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Soldiers of the Imperium hear me!

So, I am wondering about the general consensus about the health of the Imperial Guard these days - it appears to me the overall health and viability of the Guard is, well, rather low. I'm drawing this conclusion from how most, if not all of the Imperial Guard's niches/specialties have been severely out-done by other codexes, coupled with cripplingly bad internal balance in the 'dex.

A few observations:

Footguard. Dead as a doornail. Increase in anti-infantry firepower through 6th and 7th edition means that even blob squads don't last long. Ignore cover AP5, templates and other super-high volume of fire is so commonplace as to make guardsmen on foot free kills for the opponent. Necrons do a similar playstyle much better with super-high durability which is easily buffed to obscene levels. Skitarii look to offer an Imperial alternative in much the same way, being less durable but much more mobile and with higher firepower.

This has been my preferred playstyle for some time, and it really is just an exercise of removing models.

Mechguard. Traditional powerhouse of the Guard, still most powerful option but acutely out-done by other codexes. Eldar mech is faster, more durable with more reliable, longer-range shooting. Tau are also much more mobile with comparable firepower-per-point (if Devilfish were cheaper, it wouldn't be much of a competition). Chimera suffer from strong rules bias towards skimmers. Still viable against certain armies, but only Marines offer an arguably worse mechanized build in terms of mobility, durability and firepower, aside from those few armies where it is actually impossible.

Armoured. A good gunline, but in an edition where gunlines aren't quite as good as in the past, with a crippling weakness to melee, high mobility armies and Necrons. Leman Russes are cheap AV14 firepower platforms with good guns, but again, the skimmer bias is strong, and the lack of good infantry support means anything which can close will kill a gunline of tanks, and the 6'' max movement means mobility is virtually nil.

No other army has access to as much AV14 as Guard, and could be considered the one real unique capacity, but will lose to objectives quite often, and to a proper competitive build almost every time.

Aircav. the "TFG" tactic of 6th. Guard still has good access to fliers, but as most armies have AA options these days, and with the Vendetta nerfed as a transport leaves the Valkyrie as the only viable transport option. The relative increase in anti-infantry firepower also means veterans when dropped are less likely to accomplish anything of note, and their airborne fire support is greatly reduced against hard targets and other fliers. Still, however, the most viable build for Guard these days, and by far the most mobile, but has a lot of weaknesses which armies are much more capable of defeating than during its heydey in the early stages of 6th.

Aside from the main "builds" being less effective across the board, some have been completely removed or remain non-viable due to horrid internal balance. Stormtroopers, Ogryns/Bullgryns, all the SC's getting axed/nerfed, Ratlings (I actually liked them in 5th, but the heavy sniper nerfs? not anymore), Taurox, Hydra, Platoons, Commissar Lords, Commisars vs Priests. The book's a mess, awash with useless units and only a handful of decent ones; Pask Punisher, Vets in transports, non-ordnance Russes, Wyverns and...well that's kind of it.

What I would like to hear is what people have found to "work" with the Imperial Guard these days? With so few buffs, plenty of nerfs and no formation love from GW, the Guard barely function in a friendly environment anymore, nevermind against more competitive players. Almost everything they can do is done better by someone else, leaving only semi-effective, but exceptionally boring gunlines with will be out-gunlined by most other armies.

The combo of exceptionally bad fluff-builds, and only one, maybe two viable strong builds with huge weaknesses just makes it exceptionally disheartening to play the Imperial Guard these days, and considering the complete vanishing of Guard armies locally, I know I'm not alone.

I think the book was a real dud. The main problem being it failed to fix any of the crappy units and actively made several of them worse for no reason. And as you mentioned some of the direct comparison units make so little sense. That is the hallmark of bad design. A lot of our stuff is a tad over priced still and our mobility was hamstrung.


I kind of think the intention was to nerf IG to go with the Battle Brother ally advantage. Too many people were using them to turn blobs into monsters with powerfield generators and divination. The idea being imperial armies should be taking allies. It is lame if you want to go IG pure, but there are a lot of great combos.

The plus side is Wyverns, Tank Commanders, and orders are pretty neat. Also Yarrick is pretty boss.

