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Part of what I really liked about IG when I first started was the variety of regiments and models: Tallarn, Mordian, Cadian, Valhallan, etc. While any two Ultramarines armies will look very similar, it's hard to find any two IG armies that will look the same. The regimental doctrines system a few editions ago helped to build on that flavor by giving you the chance to construct an even more unique force. But we lost doctrines and the allies chart has stuck IG firmly back into the Armies of the Imperium. I think this is constraining what should be a faction representing the vast array of humanity in the galaxy: stoic Imperial armies, traitor guard, Tau colonial auxiliaries, ultra-nationalist rebels, under-trained and equipped planetary defense forces, backwater planets isolated from the Imperium, etc.

This would make the IG less of an Imperial force and more of a human faction. I know you can technically already ally them with the various factions, but it seems like a missed opportunity to construct unique forces that embrace the culture of their allied faction. Like the old Craftworlds Codex we could have several special lists with unique strengths and drawbacks reflecting the full spread of human forces in the galaxy rather than just one.

I'd love to see a dataslate that basically was just:
Using this dataslate makes your Astra Militarum Come The Apocalypse allies with Imperium of Man and makes it Battle Brothers with Tau.
Followed by some special rules that would weaken/strengthen certain parts of the army, to make a Tau Aux force.

How nice it would be to have Traitor Guardsmen with my Emperor's Children...

At my flgs we have a few people who ask if they can ally guard with certain armies (Chaos, Tau, etc.) But this is usually considered Allies of Convenience. Where as if they had actual Battle Brothers I could see a lot of diversity in how you could run a human army. I've never been a big fan of the IOM as a whole, but if they just had different sects of humanity like this it would easily be something I can see most people jumping into.

 Purifier wrote:
I'd love to see a dataslate that basically was just:
Using this dataslate makes your Astra Militarum Come The Apocalypse allies with Imperium of Man and makes it Battle Brothers with Tau.
Followed by some special rules that would weaken/strengthen certain parts of the army, to make a Tau Aux force.

Ugh, no.

A Tau auxiliary force would be nothing like a proper Guard force.

How about the Ork Mercenaries that sided with the Imperial Guard. It would be great to field some large blast artillery behind my wave of Orks. And just watch as those templates scatter on to the orks, not caring whatsoever.

Just to make sure you are aware. The Renegades and Heretics army list has been released by forgeworld and covers most of the spectrum of non IG human armies (after all IoM claim leadership of all humans, thus if you are not IoM you are a heretic or renegade).

The non IoM human armies are almost nothing like the IG. People always make a basic mistake about the IG in thinking they are poorly trained, poorly equipped, and are essentially average Joe with 2 weeks of basic. In the actual fluff IG are navy seal level troops and vets are the guys who have fought in hundreds of battles. IG are the best unaltered humans have to offer. The funny part is conscripts are actually the equivalent to a basic army trooper with a 2-4 weeks of training. The entire order system is represents an exhaustive training or hypno suggestion regiment that actually makes IG exceed super humans and warp abomination's abilities temporarily.

People also make the common mistake that IG = PDF. The PDF are usually one of three different styles; 1) ex IG, 2) Trained by very wealthy merchants/lords and equivalent to scions or sometimes even skitarii, or 3) poorly trained rabble equivalent to infantry platoons from the Renegade and Heretics list but who would run before the battle even starts (GW assumes no one would choose to play these guys as the game would be; deploy, first turn, your army fails morale and runs, you loose). The #3 option are meant to garrison out of the way cities and keep hive gangs under control not fight an Ork horde. If you have Orks to fight then you are going to get an IG garrison or have some of the troops you send off as your tithe returned after service rendered to act as your PDF. BTW the IG conscripts are usually either new trainee IG or PDF which have been emergency drafted and trained by the IG on location.

If you want Tau, Genestealer Cults, etc. then you don't want IG units. The best representation for most of these armies is actually the current allies matrix and the different forgeworld units and army lists. If they are ex IG troopers they would have the training but would be various degrees of untrustworthy from the perspective of the Tau, Nids, Orks, etc. If you want troops that have never been IG then the Renegades and Heretics army list is what you want, even the CtA and desperate allies status makes sense as these troops are likely to take bribes to attack their alien overlords.

