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I'd just make every unit (or the vast majority) 15% cheaper. Maybe buffs for things like ogryns but otherwise simply having more shooting, more bodies and more vehicles seems a decent counter to power creep elsewhere, and fits the fluff nicely. Admittedly I'm not an IG player but I think they do have counters to most things out there, they just need to have a little more of it to balance things.

A lot of our stuff is too expensive. You could make infantry squads 30pts, so by the time the essential upgrades are added they're around 50pts which is the most they should cost. Hell, slash the price of a Russ in half too. Make everything cheaper.

But also make it so that IG units become better when working together. Tanks giving the infantry cover saves. A vox caster can call for support instead of shooting (pick one friendly vehicle unit. It gains twin linked against the target). So you can have a tag team of an infantry squad getting cover from the tank despite being in front of it, and their vox caster makes the tank more accurate.

And just like that the postage rolls over to 1000! And within one year too.

Id love to see more unit synergies.

Things like the leman russ giving cover saves out is a good one.

Then the scout sentinels giving out move through cover to units.

Voxes be used as line of sight for barrage at the cost of not being able to take an order on the squad because radio is in use.

Standards get to look out sir as another guy won't let it fall, and give platoon standards reroll leadership for units from that platoon. Company banner grants stubborn and reroll.

Meanwhile give infantry platoons the bonus from Tyrants legion for better cover saves on the tanks at the cost of taking wounds to the squad.

The core of the guard should be it's infantry, then taking additional units gives them buffs to promote a combined arms style.

Start doing similar things to all armies and balance might make a return?

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
The thing is, the Imperial Guard are banned from being a combined arms military. By keeping regiments specialised, they reduce the damage a traitor regiment can do.
Infantry rebel? They have little in the way of ordnance.
Tanks rebel? Can't hold objectives well and can be outmaneuvered.
Artillery rebel? They have no defenders.
Air force rebel? They have no way to effectively hold a position.

By dividing the guard, the risk of heresy is reduced. There's a fluff reason they're organised in this way.

I remember reading this, but I can't place where I read it. It makes sense.

On the other hand I've also remember reading about combined arms IG, where a regiment would have an armored company and the commanding officer would typically assign tanks from the armored company to support the regular line companies as the situation warranted. This also makes sense.

GW has put out a lot of conflicting fluff over the years. I actually like it in the sense that the galaxy is such a big place and the humans in it generally have no idea what's going on (even if they are convinced that they do). I can totally see a high ranking IG officer being reassigned to a new sector and discovering that many regiments under his command had been breaking the rules (as far as he was concerned) by operating as combined arms units. Then those regiments might be pushed to the point of mutiny when he tries to break them up and mash them together to form "properly" divided forces.

The downside to the conflicting fluff is that people end up getting angry in real life over the conflicting information. Also, I know that for me at least stuff tends to run together and get murky over the years and I have to be careful that I'm not half-remembering something I thought would be cool as actual cannon.


As far as guardsmen just feeling like wound counters for heavy weapons, I've always kind of thought of them kind of like German infantry squads during WW2. My understanding, which I could definitely be wrong about as I'm no military historian, is that most of a German squad's firepower came from its machinegun. A big part of the regular squad member's job was to carry extra ammunition for the machine gun and act as a kind of bodyguard. It's not that the K98k rifle was useless, it was still an important part of the squad's gear, but the MG34/42 was the centerpiece. The squad was also supposed to have a submachine gun, and the squad would sometimes split into two fire teams with the MG providing suppressing fire while the other team would maneuver up to get into a good position to use their submachine gun and grenades. Again, I could be wrong and my understanding is that while this is how it was supposed to work on paper German squads often did not have everything they were supposed to have in reality.

