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Model wise….

1. Should there be one army, chosen by GW, such as the Cadians or Tanith? And all units are for that army

2. Should there be an army of generic units so you can make your own regiment and Cadians etc are just in stories

3. Should there be a mix of units from different regiments like in 2nd or 3rd

4. Should there be a system like space marines, with a central codex and supplements and additional models to run different regiments. This would still require a certain number of units to be the same no matter what regiment they are from

#2, but use the old doctrines of 3e(?), so you slightly customize the tactics of your army (not what units are available, but how you use them).

The overall look of the army (Cadian, Krieg, Catchacan, Vostroyan, etc.) should be mostly a cosmetic choice and not tied to the rules.

I've always favored a "build your own dudes", though I understand some folks enjoy the prebuilt armies and the lore GW has fashioned for them. I just don't think you should be locked into ONLY those or have to field a specific regiment to deploy a specific unit. You should have access to whatever you want to run, and the ability to modify what sort of tactics your army deploys on the battlefield. Will you Soviet up and use mass waves of recruits? Will you focus on a small, highly trained force of commandos? Do you air assault onto the battlefield or crush them under your tanks? To me, that's the sort of thing that should define "your army", rather than a model aesthetic or paint color.

#2, for pretty much the same reasons Stormonu wrote. I feel like a generic Cadian kit with a make-your-own-regiment add on would be the way to go. Like say a box with cloaks, different helmets, backpacks and so on. GW has steadily been pushing away your dudes by making all special rules tied to their own factions. Instead of allowing players to make their own one.

Though maybe this thread should have been a poll though.

#2

Personally I would like to see the army drastically change the way it approaches regimental composition and tactical specialization. What I mean by that is that when composing your army, and thus your regiment, you should be able to choose a different force organization that represents the specialization that your army is devoted toward.

Are you a light infantry regiment? Well, you might get elite units as troops and get more access to fast attack options, whereas you lose out on heavy support. In addition a focus on small arms may give the lasgun a bonus of some sort.

An armored regiment might gain additional heavy support options, but might have lack luster infantry attached to them.

Air Cav might have more valkyries, elite infantry and light vehicles but lack artillery or tank support. This should be a mobile playstyle that focuses on dividing an opponent and defeating them, while struggling to hold a line.

 Sledgehammer wrote:
#2

Personally I would like to see the army drastically change the way it approaches regimental composition and tactical specialization. What I mean by that is that when composing your army, and thus your regiment, you should be able to choose a different force organization that represents the specialization that your army is devoted toward.

Are you a light infantry regiment? Well, you might get elite units as troops and get more access to fast attack options, whereas you lose out on heavy support. In addition a focus on small arms may give the lasgun a bonus of some sort.

An armored regiment might gain additional heavy support options, but might have lack luster infantry attached to them.

Air Cav might have more valkyries, elite infantry and light vehicles but lack artillery or tank support. This should be a mobile playstyle that focuses on dividing an opponent and defeating them, while struggling to hold a line.

this is kind kind of how it worked back in 3rd and 4th ed. You could change a lot with your force organization chart. Certain units where locked if you chose certain special rules and so on.

I would say that the best approach is to do away with specific subfaction traits. Yes, there are differences between Catachans and Mordians, but on the scale that 40K works on, all those differences are too small to really matter. They're all guards(wo)men in the end. But I would also do the same for other subfactions really. At most, I would create special units for some of the regiments. Like some kind of scout unit that can represent Catachan or Tanith veterans for instance.

I'm fairly happy with how it works now, to be honest. I strongly prefer to play a custom regiment for fluff reasons and the current set up lets me do that. At the same time, the named subfactions are also really cool and I really like that they exist in game, but I suppose I tend to prefer my 40k rules (including units and subfactions) to be fluffy...but this isn't the thread for that discussion though, so I'll leave it at that heh. I'll just end with I'd also be happy going (back) to a doctrine system where the named regiments simply have a preset set of doctrines.

Midway between #2 and #3. One of the big draws of the IG is the "make your own dudesmen" aspect, and I would prefer if GW leaned into that by providing a base to build off of, but I'd also like them to provide upgrade kits to allow us to make the more famous regiments of the basic trooper kit (partly for the people who do want to build a specific regiment, but also as an anchor to prevent GW from killing the faction off). Also, I'd second a return of the Alternate Regimental Organizations of 3.5, but that's not really model-specific (beyond WYSIWYG/using different uniforms to mark out the members of different detachments etc.)