 Farseer Tesla wrote:
How nice it would be to have Traitor Guardsmen with my Emperor's Children...

At my flgs we have a few people who ask if they can ally guard with certain armies (Chaos, Tau, etc.) But this is usually considered Allies of Convenience. Where as if they had actual Battle Brothers I could see a lot of diversity in how you could run a human army. I've never been a big fan of the IOM as a whole, but if they just had different sects of humanity like this it would easily be something I can see most people jumping into.

Lost and Damn are your answer to that. They have whole rule set in" IMPERIAL ARMOUR VOLUME THIRTEEN - WAR MACHINES OF THE LOST AND THE DAMNED" Allows you to build many different types of lost and damn armies from corrupted Imperial guard to the armies of zombies to the hordes of mutants. Even better, if you want to build slaneesh army you may use noise marines as elite choice.


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 Icculus wrote:
How about the Ork Mercenaries that sided with the Imperial Guard. It would be great to field some large blast artillery behind my wave of Orks. And just watch as those templates scatter on to the orks, not caring whatsoever.

Wasn't there a story about single ork mercernary serving along IG regiment? I remember seeing some pics of that ork in modified ogryn Armour.

 ansacs wrote:


The non IoM human armies are almost nothing like the IG. People always make a basic mistake about the IG in thinking they are poorly trained, poorly equipped, and are essentially average Joe with 2 weeks of basic. In the actual fluff IG are navy seal level troops

I played Guard on and off since the 90's and I see lots of people make this claim yet have never seen it cited anywhere. Got a link or something?

MarsNZ wrote:

 ansacs wrote:


The non IoM human armies are almost nothing like the IG. People always make a basic mistake about the IG in thinking they are poorly trained, poorly equipped, and are essentially average Joe with 2 weeks of basic. In the actual fluff IG are navy seal level troops

I played Guard on and off since the 90's and I see lots of people make this claim yet have never seen it cited anywhere. Got a link or something?

If someone exists outside of the imperium would it make sense if they had the same tactical doctrine, same equipment, vehicles and command structure? Would there be commissars, or primaris psykers that haven't fallen to chaos? All of those things exist because they are within the imperium not without it. The only way a unit could act like an imperial guard regiment is if they rebelled or stole all of the equipment.

Either way, give me some light infantry guard and i'll be super happy.

 ansacs wrote:
If you want Tau, Genestealer Cults, etc. then you don't want IG units. The best representation for most of these armies is actually the current allies matrix and the different forgeworld units and army lists. If they are ex IG troopers they would have the training but would be various degrees of untrustworthy from the perspective of the Tau, Nids, Orks, etc. If you want troops that have never been IG then the Renegades and Heretics army list is what you want, even the CtA and desperate allies status makes sense as these troops are likely to take bribes to attack their alien overlords.

DA don't represent well what the Gue'vesa are to Tau. AoC would be a better representation - not fully integrated, but treated well, receiving orders and even fighting for the Tau. The idea of putting all Imperial armies in one block took from them the possibility of more sensible alliance levels.

Id like it if everyone was just AoC. no BBBFFs. no power sharing. no Renta pods. let the codexes work together but not together in bed. as it gets awkward for those left out :(

The Guard I used to like used to have 1 theme.

No standardization.

There is nothing about the Guard that is the same across all regiments. Not all Guard regiments are even human!

So it bugs me that GW is standardizing the Guard into Cadians (mostly) for the sake of making things easier for them model wise I assume.

I have pretty much put 40k to the side over the last few months but if they released a decent book with rules on making your own IG regiment (or even human regiment) I would be pretty happy. The possibilities should be endless.

I've never understood why people who want gue'vesa in their Tau armies don't just model IG soldiers with Tau armor bits and pulse rifles and use the rules for a Fire Warrior squad. Imagine two squads of gue'vesa, two squads of kroot, maybe some vespids, all backed by a Fire Caste battlesuit-heavy hunter cadre. There's an integrated T'au Empire force and you don't even have to venture outside their own codex.

