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During my time playing 4th ed, I never played with doctrines, and I don't see why people miss them now. As has been said, you can do practically everything in the current codex that you could with the old doctrines, in some form or another.

To list...

Drop troops: Yeah, this one is a dead loss. I would note, though, that now you get valkyries, so it's still possible to do an all-deepstrike list, but it's not the same.

Grenadiers: Vets became troops, and have access to this as a... yes, a doctrine...

Mechanized: There is no longer the restriction on how many units you can have in chimeras.

Close Order Drill: Was rather silly anyways, but got eclipsed by power blobs.

Die Hards: Got replaced by several sources of Stubborn.

Hardened fighters: Was a pretty terrible doctrine. Once again, if you want to do choppy guard, you could just do power blobs, which are much better than this doctrine ever was.

Independent Commissars: Was supplanted by commissars being a squad upgrade. You can also take up to 2 lord commissars now, which are independent, and much, much better.

Iron Discipline: Was turned into the "get back in the fight!" order. Of course now, in 6th ed, it's completely meaningless.

Veterans: Vets became a troops choice.

Jungle Fighters: Another dead loss, and I feel sorry for catachan players, but unless you were a fluffy catachan player, nobody took this.

Light Infantry: This was basically turned into Al'Rahem. I know it's not a dead analogue, but it's not like people were infiltrating everything to point blank range before anyways.

Sharpshooters: Vets became troops.

Xenos Fighters: Once again, something that's pointless in the context of blobs.

Chem Inhaler: Now as useless as Iron Discipline.

Cameloline: Vets became troops with this doctrine.

Carapace Armor: Became a unit upgrade in several places, including on vets.

Cyber Enhancement: This one is just a loss, I guess.

Warrior Weapons: This also got overtaken by blobs. Not completely, though, and this is actually the only doctrine I miss, as it makes your regular goobers a close combat threat in their own right, rather than needing to rely solely on power weapons.

So, as you can see from this list, basically all doctrines were made obsolete just by adding commissars as a platoon upgrade and by making vets a troops choice. There honestly isn't a lot that you could do that you can't do now. The only real difference is that you are no longer prompted to be fluffy by name, you now have to come up with the fluff on your own.

Testify wrote:I fail to see how a mob of men with pistols and CCW is fluffy in the slightest. Pistols are a status symbol, I find the thought quite weird in all honesty.

A status symbol depending on culture. Technically speaking, pistols are cheaper than assault rifles, which is why most criminals pack those instead of more powerful weapons. And "a mob of men with pistols and CCW" is basically what Frateris Militia units are, too.

Depending on how a unit operates, pistols and close combat weapons are way more useful to them than a cumbersome rifle, too. See tunnel fighting in Vietnam. Granted, that's a very narrow field of operations, but hey, the galaxy is a big place. And instead of fighting in tunnels, one could just say they're used to fighting in the cramped confines of a city hive where melee combat is more likely to occur than long range engagements. The soldiers could even be recruited out of some gang, like the Necromunda IG regiments.

Lynata wrote:

Testify wrote:I fail to see how a mob of men with pistols and CCW is fluffy in the slightest. Pistols are a status symbol, I find the thought quite weird in all honesty.

A status symbol depending on culture. Technically speaking, pistols are cheaper than assault rifles, which is why most criminals pack those instead of more powerful weapons.

Hrm...not necessarily. Pistols can require more finely machined parts, and Assault Rifles are...difficult to conceal, they aren't exactly subtle and are hard to remain inconspicuous with.

Pistols really aren't any cheaper than long guns, they require less in terms of materials, but more in terms of machining and labor typically.

Hell, my Beretta Px4 cost 5 times as much as my first long gun (swiss surplus K-31) about as much as my two Ruger Mini's.

Hi, just joined the forum just to comment on this.

I loved the Doctrines system to death, and I have to admit, its demise was at least part of the reason why I lost interest (that and the loss of chapter traits for SM which I was planning to start).

Even if it didn't really have much of an impact on the actual game, it was a nice to know that your own army was personalized. I was super psyched when that WD issue came out presenting Abhuman doctrines, and I put a lot of time and effort into molding a force based around Slave Levies. It was pretty terrible on the tabletop, but the idea of these poor bastards being conscripted and thrown at the front simply because there wasn't anybody else to thrown at it was, well, it made me identify with my guys. It's hard to have the same feelings nowadays about an army.

I ended up with Abhumans, Slave Levies, Die-hards, Iron Discipline, Priests. I mean, it certainly wasn't an effective list, but it was fun to play even when I lost (which was extremely frequently)

Vaktathi wrote:Hell, my Beretta Px4 cost 5 times as much as my first long gun (swiss surplus K-31) about as much as my two Ruger Mini's.

Well, you're comparing different brands here, and apparently one was a used gun. Looking at the interwebs ... no idea if this is accurate, but a Beretta Px4 is listed as $500-600, whereas a Beretta AR70 assault rifle is listed at $1500-2000.

Maybe that's just an exception - I admit your point regarding more effort being put into handguns does sound reasonable. Something to read up on, I guess.

The G36 I had in the Air Force wasn't something I had to pay for, and my airsoft guns aren't exactly a good indicator either. Maybe I'm too used to various computer games and pen&paper RPGs telling me that rifles are supposed to be more expensive.

That said, judging solely from optical appearance, in 40k there seems to be little difference between pistols and long arms (bolters and bolt pistols are both finely crafted, whereas lasguns and las pistols are both machine-stamped). Often, they even shoot the same ammunition, just that the latter has a higher RoF and more ammo. Maybe one of the many things that make this setting work a little different than the real world. Then again, it's the far future, so who knows. Back in the age of sail, the quality difference between pistols and muskets looks pretty slim, too.

Let's also not forget that with warrior weapons, you could take either a pistol and a CCW OR two close-combat weapons. The one I saw that GW put out was a few heavy metal versions of Tanak Skulltakers. They were armed with a pair of clubs and axes, etc.

Ailaros wrote:During my time playing 4th ed, I never played with doctrines, and I don't see why people miss them now. As has been said, you can do practically everything in the current codex that you could with the old doctrines, in some form or another.

To list...

Drop troops: Yeah, this one is a dead loss. I would note, though, that now you get valkyries, so it's still possible to do an all-deepstrike list, but it's not the same.

Grenadiers: Vets became troops, and have access to this as a... yes, a doctrine...

Mechanized: There is no longer the restriction on how many units you can have in chimeras.

Close Order Drill: Was rather silly anyways, but got eclipsed by power blobs.

