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Hi there, I recently found my old Imperial guard army that I used to play back when warhammer 40,000 was still in 3rd edition. As such it was very infantry heavy with a leman Russ (or 3) to back it up but very little was mechanised. What I'm wondering is how much has changed?

Do I have to go full mech to be not competitive but in any way viable.
Are Mass infantry lists in any way viable?
Any advice on tactics (havent played 5th edition much but I understand practically everything is objective based now)
How does the army play in general?

Thanks for any help

Polonius made a great article discussing the strengths and weaknesses of the imperial guard: http://www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/5th_Edition_Imperial_Guard_Codex_Review_%28Polonius%29

In short, platoons are still viable, especially when merged into one squad for annihilation missions, and split up for objective based games. Guardsmen are cheaper too.

You probably don't need as many as before, and instead should spend points in at least one veteran squad (equipped with either 3x meltas or 3x plasmas, and mounted into a transport). These guys are troops, and kick major ass.

Tactically, they're flexible, cheap, and have a solution to every problem. MEQs? Plasmas. Armor? Manitcores/Vendetta. Swarms? Valkyries.

Squadrons are dangerous to themselves, as the new rules consider immobilized vehicles as wrecked (but only if they're squadron-ed with another vehicle).

I'm no 'ard boy, so I'd get a second opinion if I were you. What I do know is that people do consider IG as a competitive/viable army in 5th ed.