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As part of my "Buildable Guardsmen" scheme, units will have access to the "Munitorum Armory." Although changes are applied at Points Per Model (ppm), this does not mean they will be applied on a model by model basis, but must be applied to all models of the same "section." This means for same troops models in HQ and in Troops. The creation of "Battle Force Detachment" allows these options to be taken by a SINGLE Infantry Platoon under the Elites section.

Special Detachements :
Often a single squad is deployed with another force. Sometimes they are simply advisors or observors, other times they can be the guides, a local militia unit, or a Specialised Unit there to perform a single task while the rest of the deployed force acts as a diversion. The reasons are expansive, and endless in an empire the size of the Imperium of Man. Special Detachments are a single squad bought by the HQ, they count as a seperate "Section."

Armory Options :

High-Power Lasgun : +1ppm
All lasguns, laspistols, and lascarbines of the same section are now S4.

Piercing Lasgun : +1ppm
All lasguns, laspistols, and lascarbines of the same section are now AP5.

Munitorum Issue Armor : +1ppm
All models of the same section that are SV- are now SV5+.

Superior Armor : +2ppm
All models of the same section that are SV- are now SV4+.

Improved Optics/Marksmen : +1ppm
All models of the same section that are BS3 are now BS4.

Las-pistol and CCW : Free (+1ppm)
All models of the same section that are WS3 and SV- or SV5+ and equipped with a lasgun will exchange their lasgun for a laspistol and CCW. All others may do so at +1ppm.

Lascarbine : Free
All models of the same section that are BS3 or better and equipped with lasguns may exchange their lasgun for a lascarbine.
Lascarbine: S3 AP- R12" Assault 2

Mounted Infantry/Calvary : +2ppm
All models that are BS3 or better may be mounted upon a steed and count as Cavalry and have Fleet of Hoof. When bought for an Elites sections, the units become Fast Attack and the Elites Section Troop Choice is lost. Units that purchase Mounted Infantry/Calvary may not purchase a Chimera.

Infiltrators : +1ppm
All applied models may use the Infiltrators Special Rules. Note; does not have to be applied to all models of the section, may be applied to a whole unit option at a time.

Air Assault : +1ppm
All applied models of the same section may use the Deep Strike Special Rules if the scenario allows.

What about Leadership?

I know I haven't responded to your PM yet Skinnattittar, and I will get around to it, but one thing about your "Guardsman Home Construction Kit" idea was a base Ld of 6.

This part I disagree with mainly because of the way the 2D6 system works. 7 represents half the possible results on 2D6. Making Guard base Ld6 creates a situation where, assuming no modifiers, which are more common on 5th, Guard fail their Ld well over half the time.

Ld7 is the minimum for this sort of army, as they need to be able to pass their tests at least half the time.

BYE

I can not remember if I sent you that PM before or after I added the Sgt.s/Squad Leader special rule. With that rule, a squad uses the Sgt.s Ld value, which will be increased to 7 or 8. Yes, this means with 5th edition wound allocation (which is reasonable, but I think it slows the game down a lot in my experience. Especially since the IG have 5 distinctly different models out of 10 in a basic line squad). Not only that, but a decent Guard player will keep their officers close by and in my rules set, Commissars are allowed to be assigned to any squad. So even isolated squads, accompanied by a Commissar, will have superior than normal Leadership.

I just don't think it should be required that you need additional models (be they Vet Sergeants, Officers or Commissars) to have a 50% of passing a basic Leadership test.

BYE

It seems unlikely that a lasgun could be both Str 4 and AP 5. That's the same as a bolter, and kind of makes you question why bolters exist if lasguns can be made equally powerful.

So for 11 points, my Guardsmen can have the same Ballistic skill as a Space Marine, with a 4+ armor save and range 24" Assault 2 bolters?

And we thought that Orks were good at shooting?

10 Guardsmen can fire 20 times, will hit around 13.2, so this means that against MEQs, you'll be inflicting around 6.6 wounds, which means that, on average, a single Guard squad is killing 2 Space Marines.

Whereas 2 squads of normal Guardsmen will be firing 20 times (at 24"), hitting with 10, and wounding with 3.33, essentially this means that we have doubled our kills.

Yeah.

@Vlad : You doubled the price of a Guardsmen to do that however, so although they are physically tougher, they are putting out fewer rounds. They would need the extra killing power to make up for the increase in points. However, they are still T3, so are inferior to SM scouts in other stats as well.

@Ork : So? Model them with bolters. Besides, bolters have been used as is for millennium, and if they are just as good as, say, a developing technology, Space Marines would surely continue to use their weapons out of tradition. Or rules could just be modified to say they are now armed with bolters under those two conditions being met.

