's planning to make sure artillery is represented in the new codex.

It'll be cool if artillery wise we can get some howitzers autocannons aka Thudd Guns (indirect fire autocannons), Rapier Lasers (3 shot lascannons?), rocket salvos (multi-shot missile launchers), AA Heavy bolters/autocannons to shoot at skimmers, mole mortars, Quad-Launchers. Those would be cool.

It would be mice for the Guard to get some shooty that's worth having in the ever growing assault world of 40k (not that I'm complaining too much, at least it's stream lined a bit better to make it actually a bit fun if any of my guys survive). It will be interesting to see if they make any heavy weapons that are able to move and shoot. Seriously, it will break a big rule for most armies, but it's the freaking Imperial Guard, how much moving are they going to do? Outflank you? That would only be really freaking cool! Maneuvering weapons as a battle unfolds! HERESY! It's preposterous!

Actually the defensive weapon is kinda moot anyway, given that Russes are better off in cover anyway in 5th. If cover was 5+ and not 4+, then it'd be different, but as it stands moving makes you easier to kill and you can't score anyway, so why move?

BYE

They can always contest a critical location. Nothing says "not so fast" like a Leman Russ.

But anything can contest a critical location. The only reason a Russ has to leave cover is to find better cover.

BYE

Or if it's in a crap location. Lets move away from static battle fields and start getting into the game. The rules need to let more maneuverability into the play. It's okay to sit back and hope you don't get the shaft, but it's more fun to move those tanks around and bust some heads.

I agree, it may be safer to stay in cover but I prefer the option to play less static.

Skinnattittar wrote:Or if it's in a crap location.

Hence:

Leave cover to find better cover.

Skinnattittar wrote:I agree, it may be safer to stay in cover but I prefer the option to play less static.

Sadly the rules of 40K are non-condusive to that. As much as we wish you could move and shoot in this game, the designers have chosen to make everything into a binary choice - you move or you shoot. You can never do both. Multi-tasking is not encouraged.

Now, as this is a proposed rules forum, if you can propose an alternative that gives the player an incentive to move out of cover, then go for it, but right now ignoring 50% of all incoming firepower is pretty damned hard to pass up.

BYE

It is probably the biggest weakness of the last three editions, that game play is so heavily close combat centric. When it comes to assaulting there are next to no restrictions, but when it comes to shooting the benefits are minimal with plenty of drawbacks. Maybe one day we'll get some form of overwatch back.

I forgot which designer who once said he personally envisioned each turn of 40k representing like 7 or 8 seconds of real time. Which when you think about that makes 40k battles very fast and deadly. Which would make the average 6" move representing someone traveling 4-5mph.

I can't think of any benefit for vehicles moving. I guess I'll save the moving for my transports.

I once wrote a rule called "Repulse Assault," where a charging unit during the assault phase, and now would include the "run phase," would be subject to a volley of fire from the unit being charged. The exceptions were to units that engage in the movement phase, and would still gain all the advantages of charging in the assault phase. The reason being that at those close ranges the unit was moving quickly into combat, and the assaulted side already had their chance to repulse their assault in the last shooting phase.

@HBMC : I concur that 40k does not allow for much variety in general play. You are either shooty and static, or assaulty and moving.

Andy C did a stand and shoot thing as well. It just ended up with shooty units annihilating assault units during the assaulting units turn.

It didn't last long.

BYE

What are peoples thoughts on different forms of artillery for the IG?

I mentioned a whole bunch of ideas before, that might be less than original, but I think they'd be a good starting point.


Rapier Lasers
Rocket salvos
AA autocannons to shoot at skimmers
Mole mortars are Heavy Mortar
Quad-Launchers/Thudd Guns

What are peoples thoughts, any additional weapons or weapons here that don't fit? How many artillery options are enough? How hard is it to keep a number of options distinctive?
How many crew members are appropriate for manning artillery?

I think the rocket salvos are the best idea up there. However, with indirect fire weapons being so inaccurate, I'm thinking we're going to see a sharp decline in their use, if not an abandonment. Scattering D6 inches doesn't help with a mortar, or even a dozen mortars, scattering 2D6 is just plain wrong. There really isn't any reason that the IG don't get forward observers for their indirect fire weapons. Every soldier in modern militaries are trained to read maps and most are trained in how to direct fire missions.

So here is a special rule suggestion:

Any command squad with a vox system may use "call for fire," which allows one indirect fire weapon in play to fire on targets it does not have line of sight with, as if they did have line of sight.

Or somthing to that nature. Since the average scatter for the Imperial Guard blast weapons is 4", and the large blast template is 5", there is not much reason to make this rule increase the points cost of anything. It simply just makes sense fluff wise and game wise. Heck, officers are already overpriced.

Instead of Different forms or Arty how about they add the Imperial Armour Ammunition upgrades to the current list? I think that would be a great move on Gw's part.

Skinnattittar wrote:with indirect fire weapons being so inaccurate, I'm thinking we're going to see a sharp decline in their use, if not an abandonment.

I doubt that very much. I brought 2 Indirect Basilisks to the last Apocalypse game, and wished I had 2 more, because they rocked *hard*. Spotting under 5E rules works just fine, so you will usually get the 3" correction. Those S9 AP3 pie plates Hit 1/3 of the time to start. The 3" correction means you still Hit within 1" 1/6 of the time. So against vehicles, you're hitting about 1/2 the time. Against infantry, the average scatter of 4" means you usually score some hits on any unit that you target.

