Getting worried about these IG rumours...

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**Da Boss**

Platoons would be very strong then, overall.
Maybe that wouldn't be a bad thing.

**don_mondo**

Well, there is the one rumor floating around about being able to combine all the squads in a platoon into a single uber-squad. Combat squadding in reverse? If true, that would alleviate some of the Kill Point anguish.

**JohnHwangDD**

I'm a treadhead at heart, so if the new Guard says I can have more Tanks, I'm good with that.

**George Spiggott**

Or maybe the platoon will be one big squad that can be divided up, much like like Space Marine tactical squads. Junior Officers losing Independant Character would help too.

**JohnHwangDD**

I think IG Officers losing IC is a given.

**BrookM**

Or some variant of the retinue/command squad rule is thrown in for good measure.

**Frazzled**

Why John? Admittedly it'd be excellent and in line with old V3 rules, but what are you seeing supporting that as a given?

**Clthomps**

I think the most frightening thing the possibility of special characters giving units abilities (i.e. SM codex)

Guardsmen are intended to be a dime a dozen.... there should be no special characters in existents, considering the average life expectency. At the very least there is no way in hell that they would ever be on the front lines.

**Mad Doc Grotsnik**

The Special Characters are likely to be used to define a Regiment.

Ergo, an Elysian character opens up drop troops as a major tactic and so on.

**Alpharius**

Clthomps wrote:... there should be no special characters in existents, considering the average life expectency.

New to the "GW Hobby" then?

The one thing we can be SURE of is that there WILL be Special Characters in the new Guard codex!

**grizgrin**

Alpharius, you are wrong there. In addition to Special (ed) Characters, htere will also be grunts. Lots and lots of grunts. As in the sound a guardsman makes when he catches that bullet.

I'd have to agree with Clthomps. They are suppossed to be a dime a dozen. But one thing that was nice about the current codex was that you could make some wildly different armies out of it. The variety was great. I can only preay that that particular aspect of it doesn't get the chop too bad.

**Matt Varnish**

I'll be happy if Ciaphas Cain is in there as a special character. Screw Abnett's books, these are the best IG books in Black Library.

**Sebastokrator**

Matt Varnish wrote:I'll be happy if Ciaphas Cain is in there as a special character. Screw Abnett's books, these are the best IG books in Black Library.

Would be a hard character to implement, what with the attempts to run away all the time.

If we lose the amount of variety open to us from the current codex, I would be massively disappointed. Shoe-horning IG players towards tank-spam would be something that I'd be rather annoyed with.

**aka_mythos**

It seems more like we're being shoe-horned into everything spaming. I don't think we know enough about the new codex to say much. Going by trends IC will set the armies tone and with the large number of cost downs going around we'll probably see alot of our units get cheaper. I think those are the only two deffinitve things we can get about rule.

I'm not really sure why this is news or rumors, it seems more like general discussion.

**Frazzled**

Good point. Going to move to discussions.

**JohnHwangDD**

Frazzled wrote:Why John? Admittedly it'd be excellent and in line with old V3 rules, but what are you seeing supporting that as a given?

Functionally, Guard Officers as ICs aren't good enough to do anything on their own.

Conceptually, it breaks the whole "herd" model that underlies the Guard. A Guard Officer always has a Command Squad that he cannot leave.

Rules-wise, the Guard Officer as IC creates more questions and problems than it solves. Plus, it makes it easier to single him out in HtH, and he no longer gives up a KP.

Ergo, strip IC status from the Officer, making him a super-duper-sergeant. The army is simpler and cleaner, and plays better.

**Clthomps**

I am in no way new to the whole GW scene.... I just Loath all special characters. The only exception might be apoc games....

While I think they should be included as fluff they should in no way be playable.... I find it utterly stupid that people take characters Like Eldrad Ulthwe in 1.5k games... not to fit fluff but to power game... and there's more, who here has not seen two of the same "unique" characters fighting each other WTF is it a clone war or something, at that point someone needs a swift kick in the nuts...

/endrant

**H.B.M.C.**

Brimstone wrote:The IG codex should allow you to create a wide range of army types, a faceless horde being just one of them.

As long as we take the right Special Character, correct?