Truthfully though, what worked before still kind of works. There is still a lot of ways to go, but the hybrid mech gun line that does the job. A strong line with artillery and heavy weapons in platoons supporting a tank and mech advance still gets work done. Casualties are high, but it can still be pretty vicious. Air Cav is still pretty good as well.

I actually stopped playing IG after the new dex came out. The new book killed every build that I thought was fun, and I had been playing IG for about 6 or 7 years...

I have heard people are not happy with the guard codex but honestly have not experienced this myself. I have had a ton of success playing a mix of tanks and infantry. AV 14 tanks with camo nets behind an ageis gives a 3 plus cover save. Las canon teams with ignore cover orders and throw in a couple wyverns. I honestly feel that this dex has been good to me.

My one friend still plays blob guard with quite a bit of success. He has the highest win ratio out of our group.

My other friend plays mechguard and loses quite severely to most our lists.

I still think Guard is in a good place, I don't think they are OP or UP as a whole, and really depends on how you build each list and the tactics you use.

I use a Footguard variant which is more of an Imperial Guard Fortress Defence Force.

Void Shields and base 4+ cover save for anyone on the battlements is super-nice. If you garrison vets, you can buff that cover save to 3+ with 'Forward Sentries'. I switch between garrisoning Veterans or Heavy-Weapon-Teams depending on what the mission is. Also, yes there's a lot of ignore cover and that's why I take the 'Grenadier' doctrine for my vets too, 4+ armour helps against that AP5 Ignore Cover weaponry and also helps to negate the odd Plasma wound as well. Then again, all guardsmen are expendable... it doesn't matter if they get slaughtered as long as they take a few enemies with them and buy time for the Fortress weapons and artillery, etc. to smash the rest.

The only vehicles I have are artillery and they hide behind the Fortress out of line-of-sight for increased protection. I also have three tarantula sentry guns because they're fluffy, quite tough and actually good at what they do.

Rough Riders are much maligned because people try to use them as dedicated close-quarters-combat squads or counter-assault squads and really I see that as a last ditch option. I use my Rough Riders like Dragoons really; mobile infantry squads but equipped with flamers to bring templates to where they're needed most. Of course in a pinch, I can throw them in the way of an assault unit to act as a speed-bump.

Against most armies, this has around a 50/50 chance of pulling through, it's not really competitive but it can give them a run for their money. The armies I struggle with most are ones that stay at range and grind me down or ones that drop-pod spam. Drop-pod spam ones are fun though because it's fast, brutal and exceedingly awesome.

 Otto Weston wrote:
I use a Footguard variant which is more of an Imperial Guard Fortress Defence Force.

Void Shields and base 4+ cover save for anyone on the battlements is super-nice. If you garrison vets, you can buff that cover save to 3+ with 'Forward Sentries'. I switch between garrisoning Veterans or Heavy-Weapon-Teams depending on what the mission is. Also, yes there's a lot of ignore cover and that's why I take the 'Grenadier' doctrine for my vets too, 4+ armour helps against that AP5 Ignore Cover weaponry and also helps to negate the odd Plasma wound as well. Then again, all guardsmen are expendable... it doesn't matter if they get slaughtered as long as they take a few enemies with them and buy time for the Fortress weapons and artillery, etc. to smash the rest.

The only vehicles I have are artillery and they hide behind the Fortress out of line-of-sight for increased protection. I also have three tarantula sentry guns because they're fluffy, quite tough and actually good at what they do.

Rough Riders are much maligned because people try to use them as dedicated close-quarters-combat squads or counter-assault squads and really I see that as a last ditch option. I use my Rough Riders like Dragoons really; mobile infantry squads but equipped with flamers to bring templates to where they're needed most. Of course in a pinch, I can throw them in the way of an assault unit to act as a speed-bump.

Against most armies, this has around a 50/50 chance of pulling through, it's not really competitive but it can give them a run for their money. The armies I struggle with most are ones that stay at range and grind me down or ones that drop-pod spam. Drop-pod spam ones are fun though because it's fast, brutal and exceedingly awesome.