@H.B.M.C. : Not really the purpose of this thread yet, I have not made a solid decision on reducing the Ld, though I feel with Sgts. Advisors, and the Leadership Special Rule that Ld6 for Guardsmen is not such a big deal, though boosting it up to 7 is not a big deal either.

you havent listed a range on your lascarbine

forgetting the 4+ armour save (because in general more bodies are better than more armour and they will probably be in cover anyway), for 90pts i can have a squad of 10 guardsmen with BS4 and Boltguns. for the same price i can have 5 marines. let me tell you that the guardsmen wil win that fight every time. double the fire power and double the wounds for the same points cost make marines look awful.

i can understand where you're comming from but there has to be a limit. there is a precident for AP5 lasguns so that is fine. more armour is fine also. a BS increase from 3 to 4 is huge, not only in terms of gameplay but also what it represents. youre not just a trained guy with a gun anymore, youre an expert marksman. as such i think it should only be reserved for veteran squads (those that have the experiance to warrant to skill). if not then it needs a massive points increase, +3ppm at least.

lasguns should never be strength 4. they are meant to be light man-portable weapons and as such they wouldnt be able to do that much damage. if you've seen Rambo 4 you'll recall the bit where hes on the back of that truck with that .50 cal machine gun blowing massive holes in/arms off people. thats S4. Space marines can carry S4 guns because they are 8ft tall, 4ft wide super humans. the best you would be able to do with guard is to make them heavy lasguns Range 24" S4 AP- Heavy 2, and that would warrant at least a +2ppm increase.

onto fulff. the reason you dont get armies of guardsmen all armed with bolters is because bolters are to hard to manufacture and maintain. before and after each battle they have to be ritually cleansed and scrubbed and prayes made to the machine god so that they work properly. easy to do for a million space marines, but for billions upon billions of guardsmen? i think not. the lasgun is the AK47 of the future. you take take it underwater, through snow, fill it with dirt and mud, use it for hammering in nails or whatever you can think of, and it will still work. it can even be recharged by throwing it in a fire (although this will shorten the lifespan of the powercell).

guardsmen are supposed to be crap. in the grim darkness of the yadda yadda an individual human is pretty much fethed, but there are lots of them. however, if they all suddenly turn into space marines everyone else is completely fethed.

Let's see....
10 "Boltguns" at BS4 means 7 hits, which at 4+ to wound makes 3/4 wounds and 3+ armor saves is one possible fail.

5 Boltguns from the Marines at BS4 makes 2/3 hits wounding on 5+ is closer to 2 than to one with no armor save.

Marines inflict 2 wounds, Guard inflicts 1 wound. Marines have their 3+ armor save and Guard gets none against bolters, so odds are leaning in the Marine's favor of possibly having all wounds negated, while Guard does not.

S4 AP5 lasguns can be thought of as a bit much. However, S3 lasguns are typically too little. It is not uncommon at all for 20 Guardsmen to inflict no wounds on 5 Marines with S3 Lasguns.

We had considered making the player choose between S4 lasgun or AP5 lasgun, but fluff wise, it did not make out that you would HAVE to choose either. It has been considered, and I feel rightly so, that you would HAVE to take AP5 to get S4, just so the points are more even. Considering that few Armies other than Guard have and use their 5+ armor, it would be an obvious choice NOT to take AP5, but that would throw the points scale. However, +2ppm for S4 lasgun is too much, and probably wouldn't be used, as saving those points for other more reasonable options would easily win out, except for small battles of less than 700pts or with few infantry. Thus making the option superfluous.

these are your rules youre making up so its unlikely youll change them based on what i say.

just play a few games with you 9pt space marines and see what happens. i can tell you with certainty that every game you play you will win. being able to take 25 super-guardsmen for 225pts, without special/heavy weapons as a single troops choice is fantastically good.

Meh, all I have to say about your nay sayers Skinny is:
firewarrors!
How much are they apeice with bs3, a str5! ap5 weapon, 30 inch range, and a 4+ save?

How often do you see a tau list bulked out with them?

foil7102 wrote:Meh, all I have to say about your nay sayers Skinny is:
firewarrors!
How much are they apeice with bs3, a str5! ap5 weapon, 30 inch range, and a 4+ save?

How often do you see a tau list bulked out with them?

First of all, Fire Warriors are BS3. Second, they have crud initiative, and correct me if I'm wrong (I don't play Tau) WS2, and also, their guns are Rapid Fire.

And as everyone knows, Rapid Fire sucks.
Cover pretty much removes the point of a 4+ or higher save.
And we're not allowed to talk about point costs!

But quite honestly, I do expect to see them around a lot more now, as only Troops are scoring.

So quite honestly, your argument makes no sense!

Our friend Reqwon is making the typical "cop-out" excuse here. So let's get his intent back on track.

