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I'm curious to get your opinions on this. it seems that imperial guard guardsmen are, in the individual unit, worthless. i find myself thinking, as i make a new list, this ive got to spend 150 points minimum on units of guardsmen that i have no hope at all of them doing anything but causing me further disappointment. this is not to say they cant be useful, but only in the blob and even they it is dispite their best efforts to fail. so i come to ask how you see the guardsman being improved in the future codex,if at all. i understand it is very doubtful that the profile will change , however i do think the unit would be infinitly improved by making the lasgun S4 AP5. i feel giving this sub par unit a gun that is on par with every other basic troop in the game is fair and would not break the unit. your thoughts?

Platoons are rubbish, yes. All of your troops should be veterans in chimeras.

Guardsman are to be fielded en masse. You need at least 3 combined squads to give you the durability and firepower needed to make an impact in most cases. They are just fine as is but make sure your using orders to increase thier firepower and or commissars and marine ICs.

 BryllCream wrote:
Platoons are rubbish, yes. All of your troops should be veterans in chimeras.

The Internet is so hard to convey sarcasm, you should probably put a disclaimer at the end.

If you think guard are weak, go play in any tournament and see 9/10 players with a guard blob as an ally. Guard don't really need much change to the basic trooper. They're fine. The guard codex need internal balance.

What the Guard codex needs is internal balance, as others have said. Make Valkyries/Vendettas not so freaking overpowered that they ruin the fast attack slot, for example.

Platoons are the way the IG Codex should be played. Your thinking like a space marine player. You have to realize that guardsmen squads are completely and utterly disposable.

They are like pawns in chess, they don't do much, but sometimes they do something.

When not combined (guess you never played the previous 2 codexes) they're useful for target overload. Throw some special weapons here and there (cheap ones, like a GL or FT), maybe some heavy weapons (for units standing on an objective), support the tanks.

Infantry squads support the tanks. You can field as many units in a single platoon that any other army can field in an army. And they (the enemy) can, at most, eliminate one unit at a time for each one of their units.

You can move 5 separate units towards each objective, while the enemy can only afford to move one, you can have those 5 units do different things on the way, shoot at different units, become a pain in the arse by sitting in cover and shooting at units, etc etc.

Let one unit die in CC while 4 more wait for the aftermath to unload on the enemy squad

You just have to remember not to think of them as spacemarine and more like expendable units to forward your goals, they don't do much damage individually, but enough to not be ignored, and if combined with firepower from other units, quite damaging.

Hey at least your guys don't cost 9pts a dude!

To be fair at least Guardians have got WS/BS4 and pseudo-rending now.

As the other guys said, they're not supposed to be a one-unit wrecking ball, for their cost if all they do is eat bullets and not run, they're doing their job just fine. That said, they do have surprisingly fearsome damage output, under the right circumstances.

OP is right. Guardsmen are rubbish.

Fortunately, nobody in this universe take Guardsmen because what they are, but for what they can bring to the table: special and heavy weapons. You never-ever want to take an Infantry Squad without a special and maybe a heavy. Not even for Vendetta scoring-fodder. That 50 points in the cost of the Infantry Squad is nothing more but 7 ablative wounds for the real hitters (the special and the heavy weapons). Without weapon upgrades, you will only have 10 ablative wounds, protecting the big nothing...

Also, don't take grenade launchers and heavy bolters either. They are, like, Trolltraps that defeat the whole point of the Infantry Squad.

Guardsmen themselves are bleh, as said. Lasguns don't really do a whole lot (even en masse), and a single Guardsman will die to pretty much anything, but you take them because they can carry a ton of special and heavy weapons.

And no, lasguns shouldn't get a bolter statline. That's just a terrible, terrible idea.

What the codex needs is internal balance as said. Vendettas need to be toned down a bit so other options seem tasteful, elites need some more power so that I might have to actually think about taking something from that slot, HS is decent but a couple Russ variants could use some touch-ups thanks to the Heavy rule, etc etc.

I have to disagree with the majority of posters here and say that the individual guardsman is awesome. I've always been primarily a space marine player of various flavors, and I recently started bringing some IG platoon allies, though I've never once fielded them as a blob. I honestly love the utter disposability of the guardsmen, and for whatever reason people tend to shoot at the worthless infantry squads more than my psycannon wielding elites, lol. That aside, I've also never bought any special weapons for them because I could never figure out which ones to take. Most of the firepower comes from the 5 squads of heavy weapon teams that the infantry squads allow me to bring, putting a crazy number of autocannons on the table, and they're all scoring.

The lesson I've learned with the infantry is that you should expect them to fail, so that they can surprise you with the occasional miracle shot (junior officer one-shotting Fateweaver with his laspistol, single guardsman beating canoptek wraiths in melee and running them down, flashlights causing a break check on Long Fangs who run off the board...I could go on).

