Infantry Squad
M WS BS S T W A LD SV
Guardsmen 6" 3+ 3+ 3 3 1 2 6 5+
Heavy Weapon 6" 3+ 3+ 3 4 1 2 6 5+
Sergeant 6" 3+ 3+ 3 3 1 3 6 4+
Infantry Squad contains 4 Guardsmen and 1 Sergeant each armed with Lasguns, krak grenades, frag Grenades. And may include an additional fifteen models.
- The Sergeant may replace his Lasgun with two of the following: Las pistol, Bolt Pistol, Plasma Pistol, Chainsword, Powersword, Power maul, Poweraxe.
- The Sergeant may replace is Lasgun with one of the following: Boltgun, Flamer, Plasmagun, Meltagun, Sniper Rifle, Shotgun, Grenade launcher.
- One Guardsmen may take a Vox-Caster.
- One Guardsmen for every five models may replace his Lasgun with one of the following: Boltgun, Flamer, Plasmagun, Meltagun, Sniper Rifle, Shotgun, Grenade Launcher
- One Guardsman for every ten models may replace his Lasgun with one of the following: Heavy Bolter, Autocannon, Lascannon, Missile Launcher, Mortar, Heavy Flamer, Plasma Cannon, Multi-melta

Range TYPE S AP D Notes
Lasgun 24" Rapid Fire 2 3 -1 1 This weapon hits automatically within Rapid Fire range, in addition, this weapon may be fired while the model is in engagement range.
Shotgun 12" Assault 1 5 -2 2 This weapon may be fired while the model is in engagement range.

So, the changes here are:
1) you can start with 5-man squads and scale to 20, no pre-set 10
2) you get 1 extra special weapon per 10 guard
3) Heavy Weapon squads... don't exist anymore? Not sure what's going on here
4) Lasguns and shotguns are insanely strong now, what in the world

Also WS and BS went to 3+, Attacks on the guardsmen doubled, the heavy weapons dude gets +1S and everybody has Krak Grenades (which makes the Grenadiers strat on a 20-men unit hilarious.

Seriously that's a looot of buffs. They would have to increase a lot in price to get that and in my opinion that would not really be guard anymore. The WS/BS 3+ alone is... to much. And the weapons... autohitting lasguns... "pistol" shotguns with 5/-2/2... That's just... extreme.

How much would you take for that? 10/15 Points?

Wow this is incredibly bad. Not sure why guardsman went up to BS 3+ much less getting WS 3+ as well. I didn’t realize the bayonet drills had improved that much. On that note the average guardsman gets 2 attacks. Literally they now have more base attacks than a standard tactical marine. I’m glad the guard physical training regimen can outpace gene forging.

The weapons are almost worse. Each lasgun auto hitting at rapid fire range and at AP-1 is insane. Just 10 lasguns puts a little over 4 wounds on a terminator type profile. Against a MEQ profile it produces almost 7 wounds. Against Orks it’s over 13 wounds. If you add in orders you can effectively double that number so a 10 man guard squad can almost wipe out a 30 ork sized blob for only 55 points. Auto hitting on overwatch and getting to shoot twice by assaulting where you auto hit again is legitimately insane.

It only gets worse as you look at more of the rules. Cadian rerolls and Armageddon 18” rapid fire will be brutal.

Guardsmen are, by modern-day Earth standards, elite troops. They are soldiers who have trained their butts off, armed with potent weapons and armor comparable to anything we would give ordinary soldiers.

They're small peanuts compared to most of the gak that goes around fighting in 40k. I wouldn't mind seeing Guardsmen going up to 6 or 7 PPM, with appropriate buffs... But you've gone way, WAY too far. In very odd ways too.

You guys are being a bit harsh, BS3+ doesn't make much of a difference on Guardsmen when your Lasguns hit automatically for some reason.

Guard are meant to be cheap and expendable. Perhaps this would work on Tempestus, but nah, a Guardsman shouldn't have more attacks than a Tactical Marine. And a Shotgun is now better than a Heavy Bolter?

I applaud the attempt, and agree guardsmen need SOMETHING to help, but this. This is insane.

Why 2A base? (Hell, thats more than a bloodletter or equal to an Ork!)

Why are shotguns a heavy bolter shot that can be shot in close combat?

What would even be the point value you'd give each guardsmen? And if Guardsmen squads are this powerful I shudder to think how strong the actual elite infantry in the book would be to compete.

Guardsmen are absolute disposable meatshield horde. I'd like to see their max squad size increased and some other rules (maybe declare a detatchment to be infantry based or Mechanised based with bonuses/limitations) but everything in this suggestion just would be incredibly unfun and unbalanced.

Conscripts are the "disposable meatshield horde".

So either ditch Conscripts from the book and degrade Guardsmen to compensate, or make Guardsmen what they are supposed to actually be:
A standing army, trained to a relatively high standard.

The idea of the Guardsmen being "disposable meatshield horde" comes from wild misunderstandings of the actual competency of Guardsmen compared to Conscripts.

This is not the power creep you are looking for....

Even as a long term Guard player I think this is too much. You've given them better stats than Veterans and Stormtroopers/Scions.

Infantry Squads do need something, but I think small tweaks are better. Just brainstorming something like:

- Giving the Sergeant a lasgun again. Very small change with a surprisingly big impact. Basically an extra 10% additional firepower across every infantry squad.
- On the flip side allow Guardsmen to swap their lasguns for a laspistol and chainsword. That way people who want to play melee Guard can.
- Maybe something like Bolter Drill (Lasgun Drill?), except instead of extra shots, it's exploding 6's. So lasguns could get a couple of extra hits.
- AP-1 on lasguns might be better as a stratagem, something like "Fullpower Lasbolts".
- Bring back platoons, even something as basic as 1 platoon commander, 2 - 3 infantry squads, 0 - 1 special weapon squad, and 0 - 1 heavy weapon squad would be enough. Which means we can save points and CP on additional detachment taxes.
- Roll back Guardsmen points cost to 5 per model.
- Commissars Summary Execution should be changed back to kill a model and autopass. If that's too strong maybe it should be triggered only after the first model flees, so a squad would only ever lose a maximum of 2 models.
- Medi-packs should provide a 6+++ aura and not require a roll to heal wounds or bring a model back.
- Platoon and Company Standards need to be made more interesting. Just look at some of the Custode or Space Marine ones.

Just those would probably be enough. Bringing back platoons could save us 2 - 6 CP from having to take multiple detachments. Save us the sentinel brigade tax if you were instead wanting to take lots of infantry, or save the HQ tax from every additional detachment. Which means more points to put elsewhere.

Wow, honestly wasn't expecting this to blow up overnight. Thank you.

These are napkin notes that I've taken from talking to several IG players about their complaints with the guardsmen squad. It takes 8 guardsmen to kill one marine but a guardsmen costs 1/4 of a marine, thus a guardsmen needs to be either 3 points per model or receive a significant power increase. Guardsmen hitting on 4s is bs. I intended these solutions to the problem to be ran up the flagpole and see which changes get people like to buff the guardsmen which didn't happen. Well lesson learned. So I feel I must explain the logic for each change.

-starting with the stat lines. Traditionally marines hit on 3+ and guardsmen hit on 4s but that isn't what marines are doing anymore. Marines hit on 2s with a reroll, I think it's time to put the thought of 3+ guardsmen on the table. 2 attacks because no melee AP and 1 attack really doesn't cut it. (Pun intended). Weapon teams are T4 because most of the heavy weapons have a blast shield on the model. Sergeant is SV 4+, this is not an amateur but a professional soldier.

- the sergeant I didn't understand he was limited to pistol and sword, you'd expect a guy who's been around that long, you'd expect his weapons card to be full.

-As far as squad size increase it was more of a call to bring back the platoon.

-Took inspiration from the US military's infantry doctrine. A squad is made of 2-3 fire teams, each fireteam consists of 1 fire team leader/ riflemen, 1 grenadier, 1 automatic riflemen, 1 assistant automatic riflemen/riflemen. I just replaced the grenadier with a special weapon and the automatic riflemen with a heavy weapon team. Again a ton of weapons being a great way to bring back the spirit of the platoon.

- the change to the lasgun was an attempt to make getting close to a guardsmen scary. The auto hit representing the guardsmen mag dumping the target and putting so many shots in the area that there is no way you didn't get hit.

- the shotgun was a way I thought of making a guardsmen really scary in close combat.

Think about how many points these guys would be.

For a point of comparison, 4 hits at S3 AP-1 D1 does 2/3rds a point of damage to a MEQ. 2 BS 3+ shots at S4 AP-1 D1 do 1/3rd a point of damage. Make that AP-2 and it only increases to 4/9ths.

In other words, a single Guardsmen with a Lasgun does more damage, if within 12", than an Intercessor does to a MEQ.

Also, MEQ hit on a 3+. One squad can be buffed to hit on a 2+, thanks to a Chaplain, but while RR1s to-hit is pretty dang common, hitting on a 2+ is not.

Or you play dark angels which get army wide +1 to hit if they don't move. Oh look I'm near a near a captain, I get reroll 1s. I hit 98% of the time at 30" range.

 Adriel wrote:
Or you play dark angels which get army wide +1 to hit if they don't move. Oh look I'm near a near a captain, I get reroll 1s. I hit 98% of the time at 30" range.

I did forget that.

But should a singular Guardsmen outdamage a Marine? And again, you provided no points costs-you surely don't think your improvements should come without a points bump, right?

As I said in my big reply, the guardsmen needs a large bump in power. The bump to rate of fire/ AP or the mag dump for auto-hits ability is needed. But I will concede that both at the same time is a little much for maintaining the same points cost.

 JNAProductions wrote:
I did forget that.

But should a singular Guardsmen outdamage a Marine? And again, you provided no points costs-you surely don't think your improvements should come without a points bump, right?

This. Guardsmen just need more or better sources of buffs, more tactical options, and maybe more equipment options. Their statline shouldn't need to change.

 Adriel wrote:
Wow, honestly wasn't expecting this to blow up overnight. Thank you.

These are napkin notes that I've taken from talking to several IG players about their complaints with the guardsmen squad. It takes 8 guardsmen to kill one marine but a guardsmen costs 1/4 of a marine, thus a guardsmen needs to be either 3 points per model or receive a significant power increase. Guardsmen hitting on 4s is bs. I intended these solutions to the problem to be ran up the flagpole and see which changes get people like to buff the guardsmen which didn't happen. Well lesson learned. So I feel I must explain the logic for each change.

-starting with the stat lines. Traditionally marines hit on 3+ and guardsmen hit on 4s but that isn't what marines are doing anymore. Marines hit on 2s with a reroll, I think it's time to put the thought of 3+ guardsmen on the table. 2 attacks because no melee AP and 1 attack really doesn't cut it. (Pun intended). Weapon teams are T4 because most of the heavy weapons have a blast shield on the model. Sergeant is SV 4+, this is not an amateur but a professional soldier.

- the sergeant I didn't understand he was limited to pistol and sword, you'd expect a guy who's been around that long, you'd expect his weapons card to be full.

-As far as squad size increase it was more of a call to bring back the platoon.

-Took inspiration from the US military's infantry doctrine. A squad is made of 2-3 fire teams, each fireteam consists of 1 fire team leader/ riflemen, 1 grenadier, 1 automatic riflemen, 1 assistant automatic riflemen/riflemen. I just replaced the grenadier with a special weapon and the automatic riflemen with a heavy weapon team. Again a ton of weapons being a great way to bring back the spirit of the platoon.

- the change to the lasgun was an attempt to make getting close to a guardsmen scary. The auto hit representing the guardsmen mag dumping the target and putting so many shots in the area that there is no way you didn't get hit.

- the shotgun was a way I thought of making a guardsmen really scary in close combat.

Thanks for providing your reasoning. As you can tell, many of us were wondering what you were going for here. That said, I feel like you might be overvaluing the abilities of guardsmen, or undervaluing the abilities of the various other forces of the galaxy. Guardsmen are competent soldiers, absolutely. Hitting on a 4+ instead of a 5+ is a reflection of that. Marines (and basically every other "elite" army) hitting on a 3+ is a reflection of the fact that such units are simply that much more impressive than the admittedly very impressive guardsman.

Can we agree that a cybernetically-enhanced skitarii, bolter-toting sister of battle, or samurai space elf with a millenia of battlefield experience should be markedly more impressive than the average guardsman? And can we agree that my space elves should probably be outnumbered when facing off against your guard army? What you have here would be a pretty good representation of something like a veteran squad or some sort of storm trooper variant. But as rank-and-file, I feel like these rules fail to represent their unit's fluff because they're outshooting their much more elite counterparts. And even if you priced them appropriately, you'd then, by necessity, end up with an army that doesn't "feel numerous" because they can only field about as many dudes as my dying-race space elves can.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kanluwen wrote:
Conscripts are the "disposable meatshield horde".

So either ditch Conscripts from the book and degrade Guardsmen to compensate, or make Guardsmen what they are supposed to actually be:
A standing army, trained to a relatively high standard.

The idea of the Guardsmen being "disposable meatshield horde" comes from wild misunderstandings of the actual competency of Guardsmen compared to Conscripts.

Eh. I mean, the better solution probably would have been to just differentiate their costs enough to make both units feel worthwhile without stepping on each other's toes back when they overhauled a bunch of points costs as part of 9th's release. Guardsman stats are humble, but they also seem like a decent baseline for a competent, trained human. -1 to hit and an ability to execute complicated orders is about what I would expect from conscripts in comparison, and that's what we have.

No. Literally the answer is that Conscripts need to become a lesser armored, trashier weapon toting, garbage unit that's Auxilia keyworded while Guardsmen are BS4 with Regiment.

And that's assuming you don't actually make a real, legitimate effort and do the proper thing: burn the book to the ground, and fluff it with Guilliman bringing the Imperial Army back as a thing and using the Regimental "looks" as the basis of archetypes for things.

Valhallan greatcoats(basically no visible armor or gear, just coats and hats really) being the basis for an Auxilia Conscript unit with laslocks or autoguns as options.

Mordian fancy uniforms with some armored vests and chased pauldrons for an Officio Prefectus unit.

etc, etc, etc.

 Adriel wrote:
Or you play dark angels which get army wide +1 to hit if they don't move. Oh look I'm near a near a captain, I get reroll 1s. I hit 98% of the time at 30" range.

That's literally one subfaction, and one that arguably needs reworking anyway.