I don't see any problems with Indirect Ordnance at all.

Guard arty: Any unit may upgrade its heavy weapon to the following arty for the following points. Any unit that upgrades loses the ability to run during the shooting phase, and always moves as if in cover. In addition the units must be deployed normally and can not deep strike, flank, infiltrate, ect.

Rapier = heavy 3 lascannon
Rocket Salvo = large blast template str 4 ap5 48" range
AA autocannon = does not require a 6 to hit flyers, skimmers moving fast gain no bonuses
Mole/heavy mortar = follows rules in IA
quad launcher/ thudd gun = follows rules in IA

Now, what would be the fair price for these?

@ DD :
I don't really know where this "spotting" rule is or the "3[inch] correction". I already included that in the average "4 inches" I mentioned before (average 2D6 roll is 7, minus 3" for BS [which you don't get with barrage weapons], making 4"). Lastly, I'm not speaking of Apocalypse games, obviously all 5" blast weapons are more than welcome at an Apoc. game, it's hard NOT to hit something there! But at a normal game against an army with not so many models as IG, Ork, or sometimes Tyranid.... So factoring in that 2/3 of the time you won't get a direct hit, and probably never when you really need it (or the opposing player doesn't need it), 4" is a lot to scatter by. You will probably at least get two or three models still, but your less likely to bean a tank. So where you got 1" scattering on average I'll never know. Unless that stuff is in Apocalypse, but not everyone has shelled out the extra $50 then $25 for the reloaded book.

foil7102 wrote:Guard arty: Any unit may upgrade its heavy weapon to the following arty for the following points. Any unit that upgrades loses the ability to run during the shooting phase, and always moves as if in cover. In addition the units must be deployed normally and can not deep strike, flank, infiltrate, ect.

Rapier = heavy 3 lascannon
Rocket Salvo = large blast template str 4 ap5 48" range
AA autocannon = does not require a 6 to hit flyers, skimmers moving fast gain no bonuses
Mole/heavy mortar = follows rules in IA
quad launcher/ thudd gun = follows rules in IA

Now, what would be the fair price for these?

I think that the artillery should only be available to the Heavy Weapon Platoon, but where doing so makes it an elite choice, thus keeping the unit in line with both the codex and the IA. It would give them more uniqueness as a unit.

The other consideration is that Artillery in IA have 3 man crews instead of the 2 man crews for heavy weapons, so a built in trade off is that you'd only have two artillery pieces per heavy weapon squad unless you add to the squad size. Although the IA rules allow you to buy 2 extra crewman per artillery piece at +6pts each.

In IA all artillery suffer from a slower reload time and thus can only fire every other turn, which is why FW justifies the lower point cost on these big weapons.

Heavy Mortar and the Quad Launcher are 45 and 75 pts respectively; if we were to write these two as weapon upgrades for a heavy weapon squad they should be 25-30pts and 55-60pts each. I think IA rules are generally over priced and would go with the lower prices.

Rapier should cost in at 55pts, make it a heavy 3 Lascannon with the option to shoot a combined shot that uses the small template. 1 turn to recharge/reload prevents it from being too crazy.

I think the Missile Salvo should count as a battery of hunter killer missiles, 40pts for upto 4 shots. It may fire each turn (no reload turn) or it can opt to fire all of its missiles in one turn.

Give the AA Autocannons, a standard autocannon stats with an alternate flak round where the strength of the flak round is proportionate to the speed of the aircraft. 45-50pts, no reload turn.

Not a bad summation, Mythos, however I would STRONGLY side AGAINST "reload" times. Quite simply; it's ridiculous. For the same price as the Rapier you can get two lascannons firing every round, giving it an extra round compared to the Rapier over two rounds. Granted, what if it doesn't survive? Well, what if the Rapier, one artillery piece, gets knocked out on its own, or the crew gets elliminated? So that is leveled off since with the lascannon team your have more guys, more weapons, more to lose.

Another thing, perhaps they should take up a troop choice instead of an elites slot. They don't really fill the whole "elite" idea, maybe heavy support. This is all if they're not left in the HQ section. Also, keep them two crew men, so three per HW squad. It does make sense to restrict them to HW squads and command sections too. As for the missile salvo, no limit on the number of rounds. At the points costs you're mentioning, you can buy better things. Remember, the lascannon is bad enough in points cost as it is for BS3 guardsmen.

Well they're kinda elites within a Artillery or Siege company. These Artillery crews are the elite version of the Heavy Support version of the Heavy Weapon platoons. I don't see them as being just an upgrade for just any heavy weapon squad but rather an Elite status upgrade for the Heavy Support choice Heavy Weapon Platoon, so I don't really see these as being attached to the HQ.

I only included the every other turn thing because its how it is written in IA, but I agree its stupid. What I could see as making sense is that the every other turn shooting is a penalty that takes effect when you're down to the last crew man.

I was thinking a salvo of HK missiles are appropriate to the artillery section. I thought that being able to fire all the batteries of missiles at once would be a neat ability but being able to effectively fire off any number of missiles at an unlimited range would need some sort of down side, which was a limited number of missiles. 4 missiles, uptto maybe 6, where you get one shot a turn overall but where if you chose to you could fire all 4-6 in the first round.

Read through some of the threads here. CoD, KP problems, making the guardsmen worthwhile with a freebie or two or three.