In my head I pictured a "normal" IG squad being pretty similar in terms of the effectiveness of their weapons and their tactics, just replacing the K98k with the lasgun, the MG34 with the heavy weapon slot and the submachine gun with the special weapons slot. I put the word "normal" in quotes because different regiments behave in very different ways. I couldn't point to a single piece of fluff that completely backs up this idea, other than ye olde Codex: Cityfight rules that let the IG split ten man squads into five man teams. I liked those rules, as they made having a meltagun and a heavy bolter in the same squad make sense.


There are so many different regiments across the galaxy that I really like that there are regular IG squads, veteran squads and conscript squads to represent them. Some regiments are made up of well-trained riflemen, while others are told which end to point at the enemy and launched in human waves. Some are either really well-trained and equipped by their homeworlds or they are the hardened remnants of what was previously a much larger regiment. It's cool that all of those things can be represented. It also allows for people to have more or less models as time and money allow. As far as making sure those options are all balanced and effective on the tabletop, I don't know if that's possible or not.

I actually wish that we could take conscript squads without taking standard IG squads. For fluffy reasons if I was doing a conscript "human wave" style army I'd rather have most of the guardsmen be conscripts. I can understand why people wouldn't want to play against such an army for fear of it taking all day. When I used to run ork mobs of 20-30 boyz I would just grab the mob in both hands and move them up the board rather than carefully spacing each one. They were all in base contact, so a single large blast could potentially delete the whole mob, but it was fast and my opponents didn't hate my guts. I played casual games, and I can see how doing that would be unacceptable to a tournament player.


I don't have a huge IG army, about ~25 Catachans, ~80 Cadians and assorted vehicles. None are painted to the standard I want, but I'm waiting for 8th edition and to see if any new plastics come out before I put a lot of work into them. I'm not particularly fond of Catachans or Cadians, they're just what has been available in plastic over the years. If there are new plastics that I like I'll probably make them the focus of my collecting.

The idea of adding some sort of flanking/combined pinning fire seems good. Rewarding tactics and punishing poor plays should be the job of at least one army, and the army with almost nothing going for it deserves a gimmick of its own.

NivlacSupreme wrote:

 flamingkillamajig wrote:

 Fafnir wrote:
Another thing that would really help the Guard is an overall reduction in the game's scale (I'm looking at you, Age of Sigmar!).

Don't. Just DON'T! I invested probably a thousand dollars and 5-7 years into warhammer fantasy. If GW wants to scale down slightly or have a side game that's toned down slightly that's fine. However AoS went way the **** too far in every possible way. I can't even recognize my poor game anymore and they gave no choice to keep playing Fantasy. It was AoS or get out. That's basically what the GW manager said. He said if they don't want to play aos then we don't want you.

Wow. That's...

Even some people at GW HQ still play 8th.

My local GW in michigan doesn't allow warhammer fantasy being played and the other is at least 30 mins away. If i need a fantasy fix i'd rather go somewhere that isn't a GW. Sadly this GW is only about 1-2 miles from my current place. The AoS circle-jerking tires me pretty hard esp. having to go in there and constantly be reminded how it's dead even with all the old warhammer fantasy wallpapers and such hung up around the store.

That said the store was previously run by the worst GW employee (awful person for the most part and treated some customers including myself horribly) i've seen in about 10 years of GW experience between two stores and another guy. Supposedly it had gotten a reputation for a sort of clique atmosphere. It was in rochester hills or close to it and a lot of the old players were snobs and jerks.

Sad thing is the great lakes mall store though it was more casual and had more youth it had a better atmosphere and dave was the best manager and best gw employee i've ever seen. Dunno how that horrible GW employee got transferred to the hampton village store.

So i dunno. The current manager and side employees seem ok. I just wish the main one wasn't so anti-Fantasy. Honestly i think it's because in the usa or at least nearby there must be pressure from up top to not play fantasy. I think they're more lenient in europe. Dunno about the UK but a friend made it sound like it's still not allowed at GW stores.