Die Hards: Got replaced by several sources of Stubborn.

Hardened fighters: Was a pretty terrible doctrine. Once again, if you want to do choppy guard, you could just do power blobs, which are much better than this doctrine ever was.

Independent Commissars: Was supplanted by commissars being a squad upgrade. You can also take up to 2 lord commissars now, which are independent, and much, much better.

Iron Discipline: Was turned into the "get back in the fight!" order. Of course now, in 6th ed, it's completely meaningless.

Veterans: Vets became a troops choice.

Jungle Fighters: Another dead loss, and I feel sorry for catachan players, but unless you were a fluffy catachan player, nobody took this.

Light Infantry: This was basically turned into Al'Rahem. I know it's not a dead analogue, but it's not like people were infiltrating everything to point blank range before anyways.

Sharpshooters: Vets became troops.

Xenos Fighters: Once again, something that's pointless in the context of blobs.

Chem Inhaler: Now as useless as Iron Discipline.

Cameloline: Vets became troops with this doctrine.

Carapace Armor: Became a unit upgrade in several places, including on vets.

Cyber Enhancement: This one is just a loss, I guess.

Warrior Weapons: This also got overtaken by blobs. Not completely, though, and this is actually the only doctrine I miss, as it makes your regular goobers a close combat threat in their own right, rather than needing to rely solely on power weapons.

So, as you can see from this list, basically all doctrines were made obsolete just by adding commissars as a platoon upgrade and by making vets a troops choice. There honestly isn't a lot that you could do that you can't do now. The only real difference is that you are no longer prompted to be fluffy by name, you now have to come up with the fluff on your own.

Reading this it is quite clear why you didn't like or need doctrines. But every instance you mentioned is based on your personal playing style. I don't want to take veterans to be able to have access to doctrines. I don't want to take power blobs to compensate for things like warrior weapons and such. This codex restricts you to a couple different builds. Either power blobs or mechanized veterans (with just a few other ways).

Awesome. Now my army is just like everyone else's. Where's the personalization? Where is making my army my own? I don't play the game to win and wreck face. I play for the narrative and fun. I want to play this game based on my own idea of the Imperial Guard.

Why would they take it out? What's the purpose here? De-personalizing and standardizing a force that is supposed to be personalized and unstandard is a huge step backwards. This game should move in the direction doctrines gave, not away from it.

I don't want my army to be like yours. I want it to be mine. Just mine.

Buttons wrote:

Testify wrote:I never played 4th but I understand they were a more cumbsersome version of veteran doctrines.

Veteran doctrines are crap. Woohoo I can take camo cloaks, carapace armour, or a single use large blast template. So much customization.

30 points for 10 melta bombs and a demo charge is all kinds of awesome. With that doctrine Iv'e seen vetrans waste a warhound titan.

I didn't get into 40k till about 2/3 of the way through 5th edition, and I wish I was there for veterans. I may have never played them, but I do have a copy of there old codex, and IMHO I like a lot of aspects it has. I wouldn't mind if they dropped the order system, and just combined the new codex with the doctrines of the old one.

As a point of reference I've played IG since 3e, in my opinion, the 5e is definitely & easily the best out of Codex: Catachans and Codex:Imperial Guard.

Orders completely changed the way the army played and it instantly felt, to me at least, like this had been missing the entire time I'd played. Prior to 5e the CCS were simply Leadership bubbles. Now, you can use them in a variety of different ways, from commanding from the rear to leading from the front lines.

Hands down the best thing the codex brought in was doing away with RESTRICTED UNITS. I've owned enough models to field every unit in the codex since I can remember, and I've always thought it was silly to have to take doctrines to unlock units. For example, allowing Heavy Weapons teams (which were Heavy choices mind you) and special weapon squads or more than one veteran squad. From my experience the doctrines limited me too much.

Also units as a whole got much better.
Ogryns are no longer T4 ID magnets and have 3x shots as opposed to 2x.
Sanctioned Psykers were awful before with randomly generated powers each turn, one of which was actually effective. The PBS is so much better in terms of concept and in game play.
Storm Troopers Hellguns were S3 AP5, now they're AP3 (a little pricey considering they nerfed the ranges, but still definitely an improvement)
Col Schaeffer's Penal Legion... not nearly as expensive or customizeable, but the options in 5e were very cool (less so in 6e)
Chimera... significant drop in points and no more hullmounted lasguns.

The "famous" regiments listed in the back of the codex:
Tallarns
Tanith Ghosts
Mordian Iron Guard
Steel Legion
Chemdogs
Cadian
Catachan
(I'm missing one w/ HTH)

All of these armies can easily be represented in the current Codex.
Tallarns (al'rahem & rough riders)
Tanith Ghosts (vets with camo)
Mordian Iron Guard (heavy weapons teams)
Steel Legion (chimeras for everyone!)
Chemdogs (Storm troopers, Stubborn)
Cadian (vets with carapace, Storm troopers, conscripts)
Catachan (Ogryns, Harker, Straken)

That's a lot of options there.

Some clarification on the doctrines mentioned.
Sharpshooters: Re-roll all 1's to hit(shooting).
Sorry, but Twin-Linking vs Armor/MC is so much better not to mention FRFSRF

Drop troops: Most IG commanders didn't DS all of their units so the few that did, I'd say you're in the minority, despite this being one of the most taken doctrines. They'd normally DS Command Squads or Special Weapon Squads as "throw away units" "Sure I'll throw away 70pts at taking out your Land Raider." It was a rather risky affair and had the "high risk, high reward" feel. Not really a big loss.
Xenos Fighters: Preferred enemy against Eldar, Orks, Tyranids. The doctrine also required you pick one and model the unit to indicate (rarely was this done). This was rarely taken.

Chem Inhaler: I used this a lot and it actually was surprisingly useful. You ignored all negative modifiers to your LD. Pinning, HTH, you name it... which is actually what Stubborn is.

Jungle Fighters was actually useful in 3e & 4e as it allowed you to get a 4+ save in the woods and see 12" through woods. This would allow you to shoot out and not get shot back provided you were more than 6" deep in the woods.

I'm glad there's a new codex and think this one is much, much better than the doctrines one.

Mr Mugguffins wrote:

Buttons wrote:

Testify wrote:I never played 4th but I understand they were a more cumbsersome version of veteran doctrines.

Veteran doctrines are crap. Woohoo I can take camo cloaks, carapace armour, or a single use large blast template. So much customization.

30 points for 10 melta bombs and a demo charge is all kinds of awesome. With that doctrine Iv'e seen vetrans waste a warhound titan.