If you want modelling freedom, then make it for yourself. Use bits from WHFB to model a PDF from a feudal world. Use crossbows with fancy bolts for counts-as lasguns. If you want hive gangers then use old Necromunda bits and make the grizzled gang leader a counts-as commissar. If you wanna be buddies with the Eldar, then model your dudes with some Eldar bits, give them shuriken weaponry, and make them counts-as Guardians. Traitor guard? Use the cultist rules with some spiky guardsmen for the models.

You can't expect GW to accomodate for every niche idea in the world. My SM army loots Xenos weaponry to plug holes in their supply lines. Obviously there's no rules for that, so I just give them weird looking guns as counts-as bolters, looted pauldrons and armor plates, and strange bionics. As long as you're standard with what is proxied for what and you're clear about that before any games start, you're golden.

Vector Strike wrote:DA don't represent well what the Gue'vesa are to Tau. AoC would be a better representation - not fully integrated, but treated well, receiving orders and even fighting for the Tau. The idea of putting all Imperial armies in one block took from them the possibility of more sensible alliance levels.

IG codex has nothing in common with Gue'vesa at all. Gue'vesa use Tau tech, are descendant of IG not trained by the IoM and not IG, and perhaps more importantly do not fully consider themselves fully part of the Tau empire and fear the eventual return of the IoM. Their ability to be fully trusted is somewhat questionable. If you want fully integrated Gue'vesa then they can be played either using the rules in IA3 second edition or equipped in various Tau gear and used as Tau units. There is no fluff reason to use the IG rules.

MarsNZ wrote:I played Guard on and off since the 90's and I see lots of people make this claim yet have never seen it cited anywhere. Got a link or something?

There is no single source but rather every novel published from the IG perspective. The best of which are Deadmen Walking and Down Amongst the Dead Men. The first clearly shows a unit of conscript being trained (essentially a couple weeks of the extreme version of basic training) and from the DKoK's perspective they are absolutely pathetic. The second series shows a failed DKoK trainee. DKoK training is essentially the same as Spartans (Greek) but with hypnotic suggestion and lasers.
Vostroyan Firstborn are highly committed and train for extended periods of time. http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Vostroyan_Firstborn
Cadians are also started in childhood and go through an extreme amount of training with a great deal of cultural reinforcement and pride.http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Cadian_Shock_Troopers

None of that even hints at basic trooper with a couple weeks of training. Most of the major IG regiments are in fact proud to serve, trained since childhood, and highly motivated. They are also a relatively small faction of most of the available population in the IoM. Only on a few worlds where their troops are of considerable quality is the fraction of the population taken into the IG relatively high, with Cadia and Krieg being two of the extreme examples with essentially the entire planets doing nothing but producing soldiers.

The funny part is if you consider that the IG's primary job is to act as a distraction and a speed bump for artillery, bombardments, astartes, and various super heavies then their equipment and training actually makes some sense. Dig into trenches and charge the enemy gunlines! That way they can't shoot at or get near the venerable baneblade

Personally..... I think GW is gonna go with a supplement of a Renegade Chaos IG before they change the IG allies chart to "just about everyone".

Knowing them they will want to milk it hard so a separate book/models/rules etc will be churned out for chaos or renegade IG to exist.

 Purifier wrote:
I'd love to see a dataslate that basically was just:
Using this dataslate makes your Astra Militarum Come The Apocalypse allies with Imperium of Man and makes it Battle Brothers with Tau.
Followed by some special rules that would weaken/strengthen certain parts of the army, to make a Tau Aux force.

if they had this i would finally build my imperial guard infantry men

There are alternate lists for things like this. IA13 and IA: Vraks have *hugely* varied lists for human armies that can be BB's with other Chaos forces and have a wealth of options the mainline IG codex would love to have.

