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Me and a and a friend who plays Tau where having a rather serious battle earlier and his markerlights did a huge amount of fething to my IG, wasnt to happy about it tbh!
but it got me thinking.....laser designators for guardsman....same priciple as Tau market light but for tanks and artillery
(i will refer to the Laser Designator as LD from now on)
my first thought was reduce the Scatter when using a LD on blast weapons such as Mortars and self propelled artillery such as basilisk,griffon maybe even deathstrikes and manticores
not make it so it hit dead on target, but if it scatters perhaps reduce the scatter by "X" amount,
then i had to think of who would be allowed to carry it?
originally i though perhaps make a random squad member a LD spotter, then thought perhaps its best for the squad sargeant to do it, then after talking with my Tau friend he think it should be officers (platoon and Regimental and maybe veteran sargeants and storm trooper sargeants)

any ideas people? i think it would be a good thing to have and would open up the converting sides of our mind to make models specially for it

It could essentially work the same as a markerlight, any unit shooting at an enemy unit who has already been hit by the designator counts as having +1 bs for each laser designation on it. Would improve artillery as they'd minus more from scatter.

Not sure Tau players are going to like IG players getting in on their act, from a game play perspective more than a fluff one, Ig firepower may not be as accurate as Tau, but lets face it we can chuck out a LOT more pain from the multiple tanks, ordanace batteries, hell you can even gear up weapons teams to fire blasts with mortars.

Also guard usually have a lot more standing infanty so you would end up with more LD's than the average Tau player had markerlights.


And if IG got Markerlights, Tau would want LRBT's.

This is true, but i dont know about the rest of the guard players on this site, but i think a BS of 4 on blast weapons wouldnt be stupidly powerful but would give us that little extra

Had some time to think on this.

BS 4 blasts in my mind from battlecannons is quite a BIG boost tbh but lets leave that to peoples opinion.

HOWEVER

BS4 lasguns under First Rank fire Second Rank fire would be quite... disturbing?

Buffing a MoO's BS up to stupid figures just to - his BS off the scatter... Ouch

And lets not forget you could then throw Vet's up to BS5, tripple plasma guns hitting on 2's?

Heavy Weapon Teams that would NEVER miss (Under bring it down, twin linked, sat on BS5)


Dont get me wrong, for fluff purposes it makes perfect sense, but the way it could be used to interact with the options IG have, its just BEGGING for abuse.

danp164 wrote:Had some time to think on this.

BS 4 blasts in my mind from battlecannons is quite a BIG boost tbh but lets leave that to peoples opinion.

HOWEVER

BS4 lasguns under First Rank fire Second Rank fire would be quite... disturbing?

Buffing a MoO's BS up to stupid figures just to - his BS off the scatter... Ouch

And lets not forget you could then throw Vet's up to BS5, tripple plasma guns hitting on 2's?

Heavy Weapon Teams that would NEVER miss (Under bring it down, twin linked, sat on BS5)


Dont get me wrong, for fluff purposes it makes perfect sense, but the way it could be used to interact with the options IG have, its just BEGGING for abuse.

oh yeah definately people will abuse this hence why i though maybe only use it on artillery, NOT lasguns and heavy weapons, since when in real life do they guide M16 or SA80 rounds by laser guidence lol but shells and missiles and bombs are, i totally agree though BS4 with first rank FIRE second rank Fire would just be pure evil lol

Even if you could somehow balance them, it would be a slap in the face for tau players.

aliasrm13 wrote:

danp164 wrote:Had some time to think on this.

BS 4 blasts in my mind from battlecannons is quite a BIG boost tbh but lets leave that to peoples opinion.

HOWEVER

BS4 lasguns under First Rank fire Second Rank fire would be quite... disturbing?

Buffing a MoO's BS up to stupid figures just to - his BS off the scatter... Ouch

And lets not forget you could then throw Vet's up to BS5, tripple plasma guns hitting on 2's?

Heavy Weapon Teams that would NEVER miss (Under bring it down, twin linked, sat on BS5)


Dont get me wrong, for fluff purposes it makes perfect sense, but the way it could be used to interact with the options IG have, its just BEGGING for abuse.

oh yeah definately people will abuse this hence why i though maybe only use it on artillery, NOT lasguns and heavy weapons, since when in real life do they guide M16 or SA80 rounds by laser guidence lol but shells and missiles and bombs are, i totally agree though BS4 with first rank FIRE second rank Fire would just be pure evil lol

Ahh my apologees, I paniced half way through reading the original post about Laser Designators acting like markerlights before I read the actual rule ye suggested. My thoughts on the rule your suggesting is if we can already - our BS off the scatter roll for a shot could you have something that functioned a bit liek this

Laser Designator X pts
Models with a laser designator are linked to a particular weapon (Leman Russ Battlecannon, Weapon Team Mortar ect) if the LD has LoS to a target that its linked weapon wishes to fire add, the firing model counts as BS5 for that shot and may always minus its BS off the scatter roll.