And I should care why? I have made it abundantly clear that I do not care about winning in particular, I would like a unique, fluffy army. Also, if you need to charge a vehicle with vets to kill it you are doing something wrong.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

paidinfull wrote:
Tallarns (al'rahem & rough riders)

I shouldn't have to take a special character to make a fluffy regiment.

Tanith Ghosts (vets with camo)

Meh, point taken here.

Mordian Iron Guard (heavy weapons teams)

Not really. TBH FRFSRF and blobs with a commissar are an almost perfect representation.

Steel Legion (chimeras for everyone!)

Pretty much.

Chemdogs (Storm troopers, Stubborn)

LOLWAT? Chem dogs don't have storm troopers, they are more like hive gang members except they live in mine shafts.

Cadian (vets with carapace, Storm troopers, conscripts)

Close enough, TBH I still see Cadians as BS 3.

Catachan (Ogryns, Harker, Straken)

See top. Also, doesn't factor in their general jungle skills like their ability to move through cover, infiltrate, or make optimum use of stealth through camo cloaks.

Sharpshooters: Re-roll all 1's to hit(shooting).
Sorry, but Twin-Linking vs Armor/MC is so much better not to mention FRFSRF

What if I am shooting at marines or terminators? The best option would be to make my high AP guns as accurate as possible, but I cannot rely on BiD.

Drop troops: Most IG commanders didn't DS all of their units so the few that did, I'd say you're in the minority, despite this being one of the most taken doctrines. They'd normally DS Command Squads or Special Weapon Squads as "throw away units" "Sure I'll throw away 70pts at taking out your Land Raider." It was a rather risky affair and had the "high risk, high reward" feel. Not really a big loss.

TBH this could have been better executed than just letting someone say "LOL dropping my meltas right next to your tank."

Xenos Fighters: Preferred enemy against Eldar, Orks, Tyranids. The doctrine also required you pick one and model the unit to indicate (rarely was this done). This was rarely taken.

Still, offers a degree of customization that we should have.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

Ignatius wrote:

Reading this it is quite clear why you didn't like or need doctrines. But every instance you mentioned is based on your personal playing style. I don't want to take veterans to be able to have access to doctrines. I don't want to take power blobs to compensate for things like warrior weapons and such. This codex restricts you to a couple different builds. Either power blobs or mechanized veterans (with just a few other ways).

Awesome. Now my army is just like everyone else's. Where's the personalization? Where is making my army my own? I don't play the game to win and wreck face. I play for the narrative and fun. I want to play this game based on my own idea of the Imperial Guard.

Why would they take it out? What's the purpose here? De-personalizing and standardizing a force that is supposed to be personalized and unstandard is a huge step backwards. This game should move in the direction doctrines gave, not away from it.

I don't want my army to be like yours. I want it to be mine. Just mine.

On an unrelated note, if GW was so greedy, giving doctrines to only vets is stupid since mech armies are far cheaper than horde armies.

Ignatius wrote:I don't want my army to be like yours. I want it to be mine. Just mine.

But they were never seriously different. Doctrines were always just window dressing in the first place, and not everybody chooses to make use out of those things that replaced doctrines.

Different guard lists were different because of the units that people chose to take, and how they played with them. Doctrines were a rather tiny way to differentiate between guard armies on the tabletop, as their effects were so rather small.

Buttons wrote:
They were a lot more fluffy than the current system where you are either generic guardsmen with zero difference between regiments, or BS4 veterans. Also, they could potentially fix those problems if they brought doctrines back in some form or another. Also, while I never played 4th, everyone being in B2B contact would make killing them with templates pretty easy I imagine. TBH I wouldn't mind the current doctrines (still would like to be able to take a grenadier army) if it wasn't for the fact that I had to take vets. Make the current doctrines available to infantry squads and PCS and I am 60% happier with the system.

think about it. deep striking units have to land in b2b. so for free, these guardsmen were getting +1I and +1WS IIRC. which was quite a nice ability, for doing nothing. and with iron discipline and the 4th ed IG officer leadership bubble, those guard simply were not running in the first place. templates would do a number, but the templates would need to survive a turn. And like i said, 50 special weapons. please, try and survive that all landing in your face in 1 turn. not many things did. and there was no point arguing reserves, and pulling stuff onto the board the following turn to deal with them. as if you held stuff back, i can use my improved comms re-rolls to keep my guard drop troops floating up there in the air and off the board too! it was a horrifying list to play.

i dont see the 4th ed guard codex as being anyway more "fluffy" than the newer system. it was merely different. infantry heavy, vehicle heavy, vet heavy? tank heavy? *shrug* we can do that now. i genuinely dont see how it was better in those "older days" - thats smacks of rose tinted glasses. you'll have to define exactly how it was fluffier then.

Deadnight wrote:

Buttons wrote:
They were a lot more fluffy than the current system where you are either generic guardsmen with zero difference between regiments, or BS4 veterans. Also, they could potentially fix those problems if they brought doctrines back in some form or another. Also, while I never played 4th, everyone being in B2B contact would make killing them with templates pretty easy I imagine. TBH I wouldn't mind the current doctrines (still would like to be able to take a grenadier army) if it wasn't for the fact that I had to take vets. Make the current doctrines available to infantry squads and PCS and I am 60% happier with the system.

think about it. deep striking units have to land in b2b. so for free, these guardsmen were getting +1I and +1WS IIRC. which was quite a nice ability, for doing nothing. and with iron discipline and the 4th ed IG officer leadership bubble, those guard simply were not running in the first place. templates would do a number, but the templates would need to survive a turn. And like i said, 50 special weapons. please, try and survive that all landing in your face in 1 turn. not many things did. and there was no point arguing reserves, and pulling stuff onto the board the following turn to deal with them. as if you held stuff back, i can use my improved comms re-rolls to keep my guard drop troops floating up there in the air and off the board too! it was a horrifying list to play.

i dont see the 4th ed guard codex as being anyway more "fluffy" than the newer system. it was merely different. infantry heavy, vehicle heavy, vet heavy? tank heavy? *shrug* we can do that now. i genuinely dont see how it was better in those "older days" - thats smacks of rose tinted glasses. you'll have to define exactly how it was fluffier then.

I could give numerous reasons, but I really don't want to so I will say, not every guardsman should be as good a shot as a space marine. Just give doctrines to infantry squads and PCS and you make it 90% better to me. That way we aren't given a choice between an all vet army just because we want doctrines, or an all generic guardsman army because we don't want all BS4 troops.