I love the basic platoon. I can hold down 4 objectives cheap.

When I run my Ultras: no one screws with the IG platoon. There's only 6 turns in a game. I hit the enemy hard with drop pods, talons, sternguard, and assault Termies. The current tourney meta doesn't plan on MEQ+TEQ +drop pods. It's kinda like in the SciFi movies where the super advanced weapon scanners miss the black powder pistol. Sometimes the old tricks are forgotten. Meanwhile that platoon sits back there with heavy weapons and takes pot shots. In cover, they have to handled via CC and if you don't throw at least two units at them, I'll still have 2 scoring units come turn 6. They'll do great if you use them as a blob or objective holders... Don't try to make a screw driver into a hammer and they'll work.

In my CSM lists: its all assault, even my cultists. Again, platoons with auto cannons, LC, or ML (or mortars against GEQ) really will earn their points hold objectives and harassing at range. Orders make them ok anti flyer/transport.

For their cost, they are near perfectly balanced in the meta. If your local meta allows IA, they also unlock Thudd guns, which if haven't tried, you should.

It's pretty easy to make a IG platoon in to a winning proposition.

You get what you pay for. A squad that only costs 85pts with its most expensive weapons isn't going to be strutting up the board with impunity.

What you're wanting is Tau or a veteran list. Guardsmen with bolters would be horribly unbalanced with the way FRFSRF works, especially if they stayed the same cost.

Right, but with a squad only costing 85 points you can have a lot of squads, or a lot of vehicles to support them

The Op has clearly never witnessed a combined squad of 50 men charge old one eye and bayonet him to death.

With orders, weapons teams and it's own hq squad, infantry platoons can accomplish allot for the points they cost. Or get killed by a series of cover ignoring pie plates. But that can be said about any unit, always something to make them look bad.

A full infantry platoon is a small army all on it's own. In it's way it sums up what the IG is supposed to be; A synergy of different units contributing to the success of the force as a whole.

 Melissia wrote:
What the Guard codex needs is internal balance, as others have said. Make Valkyries/Vendettas not so freaking overpowered that they ruin the fast attack slot, for example.

But if they nerf those , then there would be nothing in the codex that could help IG deal with necrons and tau. They would be like chaos marines without a helldrake.

Guardsmen have a 5+ armour save and 24' range weapons, the ability to take heavy and special weapons, and a massive possible unit size thanks to blobbing, for 5 ppm I wouldn't call that rubbish, There are codices that would love to have a unit like that (indeed, many ally with Guard for that very purpose).

 Griddlelol wrote:

 BryllCream wrote:
Platoons are rubbish, yes. All of your troops should be veterans in chimeras.

The Internet is so hard to convey sarcasm, you should probably put a disclaimer at the end.

If you think guard are weak, go play in any tournament and see 9/10 players with a guard blob as an ally. Guard don't really need much change to the basic trooper. They're fine. The guard codex need internal balance.

I don't care about tournaments. The amount of armies that *don't* have the firepower/melee to knock out blob guards with ease is tiny. We live in a meta with hurricane bolters and troops with 4 attacks on the charge and everything ignoring cover. Blob guard dies very, very quickly, and has poor firepower for its cost/resilience. At least in 5th the hidden power weapons meant that they could bite in close combat, now your commissar gets killed in the first round of an assault and they leg it.

I cannot stress the efficency of actual blob platoons of Guardsmen. And they can fight anything 50 regular Guardsmen maybe given Nade Launchers. Up to five heavy weapons teams. That is....30 s7 shots if you run full heavy weapons. Give it Bring it Down! from a CCS. Dead flyer. Dead tank. Dead squad. DEAD.

Doesn't the grenade launcher have an 18" range?

 BryllCream wrote:
Platoons are rubbish, yes. All of your troops should be veterans in chimeras.

... and normally I would disagree as vehemently as everybody else, but I don't think I can anymore. 6th edition combined with the new codices of the last few years have conspired to make infantry platoons more than a little tragic.

What was good about platoons is that they had the durability to make it upfield and kill things by attrition. Now NONE of that is really true anymore. Pretty much all platoons can accomplish is plinking with a few lascannon before they're butchered turn four, and that's even if you bring into the triple digits of them. Something whose only ability is to expensively sit on objectives isn't that good in this edition.

Since I switched over to mechvets a few months ago, I can't really see going back. At least, not until seventh edition or our next codex changes things.

 BryllCream wrote:
Doesn't the grenade launcher have an 18" range?

No, it has 24" range, iirc.