So a higher chance to hit and a 5" reduction on scatter if ye miss. Note the LD doesnt have to shoot to provide its bonus. As for availability make it a special weapon choice for infantry platoons, vet squads and storm troopers. Prevents spamming and gives you a real problem of wether you want a plasma gun or a far more accurate basilisk, and would let people theme their armies if they wanted to represent an artillery corp

Do IG really need another buff? They are without doubt one of the strongest armies in the game at the moment.

Wouldn't this idea erode one of the few bits of specialness that poor old put-upon Tau have left? The current Tau codex is one of the weakest in the game.

Question of balance Vs Fluff really

I mean it makes sense for the IG to have it but it seriously effects balance. As for the tau getting shafted, I think their getting used to it, besides its obvious they need a new dex to bring them up to par which makes it hard to measure game balance against them. I mean codex wise atm they arent a match for IG, but who knows what the situation will be like whenever they get an update.

this would be way overpowered.

I could see a special character, though, with this piece of equipment. It would be powerful, but it would also be expensive and on a single T3 squishy model.

Basically, it would be like Pask, but you could nominate a non-Russ-only unit in your army every turn.

I feel like they really beefed up the IG with the last codex, adding the "orders" system and all. I think adding a markerlight system (which is basically tau's equivalent to the orders system. Since they are one of the weaker races like Tau, both kinds of Eldar, and Tyranids, they each have one way of beefing up. Tau have Markerlights, and their cunning[jetpacks instead of jump packs, and stealthsuits], Eldar have aspects and the Lance Weaponry, and Tyranids have the biomorph so you can pay points to make them not weak. Guards is the orders system) I think to add an extra aspect of special rules strength to the Imperial Guard side of the game would give them an unfair advantage... and I play IG myself, as well as SM, and Chaos Daemons

um, dare i say it, but i've made a killzone/helghast IG army, and ive employ a laser designation into my army, ill put a pic up if you want,

i basic use the designator for my artillery units and tanks only, using near same rules as a marker light, if it hits it increase the artillery's bs by +1, and reduces scatter from 2d6 to 1d6, it works.

i've employed in many different ways by employing it in to an fast attack slot as a scout unit (similar to tau)

as a heavy weapons unit, basic they call in artillery from off the board, but if the units massacred its bye bye artillery,

and as a heavy weapon in a infantry squad carried by the sgt

I know time has past, But I thought I would wrap things up with this thread, Looking back on it I agree that it would be over powered, but I think I cracked it, Just use it as Master of Ordnance same rule and all, but has a funky gun, Laser des

how about spotters as upgrades to veterans and command squads (master or ordinance already counts as a spotter but he can re-roll his LD test), they make a LD test and then all artillery firing at the "marked" unit get +1 BS per spotter up to a maximum of two.

However I would crack down on units without voxes, artillery can only fire at units they have line of sight to or a unit with voxes have line of sight to, not even the soviets fired blind

Actual LDs are something that even today aren't handed out like candy. In the imperial guard it would be something that's at best reserved for stormtroopers.

 aliasrm13 wrote:

but it got me thinking.....laser designators for guardsman....same priciple as Tau market light but for tanks and artillery

Sure, just give Tau access to orders. Armies have stuff that makes them stand out beyond their basic design, IG gets orders allowing one to increase firepower or mobility as the situation changes, Tau gets markerlights, Dark Eldar get Power from Pain. Giving those things to other armies simply makes one army have slightly less of an advantage and another army have slightly more of an advantage. IG is one of the last armies to need another buff, sure they might not be as broken as Tau, but they are still better than the majority of armies and giving them laser designators simply slides the scale further in their direction when they are fighting armies like Orks and Dark Angels.

I wrote a slightly more Guard-specific concept into some house rules a few months ago, basically spotting rounds for mortars that allow you to reroll scatter when shooting Ordnance or Deep Striking close to where the shot landed. Similar idea but more in-character and less stepping on the Tau's toes.