-------

I know about 9th age. The issue is a lot of the competitive players joined that and i didn't entirely like all of them either. I would prefer to just play 8th edition but it'd be so much easier to go to a store close to me and i don't think there is one. Keep in mind i need transportation from others to get to GW and being a mile or 2 away makes it easy but the farther it is the harder it is for me and who drives me. Otherwise i'd just play Fantasy. People have also sorta called it quits when it was no longer supported and i can't totally blame them as skaven needed new stuff and a new codex which before AoS hadn't gotten a codex since maybe '08 or '09 (GW HATES Fantasy players!). Skaven were the 2nd oldest army and had an 8 page FAQ so the rules were written like garbage. When you want to play 8th and they don't have the 8 page FAQ available anymore it's very hard. It's a shame. I wanted to play vampire counts too.

-------

Far as the imperial guard goes i think you guys are safe enough. I've heard in the latest book for all eldar that so yeah i have more room to complain than you guys. It honestly sounds like they're about to either combine all eldar factions or just straight up get rid of dark eldar. Keep in mind imperial guard are safe because they're fairly popular, there's always guard or PDF somewhere and they're pretty major as far as faction go (sisters, tau and dark eldar don't have that luxury but sadly tau being OP gives them stupid popularity that is undeserved outside of that such as in lore or aesthetics). Dark eldar possibly being squatted or 40k being AoS end times destroyed will probably declare the end of my GW gaming and hobbying experience as i've been screwed every which way by GW by now. They can turn 40k and Fantasy into counting your teeth and your toes but i'll just sigh heavily and watch from outside of a new tabletop hobby if they decide to do so.

I'd much prefer seeing buffs to the tanks tbh.

The problem with IG / AM blobs is that they are too easy for the IoM to turn into fethed up combos.

For a long time, 40-strong blobs were mostly used with Dark Angels in competitive play, and I'm afraid boosting them would make that all the more true.

Also, I'm totally jealous of AM getting cheap blobs to just bubblewrap anything, especially in Apoc, where that option just doesn't exist (unless you're Tyranid).

But that's where the problem of scale shows ... even for 15.000 points, my opponent didn't have much more than 200 guardsmen, which probably take up barely 800 points.

Maybe they should be swarms or something, like have three of them on a bike base lol

Still, I think that the ability to bring cheap bodies and make them fearless is extremely powerful by itself and any upgrades to these blobs could easily make that tool overpowered, while still leaving the AM / IG army not-that-great.

 Kanluwen wrote:

And no, Hotshot weapons don't need Shred. They're actually performing fairly well.

Hot Shot weapons are the meanest joke GW could have done to MT ... AP3 requires something that makes the weapon bad at another side ... the result was 18" and if you wnat to rapid fire 9" this is quite useless ... S3 is still a joke

This is the weapon profile MT needs ... then 12pts per model are justified!

Assault 2
24"-16" S3 AP5
16"-08" S4 AP4
08"-00" S5 AP3

AND make deep strike optional for 1-2 points to bring a scion to 10 points!

If they are getting rid of the Cadians and Catachans, who will replace them? I hope it's the Vostroyans. They're the nicest IG miniatures outside of FW and are suitably 40kish. Or maybe they'll bring out some new regiment, or dig up one of the 2nd classics. I always thought that the Praetorians could be very 40k too, with a few tweaks. If they took the redcoat uniform aesthetics and threw them into a blender with fantasy empire outriders, ww1 uniforms and 40k imperial designs they could look really awesome.

Well what do you think of adding a fluffy rule to the IG squads and conscripts

expendible, allow friendly units to fire at this unit when they are "locked in melee combat", any hits (including those from templates) are evenly distributed between friendly and enemy models (rounding down).

This would be fluffy, and give the guard a strategic option of rushing expendable troops forward to 'soak up' the enemy unit into close base to base contact and then shell them (and your own troops) with your artillery.


Or maybe just make conscripts expendable... if so
Allow basic squads in the platoon to be taken as conscripts (30p for 10)... or just allow multiple conscript squads to be taken instead of 0-1 per platoon make it 0-3... maybe even give them Ld 6... comeon basic untrained humans are less cowardly that grotz!