These are napkin notes that I've taken from talking to several IG players about their complaints with the guardsmen squad. It takes 8 guardsmen to kill one marine but a guardsmen costs 1/4 of a marine...
The problem here isn't the guardsmen, it's the increasing toughness of the marines. Guard does reasonable damage to most everything else.

-starting with the stat lines. Traditionally marines hit on 3+ and guardsmen hit on 4s.
Good enough. Guard infantry are for bodies, many cheap wounds. If you want good shooting, get scions, no need for change

-As far as squad size increase it was more of a call to bring back the platoon.
Would like that

- the change to the lasgun was an attempt to make getting close to a guardsmen scary.
Getting close to guardsmen with FRFSRF is scary, except to over resillient marines


- the shotgun was a way I thought of making a guardsmen really scary in close combat.
can shotgun vets if you want.

I like a lot of these ideas:

Jarms48 wrote:
Even as a long term Guard player I think this is too much. You've given them better stats than Veterans and Stormtroopers/Scions.

Infantry Squads do need something, but I think small tweaks are better. Just brainstorming something like:

- Giving the Sergeant a lasgun again. Very small change with a surprisingly big impact. Basically an extra 10% additional firepower across every infantry squad.
- On the flip side allow Guardsmen to swap their lasguns for a laspistol and chainsword. That way people who want to play melee Guard can.
- Maybe something like Bolter Drill (Lasgun Drill?), except instead of extra shots, it's exploding 6's. So lasguns could get a couple of extra hits.
- AP-1 on lasguns might be better as a stratagem, something like "Fullpower Lasbolts".
- Bring back platoons, even something as basic as 1 platoon commander, 2 - 3 infantry squads, 0 - 1 special weapon squad, and 0 - 1 heavy weapon squad would be enough. Which means we can save points and CP on additional detachment taxes.
- Roll back Guardsmen points cost to 5 per model.
- Commissars Summary Execution should be changed back to kill a model and autopass. If that's too strong maybe it should be triggered only after the first model flees, so a squad would only ever lose a maximum of 2 models.
- Medi-packs should provide a 6+++ aura and not require a roll to heal wounds or bring a model back.
- Platoon and Company Standards need to be made more interesting. Just look at some of the Custode or Space Marine ones.

Just those would probably be enough. Bringing back platoons could save us 2 - 6 CP from having to take multiple detachments. Save us the sentinel brigade tax if you were instead wanting to take lots of infantry, or save the HQ tax from every additional detachment. Which means more points to put elsewhere.

 Kanluwen wrote:
No. Literally the answer is that Conscripts need to become a lesser armored, trashier weapon toting, garbage unit that's Auxilia keyworded while Guardsmen are BS4 with Regiment.

And that's assuming you don't actually make a real, legitimate effort and do the proper thing: burn the book to the ground, and fluff it with Guilliman bringing the Imperial Army back as a thing and using the Regimental "looks" as the basis of archetypes for things.

Valhallan greatcoats(basically no visible armor or gear, just coats and hats really) being the basis for an Auxilia Conscript unit with laslocks or autoguns as options.

Mordian fancy uniforms with some armored vests and chased pauldrons for an Officio Prefectus unit.

etc, etc, etc.

Sure let's just invalidate nearly every AM player's army for literally no reason. Sorry, we wiped the entire culture and background of your army in order to replace it with a single unit. Oh what you wanted to make a converted army with some of the multiple human scale kits from GW? Sorry, they don't fit into these arbitrary bland roles so that's a no-go.

You do understand flak vests can be worn underneath uniforms right? And that Autoguns and Lasguns have the same weapon profiles with only certain strategems and special rules affecting Lasguns?

Guilliman bringing back the Imperial Army would be the same as him bringing back the Legions, the Army was split into the AM and Navy so that neither group could effectively rebel and threaten the Imperium. Also, the Army was just as varied as the AM. Uniforms, tactics, and culture were still a huge factor in the differing Army regiments. The only time the Army had similar tactics/uniforms was at the Siege of Terra, where 90% of the regiments were conscripts, whose job BTW was to be used for holding actions to prevent losses among Astartes/Mechanicus/Titan forces who were infinitely more valuable.

 Gert wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
No. Literally the answer is that Conscripts need to become a lesser armored, trashier weapon toting, garbage unit that's Auxilia keyworded while Guardsmen are BS4 with Regiment.

And that's assuming you don't actually make a real, legitimate effort and do the proper thing: burn the book to the ground, and fluff it with Guilliman bringing the Imperial Army back as a thing and using the Regimental "looks" as the basis of archetypes for things.

Valhallan greatcoats(basically no visible armor or gear, just coats and hats really) being the basis for an Auxilia Conscript unit with laslocks or autoguns as options.

Mordian fancy uniforms with some armored vests and chased pauldrons for an Officio Prefectus unit.

etc, etc, etc.

Sure let's just invalidate nearly every AM player's army for literally no reason. Sorry, we wiped the entire culture and background of your army in order to replace it with a single unit. Oh what you wanted to make a converted army with some of the multiple human scale kits from GW? Sorry, they don't fit into these arbitrary bland roles so that's a no-go.

You do understand flak vests can be worn underneath uniforms right? And that Autoguns and Lasguns have the same weapon profiles with only certain strategems and special rules affecting Lasguns?

Guilliman bringing back the Imperial Army would be the same as him bringing back the Legions, the Army was split into the AM and Navy so that neither group could effectively rebel and threaten the Imperium. Also, the Army was just as varied as the AM. Uniforms, tactics, and culture were still a huge factor in the differing Army regiments. The only time the Army had similar tactics/uniforms was at the Siege of Terra, where 90% of the regiments were conscripts, whose job BTW was to be used for holding actions to prevent losses among Astartes/Mechanicus/Titan forces who were infinitely more valuable.

The greatcoat Guardsmen don’t actually wear flak vests, if I recall they’re made up of layers of flak weave to get similar results.

So all Guardsmen wear a variant of Flak armour which can come in multiple designs. Not sure what the disagreement here is.

 Gert wrote:

Sure let's just invalidate nearly every AM player's army for literally no reason. Sorry, we wiped the entire culture and background of your army in order to replace it with a single unit. Oh what you wanted to make a converted army with some of the multiple human scale kits from GW? Sorry, they don't fit into these arbitrary bland roles so that's a no-go.

Speaking as someone with over 150 Cadians rocking the FW respirator kits, three squads of Kasrkin that no longer have rules or any kind of meaningful role besides "They're pretend Scions"? Zero sympathy.

And frankly, anyone who thinks "culture and background" comes down to "funny hats or coats" is deluding themselves.

You do understand flak vests can be worn underneath uniforms right?

Sure. Do you understand that "flak vests" are not "flak armor"?
Flak Armor is supposed to be the chest armor plus the pauldrons plus the helmet, with optional waist, wrist, and knee armor plating.

And that Autoguns and Lasguns have the same weapon profiles with only certain strategems and special rules affecting Lasguns?

Gee, it's almost like that's why I would have suggested such a thing!

Guilliman bringing back the Imperial Army would be the same as him bringing back the Legions, the Army was split into the AM and Navy so that neither group could effectively rebel and threaten the Imperium. Also, the Army was just as varied as the AM. Uniforms, tactics, and culture were still a huge factor in the differing Army regiments. The only time the Army had similar tactics/uniforms was at the Siege of Terra, where 90% of the regiments were conscripts, whose job BTW was to be used for holding actions to prevent losses among Astartes/Mechanicus/Titan forces who were infinitely more valuable.

Nobody said a single thing about the Navy.


The point, which you've seemed to have missed, is that the Army had specialized regiments that were what we kept seeing talked about...but for every Lucifer Blacks or whatever named+fluffed out in-depth, with their unique armor and kit? There was a hundred nameless regiments that just wore bog-standard gear produced en masse on Forge Worlds.

Too much stock has been placed on the outliers by players. That's a huuuuuuuuuuge issue and unfortunately GW has been feeding into it constantly. It's even right there in the start of your post, bizarrely equating "culture and background" with the look alone of the regiment.

 Kanluwen wrote:

Speaking as someone with over 150 Cadians rocking the FW respirator kits, three squads of Kasrkin that no longer have rules or any kind of meaningful role besides "They're pretend Scions"? Zero sympathy.

Ummm, just because GW fleshed out Stormtroopers generally, and gave them a sub-faction, a "high gothic name" and "generic" plastic models doesn't invalidate your Kasrkins as far as I can tell? (I mean, GW blowing up their homeworld gives you recruitment issues, but, details.)
The standard doctrine for Scions if you're not taking one of their six named regiments is "Stormtroopers".

Was there a particular Kasrkin rule you used to have that you're missing now?

If you don't feel like your Kasrkins are sufficiently supported, you can sell them for a lot of money on ebay, plenty of us would love to run them with the Scions/Stormtrooper rules.


As to the OP; 5 Man infantry squads would be a nice option for super cheap screening. Just throwaway 30 point rifleman squads.

Not a single one of those Cadians is unusable and as for the Kasrkin, AFAIK they haven't had unique rules since at least the 5th edition codex from 2009. They were used to represent Stormtroopers and Stormtroopers have become Scions, so people saying "use them as Scions" are saying "use them as the unit they've been used as for a decade".
As for culture and background, a miniature can only convey culture and background through visual means. If you asked someone to describe a British WW2 soldier they would tell you khaki uniform with a Brodie helm. If you asked someone to describe a Valhallan they would say winter coats and Ushankas. The AM has more in common with Napoleonic armies with bright uniforms and easily identifiable allegiances than it does with modern armies equipping all soldiers with basically the same gear.
40k is a miniatures game and the current AM model range (outdated and OOP as it is) gives players an easy way to determine what army subfaction they are facing by simply looking at it. For example:
"Ah I can see winter coats and Ushankas, I am playing against Valhallans, they get good morale and vehicle buffs".
Your version would have it like this:
"There are so many units with different models I don't know who I am fighting".


Someone pointed out that multiple regiments make use of layered flak jackets that serve the same purpose. Armour is a catch-all term for defensive clothing so I don't see why every single unit with Flak Armour needs a huge breastplate and shoulder pads.


The Imperial Army was the amalgamated forces of the Solar Auxilia, Militia forces, Army regiments, and the Navy. The Imperial Navy as its own branch didn't exist until after the Heresy. To bring back the Imperial Army, Guilliman would have to dissolve both the AM and the Navy.
The only "specialised" regiments of the Army were the Solar Auxilia who were disbanded and turned into either AM regiments or Navy armsmen. They literally do not exist anymore.
"Too much stock has been placed on outliers" what the heck does that even mean? People have enjoyed the choice of multiple models to represent their armies?

VonGerrow wrote:

Ummm, just because GW fleshed out Stormtroopers generally, and gave them a sub-faction, a "high gothic name" and "generic" plastic models doesn't invalidate your Kasrkins as far as I can tell? (I mean, GW blowing up their homeworld gives you recruitment issues, but, details.)
The standard doctrine for Scions if you're not taking one of their six named regiments is "Stormtroopers".

Was there a particular Kasrkin rule you used to have that you're missing now?

Is this a serious question?

Kasrkin, when first introduced, were a Troop choice in the Cadian Shock Army list from the Eye of Terror book. They were Stormtroopers minus the whole "Covert Operations" bend. No Deep Strike or Infiltrate, whole squad rocked Hellguns with Sgt optionally being able to take a Hellpistol+ccw instead of Hellgun if you wanted, a vox-caster on a model, and two Kasrkin could take flamers, grenade launchers, meltaguns, or plasma guns while the whole squad could get Melta-Bombs and could grab a Chimera as a Dedicated Transport.

Cut to the Doctrines book!
Cadians had the Grenadiers and Storm Trooper Squads doctrines, allowing for you to take 3x units of Storm Troopers as Troop choices with no DS/Infiltrate and another 3x units of Storm Troopers as Elite choices with the DS/Infiltrate options. Also the start of the "no model, no rules" era as the Storm Trooper Squads lost "hellguns on sergeants" options that early.
Then there was the Cruddace book, but we don't talk about that.

The sad part is that DKoK Grenadiers ended up getting a lot of the loadouts and concepts that Kasrkin had.

If you don't feel like your Kasrkins are sufficiently supported, you can sell them for a lot of money on ebay, plenty of us would love to run them with the Scions/Stormtrooper rules.

Not enough money to make me want to let go of some my beloved models to some goons on eBay who are just gonna use them as proxies for Scions because they're cheapskates.

As to the OP; 5 Man infantry squads would be a nice option for super cheap screening. Just throwaway 30 point rifleman squads.

Frankly, they just need to give Infantry Squads "fireteams" that let you do things like breaking them up


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Gert wrote:

Not a single one of those Cadians is unusable and as for the Kasrkin, AFAIK they haven't had unique rules since at least the 5th edition codex from 2009. They were used to represent Stormtroopers and Stormtroopers have become Scions, so people saying "use them as Scions" are saying "use them as the unit they've been used as for a decade".

And Valhallan models have never had special rules, so what's your point?

Kasrkin actually had unique rules at one point.

As for culture and background, a miniature can only convey culture and background through visual means. If you asked someone to describe a British WW2 soldier they would tell you khaki uniform with a Brodie helm.

Cool, now do Canadians or South Africans or Australians or or or...

If you asked someone to describe a Valhallan they would say winter coats and Ushankas. The AM has more in common with Napoleonic armies with bright uniforms and easily identifiable allegiances than it does with modern armies equipping all soldiers with basically the same gear.

Except for that pesky part where they mention things being standardized for warzones, I guess?

40k is a miniatures game and the current AM model range (outdated and OOP as it is) gives players an easy way to determine what army subfaction they are facing by simply looking at it. For example:
"Ah I can see winter coats and Ushankas, I am playing against Valhallans, they get good morale and vehicle buffs".

"Ah I can see winter coats and Ushankas. The person is using Valhallan models!"

That's the correct statement to make, since anyone can use any models for anything. But you likely knew that and chose to make the disingenuous argument anyways, so kudos!

Your version would have it like this:
"There are so many units with different models I don't know who I am fighting".

Nah. My version would have it like this:
"I see greatcoats and autoguns, I guess they're using Conscripts! That probably means Valhallans!"
"I see armoured torsos, shoulderpads, and lasguns. I guess they have plain old Infantry Squads! That probably means Cadians!"
"I see fancy armor and uniforms...uhoh, that's Prefectus territory! Probably Mordians!"

Visual identification is a great thing when there's a legitimate archetype at play. It's why the current system of "everyone's a Guardsman!" is an awful one. It's the whole reason why Whiteshields, a Cadian concept from the Eye of Terror book for its "Youth Army Platoons" got shoveled over to be an "Everybody has them!" thing for Conscripts.

