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I cannot believe that someone is still trying to make any kind of ties between this game and reality. Drag out what it should be, give up your ideas on how the game is imperfect (or insert descriptor of your choice here). I like it, it amuses me.

OK, someone explain to me how this game is anything more than an abstraction. Go ahead.

Skinnattittar wrote:Oh, well then we had better inform every military that trains on firing ranges to stop bothering with all that, because HBMC says it's pointless.

Strawman. I said no such thing. Worse, you know I said no such thing.

Conceed, or try to make a real point. Don't bs me.

BYE

@ Grizgrin : HBMC and I are having a heated discussion about a rule I, already admittedly, proposed out of jest. I don't have a problem with the range restrictions as they stand, to be honest, I stopped looking at it as a representation of actual combat a long while ago. About the time they strapped rockets to the back of hapless heavily armored men and sending them on their way. Well, before that too, but that alliteration is far more humorous than "I never took the game TOO seriously."

@ HBMC : We have come to a point where what is said and what is meant are in conflict. You are saying that military studies of combat situations from reports, analysis, and simulations of the past century are completely wrong, because of your statement that battle is just too hectic, which has already been taken into account. Now if this is not what you meant, I understand, what I stated was not %100 clear as to its intentions, I left it quite open to interpretation. But with the trail of bread crumbs I left, my intent was to suggest that if a non-combat hardened soldier with a safely combat simulated effective range of 300m at least (all the ranges I have opperated on end at 300m), then perhaps a Career Soldier will have an effective ballistic ability at the model scaled 24" (or aprox. 35m-50m in real scale, depending on what ratio you are assuming). Which, by the way, is only the maximum grenade range of a typical soldier, and by modern military standards, is considered Close Quarters Combat (all combat occuring under aprox. 50m).

BTW, Strawman arguementation would require fallacy representation and repointing the arguement towards something unrelated. Your arguement was that effective ranges on a firing range is not related to battlefield effective ranges, making such comparisons pointless. The logical deduction is that such training is therefore pointless, and doing something that does not enstill anyskills is without material, then it should be discontinued. Not a "straw man arguement." However, your insinuation that it IS a straw man arguement, since without supporting logic, IS a straw man accusation. The irony is tangible.

EDITTED FOR ADITIONAL CONTENT : I am going to discontinue my participation in this line of discussion, as it is becoming flamboyantly off topic. I shall digress that BS5 for a basic IG unit choice is atypical and an unrealistic proposal, simply from the traditional line of 40k statistics.

Wow, I am amazed at some of the comments at on the post. If what part of "Imperial guard are supposed to be good at shooting" do some of these people not understand. I am sorry but IG need to be designed so that if an opponents only tactic is to run straight at their guns, than that opponent needs to loose. I guess I need to explain this to all of the marine playing idiots who are reading this post. Marines are all rounders. They are good at everything but great at nothing. If you are trying to make guard shooting only as poweverful as marine shooting than you are making a big mistake. Lets go with a scale of 1-10 10 being the best

Marines IG
Mobility 8 4
Close combat 8 3
Leadership 8 5
Psychic powers 8 1
Tactical flexibility 8 6
Long range firepower 8 ?

I leave it up to you as to what number needs to go in the question mark to balance these two armies. But in my opinion, cranking it up to 11 so to speak would not be a bad idea. Heck if I want to take my IG to a tourney than I pretty much am forced to included units from other codex to have even a little hope. That tells me that we need to see some radical changes.

I think the fine detail is that IG are better at shooting because of the volume of fire, but deffinitely 10's. Also on your 1-10 scale I think marines are closer to a 6 or 7 on the long range firepower, yes they're more likely to hit but the don't have as many ways to make those attacks.

Mobility from things like infiltrate and deep strike butwill be improved with the addition of Valkyries.
Close Combat can only be improved by improving Ogryn, Rough Riders, or a veteran type unit, or by COD like ability.
Leadership is what Vox, Commissars, and Command bubbles do.
Psychic Powers, bring the return of battle psykers to supersede sanctioned psykers.
Tactical Flexibility is going to be improved a bit with the new codex allowing certain units to be attached to a platoon.

IMHO

Marines IG
Mobility 6 3
Close combat 7 2
Leadership 8 6
Psychic powers 7 1
Tactical flexibility 8 3
Long range firepower 6 8

Marines are mobile, depending on the army list, in close combat they aren't exceptional, they are good, except for their armor saves. Their leadership is good, tactical flexibility, again, REALLY depends on the list you are using. I rarely see their psychic powers, so I can't really attest to that at all. As for their range firepower, it's pretty normal for the most part.

The Imperial Guard, not mobile much at all, in close combat, they just plain stink. Leadership isn't terrible, mostly because their command bubble, but at LD 7, LD8 with a sergeant, they aren't bad, most of those LD woes come from their casualties in close combat. Psychic powers are useless, at best. Tactically, IG are highly unflexible, they just can't move around or perform multiple tasks. They really only do one thing, sit and shoot. Range/Firepower the IG are well on the good side, but mostly just by their shear numbers of rounds being put downrange. However, they are far from the best, the Tau seem to have stollen that title easy peasy, and before Tau, IG still wasn't the greatest when it came to actual play.

I know from some old concept drawings that at one point GW had at least given some thought to giving IG a light tank, just larger than a tankette.
What are peoples thoughts on something like that?

I'm not much interested in a tankette, except as a model. But functionally, what would it do that isn't already covered by a Chimera, Hellhound, or Sentinel?

Assuming that Chimeras become priced appropriately low, like a SM Razorback, then points and rules-wise, it's fine to represent a wide variety of tankettes.