@Kanluwen. Practically EVERY Codex GW has ever printed has had rules for units and/or wargear upgrades that they never made sculpts for or were out of production. This Planet is a very big and diverse place--much like the Imperial guard--and yes there *are* lots of people who still use sub-optimal out of production units because they like a challenge or think it's cool. I like a challenge, and I think they look cool in my Drookian Fen Guard army (I greenstuffed kilts on them and did some head swaps). Are you really telling me that you care so little about the hard work that others put into their armies that you would push for the unnecessary removal of a unit that many people still use?

You like snipers on guardsmen? I do too. I have eight in my Catachan army. In order to put as many in my Drookian Fen Guard army, I would need to sculpt 5-10 more kilts--something I don't have time for. Halflings fit nicely with the Celtic aesthetic of my army and have tended to be the best/most cost-effective snipers in the IG. Yes, I understand that might have changed recently, but rules are fluid in this game and ratlings could get buffed.
I see nothing unreasonable with my position and I fail to see how it affects you or anyone else negatively.

And instead of removing units from the codex, how about putting older units back in. I've got Griffons still gaking on the shelf, I've got a Colossus (loved the AP3 no-cover indirect ordnance!). Those two might be available in the current IA books, don't know, because I haven't bought them and even now prefer to play single source (ie just my codex). And going farther back I have IG landspeeders and motorcycles. I would love to be able to put my old models on the table with official codex rules for them.

I have always hated it when GW decided to drop units from a codex, but... oh well.

Anyways, I'm sure Kanluwen will be along to pooh-pooh my desires but I can live with that.

CplPunishment wrote:
@Kanluwen. Practically EVERY Codex GW has ever printed has had rules for units and/or wargear upgrades that they never made sculpts for or were out of production. This Planet is a very big and diverse place--much like the Imperial guard--and yes there *are* lots of people who still use sub-optimal out of production units because they like a challenge or think it's cool. I like a challenge, and I think they look cool in my Drookian Fen Guard army (I greenstuffed kilts on them and did some head swaps). Are you really telling me that you care so little about the hard work that others put into their armies that you would push for the unnecessary removal of a unit that many people still use?

You like snipers on guardsmen? I do too. I have eight in my Catachan army. In order to put as many in my Drookian Fen Guard army, I would need to sculpt 5-10 more kilts--something I don't have time for. Halflings fit nicely with the Celtic aesthetic of my army and have tended to be the best/most cost-effective snipers in the IG. Yes, I understand that might have changed recently, but rules are fluid in this game and ratlings could get buffed.
I see nothing unreasonable with my position and I fail to see how it affects you or anyone else negatively.

I really like this. Have an exalt.

Makari wins wrote:
Well what do you think of adding a fluffy rule to the IG squads and conscripts

expendible, allow friendly units to fire at this unit when they are "locked in melee combat", any hits (including those from templates) are evenly distributed between friendly and enemy models (rounding down).

This would be fluffy, and give the guard a strategic option of rushing expendable troops forward to 'soak up' the enemy unit into close base to base contact and then shell them (and your own troops) with your artillery.!

And the reason that this rule does not apply to Chaos Cultists, Genestealer Cultists, Orks, Tryanids is?

All of the previous are much less (or even simply will not) likely to rout when they suffer such friendly fire.

 Mr Morden wrote:

Makari wins wrote:
Well what do you think of adding a fluffy rule to the IG squads and conscripts

expendible, allow friendly units to fire at this unit when they are "locked in melee combat", any hits (including those from templates) are evenly distributed between friendly and enemy models (rounding down).

This would be fluffy, and give the guard a strategic option of rushing expendable troops forward to 'soak up' the enemy unit into close base to base contact and then shell them (and your own troops) with your artillery.!