What's wrong with being as accurate as space marines? Those guys have been fighting for decades...they're as accurate as people can pretty much get.
Marines are much, much more than BS4

Buttons wrote:
And I should care why? I have made it abundantly clear that I do not care about winning in particular, I would like a unique, fluffy army. Also, if you need to charge a vehicle with vets to kill it you are doing something wrong.

I agree, but how have you lost uniqueness in this codex? If you could explain that to me I'd appreciate it.
As far as I'm aware there are actually more options and choices in this codex.

Granted, Codex: Catachan had some interesting rules concerning traps and mines, as well as rogue snipers, but as you can see those are gone gone gone.

I shouldn't have to take a special character to make a fluffy regiment.

mmm... this is a matter of perspective really. Fundamentally I don't see a lot of difference between taking a character with specific options and wargear and a doctrine that limits specific options and wargear. Don't get me wrong. I get that the move towards special characters isn't looked on favorably by some of the "old guard". I started playing in 2e, but to be fair, I barely understood the rules at that time and focused primarily on Necromunda. For me, there is still that level of acceptance and imagination that allow me to creatively use other models to fill that fluff. Why does the ruleset of Al'Rahem have to be limited to Al'Rahem? If I'm using my imagination and creativity, surely I could create some fluff to go along with the rules and effects to a character of my own devising, no?

<addressing most of the comments about my shoddy list>
I was at work and admittedly have not looked at that codex in years. I left off a ton.
Valhallans
Death Korps
Attilan Rough Riders
And now the Vostroyan and Elysian

Cut me some slack!
I admit my choice of units to reflect most of those units was poor, but hopefully you got the gist.

See top. Also, doesn't factor in their general jungle skills like their ability to move through cover, infiltrate, or make optimum use of stealth through camo cloaks.

After reflecting on Codex:Catachan, I confess, that army effectively went away. The traps, the lone snipers, the ambush rule, 4+ woods, etc. Again, I get why there is a distaste for the IC conferring army wide rules, but it's pretty clear that won't be going away. I still contend that if you're creative enough to enjoy the fluff then you're imaginative enough to come up with a way to make the rules work for you and slap a different name on the special character.

What if I am shooting at marines or terminators? The best option would be to make my high AP guns as accurate as possible, but I cannot rely on BiD.

If memory serves me, you could not re-roll plasma weapons. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm fairly certain that was in the rule.

TBH this could have been better executed than just letting someone say "LOL dropping my meltas right next to your tank."

Agreed.

Still, offers a degree of customization that we should have.

With the current preferred enemy rules, there really should be more Preferred Enemy given how great it is. That being said, the doctrine was 100% fluff driven, so far as to require you modelling elements of the preferred enemy on your units. Some of the additions Furious Charge, Counter Attack, Stubborn, Fearless, I feel off set this loss, but as you said above, "if you need to charge a vehicle with vets to kill it you are doing something wrong" and if you were in HTH with your guardsmen in 3e or 4e you are doing something wrong.


I disagree that there are less options in this codex. The sheer number of newer units makes that impossible.
Armored Sentinels
Leman Russ Variants (Exec, Pun, Erad, Ext, Vanq)
Devildog
Bane Wolf
Valkyrie
Vendetta
Hydra
Medusa
Deathstrike (heck you could even make this a Tallarn SCUD )
Colossus
Manticore

Even the special characters are more.
Folks forget the ICs in the last book were only
Creed & Kell
Yarrick
Schaeffer
Commissar Gaunt

There are lots of great options in this book. Entire Penal Legion Armies. Close Combat Guard. Sniper rifle guard. I think it got even more colorful.

paidinfull wrote:

Buttons wrote:
And I should care why? I have made it abundantly clear that I do not care about winning in particular, I would like a unique, fluffy army. Also, if you need to charge a vehicle with vets to kill it you are doing something wrong.

I agree, but how have you lost uniqueness in this codex? If you could explain that to me I'd appreciate it.
As far as I'm aware there are actually more options and choices in this codex.

Granted, Codex: Catachan had some interesting rules concerning traps and mines, as well as rogue snipers, but as you can see those are gone gone gone.

1. In order to get carapace armour or camo cloaks I need to take independent BS 4 squads of vets. I want to take fluffy Guard that aren't the equals of marines or Eldar that have lived for centuries when it comes to shooting.
2. No storm troopers as vets.
3. No warrior weapons.
4. No real way to represent Jungle Fighters, Hardened Fighters, or Jungle Fighters.
5. No Drop Troops (granted from what I am hearing it sounds like it shouldn't exist anyway).

mmm... this is a matter of perspective really. Fundamentally I don't see a lot of difference between taking a character with specific options and wargear and a doctrine that limits specific options and wargear

.
Special characters just annoy me. It is like, "Oh, I want to make an assault oriented army that is more than just plain blobs so I have to include Straken, meaning I have to take a Catachan army, make some sort of conversion, or some up with a slowed justification for why I am including Straken in a non-Catachan army (at least I personally have to because I care about fluff)."

Don't get me wrong. I get that the move towards special characters isn't looked on favorably by some of the "old guard".

Honestly I just don't like SCs unlocking things period. I would probably play Grey Knights as a Storm Trooper army or something if I didn't have to take Coteaz. Something like the Orks with Warbosses or Meks is actually fine by me since it is a generic customizable leader.

Why does the ruleset of Al'Rahem have to be limited to Al'Rahem? If I'm using my imagination and creativity, surely I could create some fluff to go along with the rules and effects to a character of my own devising, no?

That requires either a conversion or a convoluted justification to myself.

After reflecting on Codex:Catachan, I confess, that army effectively went away. The traps, the lone snipers, the ambush rule, 4+ woods, etc. Again, I get why there is a distaste for the IC conferring army wide rules, but it's pretty clear that won't be going away.

My problem isn't with ICs giving special rules, it is using those special rules to justify the removal of doctrine. Straken isn't part of the Kanak Skull Takers abd shouldn't be leading their regiment. Also, I just realized that with Straken I can get power blobs with up to 10 power mauls that hit at strength 6 on the charge. Pimping.

I still contend that if you're creative enough to enjoy the fluff then you're imaginative enough to come up with a way to make the rules work for you and slap a different name on the special character.

Perhaps, but I should have the option so simply slap on a doctrine. Also allows for less investment. I want to see how good Furious charge is with my blobs? Just slap on a doctrine next time.

If memory serves me, you could not re-roll plasma weapons. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm fairly certain that was in the rule.

Nope, but still applies to meltas, grenade launchers, and heavy weapons.