Someone pointed out that multiple regiments make use of layered flak jackets that serve the same purpose. Armour is a catch-all term for defensive clothing so I don't see why every single unit with Flak Armour needs a huge breastplate and shoulder pads.

If you want to get nitpickily technical about it? The longcoats aren't "flak jackets". They're jackets lined with flak plating...and they're explicitly called out in the Uplifting Primer as being less protective than Flak Armour.

The Imperial Army was the amalgamated forces of the Solar Auxilia, Militia forces, Army regiments, and the Navy. The Imperial Navy as its own branch didn't exist until after the Heresy. To bring back the Imperial Army, Guilliman would have to dissolve both the AM and the Navy.
The only "specialised" regiments of the Army were the Solar Auxilia who were disbanded and turned into either AM regiments or Navy armsmen. They literally do not exist anymore.

(Citations Needed)

I'll admit, I stopped reading a lot of the HH novels after awhile...but it sounds more and more like you're talking about stuff from the tabletop aspect not the actual lore? Because there were definitely specialized regiments called out in the novels...and even though specialized? Their gear had a basis in the "common" gear for the non-specialized regiments. Regiments had to be fairly important or heavily established to get away with having their own unique gear.

"Too much stock has been placed on outliers" what the heck does that even mean? People have enjoyed the choice of multiple models to represent their armies?

It means that people like yourself insist upon pretending that every single regiment from a world is actually one of its specialized regiments and pushing for that mentality to be the one that needs to happen.
Not every Cadian regiment is a Shock Troop regiment, not every Catachan regiment is a Jungle Fighters regiment, not every Tallarn are Desert Raiders, etc etc etc.

Guard, as a whole, are a mess right now and a big part of that is GW's refusal to actively rework the infantry variants into something meaningful.

Must have missed the part where Regimental Doctrines were a thing. And again Kasrkin haven't had rules for over a decade.


Do you mean like Sikh troops who were allowed to wear turbans? Or Scottish regiments who were allowed to wear Tartan? Of course, only choosing those nations that were part of the British Commonwealth and as such received British equipment is a fairly disingenuous point to make isn't it?


I mean the AM codex states that regiments are "equipped in the manner of their homeworld", further stating "Troopers may go to war in full battle-dress or little more than primitive armour and tribal tattoos. The only universal piece of equipment common throughout the entirety of the AM is the Lasgun". So, no. Equipment is not standardised through warzones.


You are correct anyone can use any models they want to represent whatever they want. Except, that premise immediately falls apart as soon as the discussion needs to be had about "wait what regiment are you playing?". If I play a game with a Cadian army, with full Cadian markings/colours, and say I'm playing Catachans, then my opponent might be confused but likely be OK with it. If I do this and change regiment every single game I play, the reaction will not be as courteous.


Except that everyone has conscripts/infantry squads/commissars. What you've done is ignore all the background of each of those regiments and the AM as a whole.


There can't be a scale for different protection levels of flak jackets in 40k. It's a game based on the D6 so having a generic 5+ flak armour catch-all for AM works perfectly fine.


https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Imperial_Army
Citation provided.
Again the only specialised regiments ever mentioned are those of the Solar Auxilia who no longer exist in 40k. And just to clarify something, the regiments of the Army would have had maybe a few hundred years of culture to build on and nearly all of the famous regiments had distinct uniforms cultural practices. The Imperial Army's unifying feature was again Lasguns/Lasrifles and basic variations of flak armour.


It's not pretending if that's the reality of the background. Catachan Jungle Fighters. Cadian Shock Troops. The second part of the name isn't a doctrine type is a nickname derived from their culture. The Tallarn are "Desert Raiders" because Tallarn is a desert planet after it was nuked by the Iron Warriors. Vostroyans are "Firstborn" because they are literally only made up of first born sons thanks to the Imperium making silly demands.

 Gert wrote:

Must have missed the part where Regimental Doctrines were a thing. And again Kasrkin haven't had rules for over a decade.

I must have missed the part where Valhallan Regimental Doctrines only applied to Valhallan Ice Warriors...

Valhallans have never had rules specific to their models. End of story. Pretending otherwise does nobody any good.
Kasrkin did have rules specific to their models and lost them. People got by with "counts as" for some time, but now Scions exist and the generic catch-all of the "Stormtrooper" is gone.

Spoiler:

Cool, now do Canadians or South Africans or Australians or or or...

Do you mean like Sikh troops who were allowed to wear turbans? Or Scottish regiments who were allowed to wear Tartan? Of course, only choosing those nations that were part of the British Commonwealth and as such received British equipment is a fairly disingenuous point to make isn't it?

I'm not the one who brought it up in the first place, I just worked with what you initially posted. One could tell Sikh troops by more than the fact that they "were allowed to wear turbans"...I really shouldn't have to explain why.

The Scots is a good point, but again it really didn't mean diddly in the grand scheme of things did it? Which was the whole point of what I said, as "culture and background" is a pointless thing to represent on the miniatures unless it has an in-game effect.
You want to argue for Tanith? I'll back you on that. Their camo-cloaks are "part of their culture and background"...but also would have an in-game effect.

Spoiler:

Except for that pesky part where they mention things being standardized for warzones, I guess?

I mean the AM codex states that regiments are "equipped in the manner of their homeworld", further stating "Troopers may go to war in full battle-dress or little more than primitive armour and tribal tattoos. The only universal piece of equipment common throughout the entirety of the AM is the Lasgun". So, no. Equipment is not standardised through warzones.

Funny how you ignored the part on the page across from that:

If serving together for extended durations, attached units tend to adopt their foster-regiment's uniform and unit markings. This not only helps to avoid friendly-fire incidents, but also aids in promoting comradeship with the soldiers they will be fighting and dying alongside.

Spoiler:

"Ah I can see winter coats and Ushankas. The person is using Valhallan models!"

That's the correct statement to make, since anyone can use any models for anything. But you likely knew that and chose to make the disingenuous argument anyways, so kudos!

You are correct anyone can use any models they want to represent whatever they want. Except, that premise immediately falls apart as soon as the discussion needs to be had about "wait what regiment are you playing?". If I play a game with a Cadian army, with full Cadian markings/colours, and say I'm playing Catachans, then my opponent might be confused but likely be OK with it. If I do this and change regiment every single game I play, the reaction will not be as courteous.

What you seem to be either wilfully ignoring or just outright failing to grasp?

Armies need a distinctive visual language. Guard do not have that. That is literally the whole premise behind what I've proposed time and time again.

You can tell if someone is running Scions currently. Why? Because they have a distinctive look to them.
You cannot tell if someone is running Conscripts, Infantry Squads, or Veterans unless they actively make an effort to differentiate things. And you people want individual regiments represented? Do you not understand how ridiculous this is?

The simplest and most effective way to get this across, in the end, is by actively differentiating units. Look at a DKoK force. One can identify the different units easily. Grenadiers have more plating, cabling to their hellguns, and the 'skull' faceplate attached to their masks while the 'standard' Korpsman is just rocking a lasgun, flak armour, and a no-frills gasmask.

Spoiler:

Nah. My version would have it like this:
"I see greatcoats and autoguns, I guess they're using Conscripts! That probably means Valhallans!"
"I see armoured torsos, shoulderpads, and lasguns. I guess they have plain old Infantry Squads! That probably means Cadians!"
"I see fancy armor and uniforms...uhoh, that's Prefectus territory! Probably Mordians!"

Except that everyone has conscripts/infantry squads/commissars. What you've done is ignore all the background of each of those regiments and the AM as a whole.

You do know that Officio Prefectus isn't just the Commissars, right?
And that nothing stops these things from being dual kits, right? Or from there being rules allowing for those units to be given a different keyword based upon the <Regiment> of your Warlord?

Oh yeah, and not everyone has Conscripts or Commissars. Commissars were, prior to the Cruddacing, supposed to be a rare sight in Cadian forces with their officers instead being trained by the Schola Psykana to know what to look for in Sanctioned Psykers.

Of course, they also didn't have a PDF--instead having the Interior Guard, full-fledged Guard Regiments that rotated on-world, but that's a whole other story.

Spoiler:

If you want to get nitpickily technical about it? The longcoats aren't "flak jackets". They're jackets lined with flak plating...and they're explicitly called out in the Uplifting Primer as being less protective than Flak Armour.

There can't be a scale for different protection levels of flak jackets in 40k. It's a game based on the D6 so having a generic 5+ flak armour catch-all for AM works perfectly fine.

Sure there can be.

Flak Jackets/Vests: 6+ save.
Flak Armour: 5+ save.

Spoiler:

(Citations Needed)

I'll admit, I stopped reading a lot of the HH novels after awhile...but it sounds more and more like you're talking about stuff from the tabletop aspect not the actual lore? Because there were definitely specialized regiments called out in the novels...and even though specialized? Their gear had a basis in the "common" gear for the non-specialized regiments. Regiments had to be fairly important or heavily established to get away with having their own unique gear.

https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Imperial_Army
Citation provided.
Again the only specialised regiments ever mentioned are those of the Solar Auxilia who no longer exist in 40k. And just to clarify something, the regiments of the Army would have had maybe a few hundred years of culture to build on and nearly all of the famous regiments had distinct uniforms cultural practices. The Imperial Army's unifying feature was again Lasguns/Lasrifles and basic variations of flak armour.

I'd suggest you go pop a read of "Legion" by Dan Abnett, because the Lucifer Blacks are definitely "mentioned". They even made it into the Beast saga post-Heresy.

Spoiler:

It means that people like yourself insist upon pretending that every single regiment from a world is actually one of its specialized regiments and pushing for that mentality to be the one that needs to happen.
Not every Cadian regiment is a Shock Troop regiment, not every Catachan regiment is a Jungle Fighters regiment, not every Tallarn are Desert Raiders, etc etc etc.

It's not pretending if that's the reality of the background. Catachan Jungle Fighters. Cadian Shock Troops. The second part of the name isn't a doctrine type is a nickname derived from their culture. The Tallarn are "Desert Raiders" because Tallarn is a desert planet after it was nuked by the Iron Warriors. Vostroyans are "Firstborn" because they are literally only made up of first born sons thanks to the Imperium making silly demands.

The infantry regiments of Cadia are known as Shock Troops...

The infantry regiments of Catachan...

I can go on, if you want. Hell even the Vostroyan lore doesn't preclude there being other regiments, it's just mentioned that it's "seen as an honor to serve in the tank crews and Firstborn infantry regiments".

If you give Flak jackets a 6+ save you've just demoted them to the level of leather armour.

I can understand wanting more visual and functional differences for conscripts/infantry/veterans - that I would agree with.

But deciding to use the regiment kits to achieve that seems entirely backwards and unnecessary.

My main concern for Guard is that the scale of the game has escalated too far above them. The humble 10 man squad is useless as anything other than a speed bump. Their attacks so anemic it's barely even worth bothering to roll when you're confronted with 2 wound Astartes as standard.
This isn't something you can actually fix unless you start to get silly.

So all you are mad about is the unit that hasn't had rules for ten years, still doesn't have rules. Ok.


So only things that give units in-game benefits should be allowed as indicators of the regiment? If building, painting, and army customisation wasn't a huge part of the hobby that would make sense, but they are so it doesn't.


Or, and hear me out here, paint your models. GW literally has examples of Cadian Whiteshield Conscripts with markings to show their role.


Prior to the "Cruddacing"? You mean like in the early 2000's when the Ghosts series and a bunch of other books were written that clearly had Commissars attached to regiments as a standard? Sure the Prefectus isn't just Commissars, it has MP's as well who are not frontline troops and therefore will not be seen in the 40k AM army list. If you want to take an army of MP's go ahead nobody is stopping you.


So some AM units will have as much protection as Orks and Cultists. Sure, Ok. I'm sure problems with AM will be solved by adding more things that nobody will take.


The Lucifer Blacks were not a specialist regiment nor were they Solar Auxilia. The Gene-Five-Two-Chiliad was also just a regiment that so happened to use genetic manipulation to make its soldiers strong.


Again, you've taken the Vostroyan passage out of context. The entire reason the regiments are called Firstborn is that they are made up of firstborn children as punishment for failing to support the Imperium during the Heresy. The population is fine with this as it is seen as a repayment of their sins and a great honour. All Vostroyan soldiers are still first born children.
As for the rest, all you need to do is go to the GW webstore and the names on the boxes of the miniatures are "Cadian Shock Troops", "Catachan Jungle Fighters" and "Steel Legion Squad". The regiments might not all be Infantray regiments but they are still Shock Troops or Jungle Fighters.

If we are wishlisting I would chip in with the squad needs to be stronger and I don't like the bare bones fielding of squads - that is something Conscripts should be for.

My squad mix would be...
No change to guardsman stats.
Change to orders to make them faster and smoother - e.g. first rank fire, second rank fire now has the lasguns auto hit from weight of fire rather than doubling shots

Troops
Frags
Infantry Squad 65 points
1 Sarge - Lasgun or Las pistol and choice or close combat weapon (standard points)
9 Guardsmen
-1 may be a marksman and exchange his lasgun for a sniper rifle (free)
-1 may be a vox operator and carry a vox (free)
-1 may be a gunner and carry a special weapon or heavy stubber (free)
A heavy weapons team may be added to the squad for 10 points + cost of weapon (this takes the squad to 12 men and the limit of a Chimera)

Veteran Squad 65 points
Frag and Krak
Sarge - may carry pistol and CC weapon or lasgun, boltgun, shotgun or autogun.
4 veterans with lasgun, shotgun or autogun
Up to 5 veterans may be added for 5 points each
-1 may be a specialist and exchange his lasgun for a sniper rifle or demolition charge and lasgun/laspistol (free) or heavy flamer (10 points)
-1 may be a vox operator and carry a vox (free)
-3 may be a gunner and carry a special weapon or heavy stubber (Flamer, Grenade launcher, heavy stubber free, plasma and melta +5 points)
A heavy weapons team may be added to the squad for 13 points + cost of weapon (this takes the squad to 12 men and the limit of a Chimera)

Conscripts Squad 100 points
Frags
Training Sarge (regular Sarge) - Las pistol and choice or close combat weapon (standard points)
19 Conscripts
Up to 10 conscripts may be added at 4 points each

Elites
Frags
Special Weapons Squad 40 points
3 Guardsmen
3 Guardsmen with special weapons or Heavy stubbers

Fast Attack
Recon squad 40 points
Frag and krak
1 sarge - Lasgun or Las pistol and choice or close combat weapon (standard points)
2 guardsmen (spotters)
-1 may be a vox operator and carry a vox (free)
3 guardsmen (specialists) with sniper rifles or demolition charges and lasguns/las pistols
Recon:- May set up a minimum of 12" from enemy models after deployment has finished.