There are two problems I see with the guard, for a long time they have been a fairly stationary army (especially the troop choices) and in light of the new orc codex they, along with a number of basic troops in the game are now somewhat overpriced. With 6 pts as the established "value" of an orc boy, what is a reasonable cost for IG?

The other issue is a problem uncovered in 5th edition and the simplified close combat resolution. In 4th and before guards could have ungodly leaderships and rerolls. (Vox, standards, commissars) It was downright hard to get a well placed guard unit to run so they tended to die to the last man --- or --- they died to the last man and if the guard player has them too closely spaced, the opponent would consolidate into the next line.

Where is the guard value today? In the 5th ed rule that you can't consolidate into another combat. So the 8 khorne berzerkers kill your 6 out of 10 guardsment and you run? Fine the 4 platoons lined up behind now unload 80 shots at them at 3str. The remainder may get through your next line of guardsmen then he gets to survive 60 shots in the next line.

Get the guard numbers out there and let them go to work...

The other problem is what do you do now that only troop choices can control objectives? The issue here is the crappy stat of the lasgun and the fact that all the power comes out of the heavy weapons and to a lesser degree the special weapons, so now you have
units that don't want to move because all their firepower is out-of-action for a turn.

Here is how I would like to see them fix it.

Imperial Guard Platoon:

25 -55 troopers. You get a free GL/Flamer and Heavy Bolter/Mortar for every fraction of 10 troopers. +5 to change a GL/flamer to Meltagun, +10 to Plasma Rifle. +5 for Autocannon/Missilelauncher +10 for Lascannon to change out the bolter/mortar.

Otherwise you must form up into one 5 man command unit (led by your free lieutenant who can have a Plasma Pistol for 10 pts, Power Weapon for 5 or Power Fist for 10) Unless you form a heavy weapons unit, you must split the rest into full squads of 10 with no more than 1 special and heavy weapon each. As an alternative, you can field all the platoon heavy weapons as one heavy weapons squad.

Guard preservation: Guard squads are Ld 7, Command squad is Ld 8. All guard squads must be within 12" of leader to move freely or they must make a leadership roll to execute a move or fire at any target other than the closest enemy unit. (This is to give an incentive to not hiding command squads in cheezy places far away from the platoon they are supposed to be in charge of.)

Kill points: 2 Kill points plus base plus .5 per 10 or fraction added to the minimum platoon of 25 (round up). All kill points are awarded IF the command squad is eliminated AND the majority of the squads in the platoon are broken or destroyed.

So... with this I get a platoon of 50 guardsmen with 5 Grenade Launchers and 5 Heavy Bolters for 300 points.
I form up the HQ with 5 giving them a flamer. A heavy weapons squad with 5 heavy bolters and 10 crew and then 3 squads of 10 with a grenade launcher and one squad of 5 with a grenade launcher.

I now have 1 stationary support squad and 5 squads that can be afford to move. I am worth 4 kill points but my opponent has to route or destroy 3 squads AND the HQ unit in order to get the kill points. I can be cheezy and hide my HQ but I have to keep each squad within 12" of it or my movement or shooting is going to not be optimal. If I want some anti-tank, I could up all the heavy bolters to lascannons for 50 points.

Now this is not fleshed out but it would make the guard cheaper, able to still fire their heavy weapons and be able to move towards objectives. (The heavy squad is still a troop choice so it can hold an objective) It has less weapons than the current codex but it is also a lot cheaper to field. If I want a stationary support platoon, I can form up squads with a heavy weapon and a special weapon and spread them out.

Another possible bonus for a heavy weapons squad: Each gun has 2 crew men and must be within standard 2" distance but each team can be spaced within 4" of another team. (Makes them more survivable to templates)

Place your heavy weapons on a hill or up a level in a building and they can support from cover while not affording your opponent a cover save for firing over your advancing squads.

Other change is to make IG Chimera squad an option that doesn't require a regular platoon to field IF the guard senior commander also takes a chimera.

Chimera cost does need to be lessened but it is much more effective vehicle than a rhino. It should probably be in the 50 to 55 point range putting it around a razorback. (less effective fire but more carrying capacity)

Fire Teams: Steal the Combat Squad special rule from the Space Marines. Now you can hang back with heavy weapons and rush madly at the enemy with special weapons at the same time! Choke small elite armies with the sheer impossibility of chewing through eleven units in a single troops choice.
Do not attempt in Annihilation, obviously.

Well, I don't much agree with that one there, in fact I'm not sure I agree with it. But perhaps it has given me an idea.

During WWII the US Army setup their heavy weapons in concentrated squads of machine guns, mortars, anti-tanks guns and rifle (including the Bazooka which is a recoiless rifle), ect... They were then broken up by teams and distributed among a platoon or company.

An infantry platoon is bought for 140-160pts (or whatever point value seems reasonable). For this price you get one Junior Officer, two Sergeants, and 22 Guardsmen. An Officer must take any four or more Guardsmen for a comman squad, the rest of the numbers, for every nine Guardsmen and one Sergeant, the option to form one squad is available (each squad must be one Sergeant and no less than any four Guardsmen). All models must be placed in a squad. For every squad option, one HW team and one Special weapon may be bought (the command squad allows for one HW team and two special weapon options). These may be distributed in any squad to any number per squad. All other options apply similiarly, aditional squads may be bought at Xpts per (where X is ten times the eventual decided value of a Guardsman) squad (HW and SW additions apply). Options might include Guardsmen that are members of the Command Squad may be armed with Laspistol and CCW instead of a Lasgun.