1. You’re the Department Munitorum.

2. You have frankly innumerable Soldiers to keep.

3. Under that the humble Lasgun makes good sense. Dozens, possibly hundreds of shot by chargepack.

4. Such charge packs are largely but not entirely universal.

5. But they’re all robust and have many different ways of being charged.

So far, so good. Because economy of scale.

Uniforms?

Why not the same approach? Administratum, Eccelisiarchy and Munitorum approved is clearly good enoug.

One Size Fits None. Because let’s face it so few of you will survive long enough for personalised alterations to make sense it’s no even funny.

Charge packs aren't universal, though, because lasguns aren't universal. Not everyone carries a Kantrael-pattern, nor should they. Some worlds/warzones are supplied by one Forge World, some by another, others by local manufactories, and still others by whatever they can buy/beg/scavenge/steal. Why wouldn't uniforms be treated in the same way?

Sledgehammer wrote:#2

Personally I would like to see the army drastically change the way it approaches regimental composition and tactical specialization. What I mean by that is that when composing your army, and thus your regiment, you should be able to choose a different force organization that represents the specialization that your army is devoted toward.

Are you a light infantry regiment? Well, you might get elite units as troops and get more access to fast attack options, whereas you lose out on heavy support. In addition a focus on small arms may give the lasgun a bonus of some sort.

An armored regiment might gain additional heavy support options, but might have lack luster infantry attached to them.

Air Cav might have more valkyries, elite infantry and light vehicles but lack artillery or tank support. This should be a mobile playstyle that focuses on dividing an opponent and defeating them, while struggling to hold a line.

Dolnikan wrote:I would say that the best approach is to do away with specific subfaction traits. Yes, there are differences between Catachans and Mordians, but on the scale that 40K works on, all those differences are too small to really matter. They're all guards(wo)men in the end. But I would also do the same for other subfactions really. At most, I would create special units for some of the regiments. Like some kind of scout unit that can represent Catachan or Tanith veterans for instance.

Basically agree with Sledge'. Agree with Dolnikan that it shouldn't particularly matter whether you're from Catachan or Mordia, but I do want there to be rules for playing armored regiments vs infantry regiments vs whatever that don't rely on one-size-fits-all mechanics.

So maybe choosing an armored regiment gives you more access to tanks and unlocks an Armor Facing mechanic that makes you more durable from the front but more vulnerable from the back. Maybe choosing a "jungle fighters" regiment makes your vets troops and gives them purchasable squad upgrades or booby traps or something, but you can only have up to 1 non-infantry unit for every infantry unit in your army. Or maybe the jungle fighters lose access to orders because they're accustomed to working silently rather than screaming commands at each other.

Basically, give the army mechanics to help it represent its chosen theme, but make those mechanics a genuine trade-off. None of those false downsides from back in the day where you can only take two Fast Attacks (that you weren't going to field any of in the first place) in exchange for taking the extra Heavy Supports that you actually wanted.

 Dolnikan wrote:
I would say that the best approach is to do away with specific subfaction traits. Yes, there are differences between Catachans and Mordians, but on the scale that 40K works on, all those differences are too small to really matter. They're all guards(wo)men in the end. But I would also do the same for other subfactions really. At most, I would create special units for some of the regiments. Like some kind of scout unit that can represent Catachan or Tanith veterans for instance.

That's not how armies work. Like, at all. Even today, with our armed forces drawn from a single planet, current militaries have drastically different compositions, doctrines, and ways of doing things. Compare Russian/Chinese/US division - and you're saying vastly different cultures with vastly different tech and education levels drawn from all over the galaxy would be completely identical? What?

Even your example pretty much invalidates this whole argument. Tanith/Catachans are light infantry specializing in temperate forests. They have literally nothing in common with mechanized armies like Steel Legion or Valhalla, air mobile infantry of Elysia, siege regiments of Krieg and Cadia, or mechanized skirmishers specializing in deserts from Tallarn...

Firstly I want them to be called the Imperial Guard, not the nonsense name GW invented recently.

With that out of the way, Guard composition should have less to do with the planet they're from and more to do with the formation they take.

There might be cultural differences between a Tallarn tank formation vs a Mordian tank formation, but the defining feature will be that they're both tank divisions, rather than an infantry force, or mechanised force, or pioneer unit, or Air Cav, or whatever.

And I'd like they to keep their organic squad-based heavy weapon support.