Heavy Support
Heavy Weapons squad 20 points
Frag
3 heavy weapons teams with heavy weapon (at normal costs)
Dig in - A heavy Weapons squad that has not moved this game was dug in before the battle started and until it moves counts as being in light cover

Kanu, what exactly in terms of unique rules did Kasrkin really have?

 Kanluwen wrote:


Armies need a distinctive visual language. Guard do not have that. That is literally the whole premise behind what I've proposed time and time again.

You can tell if someone is running Scions currently. Why? Because they have a distinctive look to them.
You cannot tell if someone is running Conscripts, Infantry Squads, or Veterans unless they actively make an effort to differentiate things. And you people want individual regiments represented? Do you not understand how ridiculous this is?

The simplest and most effective way to get this across, in the end, is by actively differentiating units. Look at a DKoK force. One can identify the different units easily. Grenadiers have more plating, cabling to their hellguns, and the 'skull' faceplate attached to their masks while the 'standard' Korpsman is just rocking a lasgun, flak armour, and a no-frills gasmask.

Nah. My version would have it like this:
"I see greatcoats and autoguns, I guess they're using Conscripts! That probably means Valhallans!"
"I see armoured torsos, shoulderpads, and lasguns. I guess they have plain old Infantry Squads! That probably means Cadians!"
"I see fancy armor and uniforms...uhoh, that's Prefectus territory! Probably Mordians!"
[

This. A thousand times this.

Building guard infantry lists is so soul crushingly boring under the current paradigm. You've got one kit worth of models for almost everything except Ogryn. Said kit can do three different things, confusing your opponent and yourself, and you have functionally 3 regular infantry units spread to a bunch of data sheets and 3 surviving auxillia options. I don't even count scions, as you loose a ton unless you take them in their own detachemnt. They're functionally their own armies at this point, and more power to the people who like that army, but they aren't guard.

Giving guard visually and mechanically distinct infantry units to provide some actually variety to the army would be a godsend. Abandon the modern idea that every unit has to fit into every regiment, give us interesting, distinct options that you can use for your regiment if they fit. Or you want to be a soulless minmaxer, I don't judge.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Kanu, what exactly in terms of unique rules did Kasrkin really have?

It's hard to say what they would have now, but the big thing is simply they would be "Cadian" keyworded units rather than "Militarum Tempestus".

You've been around long enough to know a few of the things I would have done, including going out of my way to try to develop "iconic units" for the big Regiments.

 Kanluwen wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Kanu, what exactly in terms of unique rules did Kasrkin really have?

It's hard to say what they would have now, but the big thing is simply they would be "Cadian" keyworded units rather than "Militarum Tempestus".

That doesn't answer my question though.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Kanu, what exactly in terms of unique rules did Kasrkin really have?

It's hard to say what they would have now, but the big thing is simply they would be "Cadian" keyworded units rather than "Militarum Tempestus".

That doesn't answer my question though.

Oh, should I dip into an alternate universe then where they kept Kasrkin as a unit?

Cool! Here's what I got from my multiversal trek:
They are a Regimental keyworded unit, with no alternate deployment methods like Scions have, Vox-Casters, and a Troop choice exclusive to Cadians. Oh yeah and they have access to Heavy Stubbers and Heavy Flamers, like the DKoK Grenadiers do!


Here on Earth Prime though, who knows what they would be, other than Cadian keyworded...which alone is a huge difference to Scions. If one goes and compares them to the DKoK Grenadiers? You can see what likely would have been the role of Kasrkin.

But no matter what, the "unique rules for Kasrkin" were that they were a Cadian Stormtrooper unit minus the alternate deployment methods and a Troops choice.

 Kanluwen wrote:

Is this a serious question?

Yes, I haven't played since 4th Ed when I was running Preatorians; never used stormtroopers back then, but the new Stormtroopers seem to me like they have everything the old ones had and a bunch extra. What I remember is stormtroopers being an option that every regiment could draw upon, but which only the Cadians had dedicated models to represent their version. (If you wanted Catachan Stormtroopers, you kitbashed the infantry box with converted Hot-Shot lasguns using Voxcaster backpacks to make the power cells for example; I think that may have been an official White Dwarf conversion even.)

To me, the Scions re-brand seems like one of GW's better moves while I was away; so far as I could tell all they did was flesh out and add things rules and lore wise. 4th edition era lore mentioned that most stormtroopers were attached in to other armies usually, but then spent most of it's time focusing on Catachan Devils and Cadian Kasrkins, who were described even at the time as being kinda the exception to the normal stormtroopers. Hence I asked.

Kasrkin, when first introduced, were a Troop choice in the Cadian Shock Army list from the Eye of Terror book. They were Stormtroopers minus the whole "Covert Operations" bend. No Deep Strike or Infiltrate, whole squad rocked Hellguns with Sgt optionally being able to take a Hellpistol+ccw instead of Hellgun if you wanted, a vox-caster on a model, and two Kasrkin could take flamers, grenade launchers, meltaguns, or plasma guns while the whole squad could get Melta-Bombs and could grab a Chimera as a Dedicated Transport.

So, right now you can do all of that less the melta-bombs and the rifle on the Sgt (I think everyone would like rifle on Sgt option back, I'm with you there.) You gain deepstrike, but you don't have to use it if you don't want to.

Cut to the Doctrines book!
Cadians had the Grenadiers and Storm Trooper Squads doctrines, allowing for you to take 3x units of Storm Troopers as Troop choices with no DS/Infiltrate and another 3x units of Storm Troopers as Elite choices with the DS/Infiltrate options. Also the start of the "no model, no rules" era as the Storm Trooper Squads lost "hellguns on sergeants" options that early.

You can take as many as you want as troops now though? You haven't lost this, just every other guard army has gained it. Yeah, they don't benefit from your Cadian doctrine if you take them in that detachment, but they're still BS3 AP-2 4+SV troops.

If you don't feel like your Kasrkins are sufficiently supported, you can sell them for a lot of money on ebay, plenty of us would love to run them with the Scions/Stormtrooper rules.

Not enough money to make me want to let go of some my beloved models to some goons on eBay who are just gonna use them as proxies for Scions because they're cheapskates.

Kasrkins are selling for $15CDN a model on ebay. Scions sell for $10CDN per model new. People buying Kasrkins aren't using cheap proxies for scions, they're paying a 50% premium to use the old stormtrooper models they love with the new stormtrooper rules.

So they were just worse Stormtroopers. Ok. And despite you complaining consistently about Kasrkin not having rules, you've not thought of anything you would do to add them back into the AM list.

Let's say you keep the Scion profile and just give them access to the Cadian Reg Doc. That means your Kasrkin would be getting re-rolls of 1 to hit if they didn't move and re-roll all failed hits if they didn't move and were given the "Take Aim" order. So firstly you've given them one of the best doctrines and if you kept them as a troops choice there would never be any reason to take Guardsmen ever again because they are objectively inferior. Good job you've invalidated Guardsmen and made Cadians the only faction with insanely powerful infantry.

 Kanluwen wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Kanu, what exactly in terms of unique rules did Kasrkin really have?

It's hard to say what they would have now, but the big thing is simply they would be "Cadian" keyworded units rather than "Militarum Tempestus".

That doesn't answer my question though.

Oh, should I dip into an alternate universe then where they kept Kasrkin as a unit?

Cool! Here's what I got from my multiversal trek:
They are a Regimental keyworded unit, with no alternate deployment methods like Scions have, Vox-Casters, and a Troop choice exclusive to Cadians. Oh yeah and they have access to Heavy Stubbers and Heavy Flamers, like the DKoK Grenadiers do!


Here on Earth Prime though, who knows what they would be, other than Cadian keyworded...which alone is a huge difference to Scions. If one goes and compares them to the DKoK Grenadiers? You can see what likely would have been the role of Kasrkin.

But no matter what, the "unique rules for Kasrkin" were that they were a Cadian Stormtrooper unit minus the alternate deployment methods and a Troops choice.

Sorry but that's a LOL worthy thing to complain about. Scions as they are just work 100% great as a substitute (like you'd rather have a Heavy Stubber than the Volley Hotshot for a unit wanting to be up close). I'm sorry you can't live with that?

For me, it's more the Regiment thing than anything else. I've made that abundantly clear.

If the lack of default visual differentiation between Infantry Squads and Veterans is a dire existential problem, surely it's also a problem for Dominions/Celestians, Trueborn/Bloodbrides/Haemoxytes, Vanguard Veterans/Veteran Intercessors, Paladins/Purifiers, etc?

 Kanluwen wrote:
For me, it's more the Regiment thing than anything else. I've made that abundantly clear.

But how much does that matter? Consider the fact that any extra Officers you'd want would tag along with them for Orders, so the Scion officer would be purchased regardless. The Cadian relic is honestly kinda bad and entirely matchup dependent. The most I see really is their specific Warlord Trait.

I don't see Keyword really being relevant nor the rules.

It matters about as much as anything does when it comes to player preferences and theme.

It's a big reason why I've argued for a "Grenadier" unit in the past for Guard.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

RevlidRas wrote:
If the lack of default visual differentiation between Infantry Squads and Veterans is a dire existential problem, surely it's also a problem for Dominions/Celestians, Trueborn/Bloodbrides/Haemoxytes, Vanguard Veterans/Veteran Intercessors, Paladins/Purifiers, etc?

Dominions/Celestians actually have their own identifying helmets in the kit. You know that right?
Vanguard Veterans compared to Assault Marines have very different loadout possibilities as well.

 Gert wrote:

So they were just worse Stormtroopers. Ok. And despite you complaining consistently about Kasrkin not having rules, you've not thought of anything you would do to add them back into the AM list.

Let's say you keep the Scion profile and just give them access to the Cadian Reg Doc. That means your Kasrkin would be getting re-rolls of 1 to hit if they didn't move and re-roll all failed hits if they didn't move and were given the "Take Aim" order. So firstly you've given them one of the best doctrines and if you kept them as a troops choice there would never be any reason to take Guardsmen ever again because they are objectively inferior. Good job you've invalidated Guardsmen and made Cadians the only faction with insanely powerful infantry.

Yes, because everyone knows that all units cost the same amount of points, this totally makes sense.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Kanu, what exactly in terms of unique rules did Kasrkin really have?

It's hard to say what they would have now, but the big thing is simply they would be "Cadian" keyworded units rather than "Militarum Tempestus".

That doesn't answer my question though.

This is literally the only time Kasrkins had their own rules. They were basically the same as the 3rd or 3.5 edition codex Stormtroopers. I don’t understand that guys point.

Haven't read the full Kanluwen exchange, but yeah. Seems like kasarkin are basically just storm troopers with a meltabomb option.

I do think there's some merit to the point that not every army needs to have an unusual gimmick. "Vanilla" guard should be as fun and viable as catachans or cadians. That said, the thing that I tend to like about guard in novels is the quirks they carry from their homeworld. It might be nice to have some generic datasheets to help represent feudal worlders with prim weapons and plate armor, mounted units including variants for those worlds that ride weird mounts like flying birds or chonky armored beasts or what have you. Maybe a regiment trait that lets your sergeants be equipped with off-brand exo armor. That sort of thing. The majority of the guard's forces should be copy-pasted to make supplying them easy, but you really don't get the sheer diversity of humanity from their current rules.

Wyldhunt wrote:
Haven't read the full Kanluwen exchange, but yeah. Seems like kasarkin are basically just storm troopers with a meltabomb option.

I do think there's some merit to the point that not every army needs to have an unusual gimmick. "Vanilla" guard should be as fun and viable as catachans or cadians. That said, the thing that I tend to like about guard in novels is the quirks they carry from their homeworld. It might be nice to have some generic datasheets to help represent feudal worlders with prim weapons and plate armor, mounted units including variants for those worlds that ride weird mounts like flying birds or chonky armored beasts or what have you. Maybe a regiment trait that lets your sergeants be equipped with off-brand exo armor. That sort of thing. The majority of the guard's forces should be copy-pasted to make supplying them easy, but you really don't get the sheer diversity of humanity from their current rules.

Feudal World troops would be very easy to implement. GW just have to bring back laspistols and chainswords as options for Infantry Squads, a player could then play as either Catachan then saying "this is my dudes but with Catachan rules, or they could use the custom regiment traits Lord's Approval and Slum Fighters. As for cavalry, just bring back Rough Riders. Then you could just proxy the riders with xeno-mounts.

Scions are 10pts cheaper than an infantry squad base. Giving them access to the Cadian doctrine makes them an objectively better troops choice because they have Hotshot Lasguns, Carapace Armour and better BS, even if you take away the Drop Troop ability they're still objectively better.

 Gert wrote:

Spoiler:

mr_stibbons wrote:


Yes, because everyone knows that all units cost the same amount of points, this totally makes sense.

Scions are 10pts cheaper than an infantry squad base. Giving them access to the Cadian doctrine makes them an objectively better troops choice because they have Hotshot Lasguns, Carapace Armour and better BS, even if you take away the Drop Troop ability they're still objectively better.

If there was a generic Grenadiers squad with no Militarum Tempestus keyword and <Regiment> instead of <Tempestus Regiment>. If they lost Aerial Drop and Infantry Squads went back down to 50 points. That’d be alright.

The Grenadiers would lose all access to the Militarum Tempestus stratagems, relics, warlord traits, and their own doctrines. So they loss a lot to just get an AM regiment doctrine.

Except they don't lose strategems because they get regular AM ones and basic troop units don't get Warlord traits or relics. For 5pts less I'm getting half the men with double the firepower. Getting access to the doctrines would make a Scion type unit so much better.
For example:
<Steel Legion> Grenadiers would gain Industrial Efficiency meaning their rapid fire weapons get the effect of rapid fire at 18" rather than 12". This is far superior to Storm Troopers where you have the chance of an extra shot in half range if you get a 6+ to hit.

Jarms48 wrote:

Spoiler:

This is literally the only time Kasrkins had their own rules. They were basically the same as the 3rd or 3.5 edition codex Stormtroopers. I don’t understand that guys point.

That they had rules to lose was the point, to be honest.