That's kind of the crux though? You can make a gunline with Guard, and its certainly the most viable way to go, but the problem is so many other armies gunline better. Tau, Eldar, Orks, even Marines have some excellent gunline options which can challenge Guard, if not beat them with contemptous ease (Tau mostly on that front). The problem really is as Guard we don't have any alternative which works well. Against specific matchups you have more options; blob guard can fight melee focused armies, for instance, but broadly speaking the codex is extremely monobuild, and said monobuild isn't even especially good.

Yes, guard are weak compared to most of the other codeces . Not much we can do but wait it out But hey, if we were all THAT worried about winning, we wouldnt have chosen guard to begin with right?

A good player can still put up a decent show against most players andeven get a few wins. The only time we really get outclasses is when we go up against someone using one of the new power codices that maxes out the super spam lists.

 EVIL INC wrote:
Yes, guard are weak compared to most of the other codeces . Not much we can do but wait it out But hey, if we were all THAT worried about winning, we wouldnt have chosen guard to begin with right?

A good player can still put up a decent show against most players andeven get a few wins. The only time we really get outclasses is when we go up against someone using one of the new power codices that maxes out the super spam lists.

Aye, and remembering that particular, shall we say doctrine, keeps me playing my Guard, but certainly doesn't encourage me to spend much money on them.

The one really good thing which I do love about the Imperial Guard is our ability to fight Eldar.Still won't win very often, as Eldar super-mobility will trump on objectives, but boy can an Imperial Guard army hammer even the power Eldar lists. We'll make the pointy-eared bastards bleed if nothing else.

I guess that's kind of the thing to hold on to; Guard are kind of in a weird spot where they've become quite weak, but are difficult to simply sweep from the table. Being tabled is certainly possible, even probably against many armies, but you'll never be tabled without hurting the other guy first.

Can't say the same about my Marines versus Eldar or Tau.

Very true. Lucky for me, my guard are built up enough that i dont really need to buy anything else for themI only pick up super deals or something on rare ocasions (other month I got a russ, 2 chimeras and a hellhound with all optionsfor $80)
Now I only pick up stuff that catches my eye in terms of what I can ally with them or use to ally my guard with. Thats a spot where the guard excel I think Allies. They go very well with just about anyone in terms of teamwork.

 EVIL INC wrote:
Very true. Lucky for me, my guard are built up enough that i dont really need to buy anything else for themI only pick up super deals or something on rare ocasions (other month I got a russ, 2 chimeras and a hellhound with all optionsfor $80)
Now I only pick up stuff that catches my eye in terms of what I can ally with them or use to ally my guard with. Thats a spot where the guard excel I think Allies. They go very well with just about anyone in terms of teamwork.

Unfortunately, "Deals" aren't something often used in the same sentence with the Death Korps of Krieg.

Allies do help fill gaps in the IG's capacities; the Skitarii in particular look like a good match for anyone trying to run footguard, providing the firepower guardsmen utterly lack while the men can provide a good ablative, and as much as I dislike them, Knights add considerable capacity to a Guard army and for some insane reason don't attract half as much ire as "conventional" superheavies. The problem is I'm committed quite strongly to particular themes, so the ally solution is not something I am as ready to jump on outside of Apocalypse and big games, which remains an arena where Guard is still very potent by virtue of mountains of tanks and excellent superheavies.

I'm sorry but I am with the GW legal department and I demand everyone in this thread use the proper copyrighted nomenclature for this army: Astroboy Militeruriopyrightgamesworkshopltd and militurdium testosteroni.

the_scotsman wrote:
I'm sorry but I am with the GW legal department and I demand everyone in this thread use the proper copyrighted nomenclature for this army: Astroboy Militeruriopyrightgamesworkshopltd and militurdium testosteroni.

The name changes are just a slap on the face which make me scowl slightly every time I pick up my codex.

Thankfully such thing is not present in Imperial Armour 12, where most of my rules are.

GW can tell me whatever they damned well please, the Imperial Guard is the Imperial Guard. Apparently, even FW fell for that crap in the Vraks re-write, which is one more reason why I won't buy it. Screw with the rules, I shall endure, screw with the setting in the most asinine ways imaginable, and that very strongly threatens my desire to remain invested.