This would allow troop choice HW squads as you laid open, that could sit on an objective, while SW squads can rove about protecting the objective or capturing others, with a fat command squad leading assaults.

I think this collects most of the ideas Addict put forward. This also allows players to decide how their Armies build their platoons. Some will be highly regimented, even numbers in each squad, others will be hodge podged with more independent acting platoon structures, like gangs, others still might construct their squads in incraments of five (5, 10, 15). Larger assault squads benefit from their numbers to sop up wounds and the Officer's special weapons and leadership available, perhaps even with the Veteran soldiers option having access to some armory equipment. SW squads might find themselves mixed, but as a seperate squad, bursting rounds through their own ranks (the new IG codex is supposed to allow PLT squads to shoot through eachother without giving the enemy their "don't shoot Billy in the back!" save) while being seperate for the assault charge. HW squads hanging back at the objectives, softening up targets before the command squad charges into the enemy, putting their rounds through there own ranks.

2nd Ed did have the rule for leaving the HW behind while the rest of the squad advanced.

BYE

Skinnattittar wrote:@ DD :
I don't really know where this "spotting" rule is or the "3[inch] correction".

You will probably at least get two or three models still, but your less likely to bean a tank.

So where you got 1" scattering on average I'll never know.

The "spotting" is that you get the BS3 correction when you can see where you're shooting. It makes a big difference.

As I calculated, if you can see your target, if it is a Tank, you will hit it half the time overall.

The odds of a 1" scatter feeds into the calcaluation of Tank hits. If you read carefully, you will see that I never said that was an average result.

Raxmei wrote:Fire Teams: Steal the Combat Squad special rule from the Space Marines.

If you do this to go back to 2nd Edition IG, then you need to increase the cost of Heavy Weapons to account for the greater utility.

I'm happier to keep the Heavy Weapons as cheap as possible to increase the total firepower avaiable.

foil7102 wrote:Guard arty: Any unit may upgrade its heavy weapon to the following arty

Rapier = heavy 3 lascannon
Rocket Salvo = large blast template str 4 ap5 48" range
AA autocannon = does not require a 6 to hit flyers, skimmers moving fast gain no bonuses
Mole/heavy mortar = follows rules in IA
quad launcher/ thudd gun = follows rules in IA

Now, what would be the fair price for these?

These are no-brainer upgrades, especially the Rapier, Heavy Mortar, or Quad Launcher in line squads. You would have to be a total idiot NOT to take them if they were anywhere near fairly priced.

Cost-wise, the Rapier as Heavy 3 is worth something like 50 pts, probably more. The others are similar in cost, and probably peg in at 50+ pts.

aka_mythos wrote:
I think that the artillery should only be available to the Heavy Weapon Platoon, but where doing so makes it an elite choice,

The other consideration is that Artillery in IA have 3 man crews instead of the 2 man crews for heavy weapons,

In IA all artillery suffer from a slower reload time and thus can only fire every other turn,

In terms of structure, I agree that these should tie to a Heavy Weapon Platoon. The firepower here doesn't just belong in Troops or Elites, unless it's 1 per Veteran squad or 1 per Stormtrooper squad.

I could see these as part of an Artillery Squad under a Heavy Weapons Platoon:

6 Guardsmen = 35 pts; must buy 1 or 2 Artillery pieces of the same type at +XX pts per piece.

This preserves the Heavy Platoon structure and the 3-man crews.

Depending on the numbers available, the slow reload makes good sense. For the Rapier and any Large blast, I'd keep the slow reload as a balancing factor. For a double-Rapier team compared to a triple Lascannon team, they get the same 6 shots over 2 turns, but have the advantage of taking them all at once, and having the abiltity to take far more casualties before losing capability.

JohnHwangDD wrote:

Raxmei wrote:Fire Teams: Steal the Combat Squad special rule from the Space Marines.

If you do this to go back to 2nd Edition IG, then you need to increase the cost of Heavy Weapons to account for the greater utility.

I'm happier to keep the Heavy Weapons as cheap as possible to increase the total firepower avaiable.

The flexibility is to make non-jump troop or chimera guardsmen WANT to move and not just park an shoot. The point would be to have a rigid amount of weapons in a platoon but give the platoon flexibility on how to use it.

Sure the IG is getting a cost break on these "heavy weapons" squads but frankly, it is no where near the 33% reduction in cost that ork boyz got with their last codex. (I keep shaking my head at this GW move... I think between waagh move and such a low cost it screwed royally with Imperial Guard, Eldar guardians, Dk Eldar warriors, the value of kroot and the value of a bug gaunt hoard. Not to mention who wins... 10 SM with bolters or 25 orks with shootas ? Same cost.)

DAaddict wrote:There are two problems I see with the guard, for a long time they have been a fairly stationary army (especially the troop choices) and in light of the new orc codex they, along with a number of basic troops in the game are now somewhat overpriced. With 6 pts as the established "value" of an orc boy, what is a reasonable cost for IG?

Agreed. I see IG at 10 guys for 50 pts.

DAaddict wrote:The other problem is what do you do now that only troop choices can control objectives? The issue here is the crappy stat of the lasgun and the fact that all the power comes out of the heavy weapons and to a lesser degree the special weapons, so now you have units that don't want to move because all their firepower is out-of-action for a turn.

The Lasgun needs to be crap, so that other guns aren't crap by comparison. It's fine, same with Heavy weapons being move-or-fire, so they can be cheaper and more plentiful. IG have lots of units, and can exploit bounding fire, as different elements of a Platoon alternately move or stay.