Imperial armor 13, and siege of vraks. You have to tools to do most if not all traitor guard combos now.

 ansacs wrote:

Vector Strike wrote:DA don't represent well what the Gue'vesa are to Tau. AoC would be a better representation - not fully integrated, but treated well, receiving orders and even fighting for the Tau. The idea of putting all Imperial armies in one block took from them the possibility of more sensible alliance levels.

IG codex has nothing in common with Gue'vesa at all. Gue'vesa use Tau tech, are descendant of IG not trained by the IoM and not IG, and perhaps more importantly do not fully consider themselves fully part of the Tau empire and fear the eventual return of the IoM. Their ability to be fully trusted is somewhat questionable. If you want fully integrated Gue'vesa then they can be played either using the rules in IA3 second edition or equipped in various Tau gear and used as Tau units. There is no fluff reason to use the IG rules.

MarsNZ wrote:I played Guard on and off since the 90's and I see lots of people make this claim yet have never seen it cited anywhere. Got a link or something?

There is no single source but rather every novel published from the IG perspective. The best of which are Deadmen Walking and Down Amongst the Dead Men. The first clearly shows a unit of conscript being trained (essentially a couple weeks of the extreme version of basic training) and from the DKoK's perspective they are absolutely pathetic. The second series shows a failed DKoK trainee. DKoK training is essentially the same as Spartans (Greek) but with hypnotic suggestion and lasers.
Vostroyan Firstborn are highly committed and train for extended periods of time. http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Vostroyan_Firstborn
Cadians are also started in childhood and go through an extreme amount of training with a great deal of cultural reinforcement and pride.http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Cadian_Shock_Troopers

None of that even hints at basic trooper with a couple weeks of training. Most of the major IG regiments are in fact proud to serve, trained since childhood, and highly motivated. They are also a relatively small faction of most of the available population in the IoM. Only on a few worlds where their troops are of considerable quality is the fraction of the population taken into the IG relatively high, with Cadia and Krieg being two of the extreme examples with essentially the entire planets doing nothing but producing soldiers.

The funny part is if you consider that the IG's primary job is to act as a distraction and a speed bump for artillery, bombardments, astartes, and various super heavies then their equipment and training actually makes some sense. Dig into trenches and charge the enemy gunlines! That way they can't shoot at or get near the venerable baneblade

But then how come Chaos cultists are equivalent to Guardsmen in everything except armor and leadership? I was under the impression that cultists were just your average joe who got fed up with the Imperium and decided to rebel.

 ansacs wrote:

Vector Strike wrote:DA don't represent well what the Gue'vesa are to Tau. AoC would be a better representation - not fully integrated, but treated well, receiving orders and even fighting for the Tau. The idea of putting all Imperial armies in one block took from them the possibility of more sensible alliance levels.

IG codex has nothing in common with Gue'vesa at all. Gue'vesa use Tau tech, are descendant of IG not trained by the IoM and not IG, and perhaps more importantly do not fully consider themselves fully part of the Tau empire and fear the eventual return of the IoM. Their ability to be fully trusted is somewhat questionable. If you want fully integrated Gue'vesa then they can be played either using the rules in IA3 second edition or equipped in various Tau gear and used as Tau units. There is no fluff reason to use the IG rules.

I agree; I'd like to see a supplement/dataslate regarding Tau auxiliaries. But IG is the closest thing to the Gue'vesa we actually have (IA3 Gue'vesa rules are just for special campaigns, not 'normal' 40k games... plus they stink ), so I can see why people would like a better alliance level between IG and Tau. As we don't know when/if GW will produce such material, people want a less restricted ally matrix table. I've seen people wanting Mechanicum to be BB with Chaos, and that's even harder to justify than IG/Gue'vesa using rules as they are today.

 Vector Strike wrote:
I've seen people wanting Mechanicum to be BB with Chaos, and that's even harder to justify than IG/Gue'vesa using rules as they are today.

Dark mechanicus???

IMO human Tau forces could easily have the same rules as Tau fire warriors or kroot. Their training and equipment should all be the same or similar. Actual rules would be neat but unlikely for an extremely niche faction.

