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Guard are amusing, because they have a lot of big guns if you know what I mean. Their power level as an army is debated a lot, but overall I would personally consider them "in the middle" overall.

However, one thing that always irked me about the Order system was how it basically served as "Flat buffs for a unit", rather than being designed to encourage coordinated unit tactics. Don't get me wrong, being able to ignore cover or move super-fast is awesome and all, but there's always a certain degree of disbelief at the idea that raw recruits suddenly know *how* to target a vehicle's weak bits or become super-snipers just because a bigwig commander is yelling at them to aim, only to forget *how* once said bigwig decides to go back to the Taurox for some tea and crumpets! Nevermind the whole "Tanks forgetting how to actually work as a team" deal.

Premise: Orders are a "Building Block" ruleset for allowing units to coordinate abilities alongside each other.

Who Can Issue Orders: Platoon Commanders, Company Commanders, and Tank Commanders issue orders. Generally speaking, a Platoon Commander can only order his own platoon, a Company Commander can order anything, and a Tank Commander can order Tanks. A Master of Ordnance allows a Platoon Commander to include a single Heavy Support unit in an Order.

Issuing an Order:
Orders are granted at the start of the movement phase. An Order is given to two or more units. The model issuing the Order is called the Ordering Model, and any unit receiving the Order is called an Ordered Unit. Select two or more units that meet the following requirements:
-The unit is within 12" of all other Ordered Units.
-The unit is within 12" of the Ordering Model.
-Should the Ordering Model be in a unit with a Vox-Caster, all other ordered units with Vox-Casters ignore the distance requirements to the Ordering Model, or other Ordered Units for this order.

Make a Leadership Check, based on the lowest Leadership Value among different Ordered Units. For every unit receiving an Order beyond the second unit, the check has a -1 penalty. No more than 6 units may participate in a single order.
Example: A Platoon Commander issues the "Fire And Move" order to three Heavy Weapon Squads, and three Guard squads in Chimeras. To pass this order requires rolling a Leadership 7 check, with a -4 penalty.
-Inspired Tactics: Should you roll a Double 1 for the Leadership Check, you may add the effects of a second Order to any number of the Ordered Units for free.
Example: The player rolls a Double 1 for the aforementioned "Fire And Move" order, thus allowing the Heavy Weapon Teams to fire *before* the Guard Chimeras flat-out forward; the Guard player decides to toss in a "Focus Fire" order on the Heavy Weapon Teams that they may count as *one* unit for purposes of firing at an enemy unit.
-Incompetent Command: Should you roll a Double 6 for the Leadership Check, your opponent may elect to make the order succeed, but control individual aspects of the order.

Early List of Orders:
-Fire And Move: Assign half of the ordered units to "Team A", and half of the units to "Team B". The Ordered Units may not move during the Movement Phase for purposes of firing Heavy Weapons, but count as having moved for purposes of firing. During the Shooting Phase, all Team A units fire then move. Then all Team B units fire then move. For Incompetent Command, the opposing player may allocate units to Team A and Team B.
-Focus Fire: When this order is successfully passed, the units affected may be treated as a single unit for purposes of firing at an enemy unit; this means they ignore LOS through each other, and resolve their shooting at the same time.
-Encouragement: Select half of the ordered non-vehicle units to be Encouraging Units, and the other half to be Encouraged. For the remainder of the turn, whenever an Encouraged Unit fails a Leadership Check, an Encouraging Unit may *fire* at that unit (no matter if the unit is locked in combat or otherwise). If the number of casualties inflicted is equal to or greater than the amount the Leadership Test was failed by, the unit is treated as having passed its Leadership Check. On an Incompetent Command result, the opposing player may select which units are Encouraging, and which ones are Encouraged.
-Rolling Barrage: At least one ordered unit must have weapons with the "Barrage" rule. When this order is successful, at least one (but not all) of the units with the Barrage rule may be designated as Supporting, while at least one unit is designated as Supported. The Supporting Units may not fire during the player's turn. Anytime during the enemy unit's turn, should an enemy unit come within 12" of a Supported Unit for whatever reason, the player may interrupt the turn to resolve a shooting attack with a Supporting Unit. On an Incompetent Command result, the opposing player may select which units are Supporting and which are Supported.

This is very much an early draft, but the idea is there: To represent "Combined Arms" abilities as a whole. Other potential ideas include Orders for "Trailblazing" ("Recon in Force"), disengagement/re-engagement in assault ("Next Wave Advance!"), or for allowing units to tank damage for other units ("Pay the Emperor's Due!")