I made an initial off-the-cuff comment about how Kasrkin have no purpose aside from being "pretend Scions" now in reply to comments made that implied new units or attempts to make a visually distinctive Guard roster would "invalidate" people's armies. It's why I also made a comment about how Valhallans never had "special rules for their models"--meaning rules that actually were specific to the Valhallan Ice Warrior models, not regimental traits/doctrines.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Wyldhunt wrote:
Haven't read the full Kanluwen exchange, but yeah. Seems like kasarkin are basically just storm troopers with a meltabomb option.

Correct, other than also being Troops and specific to the Cadian army list from Eye of Terror.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Jarms48 wrote:

 Gert wrote:

Spoiler:

mr_stibbons wrote:


Yes, because everyone knows that all units cost the same amount of points, this totally makes sense.

Scions are 10pts cheaper than an infantry squad base. Giving them access to the Cadian doctrine makes them an objectively better troops choice because they have Hotshot Lasguns, Carapace Armour and better BS, even if you take away the Drop Troop ability they're still objectively better.

If there was a generic Grenadiers squad with no Militarum Tempestus keyword and <Regiment> instead of <Tempestus Regiment>. If they lost Aerial Drop and Infantry Squads went back down to 50 points. That’d be alright.

The Grenadiers would lose all access to the Militarum Tempestus stratagems, relics, warlord traits, and their own doctrines. So they loss a lot to just get an AM regiment doctrine.

Amusingly enough, GW has given us the perfect way to solve things by virtue of them "bringing back" hotshot lasguns.

Hellguns for Grenadiers vs Hotshot Lasguns for Militarum Tempestus. Hellguns being an assault-classed profile and not simply "lasguns" opens some design space up for what Grenadiers can be that doesn't just make them Scions by another name.

 Gert wrote:
Except they don't lose strategems because they get regular AM ones and basic troop units don't get Warlord traits or relics. For 5pts less I'm getting half the men with double the firepower. Getting access to the doctrines would make a Scion type unit so much better.
For example:
<Steel Legion> Grenadiers would gain Industrial Efficiency meaning their rapid fire weapons get the effect of rapid fire at 18" rather than 12". This is far superior to Storm Troopers where you have the chance of an extra shot in half range if you get a 6+ to hit.

They lose all of the Tempestus stratagems which are far better than the AM ones. Scions get both MT and AM stratagems if you weren’t aware. Also they lose the Tempestus WL traits like Keys to the Armoury for that awesome reroll 1 bubble.

Sure, the steel legion one (as well as disciplined shooters) are the most extreme ones but they lose a lot to get that. Also with 50 point infantry squads again you’re missing the opportunity cost of essentially getting double the models for 5 points more.

 Kanluwen wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Kanu, what exactly in terms of unique rules did Kasrkin really have?

It's hard to say what they would have now, but the big thing is simply they would be "Cadian" keyworded units rather than "Militarum Tempestus".

You've been around long enough to know a few of the things I would have done, including going out of my way to try to develop "iconic units" for the big Regiments.

If bringing them back they would clearly be elites (they are literally the elitesof Cadia) and not have the drop troops rule. Give the sarge a melta bomb if you like. What else would change about them?

I like the idea of having a hellgun (assault rather than rapid fire) instead of hotshot, would fit with not having drop troops ability (have to hoof it instead).

Scions are the elites of the Guard, yet a Troops choice...

If bringing Kasrkin back? They would fit as a Cadian specific unit.
Catachans could nab themselves the Catachan Devils(a similar concept of elite troopers exemplifying their chosen ideals), Armageddon the Ork Hunters, etc.

If we just want to bring the concept of "regimental, heavy armored troops" in--then we just make Grenadiers an option as Troops.

Also, obligatory "every sergeant/officer type needs to be able to carry a lasgun".

They're a troop's choice because Scions are technically a different army to standard AM. Legacy of them being their own codex before the amalgamation of 8th Ed.

Nope. Doesn't fly.

Scions were Elite choices (and in Platoons no less!) in C: AM 6/7E.
Squads as Troops in C: MT

They could have been left as Elites minus the Platoon bit, seeing as how we have alternate Detachments that let you take an HQ and Elites.

It wouldn't make much sense for Kasrkin to be Troops if Veterans are Elites.

I don't think we need a specific datasheet for Kasrkin, we just need more customisable Veterans. Veterans with carapace armour and hotshot guns is essentially Kasrkin and you've done it without shunning other regiments.

what if certain regiments had access to certain slot abilities?

for cadians, they're Scions count as troops, but for say, Catachans or Vostoyans, they are elite slots. Then again, Catachans can get veteran squads as troops, and Vostoyans get command squads as troops, etc.?

 kirotheavenger wrote:
It wouldn't make much sense for Kasrkin to be Troops if Veterans are Elites.

Veterans as Elite is garbage anyways. Veterans as a unit concept is garbage.

I don't think we need a specific datasheet for Kasrkin, we just need more customisable Veterans. Veterans with carapace armour and hotshot guns is essentially Kasrkin and you've done it without shunning other regiments.

But you SHOULD be shunning other regiments. Not every regiment fields a Kasrkin/Grenadier equivalent. The ones we knew about were Cadians, Death Korps, and the Terrax Guard. Then you have the full on carapace armored regiments like the Harakoni Warhawks, Vostroyan Firstborn, and the Terrax Guard crossed over into this category as well.

Kasrkin as Troops works if one has followed the lore of Kasrkin. Each of the Kasrs had its own full on regiments of Kasrkin(we're talking heavy weapons operators, special weapons teams, the works), which could be deployed en masse during things like the Black Crusades. One full Regiment stayed at the Kasr as an honor guard for the High Command of that Kasr, the rest would be broken up when new regiments were founded from those Kasrs as honor guard/shock elements for the regimental command structures.

From what I've been able to read a Kasrkin regiment is just units of Kasrkin, no heavy weapons platoons or special weapons. The special weapons are given to the Kasrkin so there isn't a need for any.
They're just Veterans with fancy guns and better armour.
Giving Vets something similar to the upgrades seen in the 5th Ed Codex would be an idea I could get behind but giving them Hotshots and Carapace just makes them Scions that don't do para-drops.

The_Real_Chris wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Kanu, what exactly in terms of unique rules did Kasrkin really have?

It's hard to say what they would have now, but the big thing is simply they would be "Cadian" keyworded units rather than "Militarum Tempestus".

You've been around long enough to know a few of the things I would have done, including going out of my way to try to develop "iconic units" for the big Regiments.

If bringing them back they would clearly be elites (they are literally the elitesof Cadia) and not have the drop troops rule. Give the sarge a melta bomb if you like. What else would change about them?

I like the idea of having a hellgun (assault rather than rapid fire) instead of hotshot, would fit with not having drop troops ability (have to hoof it instead).

Hotshot Las needs to be Assault anyway to help the base Scion.

 Gert wrote:
From what I've been able to read a Kasrkin regiment is just units of Kasrkin, no heavy weapons platoons or special weapons. The special weapons are given to the Kasrkin so there isn't a need for any.
They're just Veterans with fancy guns and better armour.

This is incorrect, no matter how things shake out. Lore is that candidates for the Kasrkin get picked out at an early age from the Youth Army Platoons, then diverted down specialized training regimens equal to those of the Schola Progenium.

Giving Vets something similar to the upgrades seen in the 5th Ed Codex would be an idea I could get behind but giving them Hotshots and Carapace just makes them Scions that don't do para-drops.

What is it that veterans do then?

Seriously, EXPLAIN WHAT VETERANS DO IN YOUR WORLD? Because in the world of literally every actual Guard player, they're just Special Weapon Squads with extra bodies. They're a trash unit and have been for years, with the only redeeming quality being their BS and extra 2 specials.

This is the whole frigging reason I keep saying scrap the whole book and rework the concept for the ground up. It's why I keep saying that until things actually matter, the Guard is a frigging joke army for anyone not interested in just following netlisted trash.

But no, we have people like you with "BUT MUH ARMEH" as though your being able to use models older than most players should override the rest of us being able to have a functionally unique army. I've got plenty of old models too in my Guard(a whole metal Cadian army, purchased literally THE YEAR BEFORE THEY RELEASED THE PLASTIC CADIANS!)...and I'd gladly give up the ability to simply just keep using them as "Infantry Squad #35052520" to instead actually have the visual language of the Guard tightened up and for the different types(Light Infantry, Jungle Fighters, etc) to make a return as more than just a game of "Let's Play Pretend!" or flavor of the week and instead be tied to specific unit designs.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Hotshot Las needs to be Assault anyway to help the base Scion.

Scions need more Orders or pseudo-Orders that alter the way they function. They don't just need Assault on Hotshots.

What Scions need, bluntly, is something that discourages them being used as suicide squads and instead encourages them being used as surgical strike units.

So they get selected at a young age to become elite troopers of the AM. That's just a Scion but not orphans.


Firstly, chill out. We're talking about toy soldiers and I've disagreed with you in a discussion about said toy soldiers, not insulted your mother.
Secondly, Veterans should get cool things like special explosives, extra sneaky rules, or improved armour but it should be one of those things. If a Reg Doc gives an army-wide buff to stealthiness, then the stealth choice would further the stealth of a Veteran unit. Explosives are fun. Carapace is kind of your bog-standard upgrade for showing a better Guardsman unit. Veterans should give an army an option to have a select group of soldiers operate a little bit outside of their standard doctrine. I'm sure some other things could be added but all would cost points/power exactly like Chapter Command or Drukhari bodyguard units.


I genuinely don't see this whole "AM are unplayable" angle. I played them consistently throughout 8th and had a fairly balanced experience. However, I'm not a firm believer in Math-Hammer and I don't care about ITC/tournament win-loss ratings so it's is really difficult for me to appreciate how people feel about things being good or bad in a competitive sense.

Thanks! You've just made it clear that you are someone to ignore. You're clearly reading into posts what [you want from them.

Kanluwen, just out of curiosity, if they were to completely re-build AM, do you think that would make it better, or worse? I'm betting worse. Also, with all the new Cadia packs/Gaunt models dropping, I'm betting they are next in the pipe to get their codex. So why don't we wait until that happens to complain about functional?

Given the way 9th is going I'm betting Las rifles go to S4 assault 3 and Chimeras go to t8, 45points. Sentinels get BS2/WS4 and are now t7.

/S

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Kanluwen, just out of curiosity, if they were to completely re-build AM, do you think that would make it better, or worse? I'm betting worse.

Far better. But then again, I've actually playtested what I'm talking about...and don't have a vested interest in keeping things "as is".

Also, with all the new Cadia packs/Gaunt models dropping, I'm betting they are next in the pipe to get their codex.

"all the new Cadia packs"? It's a single upgrade frame. That they're repackaging Cadian Shock Troop squads with.
Such wow! Much excites! Call me when it's not just a collection of random heads and a few token guns.


As for Gaunt...you know that there's literally zero indication of Gaunt showing up in any future army book, right? The rules for them in 40k are coming with "The Vincula Insurgency" thing.

So why don't we wait until that happens to complain about functional?

"Functional" isn't the same as "interesting to play", nor is it the same as "actual choices to be made". Which is what I continually hammer home as to "why the book needs to be completely rebuilt". It's not an interesting army to play, nor are there actual choices to be made. Netlists are the order of the day for Guard and have been for far, far, far too long.

Cruddace never should have been allowed near the book, and hopefully their search for someone new to head up the 40k team means that he'll be moving on and we can actually see some real changes made.

Then type it up and share it.

Put your money with your mouth is.

I've done so in the past. Not doing it again when the objections tend to circle around "But that's too radical of changes!" or "what about my models?!".

If you've done it in the past then just put that old stuff in here. If you're implementing change that invalidates swathes of people's armies you can't expect people not to criticise it.

 Kanluwen wrote:

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Kanluwen, just out of curiosity, if they were to completely re-build AM, do you think that would make it better, or worse? I'm betting worse.

Far better. But then again, I've actually playtested what I'm talking about...and don't have a vested interest in keeping things "as is".

Also, with all the new Cadia packs/Gaunt models dropping, I'm betting they are next in the pipe to get their codex.

"all the new Cadia packs"? It's a single upgrade frame. That they're repackaging Cadian Shock Troop squads with.
Such wow! Much excites! Call me when it's not just a collection of random heads and a few token guns.


As for Gaunt...you know that there's literally zero indication of Gaunt showing up in any future army book, right? The rules for them in 40k are coming with "The Vincula Insurgency" thing.

So why don't we wait until that happens to complain about functional?

"Functional" isn't the same as "interesting to play", nor is it the same as "actual choices to be made". Which is what I continually hammer home as to "why the book needs to be completely rebuilt". It's not an interesting army to play, nor are there actual choices to be made. Netlists are the order of the day for Guard and have been for far, far, far too long.

Cruddace never should have been allowed near the book, and hopefully their search for someone new to head up the 40k team means that he'll be moving on and we can actually see some real changes made.

Hakuna your tatas eboard tough guy. I was simply saying your faction has gotten more love in this month than a lot of other factions in the last year. I wish I could get a new model for Custodes, or 1k sons, or Alderi. If this is literally what gets you upset than get outside and get some fresh air man. Toy soldiers(TM) run by a gak company is NOT for you.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:

Hakuna your tatas eboard tough guy. I was simply saying your faction has gotten more love in this month than a lot of other factions in the last year. I wish I could get a new model for Custodes, or 1k sons, or Alderi. If this is literally what gets you upset than get outside and get some fresh air man. Toy soldiers(TM) run by a gak company is NOT for you.

Valerian and Aleya came out in 2020
Aeldari got Jain Zar and Howling Banshees with "Blood of the Phoenix".
Thousand Sons have a new Sorcerer teased as coming with a battlebox.


Guard got an "upgrade frame" of 10 heads and 7 weapons for a box that came out in 2003 and an announcement of a boxed set of named characters...and you want to pretend that is somehow "more love than a lot of other factions"?

You know what the most recent, permanent Guard release was?
Commissar Severina Raine, in 2019.

Sergeant Ripper Jackson for Catachans? She was a store opening model repurposed and given a Made to Order run.
That Catachan Colonel? He was a store anniversary model repurposed so independent shops could have a big ticket item.

"More love than a lot of other factions", PAH.

I think this has gone way off-topic.

As I said in one of my first posts, Infantry Squads do need something, but it doesn't need to be sweepingly massive and frankly overpowered changes. Just small tweaks to make them a little better individually and give them more options.

As for Veterans, I think they're fine. They just need to be made Troops again. Guard Troop choices should look like this:

- Conscripts: Change Raw Recruits to passing on a 2+ or simply remove it.