DAaddict wrote:Imperial Guard Platoon:

25 -55 troopers. You get a free GL/Flamer and Heavy Bolter/Mortar for every fraction of 10 troopers. +5 to change a GL/flamer to Meltagun, +10 to Plasma Rifle. +5 for Autocannon/Missilelauncher +10 for Lascannon to change out the bolter/mortar.

OK.

DAaddict wrote: Otherwise you must form up into one 5 man command unit (led by your free lieutenant who can have a Plasma Pistol for 10 pts, Power Weapon for 5 or Power Fist for 10) Unless you form a heavy weapons unit, you must split the rest into full squads of 10 with no more than 1 special and heavy weapon each. As an alternative, you can field all the platoon heavy weapons as one heavy weapons squad.

Seems kind of unstructured... I rather prefer the 10-man squads.

DAaddict wrote:All guard squads must be within 12" of leader to move freely or they must make a leadership roll to execute a move or fire at any target other than the closest enemy unit.

Seems kind of messier than what I'd like. I'd prefer Vox over measuring Ld bubbles.

DAaddict wrote:Kill points: 2 Kill points plus base plus .5 per 10 or fraction added to the minimum platoon of 25 (round up). All kill points are awarded IF the command squad is eliminated AND the majority of the squads in the platoon are broken or destroyed.

Command Squad = 1 KP; remainder of Platoon = 1 KP. Total of 2 KPs possible.

DAaddict wrote:So... with this I get a platoon of 50 guardsmen with 5 Grenade Launchers and 5 Heavy Bolters for 300 points. I form up the HQ with 5 giving them a flamer. A heavy weapons squad with 5 heavy bolters and 10 crew and then 3 squads of 10 with a grenade launcher and one squad of 5 with a grenade launcher.

So you're keeping the 6-pt Guardsman base, I take it?

For the effort, I'd rather have 10-man line squads and 6-man Command / 3-Heavy / 3-Special squads. It's easier.

DAaddict wrote:Chimera cost does need to be lessened but it is much more effective vehicle than a rhino. It should probably be in the 50 to 55 point range putting it around a razorback. (less effective fire but more carrying capacity)

A Razorback is currently 40 pts, not 50 to 55 pts. Chimera at 50+ pts is overcosted, and nearly unplayable if AV10 sides stay.

Ultimately, your proposal makes for a solid, mostly-static Guard force. It moves slowly, as Chimeras are still unattractive. But not horrible. It is more 5E playable than the current version, but could be more mobile and simpler for the player.

JohnHwangDD wrote:

foil7102 wrote:Guard arty: Any unit may upgrade its heavy weapon to the following arty
Rapier = heavy 3 lascannon
Rocket Salvo = large blast template str 4 ap5 48" range
AA autocannon = does not require a 6 to hit flyers, skimmers moving fast gain no bonuses
Mole/heavy mortar = follows rules in IA
quad launcher/ thudd gun = follows rules in IA

Now, what would be the fair price for these?

These are no-brainer upgrades, especially the Rapier, Heavy Mortar, or Quad Launcher in line squads. You would have to be a total idiot NOT to take them if they were anywhere near fairly priced.

Cost-wise, the Rapier as Heavy 3 is worth something like 50 pts, probably more. The others are similar in cost, and probably peg in at 50+ pts.

I realize that they are a bit of no brainer upgrades. Some do have downside. Mortar and Quad-launcher have minimum range. With the exception of the Rapier they are all immobile. I think the rapier should have some other restriction also.

I was also recommending a "Diminished Performance: when the artillery crew is reduced to below half squad strength, the weapon artillery weapons may only fire every other turn."

JohnHwangDD wrote:

aka_mythos wrote: I think that the artillery should only be available to the Heavy Weapon Platoon, but where doing so makes it an elite choice.

The other consideration is that Artillery in IA have 3 man crews instead of the 2 man crews for heavy weapons,

In IA all artillery suffer from a slower reload time and thus can only fire every other turn,

In terms of structure, I agree that these should tie to a Heavy Weapon Platoon. The firepower here doesn't just belong in Troops or Elites, unless it's 1 per Veteran squad or 1 per Stormtrooper squad.

I could see these as part of an Artillery Squad under a Heavy Weapons Platoon:

6 Guardsmen = 35 pts; must buy 1 or 2 Artillery pieces of the same type at +XX pts per piece.

This preserves the Heavy Platoon structure and the 3-man crews.

Depending on the numbers available, the slow reload makes good sense. For the Rapier and any Large blast, I'd keep the slow reload as a balancing factor. For a double-Rapier team compared to a triple Lascannon team, they get the same 6 shots over 2 turns, but have the advantage of taking them all at once, and having the abiltity to take far more casualties before losing capability.

I like how you've written it up; that limits the platoon to about 6 artillery pieces.

I was suggesting that the"Artillery Platoon" be a 0-1 Elite choice upgrade to the Heavy Weapon platoon that way the restriction is that you're only going to have one platoon of these, for a given IG regiment. This keeps in mind that just like Armored companies and Artillery Regiments are a purely Apocalypse sized formation, that is broken down into individual platoons for the purposes of support in the smaller standard sized engagements. I think an appropriate rule to go along with the upgrading them to elites is something along the lines of "Called Shot" where they can re-roll deviation rolls at +2 or 3 per crewman.

Reiterating what I said above: the reduced fire rate might be better as a consequence of losing more than half the crew of the guns.