My basic version of a reworked Orders system:


Chain of Command
Every unit leader (NCO) can only order his unit
A platoon command officer can order one unit in his platoon which is in command range or has a radio operator (if the command unit also has one)
A company command senior officer can order two units of his company which are in command range or have a radio operator (if the command unit also has one)
Orders are placed at the begin of the Start-Phase and last for one game turn.

The unit receiving the Order must take a Leadership test
If the test is passed the Order takes effect. Receiving an Order does not count as action. Each unit can only be ordered once per turn.
Tanks have always a build in radio operator


NCO Orders

-Be ready
All models in the ordered unit gets Aware: 1
-Take Aim
All models in the ordered unit can re-roll failed to hit rolls of 1
-Dogs, Do You Want to Live Forever
All models in the ordered unit get the Counter Attack Reaction
-Suppressive Fire
All models in the ordered unit get the Return Fire Reaction


Officer and Senior Officer Orders

-Move, Move, Move
The ordered unit must make a Double Move and can Run in the Shooting-Phase
-Attack, Attack, Attack
The ordered unit must Charge if possible and All models in the ordered unit gets get the Counter Charge Reaction
-Fire at Will
The ordered unit must shoot this turn and get the Split Fire Trait
-Fire on my Target
All ranged weapons in the ordered unit gain Ignore Cover: 1


Senior Officer and Commissar Orders:

-Back to Battle
All fleeing units in Command Range pass their Leadership test automatically and act normal that turn.
In addition all units in Command Range or with a radio operator, which lost their Unit Leader and can chose a new one without penalty.

Now, I have to say that I've never experienced the skepticism for anything the way I now experience it for 40k after reading some of your posts. I always chalk everything up to thematic abstraction, but now that I try to actually grasp what exactly is being abstracted with the orders system, I cannot defend it.

Is it just me, or is the process of issuing orders too complicated? It may be the ADD screwing everything up for me. The way I read it, one unit can issue orders to many other units and that is really the only difference between the current system and yours?

For Fire and Move, why are they split into teams and why is it done in the shooting phase? couldn't you just allow models to run and shoot in the same turn?

I like Focus Fire a lot

Encouragement is... interesting. Maybe a little OTT.

Rolling Barrage is a neat way to shake up everything. That was really unexpected.

It's very much an early draft, the idea being that rather than the "Order" being a flat buff to an individual unit ("I order you to run faster!"), that Orders represent coordination of multiple combined arms. Most are usable by themselves, but the intent is for them to theoretically stack with each other, to encourage creative applications of Inspired Tactics.

Incompetent Command could work the way it currently does ("No more orders"). The "Opposing player chooses which units are allocated for an order" is probably a bit too complicated. An alternate idea, could be that on Incompetent Command results, the opposing player can have the Ordered units be affected by a *different* order of choice.

So an order to "Fire and Move" could instead become a "Take Cover" order instead!

Fire and Move is sort of a "catch all" ability that's meant to mimic general bounding overwatch maneuvers, center peels, etc.

Encouragement is admittedly ripped off from Enemy At The Gates; there's this scene in the beginning where the Russians are mounting a desparate counterattack against the Germans, and only one in every 2 soldiers is given a rifle, with the second being instructed to pick up the rifle of the guy in front when he falls. Meanwhile, there are machine-gun crews trained specifically on any retreating soldiers.

 MagicJuggler wrote:
It's very much an early draft, the idea being that rather than the "Order" being a flat buff to an individual unit ("I order you to run faster!"), that Orders represent coordination of multiple combined arms. Most are usable by themselves, but the intent is for them to theoretically stack with each other, to encourage creative applications of Inspired Tactics.

Incompetent Command could work the way it currently does ("No more orders"). The "Opposing player chooses which units are allocated for an order" is probably a bit too complicated. An alternate idea, could be that on Incompetent Command results, the opposing player can have the Ordered units be affected by a *different* order of choice.

So an order to "Fire and Move" could instead become a "Take Cover" order instead!

Fire and Move is sort of a "catch all" ability that's meant to mimic general bounding overwatch maneuvers, center peels, etc.

Encouragement is admittedly ripped off from Enemy At The Gates; there's this scene in the beginning where the Russians are mounting a desparate counterattack against the Germans, and only one in every 2 soldiers is given a rifle, with the second being instructed to pick up the rifle of the guy in front when he falls. Meanwhile, there are machine-gun crews trained specifically on any retreating soldiers.

I'm honestly not a fan of Incompetent command. Its really just the classic "you rolled poorly, so here's a nerf even though you couldn't have controlled it anyway," kind of deal. Would it really shake up the army list so much or make 'guard too strong if they actually followed orders?