- Infantry Platoons (1 Platoon Commander, 2 - 3 Infantry Squads, 0 - 1 Special Weapon Squad, 0 - 1 Heavy Weapon Squad)

- Veterans: No platoon tax and BS3+.

Optionally:
- Grenadiers: Essentially Scions but with no aerial drop, no access to MT stratagems or benefits. In return they can benefit from the regiment keyword.

- Dragoons: Essentially a horse mounted Infantry Squad, has lasguns, no heavy weapon team options but can take 2 special weapons.

Scions should only be Troops in an MT detachment, in an AM detachment they should be Elites.

Or remove Conscripts entirely, since everyone seems to have decided that Guardsmen should always be awful.

Platoons ain't coming back, ever, unless they radically decide to change up things.

We don't need Dragoons. Ever.

@ Jarms: sounds good to me. Dragoons would be funny especially when some kind of mounted HQ option for non-DKOK regiments and rough riders came back, so that one could make cavalry regiments.

Pretty solid options there. I would love to see a horse-but-not-horse unit.

I wouldn’t mind seeing veterans return to the troops section but I think they’d have to edit the data sheet a little. Just drop the special weapons from 3 per squad to 1 like the regular infantry squad and make the squad LD 7 across the board. You could make a separate elite selection squad to spam special weapons. I’d just rather not have to face waves of cheap and accurate plasma again.

 evil_kiwi_60 wrote:
I wouldn’t mind seeing veterans return to the troops section but I think they’d have to edit the data sheet a little. Just drop the special weapons from 3 per squad to 1 like the regular infantry squad and make the squad LD 7 across the board. You could make a separate elite selection squad to spam special weapons. I’d just rather not have to face waves of cheap and accurate plasma again.

I'd remove Veterans and Command Squads, honestly. Veterans are an Infantry Squad with +1BS, access to shotguns, and +2 special weapons. Command Squads are Veterans, but with only 5 models, capped at 1 per officer, and they can take a medi-pack and a regimental standard. Neither is especially inspiring.

I think you could do better by just making shotguns available to basic Infantry, stealing from the Drukhari Favoured Retinue rules, and allowing players to upgrade their Infantry Squads into Veterans with unique skills. Something like:

Regimental Veterans
If your army is Battle-forged and includes any Astra Militarum Detachments (excluding Auxiliary Support, Super-heavy Auxiliary or Fortification Network Detachments), then when you muster your army, you can upgrade INFANTRY SQUAD units in those Detachments. If the Detachment is a Militarum Tempestus Detachment, you can upgrade TEMPESTUS SCIONS units that Detachment.

Each time you upgrade one of these units, it gains the VETERANS keyword, and its Power Rating is increased as shown in the table below. If you are playing a matched play game, or a game that uses a points limit, then the points value of that unit is also increased by the amount shown in the same table. Make a note on your army roster each time you upgrade a unit using these rules.

A Crusade force cannot start with any upgraded units - to include one in a Crusade force, you must use the Hard-Earned Experience Requisition.

Infantry Squads
For each <REGIMENT> OFFICER unit in your army, one Infantry Squad in the same Detachment can be upgraded to Militarum Veterans. Militarum Veterans have the following additional abilities:

Models in this unit have a Ballistic Skill characteristic of 3+.

This unit has one Veterans Trait chosen from those listed below.

Command Squad: Add 1 to the Leadership characteristic of models in this unit. In addition, each model in this unit can be given one item from the Command Squad Items list. Each unit can only include one of each item.

Scouts and Spotters: This unit has the Concealed Positions ability. In addition, each time a ranged attack is allocated to the bearer while it is receiving the benefits of cover, add an additional 1 to any armour saving throw made against that attack.

Demolitions: This unit has the MELTABOMBS keyword. In addition, when a model in this unit makes a ranged attack against an enemy BUILDING or VEHICLE within half its weapon's range, you can re-roll the wound roll.

etc

I like that idea tbh apart from removing command squads entirely. IMO each Regiment/Company bringing its colours to the battlefield like during the Napoleonic Wars is one of those goofy but cool lore bits that looks cool on the tabletop. There's nothing more inspiring than fighting under the banner of your regiment, maybe the rules just need to reflect that better.

As far as I understand these upgraded squads if upgraded to command squad could still take standards, right?

Ah, I did a misread, apologies.

 Gert wrote:
I like that idea tbh apart from removing command squads entirely. IMO each Regiment/Company bringing its colours to the battlefield like during the Napoleonic Wars is one of those goofy but cool lore bits that looks cool on the tabletop. There's nothing more inspiring than fighting under the banner of your regiment, maybe the rules just need to reflect that better.

I just want command squads to act similar to GSC familiars. Basically an optional 0 - 4 upgrade added to each officer (company commander, platoon commander, tempestor prime, named officers like Creed, etc). So that means you could still use your command squads as better special weapon squads, but now you’re also risking the lives of your officers.

It also gives officers some additional wounds. As you could kill off the command squad members first before taking wounds on the officer themselves.

So something like:

"Each unit with the <Officer> keyword may take 0-4 Command Squad Veterans. Each CSV is equipped with a Laspistol, Chainsword and Flak Armour.
A CSV may replace their LP+CS with one of the following:
-lasgun/shotgun
-special weapon
A single CSV may replace their LP+CS with a Banner.
A single CSV may replace their LP+CS with a Medkit.

Loyal Retainers - If a <Officer> receives an unsaved wound then on a 4+, a CSV may attempt to protect their commander and the wound is instead taken on the CSV.
However, if the <Officer> is removed as a casualty, the CSV suffers -1 Ld for the rest of the game."

Honestly it doesn't seem like Command Squads really have a role is the problem.

Morale buff and commander defense should be their role. Banners should keep the Guardsmen from fleeing and the other squad members should be a death buffer for the officers as well as some extra firepower. Apart from that, keep them for people who like flags.

 Gert wrote:
So something like:

"Each unit with the <Officer> keyword may take 0-4 Command Squad Veterans. Each CSV is equipped with a Laspistol, Chainsword and Flak Armour.
A CSV may replace their LP+CS with one of the following:
-lasgun/shotgun
-special weapon
A single CSV may replace their LP+CS with a Banner.
A single CSV may replace their LP+CS with a Medkit.

Loyal Retainers - If a <Officer> receives an unsaved wound then on a 4+, a CSV may attempt to protect their commander and the wound is instead taken on the CSV.
However, if the <Officer> is removed as a casualty, the CSV suffers -1 Ld for the rest of the game."

Basically this, definitely still need the voxcaster as an option. Making them characters means that we can now start making relic banners and standards with different abilities.

Personally, I'd like to see the regimental standard provide at minimum +1 Ld and reroll morale within 6 inch. A platoon standard would be just reroll morale. The medi-pack should be similar to the current marine one.

To be honest, they should replace comand squads altogether with just a flag and a radio operator. Make the flag REALLY good, like Custodes flag good, and people will take it. Plus to moral is crap now. Make it plus to BS or WS, or even S/T in combat. Make them actually good. Also, make radios standard in all vehicles. Seriously, why is that a think I need to pay for? It's like, 15pts for your tank to have an engine.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
To be honest, they should replace comand squads altogether with just a flag and a radio operator. Make the flag REALLY good, like Custodes flag good, and people will take it. Plus to moral is crap now. Make it plus to BS or WS, or even S/T in combat. Make them actually good. Also, make radios standard in all vehicles. Seriously, why is that a think I need to pay for? It's like, 15pts for your tank to have an engine.

I don't want to add too many more elite units. Though if you bring back platoons (making special weapon squads troops), make veterans troops, and removed command squads. That'd free up some space. Having a dedicated medic character, and a standard barrier character would be nice.

I don't know how good you could make them though:
- Reroll morale and +1 attack
- Reroll morale and reroll 1 to hit
- Reroll morale and infantry count as 2 models on objectives
- Reroll morale and on a 4+ a dead model can fight before removed

I do think reroll morale should be apart of every standard.

If I was going to redo the Infantry Squad, I would be much more subtle about the changes:

1) Eliminate the Voice of Command Order First Rank Fire, Second Rank Fire. It is so much for so little and crowds out the other orders.

2) Unit Statblock, wargear, and wargear options stay exactly like they are. That keeps it consistent with the soon to be upgraded Cadian Shock Troops Kit.

3) Change Vox-Caster ability to read: If an friendly <Regiment> Officer is within 3" of a unit with a vox-caster when using Voice of Command ability, it may issue that order to any <Regiment> Infantry at is within 3" of a <Regiment> unit with a vox-caster.

4) Add new ability Lasgun Fusillade: When this unit fires 4 or more Lasguns at a target unit, it gains a +1 Hit Modifier on all Lasgun shots at that unit. This enhances Lasguns in a quick to resolve manner and allows it to be combined with the remaining orders.

5) Add new ability Sniper Specialist: A model firing a Sniper Rifle gains a +1 Hit modifier if the unit Remained Stationary this turn. This makes the Sniper Rifle a more comparable to the other special weapons.

Unit Points value:
Infantry Squad
Unit size: 10 Models
Unit cost: 60 Points

Autocannon: +10 Points

Bolt Pistol: +2 Points

Boltgun: +2 Points

Heavy Bolter: +10 Points

Lascannon: +15 Points

Missile Launcher: +10 Points

Mortar: +10 Points[/list[list]Plasma Pistol: +5 Points

Power Sword: +5 Points

You will note all the special weapons and vox-caster cost are missing. This is intentional. You now get a free special weapon and a vox-caster as part of the basic unit cost.

The Lasgun fuselage is a stupid idea. Just say you want BS3+ Infantry.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also nobody is going to take the Sniper Rifle because it MIGHT hit a little better.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also nobody is going to take the Sniper Rifle because it MIGHT hit a little better.

Personally, I feel like the Guard sniper rifle needs to change.

It's suppose to use hotshot powerpacks which in the hands of Scions means AP-2. So a Guard longlas should be S4 AP-2. Basically a one-shot Volley Gun that can ignore Look Out Sir and potentially cause Mortal Wounds on 6's.

Scout sniper rifles claim the same, although AP2 wouldn't kill them either.

I like the idea of making Command Squads upgrades to officers. So the officers would be squqds again, rather than strictly individual characters.

It makes them unique from Veteran/Special Weapon Teams.

Just playing around with some ideas, how about adding equipment options to your units in a similar fashion to the "select your own Regimental Traits" system?

Each Imperial Guard detachment in your army may select one of the following equipment options, subject to any restrictions listed. Unless otherwise specified, upgrades can be applied to Infantry, Special, Heavy and Command Squads, as well as Company and Platoon Commanders, Commissars and Lord Commissars.

Carapace Armour: The standard Flak Armour is replaced by bulky layers of ceramite:
Every model in any unit can take Carapace armour for 2pts/model. A unit with this upgrade counts Ap-1 as Ap0.
May not be taken by regiments with the Catachan keyword.

Pathfinder: The unit eschews cumbersome heavy weapons in favour of precise sniper fire.
Infantry Squads with this upgrade may take an additional 2 Sniper Rifles instead of upgrading two models with a Heavy Weapon. Special Weapon Squads with Sniper Rifles may re-roll 1's to hit and wound with them if they haven't moved this turn.
May not be taken in units with the Tallarn keyword.

Chem-breathers: The regiment is known for their tenacity and stubbornness, although some suspect this is due to mind-altering narcotics delivered via standard-issue breather packs.
Every model in any unit may take Chem-breathers for 1pt/model. A unit with this upgrade ignores any penalties to Combat Attrition tests.
May not be taken by regiments with the Mordian keyword.

Hostile Environment Packs: HEP packs are expensive and rarely seen en-mass, but provide superior protection in environments contain toxic gas, pathogens, and atmospheric disturbances.
Every model in any unit may take HEP packs for 2pts/model. A unit with this upgrade ignores any negative modifiers to it's Movement stat. In addition they may add 1 to armour saves against weapons with the Blast trait.

Hunting Knifes: The regiment is well-trained in hand-to-hand combat, and have developed particular knife designs and fighting stances unique to their home planet.
Every model in any unit may take Hunting Knives for 2pts/model. A unit with this upgrade adds 1 to their Attack characteristic in the turn in which they charge, were charged, or made a Heroic Intervention.
Regiments with the Catachan keyword may take this upgrade for 1pt/model instead

Just out of curiosity: why should the Tallarns not take snipers? Is there some fluff I missed?

Why would carapace armour only ignore AP-1? Carapace armour had always provided a 4+ save. That’s what Scions wear.

The guard sniper unit needs a complete re-working. Give it character targeting and deal Mortals on a 5+, make it s4 ap2, and d2. make it 42" heavy 1.

Pyroalchi wrote:Just out of curiosity: why should the Tallarns not take snipers? Is there some fluff I missed?

I pictured them as fast-moving armoured units, rather than ones which would dig-in and make sniper nests. I may be wrong, but was trying to put a restriction in there.

Jarms48 wrote:Why would carapace armour only ignore AP-1? Carapace armour had always provided a 4+ save. That’s what Scions wear.

Given how cheap Guard units are I thought this would be more suitable. Good point though that it's always been a 4+, no real reason to change it.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:The guard sniper unit needs a complete re-working. Give it character targeting and deal Mortals on a 5+, make it s4 ap2, and d2. make it 42" heavy 1.

Snipers already have character targeting, don't see why Guard snipers are suddenly better than Marine ones.

Tallarn had snipers listed as a signature special weapon, so they absolutely do use them.


Commissars and Lord Commissars should not get regimental upgrades. They've gone super hardcore into making it clear that they don't match Commissars to worlds they hail from.

Why is everyone trying to give buffs to regular AM snipers when Ratlings exist? They have good BS, good stealth buffs, can deploy anywhere outwith 18" of an enemy model,can hide after sniping, and are 2 Power/25pts per unit of 5. Plastic Ratlings easy solve.

Because while Ratlings exist, they're not Guardsmen?

I mean, you can proxy Ratlings with the cool Cadian/Catachan Snipers...but it ain't the same thing. And it's not like we did not have capable Guard Sniper rules from FW for the Elysian Detachment 99.

The AM army has a dedicated sniper unit. A basic Guardsman who takes a sniper rifle should not be better than that dedicated sniper unit.

 Gert wrote:
The AM army has a dedicated sniper unit. A basic Guardsman who takes a sniper rifle should not be better than that dedicated sniper unit.