I think all the artillery pieces are going to end up around 50pts +/-5pts.

aka_mythos wrote:I realize that they are a bit of no brainer upgrades. Some do have downside. Mortar and Quad-launcher have minimum range. With the exception of the Rapier they are all immobile. I think the rapier should have some other restriction also.

I was also recommending a "Diminished Performance: when the artillery crew is reduced to below half squad strength, the weapon artillery weapons may only fire every other turn."

Minimum range isn't a big deal, as you can take multiples per subunit per FOC. Similarly with being immobile - yes, some will be overrun, but it's not a big deal when you can set up overlapping fields of fire and fire massive salvoes.

I think the big problem is stats and pricing. For example, the Rapier probably shouldn't be Heavy 3 - it should be Heavy 2 twin-linked. And being small-chassis, maybe make it S8 instead of S9.

But I definitely like the slow reload - Diminished Performance is not likely to come up very often with the sheer numbers that one would be taking.

aka_mythos wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:In terms of structure, I agree that these should tie to a Heavy Weapon Platoon. The firepower here doesn't just belong in Troops or Elites, unless it's 1 per Veteran squad or 1 per Stormtrooper squad.

I could see these as part of an Artillery Squad under a Heavy Weapons Platoon:

6 Guardsmen = 35 pts; must buy 1 or 2 Artillery pieces of the same type at +XX pts per piece.

This preserves the Heavy Platoon structure and the 3-man crews.

Depending on the numbers available, the slow reload makes good sense. For the Rapier and any Large blast, I'd keep the slow reload as a balancing factor. For a double-Rapier team compared to a triple Lascannon team, they get the same 6 shots over 2 turns, but have the advantage of taking them all at once, and having the abiltity to take far more casualties before losing capability.

I like how you've written it up; that limits the platoon to about 6 artillery pieces.

I was suggesting that the"Artillery Platoon" be a 0-1 Elite

Reiterating what I said above: the reduced fire rate might be better as a consequence of losing more than half the crew of the guns.

I think all the artillery pieces are going to end up around 50pts +/-5pts.

If you look at the current Guard list, Elites are squishy meatsacks of some sort: Ratlings, Ogryns, Veterans, or Storms. And generally poor, except for Veterans. Giving the opportunity to take massed Artillery as an Elite (or Troops upgrade) that doesn't compete with the Command Platoon HWS or Hellhounds / Sentinels, or Heavy Ordnance is simply awesome.

And as above, I think Slow Fire is a fair compromise for what you get.

Consider being able to convert a Griffon to once per game, Heavy 6...

A Razorback is currently 40 pts, not 50 to 55 pts. Chimera at 50+ pts is overcosted, and nearly unplayable if AV10 sides stay.

Sorry Dark Angel Player haven't seen the new SM codex cheapness... I do think that a chimera is in the same line as a razorback.

3 potential hits with a likelihood of 3 hits with a razorback versus 6 hits with and average of 3 hits for a guard chimera.

I agree the 10 AV is light but in our 5th ed world. 10 Armor on the back makes a lot of troop transports of limited justification.

The chimera as it stands 12/10/10 is fine just not quite as flexible as a rhino hull. Send it off on it's own and it is crappier but line them up and book end them with a lehman russ demolisher... my line now has 13 on the exposed left, 12 on the front and 13 on the exposed right. The cost is the reason you don't see any IG try this. (Or expose less than half and you have 4+ cover saves...
Again, they suck on their own but with a rigid formation they can be superior to a rhino. So leave them in the 45-50 range with both heavy bolters as standard. Free change to heavy flamers and maybe +5 for the little laser that could.

Forced to be slower for survival purposes but still able to deliver troops.

I agree this was clutzy but keep them at 6 and make the weapons free. In effect you are paying 25 points for the hq and the two squads. That makes for some freebies but doesn't nerf other codexes just brings them in line with all the freebies the marines/CSM got without screwing up every Tau/Eldar/Ork so that they feel compelled to continue the cycle and discount Orc v.2 so they stand a chance.

Old codex you paid what 70 points for a GL and a Heavy bolter with no vet sergeant and then what 45 + adds for the junior officer so 185. I am saying for 150 points you get the hq and the special weapons and heavy weapons. That is MORE than a 1 point discount on the platoon per trooper. Not as flexible as the old system but I think you could field 6 150 point 25-man platoons quite easily.

I was trying to hit a medium on the KP. Face it, you are somewhat nerfed in the 4S 4T world of 40k. If you just left KP the way they are it is a pain of life... KP games will be to the advantage of all the high cost armies. What I would hope is that in objective games the low cost armies get some advantages... Orcs can play huge hordes but they seem challenged by LR/Monolith spam. Eldar well their basic troopers are more lethal than guards but cost more and don't have flexibility IG has with a minimum platoon having 3 elements that can control or contest objectives. What I was shooting for with the "heavy squad" was giving guards a little mobility without sacrificing their firepower base and giving them more flexibility. Also left the standard squad with 1 SW and 1 HW as an option. Perfectly good and fine for a platoon you have tasked with holding positions while the "heavy squad" gives you mobile squads without the full hit on firepower.

