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 Future War Cultist wrote:
But, I have a feeling that what GW might do is push the Militarum Tempestus to the forefront. They're pretty marketable and copyright friendly. And yes, the IG would struggle in a hero hammer setting, but perhaps that means that pyskers should come to the forefront. I'm just brainstorming.

If the IG HQ units continue to come in squads while everyone else's HQ choices are left out in the open would they suffer that much? A single IG character would get stomped but with an honor guard and a bunch of advisors the Officer might be more survivable. They also might be able to use a "chain of command" type rule to let use another model in the CCS as a junior officer if the senior officer gets killed. So when a lobba shell takes out Captain Too-Slow the next turn Lieutenant Lucky starts giving orders (maybe only one a turn, but it's better than nothing).

 Future War Cultist wrote:
Just reading through the conversation here, I would love for the IG (well, 40k in general) to get the AoS treatment. But for the IG to end up like the Empire (or worse, the Bretonians or Tomb Kings!) would break my heart.

But, I have a feeling that what GW might do is push the Militarum Tempestus to the forefront. They're pretty marketable and copyright friendly. And yes, the IG would struggle in a hero hammer setting, but perhaps that means that pyskers should come to the forefront. I'm just brainstorming.

Yeah, this wouldn't surprise me either. I've made this point a few times, as have others and I can't help but be a little concerned. I was expecting the Tempestus Scions mini-'dex to just rot as a quick cash grab codex... but since then they've been actively supporting them with their own £100 box and even a Start Collecting! box. They've also featured more prominently than the regular Guard... which is to say, they've still barely appeared at all, but they've received artwork and been in most of the Gathering Storm model photos alongside Greyfax in every book.

The problem they would have is bringing over the rest of the Imperial Guard's kit. That is, unless they pull a retcon and bring the Scions closer to the Solar Auxilia wherein they're a sizeable chunk of the Guard (SA were 25% of the Imperial Army), complete with armour and artillery, and do away with the dedicated Special Forces shick altogether.

 Dakka Flakka Flame wrote:
If the IG HQ units continue to come in squads while everyone else's HQ choices are left out in the open would they suffer that much? A single IG character would get stomped but with an honor guard and a bunch of advisors the Officer might be more survivable. They also might be able to use a "chain of command" type rule to let use another model in the CCS as a junior officer if the senior officer gets killed. So when a lobba shell takes out Captain Too-Slow the next turn Lieutenant Lucky starts giving orders (maybe only one a turn, but it's better than nothing).

Assuming that you used AoS's damage allocation system, it would mean that you'd have to kill the full CS before you could touch the officer.

 Arbitrator wrote:
Yeah, this wouldn't surprise me either. I've made this point a few times, as have others and I can't help but be a little concerned. I was expecting the Tempestus Scions mini-'dex to just rot as a quick cash grab codex... but since then they've been actively supporting them with their own £100 box and even a Start Collecting! box. They've also featured more prominently than the regular Guard... which is to say, they've still barely appeared at all, but they've received artwork and been in most of the Gathering Storm model photos alongside Greyfax in every book.

The problem they would have is bringing over the rest of the Imperial Guard's kit. That is, unless they pull a retcon and bring the Scions closer to the Solar Auxilia wherein they're a sizeable chunk of the Guard (SA were 25% of the Imperial Army), complete with armour and artillery, and do away with the dedicated Special Forces shick altogether.

I think this could work. If it's the only way forward for us then so be it. And I like the idea of Militarum Tempestus tanks. All this would require is a recasting of the crew heads. Replacing the Cadian and Catachan ones with the helmeted and beret Scion heads. Same for Sentinels.

I play Khorne Bloodbound, and one thing it's taught me is that it's perfectly possible to have an army made up of diverse units with various backstories whilst retaining a unified feel. The new Astra Militarum could be that. Scions, Ogyrns, Ratlings, Pyskers, all the vehicles...it could work.

Come to the marines, who are the opposite (all units are largely the same and the variation is their gear).

Some of the most fundamental problems with the Guard, Orks, and Tyranids seems to stem from GW treating the Guard, Orks, and Nids as what amounts to faceless cannon fodder in a setting starring the Astartes, their spikey counterparts, the Space Elves, the Necrons, and the Tau. I mean, really take a look at what factions have been allowed to do anything of importance lately in and of themselves.

Big galaxy shaking external threats? Pretty much all done by the Necrons or the spikey lads now. Meanwhile the Orks and Nids' biggest contribution to the setting as of late has been essentially a self contained war of mutual annihilation between two sides incapable of being annihilated at Octarius; a supposedly epic demolition derby of a scale beyond any battle ever seen in the galaxy since the war in heaven...and yet all that's known about it can be summed up in a few paragraphs.

The Guard meanwhile, have basically become NPCs to the Astartes, Mechanicus, and Inquisition. Who's been doing all the moving and shaking in recent imperial fluff? The Mechanicus, Astartes, and Inquisition! Who has correspondingly gotten all the best and newest toys? The Astartes, Mechanicus, and Inquisition! The guard has all of one, maybe two characters who have any importance or impact on the wider setting while the big four (SMs, CSMs, Eldar, Necrons) are basically choking with characters upon whose shoulders the fate of large portions of the galaxy rests. And as of right now, one of those characters; Creed, is out of play, and Yarrick seems to have been entirely forgotten about. In a business driven by the sales of elaborate models; the Guard, Orks, and Tyranids find themselves struggling as a platform to push models to be sold. The guard are down to earth and don't lend themselves well to "character models" like the triumvirates released recently, the Orks are easily scratch built and GW doesn't seem to care to make ork boss characters look distinctive beyond their gear choices, and the Tyranids generally rankle at the idea of super special and unique dudes who can win battles on their own.