 Irbis wrote:

 Dolnikan wrote:
I would say that the best approach is to do away with specific subfaction traits. Yes, there are differences between Catachans and Mordians, but on the scale that 40K works on, all those differences are too small to really matter. They're all guards(wo)men in the end. But I would also do the same for other subfactions really. At most, I would create special units for some of the regiments. Like some kind of scout unit that can represent Catachan or Tanith veterans for instance.

That's not how armies work. Like, at all. Even today, with our armed forces drawn from a single planet, current militaries have drastically different compositions, doctrines, and ways of doing things. Compare Russian/Chinese/US division - and you're saying vastly different cultures with vastly different tech and education levels drawn from all over the galaxy would be completely identical? What?

Even your example pretty much invalidates this whole argument. Tanith/Catachans are light infantry specializing in temperate forests. They have literally nothing in common with mechanized armies like Steel Legion or Valhalla, air mobile infantry of Elysia, siege regiments of Krieg and Cadia, or mechanized skirmishers specializing in deserts from Tallarn...

Yes, there are differences. But those differences are pretty small in comparison to the differences we have in 40k. The difference between a guardsman and a space marine usually is one point in a given stat. And that's a difference that's vastly greater than you have between different doctrines of soldiers with similar enough equipment. The guardsmen are far from identical. But we can easily represent them all with the same rules because the rules just aren't all that detailed. That's why I want to get rid of subfaction traits,

If you want to represent different doctrines, do it with different force organisations because that's where the difference is. And that doesn't even need special rules. You can also just do it in army building. If you want to play armoured infantry, you don't need special bonuses for it. You just take infantry in chimeras. If you want to play masses of conscripts, just take masses of them. Because of that, army building should be relatively flexible. Ideally, for Troops, you would have a choice between regular infantry, conscripts, and veterans. If you then give enough upgrades (like allowing squads to take carapace armour) to represent most archetypes.

Take for instance Elysians. If you want to play them, just put all your infantry in Valkyries and give them carapace armour. If you go for Armageddon Steel Legion, put them in Chimeras. That's what it takes basically and that worked well enough when all these regiments first got their models. 40K isn't a skirmish game anymore and that means that we shouldn't go too detailed with the rules. That just makes everything much messier.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
[...]
With that out of the way, Guard composition should have less to do with the planet they're from and more to do with the formation they take.

There might be cultural differences between a Tallarn tank formation vs a Mordian tank formation, but the defining feature will be that they're both tank divisions, rather than an infantry force, or mechanised force, or pioneer unit, or Air Cav, or whatever.

[...]

Thumps up for that. If it comes down to what we wish for I would like something like our dudes rules being influenced by a mix of 50% Regiment type (stuff like armored/air cavalry/heavy infantry/light infantry), 25% equipment (carapace, extra special weapons or possibly a discount on troops if you ditch all extra equipment to simulate cheap line soldiers) 25% cultural to round it up (stuff like slum fighters, wilderness survivors and the like).

But I'm curious how GW will go about it this time.

 Pyroalchi wrote:
But I'm curious how GW will go about it this time.

Entirely based upon the miniatures, so therefore Cadian, Catachan and Death Korps. We might get some of the others.

One will be a clear winner. It will be nerfed in the first FAQ, then further nerfed in the first post-Codex points change, and then nerfed again in the subsequent "balance" dataslate, and GW will fail to realise that the first nerf was enough.

 Dolnikan wrote:


Yes, there are differences. But those differences are pretty small in comparison to the differences we have in 40k. The difference between a guardsman and a space marine usually is one point in a given stat. And that's a difference that's vastly greater than you have between different doctrines of soldiers with similar enough equipment. The guardsmen are far from identical. But we can easily represent them all with the same rules because the rules just aren't all that detailed. That's why I want to get rid of subfaction traits,

If you want to represent different doctrines, do it with different force organisations because that's where the difference is. And that doesn't even need special rules. You can also just do it in army building. If you want to play armoured infantry, you don't need special bonuses for it. You just take infantry in chimeras. If you want to play masses of conscripts, just take masses of them. Because of that, army building should be relatively flexible. Ideally, for Troops, you would have a choice between regular infantry, conscripts, and veterans. If you then give enough upgrades (like allowing squads to take carapace armour) to represent most archetypes.

Take for instance Elysians. If you want to play them, just put all your infantry in Valkyries and give them carapace armour. If you go for Armageddon Steel Legion, put them in Chimeras. That's what it takes basically and that worked well enough when all these regiments first got their models. 40K isn't a skirmish game anymore and that means that we shouldn't go too detailed with the rules. That just makes everything much messier.