My problem with the 1 kp HQ 1 kp for the rest is gaminess... The IG buys his 40-50 point chimera for each HQ and hides it in the back behind his lehman russ line. It is 48" or more away from the platoon it is commanding. So your opponent sees this triple deep line of 120 guardsment with the 30 HQ back behind the lehman russ having a party while the poor GI does the dying. Very guard-like. Oh and squad number 1 is in the far right corner of the guard line in the front while squad number 2 is in the 3rd line in the far left corner.
And if it is the typical unpainted/non-delineated platoon. I get to keep track of which squad is with which platoon as the "platoon" organization is a total random thing that guardsmen train under but wouldn't dream of cohesive unit organization in battle.

I also didn't like the reverse where the HQ is worth nothing and we see the charge of the light brigade by the 6 lieutenants and the 24 meltagun/flamers and the 120 guardsmen fire over their heads and cheer them on. That doesn't make sense either.

I don't mind if you have voxes to extend the range or make it unlimited for all I care but then you PAY for having one in every squad and then there better be a downside to the random hit that takes a vox caster out and that lieutenant is back at the company officer's mess. (10 guards in a squad take 12 wounds from a marine squad's fire... you have to assign each wound but luckily you are in cover so 1 50/50 roll to see if the vox caster dies...)

No matter what, I expect the 5th ed codex to make things cheaper and dumber (by that I mean simpler) Gone are the freewheeling charts for the space marines to build uber characters so too for chaos, orc options got a bit more restrictive but a lot cheaper and simpler... I expect disciplines and special formations to go the way of the veteran skills for chaos and space marines. Perhaps you will get 80 pages of fluff and a super unique character or 8that you can take as your HQ and then get a special ability ala Shrike or Vulcan.
Perhaps veteran platoons will be born and they get something nifty like infiltrate or scout.

On the rumors forum, there is a new article entitled IG rumors, questionable validity. It is the unit entries section and it seems to address almost every single grievance that has been brought about on this thread.

It ain't real though.

And of course it addresses most problems with the Codex - It isn't written by GW.

BYE

Yeah I didn't read into the rules deeply enough to see the 3 shot lasguns at 12". And some of the other insane ideas. Others though, were pretty good. Hopefully we will get something like that. Apart from the insane 3 shot lasgun at 12".

something I noticed, people saying guardsmen need to stand shoulder to shoulder to get COD bonus and whatnot....

1) Actually, standing in a single-file line is the best way to protect from blast weapons, as a slight scatter in any of several directions severely limits the number of models hit.

2) Now that you can pile into close combat, you don't need to deploy in a line, you can squish up close together in the pile-in move.

3) Something more thoughtful than "1 kp per platoon" has to be devised. Having to kill 55 models before you get a kp, and the ability to hide one of those squads off in oblivion somewhere, is disgusting.

I liked the insane 3 shot lasguns at 12". I don't think it fits too well but I thought it was clever... something to say "hmm interesting, but nahhh."

The way it dealt with tanks was interesting, but it didn't draw any distinction between "Assault Tanks" and the heavier tanks beyond the higher side armor and weapon choices which made it kinda a wasted opportunity to give distinction in function.

Really the Lasgun thing wasn't that insane. Lasguns suck. I doubt an extra shot is really going to make them much better.

The failings of that fandex were the odd distances for things, like 6" for Officiers, but 9" for HSOs... then 8" for standards. Stuff like that is needlessly fiddly. Might as well just be one distance.

BYE

Maybe... some sort of Ork-like rule of numbers is in order, but for shooting rather than moral. Even if they don't do that much damage, that many lasguns firing at the same target is going to strip cover, ionize the air and ignite anything flammable nearby, and will even without damage drive the enemy to ground.

With that in mind, I propose that if three or more squads of Guardsmen, above half-strength, fire at the same target in the same turn, the enemy is subject to a leadership check at -1 Ld regardless of the number of casualties caused, with an additional -1 for each new unit firing. Four squads is -2, a 5 squad platoon opening up is a -3, and so forth. The guys who love ranks of infantry get their rolling volleys, the guys who love tactical infantry get their suppressing fire, and guardsmen get a use for their lasguns and an incentive to stick together.

I was reading through the recent (fake) IG rumor and then also comments from someone who spoke to Robbin Crudace, who is writing the Codex, and one thing thats struck me is the discussion on how lasguns were going to be made "more interesting" and how that discussion then deviated to a conversation on hellguns. How much can lasguns be made more interesting before the IG lose their identity? And who wants to bet anything that does drastically change lasguns will make other players cry cheese?

So how do you all think the lasgun will be made "more interesting"? Aux grenade launchers, massed fire, "insane" rapid fire 3, what have you?

Are hellguns effective as they are now? Do they need to be assault, or stronger, or more penetrating?

Hellguns are nothing right now but a high powered flashlight. Now if they made them assault, at least we could argue about a value to them in making stormtroopers the mobile guard. Meltaguns, flamers and assault hellguns and we are talking a moving semi-armored guardsman. They would be very different from the standard IG and have a purpose...

Only problem is they are not troop choices without doctrines.

Guards could use something like any infantry unit that is not an Ogrin or a Ratling can control objectives. Now your elite veterans and stormtroopers can be the assault troops in 5th ed and the regulars can be the supporting fire.

With the hellgun there are a couple of issues, most proposals has it becoming almost as powerful as a bolter, either in strength or in AP. While I find making it "assault" as interesting it seems redundant when the implication is stormtrooper will have the option of taking shotguns.