Well seeing as how Tanith 1st and by extention Larkin are now table top units, the should be better than Ratlings. Ratlings are have many abilities that normal guard don't get. That's true, but Guard should have equal or better abilities when using sniper models, just by cost alone.

A Special Weapons Squad can take 3 SR at 40pts compared to a Ratling unit of 5 at 35pts.
The Ratlings have -1 Move, S, T, WS, Ld, and Armour Save. They get +2 to saves in cover and +1 BS on a Guardsman unit.
A SWS can benefit from Orders, Reg Doctrine, and more Strategems than Ratlings.
A Vostroyan SWS with SR's would have a range of 42" and for 1CP can get a flat +1 buff to hit rolls with the Firstborn Pride Strat.
A Cadian SWS with SR's would be able to reroll 1's if it didn't move (very likely) and if then ordered to Take Aim!, would reroll all failed hits.
SWS are fine the way they are. You just need to look beyond the basic profile and see what tactics you can employ using the tools a Codex gives you.

Additionally, special weapons operators in Guard are fluffed as being specialists. They're not just giving Anonymous Redshirt a sniper rifle and he shoots better.

The argument could be made that sniper rifles should be removed from the Special Weapons list for Guard, and I'll agree with it. The original Detachment 99 gave you "Veteran Sniper Teams" as an Elite choice. 1-3 teams of 2 models functioning like a Heavy Weapons Team, a spotter and a sniper, which you were allowed to deploy separately. They had Deep Strike if no Dedicated Transport or Infiltrate if you did not Deep Strike.

Putting Guard Snipers as a Veteran unit, that gets you 1-3 choices that get deployed individually as spotter/sniper teams gets them a role that Ratlings do not have. Especially if Spotters end up being a buffing element for artillery.

Also, lol @ Special Weapon Squads benefitting from Orders. They don't get voxes, so you're required to babysit them with an officer if you choose to do that.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
The Lasgun fuselage is a stupid idea. Just say you want BS3+ Infantry.


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Also nobody is going to take the Sniper Rifle because it MIGHT hit a little better.

The point would be they aren’t, except when firing Lasguns as a group.

As for better Sniper Rifle accuracy, it is to balance the weapon upgrade with the other ‘free’ special weapons that are currently 5 points to the Sniper Rifles 2 points without altering the weapon that is used on other units.

 Kanluwen wrote:
Additionally, special weapons operators in Guard are fluffed as being specialists. They're not just giving Anonymous Redshirt a sniper rifle and he shoots better.

The argument could be made that sniper rifles should be removed from the Special Weapons list for Guard, and I'll agree with it. The original Detachment 99 gave you "Veteran Sniper Teams" as an Elite choice. 1-3 teams of 2 models functioning like a Heavy Weapons Team, a spotter and a sniper, which you were allowed to deploy separately. They had Deep Strike if no Dedicated Transport or Infiltrate if you did not Deep Strike.

Putting Guard Snipers as a Veteran unit, that gets you 1-3 choices that get deployed individually as spotter/sniper teams gets them a role that Ratlings do not have. Especially if Spotters end up being a buffing element for artillery.

Also, lol @ Special Weapon Squads benefitting from Orders. They don't get voxes, so you're required to babysit them with an officer if you choose to do that.

I like the idea of a dedicated sniper unit. Might have to be two separate units however in a similar fashion to Sniper Drones if you plan on the individual sniper/spotter deployment.

Jarms48 wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also nobody is going to take the Sniper Rifle because it MIGHT hit a little better.

Personally, I feel like the Guard sniper rifle needs to change.

It's suppose to use hotshot powerpacks which in the hands of Scions means AP-2. So a Guard longlas should be S4 AP-2. Basically a one-shot Volley Gun that can ignore Look Out Sir and potentially cause Mortal Wounds on 6's.

Which nobody will still take over the other Special Weapon options because there are zero roles it can fill compared to the other ones. Hell I'd rather take a Grenade Launcher and that's REALLY outclassed by the others.

Sniper rifle only works when you can get it in mass (like with Ratlings) or the stat is over the top (like with Vindicares).


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 alextroy wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
The Lasgun fuselage is a stupid idea. Just say you want BS3+ Infantry.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also nobody is going to take the Sniper Rifle because it MIGHT hit a little better.

The point would be they aren’t, except when firing Lasguns as a group.

As for better Sniper Rifle accuracy, it is to balance the weapon upgrade with the other ‘free’ special weapons that are currently 5 points to the Sniper Rifles 2 points without altering the weapon that is used on other units.

Nobody is going to not fire all their Lasguns at the same target. That's GW logic with the new Melta dudes, and nobody is doing the math on them with one shot.

 Valkyrie wrote:

I like the idea of a dedicated sniper unit. Might have to be two separate units however in a similar fashion to Sniper Drones if you plan on the individual sniper/spotter deployment.

I think you've misunderstood.

The sniper/spotter thing was a single based unit. Each team of 2 could deploy individually however. I believe that Anphelion Project v2 made it so that the Spotter could grant a benefit(I want to say Ignores Cover or +1BS?) to the Sniper if the Spotter did not fire their Lasgun that round.

That whole concept is part of the big reasonings for why I've always pointed to for Guard HWTs getting the "deploy independently" bit in my wishlisting/suggestions though. "Horde armies" imply that there's a lot of targets on the field, not just a lot of bodies in squads. Having Guard becoming a "horde" that has a lot of individual targets for you to chew through would give them a kind of interesting place without necessarily messing around too much with things.

Give Sniper rifles S5 ap2 d1 with the 6+ mortals, make grenade launchers ignore LoS, make Meltas S8 ap4 d6+2, and keep plasma the same. I love the idea of making command squads all commanders, because they can that cuts down on the All plasma/melta Scion death squads that were clogging up all my games in 8th.

Just limit them to specific weapons, they already invalidate Veteran squads and Special weapon squads.

Command squads should be 3 PLs and a CC, that can give orders or give a good large aura ability. Not a 4 man murder squad of hot plasma.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Valkyrie wrote:

I like the idea of a dedicated sniper unit. Might have to be two separate units however in a similar fashion to Sniper Drones if you plan on the individual sniper/spotter deployment.

I think you've misunderstood.

The sniper/spotter thing was a single based unit. Each team of 2 could deploy individually however. I believe that Anphelion Project v2 made it so that the Spotter could grant a benefit(I want to say Ignores Cover or +1BS?) to the Sniper if the Spotter did not fire their Lasgun that round.

That whole concept is part of the big reasonings for why I've always pointed to for Guard HWTs getting the "deploy independently" bit in my wishlisting/suggestions though. "Horde armies" imply that there's a lot of targets on the field, not just a lot of bodies in squads. Having Guard becoming a "horde" that has a lot of individual targets for you to chew through would give them a kind of interesting place without necessarily messing around too much with things.

No I'm familiar with the Elysian unit, I just considered if we went down the route of separate units for the sniper/spotter. Perhaps they should remain a single 2W unit similar to HWT.

There's no reason to have them as separate units for the sniper/spotter and I didn't think either of us suggested it?

I simply said that Spotters could get an artillery buffing bit...which isn't a bad idea, as it can be used to buff up the cost of the unit by mandating the Spotter taking a Vox-Caster.

I think having heavy weapon teams being lone bases would be quite problematic and just annoying.
Although Tau already do the same with their drones so it's not like that's stopped GW before.

The problem with current snipers is there's no room for movement. Space Marines already have snipers and they're S4 AP0, that profile won't change.

I like the idea of specialist sniper teams, you can justify a 2-man sniper rifle being slightly more powerful.
However, Ratlings already perform that role and I don't think it's good to have two very similar units doing essentially the same thing just slightly differently. It worked for D-99 because they didn't use Ratlings.

The eliminator or whatever their sniper primaris is, weapon profiles are WAY better than just S4 AP0.

I think kiro was referring to Scouts but yes Eliminators are exceptionally good units.

Oh I forgot about eliminators.
Any Primaris unit just doesn't exist in my brain, lol.

That's fairly consistent with what I said though. I'd put "Primaris shenigans" on par with two-man weapon teams for justification for better sniper rifles.

The biggest problem then is that Ratlings exist and I don't think two very similar units should perform essentially the exact same role.

 Kanluwen wrote:

Sergeant Ripper Jackson for Catachans? She was a store opening model repurposed and given a Made to Order run.
That Catachan Colonel? He was a store anniversary model repurposed so independent shops could have a big ticket item.

"More love than a lot of other factions", PAH.

Oh drat I missed that!

 kirotheavenger wrote:
I think having heavy weapon teams being lone bases would be quite problematic and just annoying.

That would be the point to be honest. Guard don't need to be hundreds of models swarming the field to maintain the dynamic people want of a "horde army".

Having lots of individual elements would accomplish the same thing.
Guard Heavy Weapon Teams being able to "entrench" from their squad and become an individual unit reduces the footprint of the Guard unit but also leaves the HWT vulnerable.
Guard Heavy Weapon Squads being a "buy 1, get up to 2 extra units!" upon splitting off is not unreasonable or overly weird in this day and age.

Although Tau already do the same with their drones so it's not like that's stopped GW before.

Drones are a weird thing in that they effectively are wargear, not a unit feature.

The problem with current snipers is there's no room for movement. Space Marines already have snipers and they're S4 AP0, that profile won't change.

There's plenty of room for movement, the problem is that you're too focused on the "sniper" part.

I like the idea of specialist sniper teams, you can justify a 2-man sniper rifle being slightly more powerful.
However, Ratlings already perform that role and I don't think it's good to have two very similar units doing essentially the same thing just slightly differently. It worked for D-99 because they didn't use Ratlings.

Ratlings perform no role that Special Weapon Squads armed with Sniper Rifles couldn't fill out, going off of your logic. It's their special rules that make them different. The same thing can function for Sniper Teams.

It worked for D-99 as well because it wasn't just a sniper. It was the spotter as well. The sniper+spotter dynamic is a well-used trope for modern military fiction/video games. It's well-received in the context of Guard because it goes into a mechanic we already have: the weapons team. Having a two Guardsmen plus one weapon base is not unfamiliar or strange.

Yes, special weapon teams can perform a similar role to Ratlings. Arguably not as well though.
So why do special weapon teams need sniper rifles?

I already agree that two man sniper teams were interesting and can be again.
But just because two units achieve the same thing with slightly different special rules, that doesn't mean they're both necessary units.

But I know my KISS approach to wargames is unpopular with many people in the 40k community.

What you're missing is that special weapon squads don't need sniper rifles. They also don't take them! Hell, Infantry Squads don't need sniper rifles!

Removing those options and making sniper teams and ratlings the two options lets you work things in a proper divide. And even if you didn't give the spotters rules for interacting with artillery/indirect fire or whatever--the simple fact that it's a 2W model with a lasgun and a sniper rifle makes them different to Ratlings which are just a big blob o' snipers.

Thats a distinction without a difference to me.

So do you consider the Vindicare to be the same thing as Marine Snipers?
Illic the same as Aeldari Rangers?
Jackal Alphus and Sanctus the same thing?

One unit(Ratlings) would be devoted solely to slinging sniper rounds downrange as a blobbed up unit of 10 models, with evasion traits.

The other Regimental unit would be multifunction, bought in smaller numbers(6 wounds across 3 bases, deployable as 3 individual units) and potentially have a buffing mechanism that can be utilized by friendly units. Ideally, one could take this opportunity to also further differentiate things by digging into the lore and bringing the "Hellshot" rifle up.

The "Hellshot" was an antimaterial rifle, basically a stripped down lascannon that was manportable but required a bipod to be steadied for firing.

Boosting the stat for a sniper rifle and making it a Guard heavy weapon option would be fine. Just stick two guys on a base like we did for lots of the old metals. Could say perhaps that the option is for a sniper rifle and vox if you want to talk about spotting and stuff.

Then give it a decent profile and have it as a cheap 5 point heavy weapon option. Maybe something like

Add to heavy weapon options
5 points - Hotshot Long Las and Vox-caster

Hotshot Long Las 36" Heavy 1 Str3 Sv -2 D2
Special rules - Sniper, ignore the 'Look Out, Sir' rule. Spotter, add 1 to that attack’s hit roll. Targets do not receive the benefits of cover against attacks made with this weapon. Headshot, an unmodified wound roll of 6 inflicts 1 mortal wound on the target in addition to its normal damage.

Note I feel heavy weapon squads that start the game on the table should be able to say they are entrenched and get the benefit of being in light cover until they move, otherwise the three element squad is just too vulnerable for their cost.

Likewise the old splitting off the heavy weapon team, while vaguely real world, should be abstracted away in 40k and is too fiddly, especially now squads can split fire.

(As an aside the vox-caster rule should be a lot more straightforward - friendly (regiment) officers within 3 inches can issue orders to any (regiment) squad with a vox-caster)

Combat Squad is literally a thing for Marines.

Nothing saying we can't get a Heavy Weapon Team only version for Guard.

Splitting into two five man squads is slightly abd noticeably different from splitting off 2 men though. And 2 Guardsmen at that.

I see this as achieving nothing other than being bothersome as people are forced to fire 3 bolter over here, 3 bolter over there, and 3 bolter over there.
That's just tripled the dice rolling for your opponent for no significant benefit.

It's not any different than, say, splitting vehicle squadrons.
It's not any different than, say, splitting monsters that come in groups.

Etc. Etc. Etc.

What it "achieves" is giving Guard a way to remain a "horde" army while allowing for an actual increase in the quality of the troops and a revision to the mechanisms that have been extremely poorly managed for over a decade.

Transauranic Arquebus is a "fire OR move" weapon. You gonna sit there and tell me that it's harder to use than a tripod mounted heavy bolter with a loader feeding rounds into it?

It is different, because in all those examples all the split groups are fully capable combat units.

A single heavy weapon squad isn't. It's 2 T3 wounds with a 5+ save, it's nothing but a speedbump.
If "horde" do you means "forcing your opponent to roll 3 different attacks every time their unit shoots" then we fundamentally disagree.
Because, to me, that's just time wasting.

I'm not entirely sure why you're bringing up Arquebuses?
If you want heavy weapon teams to be move or fire we can have that discussion, in face that's something I brought up at the very start of 8th! It doesn't make much sense to me.

And there's one part of the issue: you keep using "heavy weapons team" as interchangeable with "heavy weapons squad".

Heavy Weapons Squad is a unit of 3 2W models, with each toting a Heavy Weapon and a Lasgun. Having them be a "buy a unit, get 3 individual units out of it" is far, far from a silly thing. Or are you simply objecting to the idea because "All they'll do is just die because of their stats!"? Because if that's your objection, that's a bit daft.