And the reason that this rule does not apply to Chaos Cultists, Genestealer Cultists, Orks, Tryanids is?

All of the previous are much less (or even simply will not) likely to rout when they suffer such friendly fire.

So make it a rule for everyone. Once upon a time we were allowed to shoot into hand-to-hand, never understood why they changed it. If I have two Guardsmen in the middle of a group of Genestealers or as happened my last game, two men fighting a BA Sanguinary Guard unit with attached characters, why wouldn't I shoot? They're dead, Jim! The old rules for random allocation were fairly simple, and for blasts/templates, just determine it based on models covered.

 don_mondo wrote:
And instead of removing units from the codex, how about putting older units back in. I've got Griffons still gaking on the shelf, I've got a Colossus (loved the AP3 no-cover indirect ordnance!). Those two might be available in the current IA books, don't know, because I haven't bought them and even now prefer to play single source (ie just my codex). And going farther back I have IG landspeeders and motorcycles. I would love to be able to put my old models on the table with official codex rules for them.

I have always hated it when GW decided to drop units from a codex, but... oh well.

Anyways, I'm sure Kanluwen will be along to pooh-pooh my desires but I can live with that.

Exactly.
GW putting forgeworld tanks in an official codex was one of the things I loved about the 5th edition Codex. The fact that I could use my vanquisher, exterminator and griffon again made up for the fact that I had to remove bolters and lasguns from my sergeants. Plus SQUADRONS.

 don_mondo wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:

Makari wins wrote:
Well what do you think of adding a fluffy rule to the IG squads and conscripts

expendible, allow friendly units to fire at this unit when they are "locked in melee combat", any hits (including those from templates) are evenly distributed between friendly and enemy models (rounding down).

This would be fluffy, and give the guard a strategic option of rushing expendable troops forward to 'soak up' the enemy unit into close base to base contact and then shell them (and your own troops) with your artillery.!

And the reason that this rule does not apply to Chaos Cultists, Genestealer Cultists, Orks, Tryanids is?

All of the previous are much less (or even simply will not) likely to rout when they suffer such friendly fire.

So make it a rule for everyone. Once upon a time we were allowed to shoot into hand-to-hand, never understood why they changed it. If I have two Guardsmen in the middle of a group of Genestealers or as happened my last game, two men fighting a BA Sanguinary Guard unit with attached characters, why wouldn't I shoot? They're dead, Jim! The old rules for random allocation were fairly simple, and for blasts/templates, just determine it based on models covered.

Cos that makes Tau and Eldar even more powerful? Especially since these two races are the very last ones that would do this.

We did have a brief experiment with it but also making the friendly unit being fired on take a LD test to simulate the issues this tends to cause, it was ok.

The griffon was the WORKHORSE of my army. At 75pts a piece it made me wish the were in production.

morgoth wrote:
I'd much prefer seeing buffs to the tanks tbh.

Why not both?

I mean, I love the Imperial Guard's vehicle selection. I also like their infantry unit design. They need to be BETTER, but fundamentally they are appealing.

There really should be an option to take a single platoon. For small games, just grab a few squads, some conscripts and 2 command squads.

There IS such an option. The Emperor's Shield Platoon formation.

Minimum five squads, pcs, and 1 sentinel.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
315 points minimum with a scout sentinel.

Tanks are quite recent, they will not make new models of LRBT, Chimera, Sentinels... just to add some few weapon options. The same goes for Scions.
So, I dont expect grav options for these models.

I hope that the Griffon will come back because they have already sold a lot of wyverns, so, it can be time to bring the Griffon back (and to increase 20 ppm the Wyvern in order to sell undercosted Griffons).

 Bichop wrote:
Tanks are quite recent, they will not make new models of LRBT, Chimera, Sentinels... just to add some few weapon options. The same goes for Scions.

Why not? We're on the second version of the LRBT, 2nd Chimera, 3rd Sentinel, 4th 'Scion' (Stormtroopers). But yeah, just another small sprue for additional weapon options would be nice.