I think as the fluff stands, beyond ogryn, rough riders, and guards with warrior weapons they don't have too much in the way assaulting units. Veterans I think present an interesting opportunity. With rumors of the platoon being able to incorporate different units into it, what if veterans were to become a squad upgrade within a platoon rather than just an elite choice, that way they could hold objectives, and there would be more than just one in the army. It would seem like an opportunity to distinguish them as a unit, maybe given them some special rules like "Recon Team: get scout/infiltrate" or maybe "skirmishers: (insert rule to make them better in hand to hand/assault role)." I just think of those Vietnam war movies, where the veteran team always gets sent up ahead to scout and end up having to call artillery down on their position.

Spellbound wrote:something I noticed, people saying guardsmen need to stand shoulder to shoulder to get COD bonus and whatnot....

1) Actually, standing in a single-file line is the best way to protect from blast weapons, as a slight scatter in any of several directions severely limits the number of models hit.

As long as they're spread coherency, that works. Shoulder-to-shoulder, and half the time, the blast scores the full 4 or 6 guys.

aka_mythos wrote:So how do you all think the lasgun will be made "more interesting"?

Are hellguns effective as they are now? Do they need to be assault, or stronger, or more penetrating?

I don't think the Lasgun can or should be made "more interesting". The Lasgun sets the floor for standard weapon effectiveness in the 40k universe. So a Lasgun *must* be 24" Rapid Fire and S3 AP- without any special rules, because anything better than that means it actually competes with the upgrade weapons like Hotshot Lasguns, Bolters and such. The only thing that could possibly change is to drop it to S2, but who are we kidding?

Hellguns are completely useless right now. Upgrade the Hellgun to Bolter stats, or at least S4, and all will be well.

DAaddict wrote:Now your elite veterans and stormtroopers can be the assault troops in 5th ed and the regulars can be the supporting fire.

Except, 5th tactical doctrine says that regulars hold positions once the Vets / Storms take it.

aka_mythos wrote:I think as the fluff stands, beyond ogryn, rough riders, and guards with warrior weapons they don't have too much in the way assaulting units. Veterans I think present an interesting opportunity. With rumors of the platoon being able to incorporate different units into it, what if veterans were to become a squad upgrade within a platoon rather than just an elite choice, that way they could hold objectives, and there would be more than just one in the army. It would seem like an opportunity to distinguish them as a unit, maybe given them some special rules like "Recon Team: get scout/infiltrate" or maybe "skirmishers: (insert rule to make them better in hand to hand/assault role)." I just think of those Vietnam war movies, where the veteran team always gets sent up ahead to scout and end up having to call artillery down on their position.

Sounds interesting. A lazy rules writer could easily make this change by copy-pasting the veterans squad entry where the remnants squad used to be.

Another thought I had on veterans... what would you think if the IG veterans became more like the Last Chancers? Kinda like Ultramrine Tyranid Hunters are to Sternguard, Last Chancers would be to redone IG veterans, but cheaper.

Nah, simple Veterans will be best. BS4, +1Ld = done.

I meant more along the lines of the unfettered equipment upgrades.

Spent some time digging through this thread but I'm glad I did. Being new to IG and 5th ed. in general I've been spending a lot of time pouring over rulebooks and forums, that being said I do have a few humble change ideas:

- Tanks, having a vehicle that is solely designed to be a mobile armored weapons platform and be unable to fire its armaments after moving really bugs me. I'd be happy with a russ that could move and it's turret or it's hull/sponsons. As a possible go between with the current rules maybe heavy stubbers (S4 AP6 Hvy3 IIRC) could be instituted as a hull/sponson for the russ thus falling under the defensive weapon mandate. Not as good as a HB on a 1:1 scale but moving thats 3(4 with pintle mount) stubbers to one HB. Quantity over quality?

-The chimera does seem overpriced when compared to other dedicated transports but I feel that this issue has received enough discussion, hopefully GW finds an apt solution.

-Heavy artillery, I like the idea a lot. Not too sure on the definites of it's implementation but I think they shoul have some sort of tie-in rule with regular IG troops/platoons. Perhaps you could purchase vox for the artillery and as a result the gun receives a reduction to scatter when firing at a target within x" distance and LOS of a vox equipped troop choice? Thats a bit vague but I think it might encourage more mobility on the part of infantry as they could advance under supporting fire dunno.

- Heavy weapons, not a necessary change but more along the lines of flavor: why can't heavy weapon teams be equipped with multi-lasers? To me it always seemed like the larger rapid support-fire brother to the lasgun kinda in the way a heavy bolter relates to a regular bolter. Also there is a lack of heavy stubbers once again, so why not add them in but due to the comparatively weak profile why not let them count as a heavy weapon or a special weapon? So in theory you could have 2 heavy stubbers in a 10 man squad. Not sure how many people would take such a loadout in most games ( especially vs. MEQ's) but at least its a neat option especially for kreigers.

-Stormtroopers/Hellguns, I really like the look of these models so I find it rather saddening to hear most people find them to be subpar especially when compared to veterans. Giving them the free shotgun swap is a neat idea IMHO but I also think the hellgun should be changed but I haven't the faintest idea as to what. I'd rather not see them become bolters by a different name, maybe improve the rate of fire? Personally I like the idea of hellgun's and most of my officers/techpriests are using converted hellpistols instead of laspistols/boltpistols.

-Ogryns, I like the idea of the role they're supposed to fill but it seems like they just don't get the job done.

-Veterans, maybe just a personal gripe but why not allow them to take sniper rifles as special weapons? I'd like an option to have a BS4 snipers without having to resort to abhumans.

Just some ideas, but please take them with a grain of salt as I haven't really played 40k since 2nd Ed.