Heavy Weapons Teams are the components that make up a Heavy Weapons Squad and can be purchased for an Infantry, Veteran, or Command Squad.

Setting Heavy Weapons Teams(because remember! an Infantry Squad swaps out two models for a single Heavy Weapons Team!) up as a thing that get a special rule called "Entrench", giving up their Movement and Shooting for a turn to gain a better cover save for following turns and also making it a thing that Heavy Weapons Teams "form their own unit once deployed" is not going to break the game if Combat Squads or Drones haven't broken the game for years.

I think things you ignore with resurrecting the rule from previous editions are that targeting rules have changed and this is just a fiddly measure for enemy targeting to account for. You also give up easy squad kills which comes to the main utility of the Guard infantry squad, that is they are ablative wounds for your special and heavy weapons if you are taking them (otherwise they are slot fillers and ground occupiers).

Its a bit different with the dedicated squad because they are ridiculously fragile in a point vs toughness way, but the answer there is something like the entrench idea I put above, not making them perhaps survive because the enemy didn't split fire correctly.

Incidentally their fragility is one reason why i think the basic squad should be more flexible but have upgrades priced in to differentiate from the human horde like cultists and make them a better points choice while still having meaningful firepower.

Hell if you won't give heavy weapons squads some kind of defensive upgrade (a squad of lascannon is just gifting points to the oppo) a more multirole squad that covers heavy support and infantry duties would sub for them. Something like a squad may include 2 special weapons or form the two troopers into a heavy weapon stand. A squad may also add a heavy weapons stand (taking the squad size to 12).

My dream infantry squad for (Cadian and similar) guard would be-

Infantry Squad 65 points
1 Sarge - Frags, Lasgun or Las pistol and choice of close combat weapon (cost of weapon)
9 Guardsmen - Frags and lasguns
-1 may be a marksman and exchange his lasgun for a sniper rifle (free)
-1 may be a vox operator and carry a vox (free)
-2 may be gunners and carry a special weapon or heavy stubber (free). Alternatively they may be formed in a heavy weapons team and given a heavy weapon (cost of weapon)
A heavy weapons team may be added to the squad for 10 points + cost of weapon (this takes the squad to 12 men and the limit of a Chimera)

Essentially you get to cover the basic, special and heavy weapons options with one entry and give added survivability to those weapons.

If a heavy weapon squad splits into 3 individual bases, you have 3 individual weapon teams, do you not?

So as I said, each individual weapon team is so squishy as to be nothing but a speed bump. An annoying speed bump because it'll mean your opponent needs to split-fire everything and greatly multiply the amount of time it takes to roll their attacks.

I think one of the mistakes we're making is that we want the guard squads to be really effective. 9th is a trading game, and a basic guard squad is 10 guys for 55 points. That's a nice, cheap ObSec unit that I can put up on a point. I can even throw it away, as losing 55 points is nothing compared to a 90 point space marine unit.

I can Move Move Move! a guard squad onto one of the enemy objectives that doesn't have ObSec and take it away from them, denying 5VPs for 55 points (45 for scions). Even if the enemy squad is ObSec, it's not a 10-man ObSec (Assuming I can get enough models onto the point).

But the rest of my army has to compensate for a squad's lack of lethality, and that's the rub. So that makes my guard squads overcosted for what they contribute, and the rest of my army has to be undercosted, which is really tough to balance.

Having separate HWTs compounds this problem, as I can throw away a 15 point unit with ObSec to take away a point (very OP). But, this forces my opponent to divert fire from a main push and my main killy units (TCs, and balanced), but the IG BS4 and random shots means we're really swingy, either killing everything or killing nothing.

We fill an IG army with TCs because their better BS makes them more consistent, and thus more effective. What I think guard need, including the regular squads, is re-rolls to make them more consistent. I like the Platoon ideas, as having the Lt can provide re-rolls of 1 to wound and enough orders to make squads effective. Taking artillery in units with a Master of Ordinance to provide re-rolls to hit and re-rolls on the number of shots will provide more consistency, and thus more effectiveness.

With BS4, having a re-roll of 1 to hit is about an 8% improvement, to about a BS of 3.5, not as good as a marine, but still better, and slightly less swingy. I think that's where we need to start.

The problem is that everyone assumes Guardsmen are the expendable, conscript meatshield variants rather than the trained soldier variants.

Trained soldiers in a universe of genetic superhumans, near immortal roboskeletons, different flavors of space elfs that have in common that lots of them have trained a specific way of war for decades if not centuries, walking fungi whose whole culture is build around war, space locusts whose whole existence is build around war and killing and literal demons...

And most of these have unarguably better weapons.

I get where you are comming from Kanluwen: Guardsmen are (at least a lot of them) well trained human soldiers and their equipment is quite good if one takes into acount what kind of equipment a baseline human can carry and use. If the universe were full of other baseline humans (like the Star Trek universe for example) I would completely agree that they are more an elite fighting force and not expendable meatshields. But in the 40k universe... I kind of agree that they cannot compete with what they fight against. I find it very hard to see guardsmen on par with the baseline units of other forces (except cultists, genestealer or chaos, gaunts and the lowest of boyz). On a point per point basis: yes, but on a model basis a guardsman should be much weaker than almost everything else.

Weaker in what regard?

Right now, GSC Neophytes are arguably better than their Brood Brother "allies". That's just stupid that a bunch of miners have better deployment methods/shenanigans, access to more diverse wargear, and broadly equivalent statlines to trained soldiery.

Conscripts were a mistake, Guard need to be burnt down and rebuilt. At the minimum, we should be seeing the following setup for a Guard Infantry Squad:

6" BS4+ WS 5+ S3 T3 W1 LD7 5+ Save

Special Rules
One Foot in the Grave:
Guardsmen learn early on to dig in. The galaxy wants to kill you, make it work for it. When remaining stationary, this unit can choose to utilize this as an activation and gain the benefits of being in Light Cover.

The BS 3, WS 3 is the baseline trained soldier standard for 40k (4+ now). Giving the baseline troops WS 2/5+ makes no sense...

Rather than re-rolls I think the orders system is the way to boost, but please god have it cut down on dice rolling not increase it.

Weaker in "when I take a Necron warrior/Battlesister/Marine as normal soldier (as there are much bigger things running around), than a guardsman looks like an expandable neat shield."

Note: 1 guardsman in comparison to one Marine etc. Not 20 points of guardsmen vs. 20 points in marines

That's a kind of silly metric though.

Necron Warriors are literally expendable, but somehow they should be better than Guardsmen?

 Kanluwen wrote:
That's a kind of silly metric though.

Necron Warriors are literally expendable, but somehow they should be better than Guardsmen?

Ordinary, if well trained, human on one end.
Immortal robot built of living metal armed with far more advanced technology on the other.

Yes, a singular Guardsman should be worse than a singular Warrior.
They should also be cheaper-so point for point, they can compete.

 Kanluwen wrote:
Weaker in what regard?

Right now, GSC Neophytes are arguably better than their Brood Brother "allies". That's just stupid that a bunch of miners have better deployment methods/shenanigans, access to more diverse wargear, and broadly equivalent statlines to trained soldiery.

Conscripts were a mistake, Guard need to be burnt down and rebuilt. At the minimum, we should be seeing the following setup for a Guard Infantry Squad:

6" BS4+ WS 5+ S3 T3 W1 LD7 5+ Save

Special Rules
One Foot in the Grave:
Guardsmen learn early on to dig in. The galaxy wants to kill you, make it work for it. When remaining stationary, this unit can choose to utilize this as an activation and gain the benefits of being in Light Cover.

LOL that's stupid. Imagine any other army not doing this EXCEPT Guard. That looks like something that should be a general ability for activation not for Infantry in general.


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 Kanluwen wrote:
That's a kind of silly metric though.

Necron Warriors are literally expendable, but somehow they should be better than Guardsmen?

Uh yes that is correct.

 Kanluwen wrote:
Weaker in what regard?

Right now, GSC Neophytes are arguably better than their Brood Brother "allies". That's just stupid that a bunch of miners have better deployment methods/shenanigans, access to more diverse wargear, and broadly equivalent statlines to trained soldiery.

Conscripts were a mistake, Guard need to be burnt down and rebuilt. At the minimum, we should be seeing the following setup for a Guard Infantry Squad:

6" BS4+ WS 5+ S3 T3 W1 LD7 5+ Save

Special Rules
One Foot in the Grave:
Guardsmen learn early on to dig in. The galaxy wants to kill you, make it work for it. When remaining stationary, this unit can choose to utilize this as an activation and gain the benefits of being in Light Cover.

Conscripts are fine. They just need that Raw Recruits ability removed. Then they'd be individually weaker than Infantry Squads, but are better sources of receiving buffs. 1 order can buff 10 Guardsmen or 20-30 Conscripts.

One Foot in the Grave is stupid. Just bring back the old Prepared Positions general stratagem as an Imperial Guard one. 2 CP and all your Astra Militarum units receive the benefit of light cover until they move for the first time. This represents the army digging trenches, fighting positions or foxholes in preparation of the battle.

Raw Recruits was added for a reason, if anything it was an undernerf.

That reason is because people whined that they had to be able to keep Conscripts as a Troops choice that anyone could ally in.

It could have been solved by simply putting them as Auxilia.

 Kanluwen wrote:
Raw Recruits was added for a reason, if anything it was an undernerf.

That reason is because people whined that they had to be able to keep Conscripts as a Troops choice that anyone could ally in.

It could have been solved by simply putting them as Auxilia.

I don't understand, you say Conscripts are terrible but don't want to fix the very rule holding them back.

Even if they buffed Raw Recruits to a "fail only on a 1" would be nice and make them viable again. Alternatively change Raw Recruits and make it prevent them from getting Regiment traits would be better as well.

Jarms48 wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
Raw Recruits was added for a reason, if anything it was an undernerf.

That reason is because people whined that they had to be able to keep Conscripts as a Troops choice that anyone could ally in.

It could have been solved by simply putting them as Auxilia.

I don't understand, you say Conscripts are terrible but don't want to fix the very rule holding them back.

I've said that Conscripts are a terrible idea. I outright said earlier in this thread that they need to be differentiated better from Guard Infantry Squads. Right now the only difference is a few stats, no sergeant(which isn't as bad as people make it out to be, given that it means another lasgunner for FRFSRF), and larger unit sizes.

Even if they buffed Raw Recruits to a "fail only on a 1" would be nice and make them viable again. Alternatively change Raw Recruits and make it prevent them from getting Regiment traits would be better as well.

They "ceased being viable" to people outside of Guard because of points, not Raw Recruits. People taking Conscripts+1x Commissar+1x Senior Officer from the Index(which is what led to Raw Recruits being a thing, in case you forgot) didn't give one flying crap about them taking Orders reliably. They were mainly there for the bodies.

So make them Auxilia, give them a 6+ save and autoguns rather than lasguns. Bam. They can be the cheap, expendable "Planetary Defense Force" stand-ins that everyone seems to want.

 Kanluwen wrote:

They were mainly there for the bodies.

That right there is why conscripts are viable. 20 bodies on a point take a lot of firepower to delete (excluding plasma inceptors... the 'magic erasers' for 40k), as it takes ~70 bolter shots to delete all 20, and failing that, we still have an ObSec body on a point. The problem is they can't give anything in return besides being bodies on a point. 20 of them, hitting on 5s wounding on 5s is 2 lasgun hits, 4 with FRFSRF. So Conscripts are priced correctly for the body count, just not for their output as they need other units to give them (ignored...) orders and better Ld.

 Kanluwen wrote:

The other Regimental unit would be multifunction, bought in smaller numbers(6 wounds across 3 bases, deployable as 3 individual units) and potentially have a buffing mechanism that can be utilized by friendly units. Ideally, one could take this opportunity to also further differentiate things by digging into the lore and bringing the "Hellshot" rifle up.

The "Hellshot" was an antimaterial rifle, basically a stripped down lascannon that was manportable but required a bipod to be steadied for firing.

Doesn't the Hellshot use autocannon ammo? It's an anti-material rifle, not a las weapon.

Honestly, I wouldn't mind Astra Militarum sniper weapons to be definited as:
- Long-las: 2 points. 36 Inch. Heavy 1. S4. AP-2. D1. Each time you select a target for this weapon, you can ignore the Look Out, Sir rule. Each time an attack is made with this weapon, an unmodified wound roll of 6 inflicts 1 mortal wound on the target in addition to any normal damage.

- Hellshot: 5 points. 36 inch. Heavy 1. S7. AP-1. D2. Each time you select a target for this weapon, you can ignore the Look Out, Sir rule. Each time an attack is made with this weapon, an unmodified wound roll of 6 inflicts 1 mortal wound on the target in addition to any normal damage.

The Long-las would be your commonly available sniper weapon. Available as your normal special weapon, and the main weapon of Ratlings. The Hellshot would the main weapon of a Regiment Sniper Team. Something like:

Sniper Squad: 50 Points.
- Statline: Movement 6 Inch. WS4+. BS3+. S3. T3. W2. A2. Ld6. Sv 5+.
- Composition: This unit contains 3 Sniper Teams. Each model is armed with a hellshot, lasgun, frag and smoke grenades.

Wargear:
- Camo Cloaks: Each time a ranged attack is allocated to the bearer while it is receiving the benefits of cover, add an additional 1 to any armour saving throw made against that attack.
Other Wargear:
- Artillery Barrage: 5 Points. See Master of Ordnance for statline. Blast. This weapon can only be fired once per battle, and cannot be used if the bearer moves. You may only use one artillery barrage per turn.
- Designator: 10 Points. At the start of your Shooting phase, you can select one enemy unit that is within 18" of and visible to a model in this unit. Until the end of the phase, add 1 to hit rolls for shooting attacks made by friendly <Regiment> units that target the selected unit whilst they are within 6" of this unit.

- Faction Keywords: Imperium, Astra Militarum, <Regiment>
- Keywords: Infantry, Smokescreen, Sniper Squad

What does "smokescreen" as keyword do again?

 Pyroalchi wrote:
What does "smokescreen" as keyword do again?

It’s currently a marine stratagem. For 1 CP you can give a squad a -1 to hit in the enemy shooting phase. Makes sense for Guard to have it too.

They removed all abilities like smoke launchers and made them a stratagem.
'SMOKESCREEN' allows you to be targeted by that stratagem (it's given to all vehicles/models that used to have smoke as an ability).