Guard shine with IA content. The powerhouse builds in this day and age seem to be Krieger.

 MajorStoffer wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
I'm sorry but I am with the GW legal department and I demand everyone in this thread use the proper copyrighted nomenclature for this army: Astroboy Militeruriopyrightgamesworkshopltd and militurdium testosteroni.

The name changes are just a slap on the face which make me scowl slightly every time I pick up my codex.

Thankfully such thing is not present in Imperial Armour 12, where most of my rules are.

GW can tell me whatever they damned well please, the Imperial Guard is the Imperial Guard. Apparently, even FW fell for that crap in the Vraks re-write, which is one more reason why I won't buy it. Screw with the rules, I shall endure, screw with the setting in the most asinine ways imaginable, and that very strongly threatens my desire to remain invested.

I'd have been okay (I still probably wouldn't have used the new name, but I'd have been okay) with the name change IF the damned Space Marine codex had been named, "Adeptus Astartes"...... that way there'd be some continuity but they aren't so I'm not. It's the Guard son!

 Otto Weston wrote:

 MajorStoffer wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
I'm sorry but I am with the GW legal department and I demand everyone in this thread use the proper copyrighted nomenclature for this army: Astroboy Militeruriopyrightgamesworkshopltd and militurdium testosteroni.

The name changes are just a slap on the face which make me scowl slightly every time I pick up my codex.

Thankfully such thing is not present in Imperial Armour 12, where most of my rules are.

GW can tell me whatever they damned well please, the Imperial Guard is the Imperial Guard. Apparently, even FW fell for that crap in the Vraks re-write, which is one more reason why I won't buy it. Screw with the rules, I shall endure, screw with the setting in the most asinine ways imaginable, and that very strongly threatens my desire to remain invested.

I'd have been okay (I still probably wouldn't have used the new name, but I'd have been okay) with the name change IF the damned Space Marine codex had been named, "Adeptus Astartes"...... that way there'd be some continuity but they aren't so I'm not. It's the Guard son!

And the Marines have always been, officially, in-universe, "Adeptus Astartes," it's established in the universe, has been for decades. The Imperial Guard has always, and alwyas will be The Imperial Guard, Hammer of the Emperor.

Their fancy pseudo-latin "title" isn't even for them, but for their bureaucratic masters; the Departmento Munitorum. But no, they had to invent another title for them on the spot, and not stop there, but rename the Storm Troopers to something even worse and confusing in-universe (there being a Segmentum Tempestus; "Sector of Storms," long since established), and not just rename the organization, but the standard troops to Scions and sgts to Tempestors? Seriously? And still not feeling content, they renamed the Commissariat into the Officio Praefectus, and wrote what is basically bad torture porn based on Harry Potter for background for the Commissariat and Storm troopers.

Their whole handling of the Guard has been atrocious on so many levels, were it not for Forgeworld I would have shelved the army.

I never understood the appeal of Pask punisher. If you're within 24", you're within assault range and few things actually die from his barrage of bullets, save for some MC's.

Guard are much better off in eternal war missions and I honestly think dakkadakka undersells the Leman Russ to a laughable level, even though I agree that some variants are terrible.

Overall though, I think the IG dex is the red haired middle child between the 6th to 7th FOC mentality and balancing/streamlining. It looks like any original thought process was lost when it came to designing the codex and a lot of miscommunication between the rule designers and models designers, which left us with terrible rules for Ogryns/Bullgryns, "tempestus bs name" and that terrible looking truck that was the least necessary addition to an army, only superseded by the "new" dark lance weapon with a blast profile that got introduced in the DE dex.
It left IG players with a book that added nearly nothing worthy of note, save for Tank Commanders.
I honestly don't feel that handicapped as an IG player though, we still have our decent stuff like: manticores, flyers, eradicator/exterminator/executioner/punisher LRBT's, wyverns and veterans. Sure, it's not tournament crushing but let's not set the tone as if we're anything near pre 6th edition Tau.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 MajorStoffer wrote:

And the Marines have always been, officially, in-universe, "Adeptus Astartes," it's established in the universe, has been for decades. The Imperial Guard has always, and alwyas will be The Imperial Guard, Hammer of the Emperor.