BYE

**Frazzled**

Yep.

**Railguns**

As long as that dime a dozen is roughly comparable in capability to whatever $1.20 US they're fighting I wouldn't be too worried.

**H.B.M.C.**

Clthomps wrote:I find it utterly stupid that people take characters Like Eldrad Ulthwe in 1.5k games

You think that's bad? Try the Marine players taking Special Characters from different Chapters, and then just using the 'counts as' cop out to get around it.

I hate the way GW are doing special characters. They're not special, they're nigh on mandatory, and they add in 'counts as' BS so everyone can do what they want with them. I'm not suggesting we go back to 'opponent's permission', but some limits on these things should be there and none of them should provide an army-altering bonus that cannot otherwise be gained through normal forces (ie. like the Bikes as Troops thing that Marine Captains grant - that's an awesome rule).

BYE

**ShumaGorath**

open_sketchbook wrote:So, word has come that the theme of the new IG codex is "the opening battle of Enemy at the Gates." We all know the scene; mass suicide rush of russian conscripts, most not sure of which end of the rifle points towards the enemy, in a completely useless gesture that ends with the Russians gunning down as many of their own as the Germans did. Epic and amazing scene that portrays the pointlessness of war and the utter ineptitude of the Red Army at the time.

So, who wants to play the suicide rush army? Paint three hundred models, which each have faces and equipment and all that other detail, just to kill them by the score for nothing? I don't know about you, but I don't like padding in an army, and having to pad out hundreds of useless infantry just to get a few good tanks is not my idea of fun.

Not to mention the fluff problems. Anbett and co aside, why the hell would the Imperium bother to use their expensive warp ships to transport men hundreds and thousands of light-years to run them at machine-guns? And you figure, in the three months or so that their on the ship, you could, I dunno, train them? Like what happened in the old fluff?

I've invested a lot into my Guard army, and I really, really don't want to see the whole thing invalidated and turned into a useless zerg-rush horde, but that's increasingly what the rumours indicate. Any thoughts?

There were two IG equivalent forces in that scene you know. If you wish to be generous you could think that they are planning for both in the book.

You think that's bad? Try the Marine players taking Special Characters from different Chapters, and then just using the 'counts as' cop out to get around it.

My space sharks are going to use a counts as Kayvan shrike, because they are god damn space sharks and can only eat you if they are close enough to do it. Also every lightning claw blade and dreadnaught finger in the entire army is a chainsword. If you're just complaining in general about someone taking both kantor and lysander or some other combo keep in mind they only get the benefit of one. Without the army wide benefit they are all roughly as powerful as an equivalently equipped master but often without the space laser shot and for more points.

**H.B.M.C.**

You can use Shrike in a Space Sharks army. That's cool. He's a single character as Counts As.

What annoys me is when someone, say, plays Raven Guard, takes Shike... and then takes Tigurious as Chief Librarian Raven McNotTigurius. Or Calgar. Or that guy who rides the Moon Pie bike or whatever its called. Or plays Ultramarines with Cantor and He'stan.

BYE

**ShumaGorath**

H.B.M.C. wrote:You can use Shrike in a Space Sharks army. That's cool. He's a single character as Counts As.

What annoys me is when someone, say, plays Raven Guard, takes Shike... and then takes Tigurious as Chief Librarian Raven McNotTigurius. Or Calgar. Or that guy who rides the Moon Pie bike or whatever its called. Or plays Ultramarines with Cantor and He'stan.

BYE

Tigurious is pretty costly as chief librarian raven McNotTigurious though, and if they have both moon pie bike man and Cantor or He'Stan they are basically paying a few extra points for someone you can make with basic equipment anyway. Moonpiebike is actually about 50 points more expensive than a captain with the same equipment (exchanging a relic blade for vorpal sword in this case). He has his neat little vorpal sword of course but with how useful that actually is I would prefer to have a relic weapon and be fifty points cheaper. I can see how it would be annoying but it's not really all that effective in most cases.