Agreed.

Yep.

if you were in HTH with your guardsmen in 3e or 4e you are doing something wrong.

Or I mastered time travel. I do some pretty hilarious things in games, and am really aggressive with my weak guardsmen. I actually made a power blob CCS once, included Straken, a Lord Commissar with a power fist, 5 priests with eviscerators, a couple of bodyguards, MotF, MoO, astropath, and Nork (advisors and bodyguards were expensive extra wounds). Costed like 40% of my army, but in close combat it was surprisingly effective despite horriffic losses.

Armored Sentinels

Could honestly be an upgrade of an armoured sentinel

Leman Russ Variants (Exec, Pun, Erad, Ext, Vanq)

If you care about winning, a third are nearly uselss, and the rest are mostly overpriced. I only ever use Vanquishers, Demolishers, and sometimes LRBTs. Regardless they can be pretty fun I suppose and it is nice.
Devildog
Bane Wolf

Valkyrie

Personally I do like this addition, not OP, not useless.

Vendetta

Why? This is one of the few vehicles I actively hate. A flyer with 3 twin-linked lascannons that is far too cheap points wise, and costs like $80 when you include the valkyrie to vendetta conversion kit.

Hydra

Probably a good thing with the advent of fliers, but before that it really served no purpose beyond being a lighter, more powerful autocannon Russ.

Medusa

Meh, could be better, but fine.

Deathstrike (heck you could even make this a Tallarn SCUD )

Only fun if you field 6 now. Kill 90% of the enemy army by turn 4 and have like 1000+ points that are like turretless chimeras with no transport capacity.

Colossus

Meh.

Manticore

Could have been better executed.
I love the new vehicles, but I don't see why it forbids a doctrine system. The current codex is only 104 pages, and even if you include the part where the 4th ed. codex describes what doctrines to take for each regiment it only adds 7 pages. The current C:SM codex is 144 pages, so it isn't overwhelming.

Even the special characters are more.
Folks forget the ICs in the last book were only
Creed & Kell
Yarrick
Schaeffer
Commissar Gaunt

TBH I like Gaunt and Schaeffer, it is cool to have characters from the books.

There are lots of great options in this book. Entire Penal Legion Armies. Close Combat Guard. Sniper rifle guard. I think it got even more colorful.

Well you could field a Penal Legion army by either spamming conscripts, or by modeling everyone with a pistol and knife. Also, the only system would allow you to take 2 snipers per infantry squad if you took the right doctrine, not to mention ratling snipers or veteran snipers in the elite slots.


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Testify wrote:What's wrong with being as accurate as space marines? Those guys have been fighting for decades...they're as accurate as people can pretty much get.
Marines are much, much more than BS4

My problem isn't with BS 4 vets, it is being forced to take BS 4 vets just to get access to some doctrines that cause more harm than good.

Some really interesting points being raised on both sides!

I can see how you can "effectively" use the options in the current codex to replicate the effects of Doctrines, however I do not feel that this is fluffy.
This is the way I see it. You COULD have a unit become stubborn by adding a Commissar, but how is that anywhere near cool as having them get the same effect from something only found in their world or culture... Such as Chem Inhalers. It adds more identity in my opinion to that particular regiment, rather than all units only become stubborn through a commissar.

No Idea if that was a good example or not... and of course this is just my personal opinion (entirely subjective)

Its been really interesting reading people's opinions on the matter, keep the discussion coming

Just on a side note, where in Dakka would be a good place to post Army Fluff?

Buttons wrote:And I should care why? I have made it abundantly clear that I do not care about winning in particular, I would like a unique, fluffy army. Also, if you need to charge a vehicle with vets to kill it you are doing something wrong.

Buttons wrote:If you care about winning, a third are nearly uselss, and the rest are mostly overpriced. I only ever use Vanquishers, Demolishers, and sometimes LRBTs. Regardless they can be pretty fun I suppose and it is nice.

This stuck out to me and I'm a little confused, are you interested in making a unique fluffy army or do you care about winning and the cost of units?

Buttons wrote:
1. In order to get carapace armour or camo cloaks I need to take independent BS 4 squads of vets. I want to take fluffy Guard that aren't the equals of marines or Eldar that have lived for centuries when it comes to shooting.
2. No storm troopers as vets.
3. No warrior weapons.
4. No real way to represent Jungle Fighters, Hardened Fighters, or Jungle Fighters.
5. No Drop Troops (granted from what I am hearing it sounds like it shouldn't exist anyway).

1. Well, I would say that fluff wise it doesn't make a ton of sense to equip the entire army with that equipment. From the fluff I'm familiar with, well, specifically with Tanith Ghosts, their regiment made up a small portion of the forces deployed. They also were veterans. The Tanith 1st makes a ton more sense now then it did before... with the exclusion of losing Gaunt, who I agree was great character for 75pts. The carapace scenario is a little more fuzzy as I could see a more armored platoon, but also see that it makes less sense to give grunts access to special equipment.
2. What do you mean "no storm troopers as vets"? Do you mean that you can't take 3x scoring Storm Trooper units? The construction of the units themselves haven't changed as Vets with Carapace *are* Storm Troopers from the previous edition.
3. Dropping their lasgun for a close combat weapon... The only unit that comes close to this is Penal legion and that's 5-6
4. Hehe I like how you listed Jungle Fighters twice. I completely agree Catachans are effectively gone. Hardened fighters (WS4 guardsmen), however, didn't even do what the doctrine conveyed. In game terms it simply meant that they got hit less. They weren't really *better* in combat. They simply lost by less.
5. Even though it doesn't have much of a place now, you can actually do a much more interesting Drop Troop list by taking Valks and using the Valk Grav Chute rule. Fluffwise this feels far more likely to see guardsmen leaping out of plans then falling from the atmosphere.

Special characters just annoy me. It is like, "Oh, I want to make an assault oriented army that is more than just plain blobs so I have to include Straken, meaning I have to take a Catachan army, make some sort of conversion, or some up with a slowed justification for why I am including Straken in a non-Catachan army (at least I personally have to because I care about fluff)."

I get that, and that is very much a 3e & 4e mentality. It's fairly clear that was a marketing driven decision. As someone who bought every special character, though rarely played with them, I enjoy this change. Though from a competitive stand point, basic CCS are great on their own.

Honestly I just don't like SCs unlocking things period. I would probably play Grey Knights as a Storm Trooper army or something if I didn't have to take Coteaz. Something like the Orks with Warbosses or Meks is actually fine by me since it is a generic customizable leader.