Chaos cultists are all experienced murderers somewhat infused by the power's of the warp and with an abomination ready to devour their souls if they don't perform. Frankly they are sheer ferocity making up for skill. They are also much worse equipped and lack orders.

 Desubot wrote:

 Vector Strike wrote:
I've seen people wanting Mechanicum to be BB with Chaos, and that's even harder to justify than IG/Gue'vesa using rules as they are today.

Dark mechanicus???

yes, but Mechanicum ISN'T dark Mechanicus, just like IG isn't Gue'vesa. But if people want AdMec to be BB with Chaos because of Dark Mechanicus, asking for IG to be AoC with Tau makes sense as well

 ansacs wrote:
IMO human Tau forces could easily have the same rules as Tau fire warriors or kroot. Their training and equipment should all be the same or similar. Actual rules would be neat but unlikely for an extremely niche faction.

Chaos cultists are all experienced murderers somewhat infused by the power's of the warp and with an abomination ready to devour their souls if they don't perform. Frankly they are sheer ferocity making up for skill. They are also much worse equipped and lack orders.

A book just for Gue'vesa doesn't make sense, but one for Tau Auxiliaries do

 ansacs wrote:
IMO human Tau forces could easily have the same rules as Tau fire warriors or kroot. Their training and equipment should all be the same or similar. Actual rules would be neat but unlikely for an extremely niche faction.

Chaos cultists are all experienced murderers somewhat infused by the power's of the warp and with an abomination ready to devour their souls if they don't perform. Frankly they are sheer ferocity making up for skill. They are also much worse equipped and lack orders.

Back in the day there were plenty of niche factions, regiments, chapters, craftworlds, etc. That was half the fun of White Dwarf at the time, they'd publish 2 or 3 unique units, restrict a few others, introduce a couple army special rules and suddenly you've got a Salvar Chem Dogs army, an Ork speed freaks army, traitor guard, Tau colonists, etc.

Nowadays they throw together a couple new units, package it up, slap $60 on the tag, and ship out the Militarum Tempestus or Imperial Knights codex.

Vector Strike wrote:yes, but Mechanicum ISN'T dark Mechanicus, just like IG isn't Gue'vesa. But if people want AdMec to be BB with Chaos because of Dark Mechanicus, asking for IG to be AoC with Tau makes sense as well

Dark Mechanicus really are nothing like Mechanicum. The automatic daemonic possession of 70% of the stuff you build tends to change how a group looks and operates.

Vector Strike wrote:A book just for Gue'vesa doesn't make sense, but one for Tau Auxiliaries do

That is doable. There have been rumors of more kroot coming up. Alternatively they could release a dataslate with the unit rules and a sprue with pulse rifles to modify cadian models with. Either way would probably make a lot of Tau-philes happy.

TheSilo wrote:Back in the day there were plenty of niche factions, regiments, chapters, craftworlds, etc. That was half the fun of White Dwarf at the time, they'd publish 2 or 3 unique units, restrict a few others, introduce a couple army special rules and suddenly you've got a Salvar Chem Dogs army, an Ork speed freaks army, traitor guard, Tau colonists, etc.

Nowadays they throw together a couple new units, package it up, slap $60 on the tag, and ship out the Militarum Tempestus or Imperial Knights codex.

I would love to see them head to a dataslate model for these small niche factions. Just release a small fluff blurb, a page or two of pictures, and a few rule changes for the base army or a new unit or two. I think they could make a decent buck from allowing cadian/catachans models in any army as mercs with rules like a special weapon squad. We will probably never see the old style white dwarf releases for units that GW doesn't make models for anymore as simply put GW is has shareholders to answer to and are no longer a small business selling a couple models here and there on demand. I am glad that they moved away from a magazine with army rules which if I missed I could not purchase later. In the digital age there is no excuse for that. Digital dataslates is the new answer to this and are a vastly superior distribution method.

The reason for the 60 usd mini codexes with a couple of units is two fold 1) their storage and shipping costs do not significantly change for a 10 usd pamplet and a 60 usd book...this means if it is something that needs to be stocked they will have to keep it to a minimum price so they fill it with content that few actually want and 2) they are trying to put content for everyone in a single book and sell that. The more GW moves to a digital rules release platforms the more they can release cheap dataslates like formations, units, relic lists, etc. This would be a second resurgence of the rules for every faction like 2ed.