Play equal points Guardsmen against equal points Space Marines with no-one having special or heavy weapons, and the SM will slaughter the Guard, everytime, pretty much even when the SMs have bad rolls. Lasguns are weak, Guardsmen are weak and mildly overpriced, it's pretty much accepted by all Guard players. Using the Tau Firewarriors is a good example. Maybe BS4 is a bit much (maybe fixing that is a better use of time and internet than just bitching?) and make it BS3.5 (Sharpshooters?) for +1ppm. I think that is a bit overpriced, but making it free would make it a no-brainer, the only other solution would be points-fractions, and there is no history of that in WH40k so it wouldn't have a leg to stand on being around. That or delving out points values by the squad like current doctrines do, but that doesn't work either.... hmm... +1ppm for Sharpshooters is a bit over priced, +2ppm for BS4 is WAY over priced for Guard.... can't use point fractions, squad pricing doesn't work.... what's the solution?

Either don't use it at all (boring, yawn), over priced sharpshooters (not too terrible, I consider it worth having) or +1ppm BS4, which leans far more towards pro than con.

So let's not waste time complaining about something and start making, I don't know, useful suggestions? I could do all the work and fix things myself, but that hardly seems fair, then everything would be how "I" would like 40k to be played, which might not be how "you" want 40k to be played. Then we get back to people making pointless bitching complaints..... SOLUTION! : Useful suggestions.

Where Space Marines press the win button against Guard:

Forgo shooting. Charge in. Let's say your unit has a leadership of 9 (leadership bubble or voxcaster), the number of wounds that the Space Marines will deal will be greater than the wounds that a number of WS 3 S 3 souped up guardsmen will do. Let's say we've got four wounds against our guardsmen - they're testing on leadership 5 and will break fairly easily.

Back to useful suggestions: I would say that the bump from BS 3 to 4 is a bit more of a boon than a single point represents; I'd say that it costs 2 ppm at least, if not more.

[Present comparison: the difference in price between the guardsman and the veteran squad. Roughly two points, though there is much to be said about the ability to have BS 4 for 30 squads of infantry as opposed to 1-3 squads of elite choices, depending on doctrine choices).

You have to run your numbers in comparison to alternative options, not just against other units under your command. 300 points towards BS4 can go towards other options as well, like more models with more heavy weapons. Instead of beating your opponent with superior shooting, you could beat your opponent with just massed fire and models. Granted, perhaps +1ppm is a bit much for BS4, but I think +2ppm is even more too much than +1ppm is too little, I would say by a third more (i.e: one and a third points per model would possibly be ideal for BS4).

Alternatively, make all weapons +3 to 5 points per special/heavy weapon? This is far more complicated however, and would not run in line with the idea of a simple codex.....

BS 4 for a regular guardsman? Then what goal do stormtroopers serve? If you fuly upgrade them, you have a stormtrooper with a better gun... No go in my opinion... Just my two credits.

There are no Stormtrooper units in my Army plan. You BUILD your own Storm Trooper units in the elites section, something I haven't gotten to yet. Doubly, does it matter if you don't get your Stormtroopers Elites choice option, if you have just as good if not better buildable Guardsmen? OMFG! You defeated your own arguement!

Next, you didn't make any proposals. Just a gripe. That... doesn't really help.... Are you saying that +1ppm BS4 is not good under its own merit? Or are you saying it makes the Toy Soldiers feel bad.... Or that Guardsmen can not possibly have BS4.... which is false since there are Guardsmen with BS4.... Veterans for instance, the Captain/Senior Officer. Last Chancers, and then Storm Troopers. The differences between them? Still all humans, some just have more training/experience than the average Guardsmen.

EDIT : I updated the first MAIN post. Included in this change is a redefinition of "Special Detachments" to "Battle Force Detachment" and the creation of "Special Detachment" bought by the HQ, as well as "Infiltrators" and "Air Assault."

What I'm saying, is that I find the combined upgrades for a regular joe blow guardsman a tad too strong. I'm not saying they can't have BS4, hell, I have a guard army myself!
What I'm suggesting, is to put a limitation on these upgrades, in the style of this upgrade OR that upgrade, and for the stormtroopers, lessen the restrictions on these upgrades, since well, they are stormtroopers.

Constructive enough for you?

I'm not really sure what you're saying.... there are no Stromtroopers in my proposal, for one, you build Guardsmen into Stormtroopers. As for "restrictions" I don't know how you propose to do that without making things very complicated; you can only use this upgrade when A, B, and C are met, but not when D, E, and F are ineffect, but when the blue moon rises it is okay for G and T to be used, otherwise you must have L? I'm not mocking you, I'm just trying to point out how exceptions and restrictions would look to someone who is not a part of the creation process. Remember, I still have some things left to put in.

With current options like Grenediers, and the major concensus being that even then Stormtroopers are over-priced, I'm not really seeing how BS4 Guardsmen should be +2ppm. And on that note, I am going to reveal now that there will be "Guardsmen Stats Upgrades" that will take the form of such catagories like "Conscripts", "Basic", "Veteran/Elite", and "Career Soldier". Each one will be a + or a - ppm format, just as with upgrades, but will be a whole new stats line. True, this will be slightly complicated and require some following, but I think it is a viable solution.