I actually had a grey knight army from 3e(?)(whenever the previous codex was), that was comprised of Coteaz a unit of termies, 2x grey knights and the rest inquisitorial storm troopers. It was a beautiful army, but was absolutely terrible! hahaha Furies (and demons in general) absolutely destroyed grey knights (and most armies). that was one army where the game play to fluff totally fell apart. With respects to special characters, the only comment I can make is... GW as a company has decided to move in that direction and it appears very unlikely that they'll move back. I know it's difficult to get past, but I truly doubt it's going to change any time soon.

That requires either a conversion or a convoluted justification to myself.

Why is it convoluted? If you are A) writing the fluff yourself or B) adhering to the fluff you're simply stripping the name from a character and using a different model. The Tallaran Doctrines included Light Infantry right? So the entire army had infiltrate and their armor was reduced to 6+. That is certainly one way to convey an ambush... another is Outflanking. The one big change is the Al'Rahem's order, feels much more fluffy than the previous doctrines. After deployment there was literally nothing that gave the army the Tallarn feel outside of the models.

I don't know, i guess we'll just have to agree to disagree here. I don't see much of a difference between purchasing a special character for the sole intent of unlocking abilities and purchasing a doctrine for the sole intent of unlocking abilities. To me it's one model out of a 100 that comes with set wargear, calling Al'Rahem by another name, be it Aladdin or Col Corbec, can still work fluff wise with very little effort.

My problem isn't with ICs giving special rules, it is using those special rules to justify the removal of doctrine. Straken isn't part of the Kanak Skull Takers abd shouldn't be leading their regiment.

Ah, that was the regiment I couldn't remember. I think the difference between you and I, is you have an adherence to the name. I look at it as a set of rules & wargear and if I choose to use a different model, my options are limitless for the fluff I can create or use (provided they make sense).

Perhaps, but I should have the option so simply slap on a doctrine. Also allows for less investment. I want to see how good Furious charge is with my blobs? Just slap on a doctrine next time.

I'm afraid I don't understand. Doctrines came (in most cases) with a cost. What do you mean about investment? Purchasing the actual Straken model? Ironically, I don't own the straken model, but have used another model to unlock those abilities and to work with the fluff I've used for my army.

Or I mastered time travel. I do some pretty hilarious things in games, and am really aggressive with my weak guardsmen. I actually made a power blob CCS once, included Straken, a Lord Commissar with a power fist, 5 priests with eviscerators, a couple of bodyguards, MotF, MoO, astropath, and Nork (advisors and bodyguards were expensive extra wounds). Costed like 40% of my army, but in close combat it was surprisingly effective despite horriffic losses.

See? That's creative and unique. My comment wasn't to suggest that a fortuitous charge or inspired unit construction couldn't yield results, but typically if you sent 20x Guardsmen against 5x Marines, the marines often came out the victor. I'm glad you have fun in your games though as that's the most important aspect of the game.

Hydra

Probably a good thing with the advent of fliers, but before that it really served no purpose beyond being a lighter, more powerful autocannon Russ.

I respectfully disagree with your assessment on the Hydra in 5e. It was a fantastic vehicle and I religiously took 2x in an army. 8x TL Autocannon shots was excellent. Against AV12 that's 1x Pen and 1x Glance on average. Against infantry it's 14 shots. It's a shame that they are BS1 vs most units now, as such I've dropped them from my list.

I love the new vehicles, but I don't see why it forbids a doctrine system. The current codex is only 104 pages, and even if you include the part where the 4th ed. codex describes what doctrines to take for each regiment it only adds 7 pages. The current C:SM codex is 144 pages, so it isn't overwhelming.

Was it even that long? I could have sworn it was a mere 2 or 3 pages.
Truth be told, I'm happy doctrines are gone. Nearly everything doctrines could do previously can be done in the new book without restrictions to fit fluff. However, the most obvious and biggest loss being Catachan rules. Outside of that, it allows more flexibility. I say that because the restrictions that were imposed by the doctrines are gone.

If you want the old Doctrines back, specifically at the expense of the new rules (orders for example) I'm against that.

If you are proposing alternate rules that include both Orders and new Doctrines of your own devising, that's something different entirely.

Bust out the old codex and build an army using the old doctrines and what you'll find is that the cost to make those units with doctrines is more than were you to do something similar in the 5e codex.

TBH I like Gaunt and Schaeffer, it is cool to have characters from the books.

I agree. I frequently took Gaunt so I was disappointed to find he was removed.

Also, the only system would allow you to take 2 snipers per infantry squad if you took the right doctrine, not to mention ratling snipers or veteran snipers in the elite slots.

The old system did however, not permit regular infantry squads to take Heavy Flamers.

The way the veteran IG players talk at my store, doctrines being gone is a good thing. aside from a couple of cool exceptions (all deepstriking, all stormtrooper) the newer codex plays better and is more fluff related. i've never used it though so i cant really comment.

I love the idea behind them, but the way they sound right now, I 'd rather them stay gone. Now if they redid them and we kept orders ( which is one of my favorite aspects of IG) then I might be ok with them, but if they pulled anything thats in the codex right now i would be furious.

MrMoustaffa wrote:The way the veteran IG players talk at my store, doctrines being gone is a good thing. aside from a couple of cool exceptions (all deepstriking, all stormtrooper) the newer codex plays better and is more fluff related. i've never used it though so i cant really comment.

I love the idea behind them, but the way they sound right now, I 'd rather them stay gone. Now if they redid them and we kept orders ( which is one of my favorite aspects of IG) then I might be ok with them, but if they pulled anything thats in the codex right now i would be furious.

Perhaps I am in a much smaller minority than I originally thought. I had assumed all guard players were annoyed with doctrines being gone.

I will say however that the new codex does NOT allow for more fluff based armies. Taking away options to dramatically change the way an army operates and replacing it with orders and a few new units takes away from differentiation and uniqueness. A hallmark of the Imperial Guard. My guardsmen are now the exact same as yours are, and I can't do anything about that besides purely aesthetics.

Whereas before my guardsmen had say stubborn and carapace armor, while yours could re roll 1s to hit and had camp cloaks. There were a ton of different options to make your units play any way you wanted them to, where now you most certainly do not have the same number of options. Your army is my army is his army.

Ailaros wrote:During my time playing 4th ed, I never played with doctrines, and I don't see why people miss them now. As has been said, you can do practically everything in the current codex that you could with the old doctrines, in some form or another.

To list...

Drop troops: Yeah, this one is a dead loss. I would note, though, that now you get valkyries, so it's still possible to do an all-deepstrike list, but it's not the same.