To be fair BTW the new digital Imperial Knight Codex is actually only 33 usd, has great formatting, a bunch of detachments and formations, and enough variations that you can field a half dozen distinctly different play style armies out of it. Actually all of the 7ed books have been amazing in the aspect that they have 3-20 distinct armies that can be fielded out of them, most of which can comfortably face each other if you understand how to make them work. The new formations and detachments in the 7ed books have done a lot to allow the different sub factions within those factions to be fielded.

PS I have actually been pretty happy with most of the 7ed materials released...except D weapon and stomp result 6, yuck...who made that design decision.

 ansacs wrote:
To be fair BTW the new digital Imperial Knight Codex is actually only 33 usd, has great formatting, a bunch of detachments and formations, and enough variations that you can field a half dozen distinctly different play style armies out of it. Actually all of the 7ed books have been amazing in the aspect that they have 3-20 distinct armies that can be fielded out of them, most of which can comfortably face each other if you understand how to make them work. The new formations and detachments in the 7ed books have done a lot to allow the different sub factions within those factions to be fielded.

PS I have actually been pretty happy with most of the 7ed materials released...except D weapon and stomp result 6, yuck...who made that design decision.

Only.

A pdf which is actually a quick rehash of a product released... what, two years before? 33 bucks. Wow so cheap.

The new formations in 7ed books are basically free cheese. Rules-wise, all advantages for no added costs.

 Korinov wrote:
Only. A pdf which is actually a quick rehash of a product released... what, two years before? 33 bucks. Wow so cheap.

See here is where your problem is. It is an epub or interactive I book. If you are tying to get a pdf then you are doing it wrong.

In seriousness though. The new Imperial Knight codex actually has a lot of material that was not in the first imperial knight codex. The rules are more clear, they have way more art, more fluff, and despite how you might feel about formations and detachments they have a pretty good number of those. Honestly this is a pretty decent release. However it is tainted by the god awful abomination that they called a "codex" they released not even 2 years ago. That thing was a horrific waste of money and should have been a 10 usd dataslate not a 30 usd "codex".

 Korinov wrote:
The new formations in 7ed books are basically free cheese. Rules-wise, all advantages for no added costs.

There is a cost to formations. You have to take a set grouping of units which are usually sub optimal in their choice, you loose CAD benefits such as ObjSec and reroll on the strategic warlord traits (both of which are massive losses).

The biggest drawback though is the minimum points required to field the formation. For example the much maligned Imperial Knight Admantium Lance and Tau Firebase Support Cadre take up so many points they leave almost nothing left in a 1500-1850 pts list. What this gives is an army that excels in one category but has very obvious weaknesses. The adlance cannot hold it's own in maelstorm of war and looses most of it's benefits if it even tries to. The firebase cadre is so many pts in fragile 36" mostly immobile shooty platforms that are mostly useless against MC lists and less effective than their counterparts against infantry heavy lists that they usually leave the player wishing they had taken a single buffmander unit instead and used the pts on units not called broadsides. Unfortunately most of the formations double down on an aspect making them a hammer style force, this is very rough on people the first time they encounter it and so many people get stomped hard by hammer style lists their first game against it. This is further compounded by the fact that many players take low flexibility lists for a variety of reasons which cannot adapt to missions. Most of the time taking a formation or detachment is a trap that will cost you wins ObjSec would have secured for you. As such these are not as people commonly refer to them "OP" (over powered) but are rather have a low ceiling for performance but a very high floor...aka they liter the middle tables at tournaments causing grief for casual and new players alike. They are "extreme" builds and like all extreme builds make for massively one sided games.

The one criticism I think most fair about formations is actually that there are too many of them which spam a single unit or model. This is just bad for the fun of your players, "variety is the spice of life" and all. The new formations have avoided this for the most part with letting the players decide but also are more open to even more abusive spamming which can create extreme builds.