...that sounds a lot less cool and fun than what we have now. I don't see the problem that needs solving to be honest. The current rules allow for this already without removing the ability to enjoy the more detailed subfaction rules for those of us who prefer them.

I just want the old Platoon structure back. As it is, you can field a whole detachment just on what used to be available to a single platoon. Then also, there was the ability to combine infantry squads. I'd like that back too.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
oh. and just as Brood Brothers has its detachment rules, I would like something for Chaos as well, even if it's just Blood Pact.

I want my Guard army to vary depending on whether it's airborne assault, trench-digging heavy infantry, jungle-stalking light infantry, grinding treads of tank companies, grav-chute paratroopers, mechanized infantry, or a classic combined-arms company. Lots of different army archetypes driven by composition and role.

I don't want my Guard army to vary by being infinitesimally better at melee, shooting while stationary, or shooting while moving, and thus Flanderised into min-maxing that trait. The current subfaction system doesn't do a great job of reflecting the differences between regiments.

 catbarf wrote:
I want my Guard army to vary depending on whether it's airborne assault, trench-digging heavy infantry, jungle-stalking light infantry, grinding treads of tank companies, grav-chute paratroopers, mechanized infantry, or a classic combined-arms company. Lots of different army archetypes driven by composition and role.

I don't want my Guard army to vary by being infinitesimally better at melee, shooting while stationary, or shooting while moving, and thus Flanderised into min-maxing that trait. The current subfaction system doesn't do a great job of reflecting the differences between regiments.

Yeah. I feel this way about all the factions, really. Instead of a bunch of options with clear winners and losers tied to your planet of origin, I think I'd prefer a smaller number of similarly viable, meaningfully distinctive army themes. So it doesn't matter what your home planet's name is; if you're in an army that specializes in using lots of tanks, here are the rules to make playing a tank regiment more fluffy and fun. If you're playing a marine army full of bikers, here are the bike company themed rules regardless of what color your armor is.

 catbarf wrote:
I want my Guard army to vary depending on whether it's airborne assault, trench-digging heavy infantry, jungle-stalking light infantry, grinding treads of tank companies, grav-chute paratroopers, mechanized infantry, or a classic combined-arms company. Lots of different army archetypes driven by composition and role.

I don't want my Guard army to vary by being infinitesimally better at melee, shooting while stationary, or shooting while moving, and thus Flanderised into min-maxing that trait. The current subfaction system doesn't do a great job of reflecting the differences between regiments.

You know which of these two we're going to get, right?

I would like the Imperial Guard to become generic, leaning into the 80s/90s "space soldiers" feeling like the Mobile Infantry in Starship Troopers and the Colonial Marines in Aliens. I think the 2nd ed metal Cadians would represent this very well as far as model design go, so I would base the standard guardsman design on them. Then just make the faction into this gargantuan hyper-militaristic blender that takes uncountable people with uncountable backgrounds and turns them into standardized badass space soldiers - and when these guys come together to fight a way you get all the wacky interactions like hive gangers and nobles sharing the same dirty trench and having a moment of dubious camaraderie.

By the same angle, the base unit of Yourdudes should be the Task Force and not the Regiment. You gotta do a kind of microcosm of that blender, where various Imperial Guard units from various regiments are pulled together into a real combined-arms battle force. So while the army might look same-y on the outside (so it is instantly recognizable and aesthetically consistent) you can have all kinds of crazy details in your lore like formerly proud academy-trained elite warriors crawling in the dirt as your infantry while the mighty tanks are crewed by former feral worlders who can barely write or read and have a tendency to eat PoWs.

I'd like to see something similar to the old 3.5 build a regiment thing, but A) more balanced (ie: no auto takes and auto not takes), B) more options, and C) bits for vehicles too. Attach points costs to everything as well instead of just giving out freebies. Also make the cons actually hurt somewhat, even if it is just the fact that the bonus costs points. No more "oh no, I cannot take Ogryn, whatever will I do?". With enough options and enough balance passes, it could result in lots of variations on guard based solely on the picks you make.

Someone at GW to care.

TBH just squat the faction and be done with it. GW obviously doesn't care about making good rules and the leaks are essentially "throw your old units in the trash and buy the new kits to build exactly as the directions tell you". Oh, and a new tank kit because why make the existing "larger than a LRBT, smaller than a Baneblade" tanks viable when you can add an entirely new unit that nobody asked for and buff it to be the new auto-take?