Grenadiers: Vets became troops, and have access to this as a... yes, a doctrine...

Mechanized: There is no longer the restriction on how many units you can have in chimeras.

Close Order Drill: Was rather silly anyways, but got eclipsed by power blobs.

Die Hards: Got replaced by several sources of Stubborn.

Hardened fighters: Was a pretty terrible doctrine. Once again, if you want to do choppy guard, you could just do power blobs, which are much better than this doctrine ever was.

Independent Commissars: Was supplanted by commissars being a squad upgrade. You can also take up to 2 lord commissars now, which are independent, and much, much better.

Iron Discipline: Was turned into the "get back in the fight!" order. Of course now, in 6th ed, it's completely meaningless.

Veterans: Vets became a troops choice.

Jungle Fighters: Another dead loss, and I feel sorry for catachan players, but unless you were a fluffy catachan player, nobody took this.

Light Infantry: This was basically turned into Al'Rahem. I know it's not a dead analogue, but it's not like people were infiltrating everything to point blank range before anyways.

Sharpshooters: Vets became troops.

Xenos Fighters: Once again, something that's pointless in the context of blobs.

Chem Inhaler: Now as useless as Iron Discipline.

Cameloline: Vets became troops with this doctrine.

Carapace Armor: Became a unit upgrade in several places, including on vets.

Cyber Enhancement: This one is just a loss, I guess.

Warrior Weapons: This also got overtaken by blobs. Not completely, though, and this is actually the only doctrine I miss, as it makes your regular goobers a close combat threat in their own right, rather than needing to rely solely on power weapons.

So, as you can see from this list, basically all doctrines were made obsolete just by adding commissars as a platoon upgrade and by making vets a troops choice. There honestly isn't a lot that you could do that you can't do now. The only real difference is that you are no longer prompted to be fluffy by name, you now have to come up with the fluff on your own.

Except that isn't "the only difference", as your own sodding list makes clear. "Blobs" are not an entire army armed for HtH combat with extra WS, they are blobs, they take exactly the same men with exactly the same equipment and amalgamate them into a single squad instead of three - they don't play the same. Veterans aren't even in the same ballpark as Camo infantry, or Storm Troopers, or anything else. You thought Close Order Drill was stupid, think what you like, I'll bet there's a lot of Mordian and Praetorian players out there who would disagree with you.

Don't try and imply that people's desire to have Doctrines back so they can play a fluffy force is because they are somehow deficient in imagination, that's a bloody crock and you well know it.

Ignatius wrote:I will say however that the new codex does NOT allow for more fluff based armies. Taking away options to dramatically change the way an army operates and replacing it with orders and a few new units takes away from differentiation and uniqueness.

Once again, I've got to challenge where this idea of "dramatic change" comes from.

Doctrines were an explicit way of differentiating armies (instead of what is now implicit, but still largely present), but they really didn't differentiate armies that much. Having +1 WS did not significantly change the way a guard army was played. Whether or not you took armored fists or not, or whether you took demolishers instead of basilisks did.

Plus, they didn't get rid of the fluff when they got rid of doctrines. If you want, you can play a guard army wherein everybody is cybernetically enhanced. The only difference is that instead of making a microscopic difference, it now makes literally no difference. This is not a dramatic change on the table. The fluff didn't go away, either.

Yodhrin wrote:Don't try and imply that people's desire to have Doctrines back so they can play a fluffy force is because they are somehow deficient in imagination, that's a bloody crock and you well know it.

That's exactly what I'm saying. The current and the old guard codex, as well as the 5th and 6th edition of the rulebook talk about the staggering diversity of guard from musketeers to tribal spearmen to skitarii legions. You could do any crazy thing your imagination could come up with before, and you can come up with any crazy thing your imagine can come up with now.

You did not need doctrines to play a fluffy force. Anything fluffy about your force is STILL THERE now that doctrines are gone. The only difference is that you're no longer prompted in the codex.

If you needed this prompting - GW telling you what your army fluff could be - and you can't be fluffy now without it, then you are, in fact, deficient in imagination. If your are thus so disinclined, then you can still read the old guard codex for ideas for your army's fluff.

Ailaros wrote:

Ignatius wrote:I will say however that the new codex does NOT allow for more fluff based armies. Taking away options to dramatically change the way an army operates and replacing it with orders and a few new units takes away from differentiation and uniqueness.

Once again, I've got to challenge where this idea of "dramatic change" comes from.

Doctrines were an explicit way of differentiating armies (instead of what is now implicit, but still largely present), but they really didn't differentiate armies that much. Having +1 WS did not significantly change the way a guard army was played. Whether or not you took armored fists or not, or whether you took demolishers instead of basilisks did.

Plus, they didn't get rid of the fluff when they got rid of doctrines. If you want, you can play a guard army wherein everybody is cybernetically enhanced. The only difference is that instead of making a microscopic difference, it now makes literally no difference. This is not a dramatic change on the table. The fluff didn't go away, either.

Yodhrin wrote:Don't try and imply that people's desire to have Doctrines back so they can play a fluffy force is because they are somehow deficient in imagination, that's a bloody crock and you well know it.

That's exactly what I'm saying. The current and the old guard codex, as well as the 5th and 6th edition of the rulebook talk about the staggering diversity of guard from musketeers to tribal spearmen to skitarii legions. You could do any crazy thing your imagination could come up with before, and you can come up with any crazy thing your imagine can come up with now.

You did not need doctrines to play a fluffy force. Anything fluffy about your force is STILL THERE now that doctrines are gone. The only difference is that you're no longer prompted in the codex.

If you needed this prompting - GW telling you what your army fluff could be - and you can't be fluffy now without it, then you are, in fact, deficient in imagination. If your are thus so disinclined, then you can still read the old guard codex for ideas for your army's fluff.

We have to agree to disagree then. I don't see the same customization and fluffyness in the new codex as the old one. For the sole reason that doctrines no longer exist.

I think you misunderstand here. We do NOT lack imagination. We do NOT need GW telling us how to make an army different. Where you came up with this I don't know, but it's not the case. Again. A guardsmen is a guardsmen is a guardsmen in this codex. NOTHING other than the way they look is different a out them between army A and army B. I hate that.

Sure, one doctrine doesn't change the way you play. But multiple ones do. Warrior weapons with close order drill with hardened fighters definitely will change it. As opposed to marksmen and carapace.