Their fancy pseudo-latin "title" isn't even for them, but for their bureaucratic masters; the Departmento Munitorum. But no, they had to invent another title for them on the spot, and not stop there, but rename the Storm Troopers to something even worse and confusing in-universe (there being a Segmentum Tempestus; "Sector of Storms," long since established), and not just rename the organization, but the standard troops to Scions and sgts to Tempestors? Seriously? And still not feeling content, they renamed the Commissariat into the Officio Praefectus, and wrote what is basically bad torture porn based on Harry Potter for background for the Commissariat and Storm troopers.

Their whole handling of the Guard has been atrocious on so many levels, were it not for Forgeworld I would have shelved the army.

Oh... And this part made me feel sad that I'm only able to exalt once! :(

 AnomanderRake wrote:
The powerhouse builds in this day and age seem to be Krieger.

What.

I've only heard complaints about the sorry state of this bloody army.

 Aenarian wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
The powerhouse builds in this day and age seem to be Krieger.

What.

I've only heard complaints about the sorry state of this bloody army.

Krieg can artillery spam quite aggressively, so if you're going that route they make an effective gunline, but given the prohibitive cost of their basic infantry, no veterans, no psykers, fliers or buff support that's kind of the only thing they're genuinely good at.

Yes, Imperial Guard more or less no longer have a niche. Other armies can do hordes better than IG can, other armies can gunline better than the IG can, other armies can do mech-infantry better than IG can.

Pretty much the only thing that IG can do better then any other faction is parking-lot lists, with tons of tanks and artillery. The problem is that 6th edition's vehicle rules utterly gutted armor-spam, maelstrom made it even worse, and to add to that general power creep has made most IG armor overpriced for the amount of damage they can put out.

 Zewrath wrote:
I never understood the appeal of Pask punisher. If you're within 24", you're within assault range

What units are you aware of that can reliably assault 24''? And... why are you sending Pask out there alone and unaided so that he's trying to kill entire units by himself? Paskisher is an anchor for your army, not a lone-wolf.

Honestly the Guard are, in my opinion, a "love it or leave it" army.

Either you love everything about them and just have fun playing...or you hate it all and get frustrated.

I like to think I'm in the first camp. It's why I am considering buying a Deathstrike soon. Because why not?

I wish there were more synergy options with guard to make powerful combinations. Everyone rules that you can't fire a second missile with Manticore by using the techpriest ability, same with over-riding the Ordnance rule for LRBT's. Why shouldn't we be able to do that? They nerfed the LC's leadership bubble, who's going to buff our heavy weapon squads for orders now? The LC barely even has a role anymore thanks to the priest buff.

IG artillery is way too expensive, the basilisk and manticore are barely worth their points, while the new hotness the Wyvern is so cheap other options become non-choices, making the codex have horrid internal balance.

We need better internal balance and more synergy options.

Huh, this is kinda all news to me. Sure Astro Millivanilli haven't gotten any of the crazy formations, but " the Guard barely function in a friendly environment anymore"?
I hadn't heard any power complaints after their 6th ed. book came out, people just kinda stopped talking aboot it

 BlaxicanX wrote:
What units are you aware of that can reliably assault 24''? And... why are you sending Pask out there alone and unaided so that he's trying to kill entire units by himself? Paskisher is an anchor for your army, not a lone-wolf.

You're rarely ever skirting just beyond the 24" mark and since there's another tank in front of Pask (unless you're willing to let him eat the lascanon shots first) then any unit that's capable of moving 12" in the moving phase, which is the vast majority of any capable assault unit and some are even fleet.
Why are you assuming he's alone and unaided? triple shunting dread knights is not uncommon for me to face, so if you have some magic trick to how to eliminate 3 shunting MC's before they charge and instagibs your Pask tank then I'm all ears. They burn my bubble wrap with contemptuous ease and proceed to assault right afterwards, if the bubble wrap is mixed with infantry fodder and vehicles, then his pathetic 24" gun is barely able to reach anything, which defeats his purpose.

 ultimentra wrote:

IG artillery is way too expensive, the basilisk and manticore are barely worth their points, while the new hotness the Wyvern is so cheap other options become non-choices, making the codex have horrid internal balance.