Makumba wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
What the Guard codex needs is internal balance, as others have said. Make Valkyries/Vendettas not so freaking overpowered that they ruin the fast attack slot, for example.

But if they nerf those , then there would be nothing in the codex that could help IG deal with necrons and tau. They would be like chaos marines without a helldrake.

No, we would still have hydras. It would just give the hydra a reason to exist, whereas right now the vendetta can do everything it can do and more, and do it better.

Which would lead us back into the whole internal balance debate.

 Ailaros wrote:

... and normally I would disagree as vehemently as everybody else, but I don't think I can anymore. 6th edition combined with the new codices of the last few years have conspired to make infantry platoons more than a little tragic.

I really think the difference is in what context the platoons are in.

Running IG allies? They're fantastic.
IG codex only? Mech vets outclass them by a mile.
Using FW? Platoons rock again.

Makumba wrote:

No, we would still have hydras. It would just give the hydra a reason to exist, whereas right now the vendetta can do everything it can do and more, and do it better.

Which would lead us back into the whole internal balance debate.

A hydra doesn't balance anything . Not only does the tau or necron player have anywhere from one to two turns to destroy it by both his ground units and the flyer itself , but the hydra itself sits in a slot that isnt always free , unlike the FA one . If vendettas , or rather when, get nerfed it won't make people suddenly run rough riders or sentinals.

Makumba wrote:

Makumba wrote:

No, we would still have hydras. It would just give the hydra a reason to exist, whereas right now the vendetta can do everything it can do and more, and do it better.

Which would lead us back into the whole internal balance debate.

A hydra doesn't balance anything . Not only does the tau or necron player have anywhere from one to two turns to destroy it by both his ground units and the flyer itself , but the hydra itself sits in a slot that isnt always free , unlike the FA one . If vendettas , or rather when, get nerfed it won't make people suddenly run rough riders or sentinals.

Are you seriously having a conversation with yourself??

Any who, the IG flyers don't need a nerf, they just need their cost to increase. Unbalanced points are all that creates problems with the current IG dex.

 Lobukia wrote:

Makumba wrote:

Makumba wrote:

No, we would still have hydras. It would just give the hydra a reason to exist, whereas right now the vendetta can do everything it can do and more, and do it better.

Which would lead us back into the whole internal balance debate.

A hydra doesn't balance anything . Not only does the tau or necron player have anywhere from one to two turns to destroy it by both his ground units and the flyer itself , but the hydra itself sits in a slot that isnt always free , unlike the FA one . If vendettas , or rather when, get nerfed it won't make people suddenly run rough riders or sentinals.

Are you seriously having a conversation with yourself??

Any who, the IG flyers don't need a nerf, they just need their cost to increase. Unbalanced points are all that creates problems with the current IG dex.

He's arguing with me, quotes appear to be messed up again.

@you, there are flatout broken units in the codex that need a revamp. Penal legion for example. No matter how you price them, 10 guardsmen with only lasguns is almost useless. Bare minimum they should have the option to increase their squad size. Literally that single fix would make them infinitely more useful. Its like they forgot half the unit entry. Look at that page in the back of your codex, it has a massive blank spot, as if they completely forgot to put the rest of the entry.

@makumba, that's why the codex needs balancing. The fact that we have a dedicated anti air tank, that is almost completely outclassed by another option should highlight that. If you did internal balance, hellhounds and their variants would be cheaper, vendettas cost more, etc. Hydras should be one of our main responses to fliers, yet its completely outclassed by what's supposed to be a close air support flier. I completely agree that hydras aren't so hot right now, I'm just trying to say that if the vendetta was nerfed a bit, it would give us an actual reason to use hydras again.

 Lobukia wrote:
Any who, the IG flyers don't need a nerf, they just need their cost to increase.

Increasing its points cost IS a nerf, dude.

I run big 30-man blobs with my IG, and I love the hell out of them. The powerblob is dead, what with challenges and all, but 30-man blobs advancing up the field and pouring out FRFSRF shooting have done incredibly well for me. They're also not a unit people really want to charge, since that's a lot of overwatch fire (not that it does anything for me 90% of the time, but hey, they can believe what they want) and 30 Guardsmen, especially with a Commissar, is a fairly durable unit. Yes, an individual Guardsman is just killing time until he can occupy a bodybag, but I think Guardsmen can be summed up by a quote the Cadian squad says in Dawn of War II: Retribution:
"Let's see them fight all of us!"

 Melissia wrote:

 Lobukia wrote:
Any who, the IG flyers don't need a nerf, they just need their cost to increase.

Increasing its points cost IS a nerf, dude.

Not for the Vendetta. It would rule the FA slot even if it would cost 200 points. There is only solution for the Vendetta problem: remove it completely.