Doctrines allowed for more variation. They were extra add ons to guardsmen that they didn't want to choke the unit entry with. I could do anything with a guard squad I wanted. In this codex? Not at all. They are locked in to performing a few roles.

Ailaros wrote:
That's exactly what I'm saying. The current and the old guard codex, as well as the 5th and 6th edition of the rulebook talk about the staggering diversity of guard from musketeers to tribal spearmen to skitarii legions. You could do any crazy thing your imagination could come up with before, and you can come up with any crazy thing your imagine can come up with now.

You did not need doctrines to play a fluffy force. Anything fluffy about your force is STILL THERE now that doctrines are gone. The only difference is that you're no longer prompted in the codex.

If you needed this prompting - GW telling you what your army fluff could be - and you can't be fluffy now without it, then you are, in fact, deficient in imagination. If your are thus so disinclined, then you can still read the old guard codex for ideas for your army's fluff.

Except the point of doctrines was that your army fluff effected the actual rules. I can model my guys like Redcoats, yet they still play exactly like regular guardsmen, with automatic rifles and relatively heavy body armour. The point of doctrines wasn't so GW could say "If you want a fluffy army it should be like this." it was so you could make your army how you wanted and your fluff could effect your actual play style. If I wanted to make redcoats the doctrines would give me a reason to form them into a line, if I wanted to make light infantry, the doctrines would give me the ability to make my foot sloggers more mobile.

Buttons wrote:Except the point of doctrines was that your army fluff effected the actual rules.

Scarcely.

The only doctrines that had any real impact have been rolled over into 5th edition (get back in the fight order replacing iron discipline, for example). Furthermore, those doctrines that actually had an impact on the game were taken by practically everybody who took doctrines. Exactly how did Iron Discipline make your army different from another guard army when every guard army took Iron Discipline?

Really, there were only a couple of doctrines that most people took. Given that everything outside of these doctrines was inconsequential on the result of the game, they were scarce, and, as mentioned, didn't make an impact.

If you want to do fluffy things that doesn't have an impact, you can still do them now.

Ailaros wrote:

Buttons wrote:Except the point of doctrines was that your army fluff effected the actual rules.

Scarcely.

The only doctrines that had any real impact have been rolled over into 5th edition (get back in the fight order replacing iron discipline, for example). Furthermore, those doctrines that actually had an impact on the game were taken by practically everybody who took doctrines. Exactly how did Iron Discipline make your army different from another guard army when every guard army took Iron Discipline?

Really, there were only a couple of doctrines that most people took. Given that everything outside of these doctrines was inconsequential on the result of the game, they were scarce, and, as mentioned, didn't make an impact.

If you want to do fluffy things that doesn't have an impact, you can still do them now.

Just because you didn't play the game in a way that would warrant the use of light infanty or xenos fighters doesn't mean they are useless. To you? Maybe. But that's subjective and shouldn't be argued in this thread.

The fact of the matter is that doctrines had both an impact on the way you look at your army and it's fluff AND an actual effect on the table top. Iron discipline being replaced by get back in the fight? Really? Seeing as how you have one or two orders a turn, and you will more than likely be using them to kill a tank or MC and not rallying a single infantry squad, this is a terrible comparison. You can have upwards of a 5:1 ratio of squads to orders. Hardly equivalent to having ALL infantry squads having it.

Ignatius wrote:Iron discipline being replaced by get back in the fight? Really?

Yes, really. Actually, it's been replaced by 6th edition even more.

Iron Discipline did exactly two things.

- Ignore the -1 penalty for trying to regroup while under half strength. There is no longer a penalty for regrouping while under half strength.

- May regroup while under half strength. Half strength restrictions no longer apply.

Furthermore, get back in the fight also ignores these restrictions, and further allowed you to regroup even while near an enemy (a restriction which 6th edition also removed), and gives you the added benefit of being able to recover from being pinned.

Your guard army doesn't NEED to have iron discipline now because the rules have improved to the point where the stupid rules that would make you have to take Iron Discipline have now been removed. Instead of everybody and their mother taking this doctrine, now everybody just has this doctrine. Very tiny change here (if any).

More importantly, the loss of this doctrine doesn't mean, fluffwise, that your army can't have iron discipline. Your army can still come from a world where officers come from the nobility, trained from birth to have a certain air of authority that keeps their troops in check.

Ignatius wrote:The fact of the matter is that doctrines had both an impact on the way you look at your army and it's fluff

Which is what I'm arguing. Some people just can't look at their army in the way they want to without being prompted to think about their army that way. You don't NEED doctrines to tell you to have a cool army. Just have a cool army. There's nothing stopping you.

Ailaros wrote:

Ignatius wrote:Iron discipline being replaced by get back in the fight? Really?

Yes, really. Actually, it's been replaced by 6th edition even more.

Iron Discipline did exactly two things.

- Ignore the -1 penalty for trying to regroup while under half strength. There is no longer a penalty for regrouping while under half strength.

- May regroup while under half strength. Half strength restrictions no longer apply.

Furthermore, get back in the fight also ignores these restrictions, and further allowed you to regroup even while near an enemy (a restriction which 6th edition also removed), and gives you the added benefit of being able to recover from being pinned.

Your guard army doesn't NEED to have iron discipline now because the rules have improved to the point where the stupid rules that would make you have to take Iron Discipline have now been removed. Instead of everybody and their mother taking this doctrine, now everybody just has this doctrine. Very tiny change here (if any).

More importantly, the loss of this doctrine doesn't mean, fluffwise, that your army can't have iron discipline. Your army can still come from a world where officers come from the nobility, trained from birth to have a certain air of authority that keeps their troops in check.

Ignatius wrote:The fact of the matter is that doctrines had both an impact on the way you look at your army and it's fluff

Which is what I'm arguing. Some people just can't look at their army in the way they want to without being prompted to think about their army that way. You don't NEED doctrines to tell you to have a cool army. Just have a cool army. There's nothing stopping you.

I'll give you your last point. I had never been arguing that you have to have doctrines to play a fluffy army. They help, a lot, but you don't need them. My army is still the same fluff wise as it was with doctrines. However, there is now no effect that it has on the game. So I may say my officers are nobility and such, but in game terms it doesn't make two *****. That's what I am against. I want my fluff to have representation on the table top, and be more than just some story that I created for them. I could have great fluff, but the guy across from me is just going to say "cool. Let's keep playing." It takes away from the games appeal.

Sure, iron discipline now is pointless. Everyone has it. That's THE problem. The point of doctrines is to make myself different, so my guardsmen are the way I want them. It makes a huge difference if everyone has a rule as opposed to having it through a special rule.