**Railguns**

It does irk me when special characters are so much more efficient and powerful for their points than any stock HQ configuration that you almost never have any reason to use anything other than the Specials. The Ork dex is good exception, but take, for instance, the comparison between normal Farseers and Eldrad. Or Any Chaos Lord and Abaddon. Unless you have a restrictive points limit to work around, the normal characters just don't have any reason to exist. Maybe it's supposed to be that way, but it bothers me.

Edit for Silly

**ShumaGorath**

Tigurious is pretty costly as chief librarian raven McNotTigurious though, and if they have both moon pie bike man and Cantor or He'Stan they are basically paying a few extra points for someone you can make with basic equipment anyway. Moonpiebike is actually about 50 points more expensive than a captain with the same equipment (exchanging a relic blade for vorpal sword in this case). He has his neat little vorpal sword of course but with how useful that actually is I would prefer to have a relic weapon and be fifty points cheaper. I can see how it would be annoying but it's not really all that effective in most cases.

**H.B.M.C.**

ShumaGorath wrote:Tigurious is pretty costly as chief librarian raven McNotTigurious though, and if they have both moon pie bike man and Cantor or He'Stan they are basically paying a few extra points for someone you can make with basic equipment anyway.

Yeah, great, but that's not the point (no pun intended). So you can build comparable characters with standard abilities for roughly the same cost.

The point is they're taking these characters for their special army-altering rules, and in doing so mixing Chapters around. So an Ultramarine army with 'Counts As' Kantor so they can have scoring Sternguard, or a Space Sharks (to use your example) army with 'Counts As' Shrike (as that might fit your fluff, as you said), but also with 'Counts As' He'stan so that all your Meltas and Flamers are better.

If someone showed up with an army that had, for example, actual Raven Guard and Salamander units in the same army (like they painted up a Marine army that, in their fluff, was an allied force of two Chapters), then great. That would look the part. But an Ultramarine army with Kantor and Moonpie just doesn't sit well with me.

[EDIT]: Ok, so yeah, we're drifting from the point here. This is about Guard, so I'll stop now.

BYE

**captain.gordino**

H.B.M.C. wrote:
Brimstone wrote:The IG codex should allow you to create a wide range of army types, a faceless horde being just one of them.

As long as we take the right Special Character, correct?

BYE

Yes, you have to take Sgt. Facelessus Hordus, the not-particularly-interesting champion of Agri-world 23B.

**ShumaGorath**

You can't mix the chapter wide abilities. It specifically states so after every one of those abilities. If they have both shrike and hestan they get either twin linked heatguns and a terrible 190 something captain or they get fleet and a servicable 190 point captain.

I can see how it would be stupid to see on the battlefield but the only one that really gives any benefit is kantor with others, since you can still get a few extra scoring sternies with whatever benefit the other guy gives. So yeah, I can see how it would be annoying and stupid to see. Just berate your opponant, or shed manly tears of indignance and rage. At least he's not fielding lootas.

As for special characters governing army choice in the guard 'dex. I wouldn't mind having the character content of your command squad governing your choices. It's fluffy, and would reflect the command structure of the guard pretty well. I'd rather not see it be done solely through special characters though, and I doubt they'll do it that way. Guard have never really been about the trumped up superguy at the front of the army.

**H.B.M.C.**

*jumps back on topic*

Railguns wrote:Unless you have a restrictive points limit to work around, the normal characters just don't have any reason to exist. Maybe it's supposed to be that way, but it bothers me.

And that's what concerns the most about the upcoming Guard Codex. We'll get these lousy Officers for our HQ's, and then a selection of army-altering special characters (with shiny new models kits to go with them) that fundamentally change the way our armies work or, much worse than that, allow us to do what we used to do without special characters.

I greatly fear the presence of a Major Steel 'Chimera' McLegion, a hard-nose Armageddon commander who allows you to mount all your infantry in (still overpriced and under-armoured) Chimeras. I don't want to have to take a special character to every skirmish so I can play MechInf as much as every Raven and Deathwing player on the planet doesn't want to have to bring Belial or Sammael and THE LAST JETBIKE EVER to every friggin' battle.

But it's going to happen.

There will be a Camo-Cloak commander (Gaunt, probably), a Drop Troop Commander, a Steel Legion Commander and all our Doctrines will be tied to named people. I hope I'm wrong.

BYE