We need better internal balance and more synergy options.

Thanks Cruddace!

 Zewrath wrote:

 BlaxicanX wrote:
What units are you aware of that can reliably assault 24''? And... why are you sending Pask out there alone and unaided so that he's trying to kill entire units by himself? Paskisher is an anchor for your army, not a lone-wolf.

You're rarely ever skirting just beyond the 24" mark and since there's another tank in front of Pask (unless you're willing to let him eat the lascanon shots first) then any unit that's capable of moving 12" in the moving phase, which is the vast majority of any capable assault unit and some are even fleet.
Why are you assuming he's alone and unaided? triple shunting dread knights is not uncommon for me to face, so if you have some magic trick to how to eliminate 3 shunting MC's before they charge and instagibs your Pask tank then I'm all ears. They burn my bubble wrap with contemptuous ease and proceed to assault right afterwards, if the bubble wrap is mixed with infantry fodder and vehicles, then his pathetic 24" gun is barely able to reach anything, which defeats his purpose.

So, I'm going to sound a bit like an ass here, but are you sure that these triple-shunting DKs are shunting and then assaulting right after that? Because if that is the case, then your opponent is actually cheating- the rules for the Personal Teleporter and the shunt move specifically prohibit charging after making a shunt move.

Whiskey144 wrote:

 Zewrath wrote:

 BlaxicanX wrote:
What units are you aware of that can reliably assault 24''? And... why are you sending Pask out there alone and unaided so that he's trying to kill entire units by himself? Paskisher is an anchor for your army, not a lone-wolf.

You're rarely ever skirting just beyond the 24" mark and since there's another tank in front of Pask (unless you're willing to let him eat the lascanon shots first) then any unit that's capable of moving 12" in the moving phase, which is the vast majority of any capable assault unit and some are even fleet.
Why are you assuming he's alone and unaided? triple shunting dread knights is not uncommon for me to face, so if you have some magic trick to how to eliminate 3 shunting MC's before they charge and instagibs your Pask tank then I'm all ears. They burn my bubble wrap with contemptuous ease and proceed to assault right afterwards, if the bubble wrap is mixed with infantry fodder and vehicles, then his pathetic 24" gun is barely able to reach anything, which defeats his purpose.

So, I'm going to sound a bit like an ass here, but are you sure that these triple-shunting DKs are shunting and then assaulting right after that? Because if that is the case, then your opponent is actually cheating- the rules for the Personal Teleporter and the shunt move specifically prohibit charging after making a shunt move.

No, sorry if that's not clear. What he does is shunt all 3 of them near Pask&friends, cast sanctuary, roast my conscripts/guardsmen/whatever with his torrent flamers. If I'm VERY lucky I kill 1 and every 3rd month or so, I kill 2, then he charges and the tanks just dies by default. After that, he's just cleaning up the rest because the rest of my army is also very busy with everything else that either shunts or deep strikes from turn 1 and afterwards.

 Zewrath wrote:
You're rarely ever skirting just beyond the 24" mark and since there's another tank in front of Pask (unless you're willing to let him eat the lascanon shots first) then any unit that's capable of moving 12" in the moving phase, which is the vast majority of any capable assault unit and some are even fleet.

Even if you're at, say, 22'', that's still a 10'' charge, which has a very small statistical chance of happening even with fleet. If those are the kinds of odds you're basing your argument on then I guess you must hate all vehicles, since a 5 point BS3 guardsmen with a lascannon can always roll a 4 to hit, 6 to pen and 6 to explode any vehicle, amirite?

Why are you assuming he's alone and unaided? triple shunting dread knights is not uncommon for me to face, so if you have some magic trick to how to eliminate 3 shunting MC's before they charge and instagibs your Pask tank then I'm all ears. They burn my bubble wrap with contemptuous ease and proceed to assault right afterwards, if the bubble wrap is mixed with infantry fodder and vehicles, then his pathetic 24" gun is barely able to reach anything, which defeats his purpose.