Just ignore the Transport capabilty, and possibly just count one of the small guns.

A tankette transport like the Centaur, open-topped, could be used as a mobile platform for officers to project leadership without paying for a heavily armed large target. Squadrons of closed-topped version with armour 11 on the front could be used in conjuncture with heavy infantry while moving on an objective, as a heavier alternate to the Sentinel, thus placing the walker more firmly into the scouting/flanking role. The size is important; a Chimera makes for a large target and cuts down line of sight, while armoured Centaur tankettes could operate more effectively in squadrons.

I'm thinking arm them with a special light blast cannon (R24" S6 Ap6 Blast), light Inferno Cannon (R12" S4 Ap5 Template) or a nice mid-level chain-gun (Rotary Stubber, R18" S4 Ap5 Heavy4 or Heavy5) with these short ranges and individual venerability putting them in a definite support role. They would be wonderful for supporting an infantry advance on an objective, or guarding tank flanks.

If that's done, a version in Heavy Support armed with a mid-level mortar weapon would also be cool (little squadrons of tankettes with medium mortars? Sort of like tiny M21 Priests)

The tankette, originated as an attempt to provide armored support to troops. It pretty much evaporated as a concept with the advent of armored fighting vehicles that could transport troops. Late 80's into the 90's the US had plans for a light tank, that was described as a large tankette to be in the same family as the Bradly fighting vehicle, that would have an identical turrets, but a smaller chassis. The main purpose was to provide paratroopers with an armored vehicle that they could bring along.

That said I'd see it as being a no transport chimera that could be taken by drop troops. I do think however without unique weapons on it, any tankette the IG would have would largely be redundant to the sentinel.

Sentinels are walkers, slow but always able to fire. Ironic really, since they are supposed to be fast moving as a reconaisance unit. Though I would imagine they are quite agile. So a light tank/tankette would make sense, and would probably actually make the sentinel redundant.

I would say that the Imperial Guard doesn't need a greater variety of weapons specific to one vehicle. I have always said the autocannon needs to be AP3, that would make a good weapon for a tankette and the autocannon would see a lot more use. Another option would be to declare it have the same stats as a rocket launcher and describe it as being a recoiless rifle/tube launcher, that would fit right in, perhaps twin linked or as sponsons/turret mount then hull mount similiar to the old Grants of post WWI and to a limited extent, early WWII.

Skinnattittar wrote:Battle field reports and analyse shows effective battle field range is one-half to one-third that of range qualifications.

Perhaps there is a general lack of knowledge of these qualifications? Qualifying ranges are designed to simulate battlefield conditions as much as possible while still retaining high levels of safety. So while there are not bullets zipping overhead or your buddies running around ahead of you while you plink at targets and explosions blosoming a few meters from you, there is a lot of weapons discharge, changing and multiple targets, and short amounts of time to take your shot (longest target is the 300m target which is only up for three seconds, which is usually only for that long when it is a multiple target rotation). Crunch this information to the battle assessments and anticipations, 300m competency equates to at least 100m competency in a combat situation.

Its irrelevant. No game squad I am aware of has BS5. BS4 is as good as it gets. I believe even Sternguard are BS 4.
Fluffwise ST's are good but don't have decades of shooting practice and customized weaponry of marines. They don't have the literal lifetimes of experience of aspect warriors or tech of necrons. Its not going to happen.

Frazzled wrote:

Skinnattittar wrote:Battle field reports and analyse shows effective battle field range is one-half to one-third that of range qualifications.

Perhaps there is a general lack of knowledge of these qualifications? Qualifying ranges are designed to simulate battlefield conditions as much as possible while still retaining high levels of safety. So while there are not bullets zipping overhead or your buddies running around ahead of you while you plink at targets and explosions blosoming a few meters from you, there is a lot of weapons discharge, changing and multiple targets, and short amounts of time to take your shot (longest target is the 300m target which is only up for three seconds, which is usually only for that long when it is a multiple target rotation). Crunch this information to the battle assessments and anticipations, 300m competency equates to at least 100m competency in a combat situation.

Its irrelevant. No game squad I am aware of has BS5. BS4 is as good as it gets. I believe even Sternguard are BS 4.
Fluffwise ST's are good but don't have decades of shooting practice and customized weaponry of marines. They don't have the literal lifetimes of experience of aspect warriors or tech of necrons. Its not going to happen.

Yes, I know. I believe I said that, several times in fact that odds are it is so outrageous it won't happen. As for all that other stuff you said; so what? It really doesn't have any bearing on whether a regular human after being subject to decades of battle, the best of the best chosen not because of high technology or massive amounts of training, but by the power of Darwinism; only the strong survive. Aspect Warriors, Space Marines, and Necrons rely on their technology and drill to survive battle after battle, not their skills and inherent abilities. In the Imperial Guard, one life, ten lives, a hundred lives, being lost, is nothing, those that survive are either fortunate, or because they had something the other's didn't have, and since your regular human can't beaf himself up to SM size, they have to have superior skill capacities to survive what a SM, Aspect Warrior, or Necron would using thei tech.

At least, that what you can say if you really want the BS5. I said before, it was something outrageous I threw out there, mostly to get people thinking about a possible next step up.

1. BS5 for a non/sniper human is...misplaced.
2. You're thinking of veterans, not stormtroopers.
3. Fluffwise marines also are in a strongest survive mode. Plus they have been genetically modified to be better soldiers. PLus they live longer so are by their nature have literally decades of experience, training, and practice.

I think making them 5 points would be good. Even so I am not too much in disagreement about being 6 points a pop.