Changes I would make:
*Vox casters: re-roll orders within command range plus RECIEVE ORDERS OUTSIDE THIS RANGE (no reroll).
*Bring back medusa colossus and griffon
*Sentries doctrine for veterans confers stealth, scout, infiltrate, and defensive grenades for 15-20pts
*power swords 5pts, other power weapons 10 and powerfists 15. That's all they're worth in the hands of a guardsman
*edit special weapon squads so that models with a demo charge don't lose their lasgun. While we're at it, allow them to take shotguns or pistol&ccw instead of lasguns.
*go back to an armory system for giving characters wargear. *Bring back options like the stormbolter.
*Give priests back the eviscerator for 15 points plus other options they once had.
*allow any squad that can take a heavy weapons team (except heavy weapon squads) to give one guardsman a heavy flamer or heavy stubber.
*Make Storm Troopers Ld8 again. Give them access to melta bombs again. Give each one a pistol, hotshot lasgun and ccw standard. Give them infiltrate, scout and deep strike.
*give rough riders doctrinal options such as: Grenadiers:4+ save; demolitions: one demo charge and everybody has melta bombs
*Leman Russ regains Lumbering Behemoth rule
*multimelta on sentinels for 10pts. Give them back the chainsaw upgrade!
*give vanquisher a dual fire option like 3rd ed for more points of course.
*make Harker worth 55pts or reduce his cost
*return Marbo but at a higher cost
*reduce Colonel Straken's price tag
*give us back the last chancers?
*buff ratlings or make them cheaper
*reduce price of ogryns

I don't think these requests are unreasonable. What do y'all think?

CplPunishment wrote:
Changes I would make:

*Make Storm Troopers Ld8 again. Give them access to melta bombs again. Give each one a pistol, hotshot lasgun and ccw standard. Give them infiltrate, scout and deep strike.
*give rough riders doctrinal options such as: Grenadiers:4+ save; demolitions: one demo charge and everybody has melta bombs

I don't think these requests are unreasonable. What do y'all think?

Course, Meltabombs for the entire squad are nearly useless given the current rule that only allows one model to attack with them in hth. Gotta protect those knights and superheavies, don't ya know...

 don_mondo wrote:

CplPunishment wrote:
Changes I would make:

*Make Storm Troopers Ld8 again. Give them access to melta bombs again. Give each one a pistol, hotshot lasgun and ccw standard. Give them infiltrate, scout and deep strike.
*give rough riders doctrinal options such as: Grenadiers:4+ save; demolitions: one demo charge and everybody has melta bombs

I don't think these requests are unreasonable. What do y'all think?

Course, Meltabombs for the entire squad are nearly useless given the current rule that only allows one model to attack with them in hth. Gotta protect those knights and superheavies, don't ya know...

Good points. Perhaps the temporary solution would be to greatly reduce the cost of squad-wide anti-tank grenades?




Automatically Appended Next Post:
And what about my other ideas?

It all looked reasonable to me, even the meltabombs, just that they are not nearly as useful any more.

Voxcasters should def allow unlimted range orders, and the LRMBTs absolutely need Lumbering Behemoth back.

 don_mondo wrote:

 Bichop wrote:
Tanks are quite recent, they will not make new models of LRBT, Chimera, Sentinels... just to add some few weapon options. The same goes for Scions.

Why not? We're on the second version of the LRBT, 2nd Chimera, 3rd Sentinel, 4th 'Scion' (Stormtroopers). But yeah, just another small sprue for additional weapon options would be nice.

I would do it but I dont think that GW thinks the same way as we do.

The Deathstrike should become a Destroyer Weapon. Make it a Death Star killer. It's not ideal but in the current rules it's what we need. And if there's any weapon that should be a Destroyer it's that.

The one advantage to whole unit melta bombs is that you can't kill the anti tank of a unit by killing the sarge.