The purpose of Pask and his unit isn't to kill three 2+sv monstrous creatures in a single turn. That's a terrible metric to use when gauging his viability. It's like saying Dreadknights are a "pathetic" unit because they'll get owned fighting an invisible Imperial Knight.

 BlaxicanX wrote:

 Zewrath wrote:
You're rarely ever skirting just beyond the 24" mark and since there's another tank in front of Pask (unless you're willing to let him eat the lascanon shots first) then any unit that's capable of moving 12" in the moving phase, which is the vast majority of any capable assault unit and some are even fleet.

Even if you're at, say, 22'', that's still a 10'' charge, which has a very small statistical chance of happening even with fleet. If those are the kinds of odds you're basing your argument on then I guess you must hate all vehicles, since a 5 point BS3 guardsmen with a lascannon can always roll a 4 to hit, 6 to pen and 6 to explode any vehicle, amirite?

Ignoring the point that there's a squadron mate in front on him and my point about creatures/mechanics that instantly closes the gap. *golfclaps*

Pask's purpose isn't to kill three 2+sv monstrous creatures in a single turn. That's a terrible metric to use when gauging his viability. Dreadknights get owned by invisible Imperial Knights- I guess they're pathetic, amirite?

Yawn! What kind of pathetic grasping straw man bs is this? So divine me, oh great wiseman, then what is his purpose? Kill low armored infantry? In an army that has access to so much anti GEQ, in an edition/meta filled with options that already slaughters hordes/GEQ? Gee willy. Batman, what a fantastic role to sink all my points in! Oh wait what, his role is to hunt fast MC's like Riptides/WK? Oh wait, he can't. How about dem MEQ's then? What? Kill fething tactical squads? Are you kidding me?
Of course there're situations where he's forced to stand his ground and shoot an incoming unit, he's pathetically slow to avoid shunting/deep strike/12" move units. Oh wait, you're telling me his not made for that? His purpose is to do what exactly? Chip away minor wounds and and let your strategically awesomely "supporting" unit finish the job for him?
You know what, you sound like the kind of person who thinks tactical squads are awesome. Emperor fething Christ!

The problem with the Pask Punisher is it is only truly effective at 20-21 inches, as if you're at a greater range you can fire the main gun, but probably do only heavily limited damage due to the way wounds evaporate if models in a unit are out of range.

And yeah, these people are right. At 24'' range, you're in the sweet spot for your opponent's army to destroy your tanks. Sure, it might take more than one turn to intercept Pask, but in the second turn the intercept course is on, a lot of the time Pask is screwed unless you pull off the flat out order, roll well and sacrifice 400~ points of your firepower for what would probably be an extremely important turn; and still, this issue is going to be cyclical throughout each following turn with no to little chance to fire if you want him to live. That's because the Russ is ridiculously slow and these sorts of units are absurdly fast.

The Executioner, with its 36'' range, means that your opponent has far less easy tricks up his sleeve to neutralise it, and it can do a lot of damage with Pask. Without double PC sponsons on him, the investment is underwhelming, though. I took a 440 pt double Pask Executioner squadron before because of the range reasons I've discussed, because in the right circumstances it annihilates things, and because its a reasonable counter to MCs.

Its just not a reliable anchor for your entire army, though. Pask and his tank buddy are the best choice in the book, no doubt about it, but they can't carry the entire book because they're inherently flawed with their exorbitant price and tendency to make games either go really well or really poorly with their early death or complete failure to accomplish anything.

The book is ultimately, awful. Its barebones at best. If you close your eyes, pretend the meta doesn't exist, and just focus on building up your IG company, you can look past its uselessness and get some enjoyment out of it, but the fact remains that you're going to get a sobering realisation of how crappy the army is when your opponent fields Necrons, Tau, Eldar and any of the latest competitive builds. The OP lays out the failure of each build very well. I suspect that the surprise factor of an airborne army could be effective but its not clear cut enough that I'd dare to invest in one; S4 AP5 pie plates as the main ordnance does not inspire faith in that idea honestly.