It's also noting that these are the three armies that most stereotypically rely on weight of numbers, but have hit a snag in that time and money cost is a very real limit on the size of an army with physical models; and while all three armies should have had at the least; points cuts across the board in the face of stupendous degrees of firepower and durability that not even pre-6th edition apocalypse would ever see fielded; even if you could field 2 point guardsmen, boys, and gants would you? It'd be a pain to set up outside of things like Vassal (where 40k in general is a much smoother game to play), it'd be a pain to move them all around, and the fact of the matter is that even literally a thousand guardsmen, gaunts, or boyz fielded for only 2000 points would be pretty easy to swat off the table in droves while not really having all that much firepower to them.

Thus; these armies end up suffering because they're balanced on the assumption of having some sort of mass to their advantage (whether that's mass of tanks, mass of monstrous creatures, or mass of infantry), but are in a meta where simple numbers aren't a particularly good form of durability anymore. Thus the assumptions that they're balanced around are pretty fundamentally broken from the word go, and the most obvious solutions to improve them without pushing them towards the elite end of the scale are not practical in the format of a tabletop wargame.

So 40k's three armies most famous for the usage of cannon fodder have in essence; become cannon fodder on a meta level. Both in the fluff where they seem to exist to serve as backdrops for the armies more favoured by GW and on the tabletop where the core conceit of their factions doesn't hold well in a meta where "cover ignoring high strength good AP" pie plates are everywhere and "durable" has escalated in meaning tremendously, In ye olden days, durable meant "tyranid warriors with 2 wounds, eternal warrior, and a 3+ save for a decent price" but now that'd get a "pfft". Durable now means "these canoptek wraiths have 3++ saves, toughness 5, a 4+ RP roll, two wounds and they'll also be assaulting you by turn two" or it means "a wraithknight with fortune because screw you".

It would be very difficult to get our less elite armies to compete with that without in essence; becoming elite armies themselves like the top tier armies in 40k. Or without becoming significantly more complex armies with a bevy of special flavor rules for themselves to try and make them more potent in a unique way, which preserves their flavor but can run the risk of making them tiresome to play and play against.

 Kain wrote:
Some of the most fundamental problems with the Guard, Orks, and Tyranids seems to stem from GW treating the Guard, Orks, and Nids as what amounts to faceless cannon fodder in a setting starring the Astartes, their spikey counterparts, the Space Elves, the Necrons, and the Tau. I mean, really take a look at what factions have been allowed to do anything of importance lately in and of themselves.

Big galaxy shaking external threats? Pretty much all done by the Necrons or the spikey lads now. Meanwhile the Orks and Nids' biggest contribution to the setting as of late has been essentially a self contained war of mutual annihilation between two sides incapable of being annihilated at Octarius; a supposedly epic demolition derby of a scale beyond any battle ever seen in the galaxy since the war in heaven...and yet all that's known about it can be summed up in a few paragraphs.

The Guard meanwhile, have basically become NPCs to the Astartes, Mechanicus, and Inquisition. Who's been doing all the moving and shaking in recent imperial fluff? The Mechanicus, Astartes, and Inquisition! Who has correspondingly gotten all the best and newest toys? The Astartes, Mechanicus, and Inquisition! The guard has all of one, maybe two characters who have any importance or impact on the wider setting while the big four (SMs, CSMs, Eldar, Necrons) are basically choking with characters upon whose shoulders the fate of large portions of the galaxy rests. And as of right now, one of those characters; Creed, is out of play, and Yarrick seems to have been entirely forgotten about. In a business driven by the sales of elaborate models; the Guard, Orks, and Tyranids find themselves struggling as a platform to push models to be sold. The guard are down to earth and don't lend themselves well to "character models" like the triumvirates released recently, the Orks are easily scratch built and GW doesn't seem to care to make ork boss characters look distinctive beyond their gear choices, and the Tyranids generally rankle at the idea of super special and unique dudes who can win battles on their own.

It's also noting that these are the three armies that most stereotypically rely on weight of numbers, but have hit a snag in that time and money cost is a very real limit on the size of an army with physical models; and while all three armies should have had at the least; points cuts across the board in the face of stupendous degrees of firepower and durability that not even pre-6th edition apocalypse would ever see fielded; even if you could field 2 point guardsmen, boys, and gants would you? It'd be a pain to set up outside of things like Vassal (where 40k in general is a much smoother game to play), it'd be a pain to move them all around, and the fact of the matter is that even literally a thousand guardsmen, gaunts, or boyz fielded for only 2000 points would be pretty easy to swat off the table in droves while not really having all that much firepower to them.

Thus; these armies end up suffering because they're balanced on the assumption of having some sort of mass to their advantage (whether that's mass of tanks, mass of monstrous creatures, or mass of infantry), but are in a meta where simple numbers aren't a particularly good form of durability anymore. Thus the assumptions that they're balanced around are pretty fundamentally broken from the word go, and the most obvious solutions to improve them without pushing them towards the elite end of the scale are not practical in the format of a tabletop wargame.

So 40k's three armies most famous for the usage of cannon fodder have in essence; become cannon fodder on a meta level. Both in the fluff where they seem to exist to serve as backdrops for the armies more favoured by GW and on the tabletop where the core conceit of their factions doesn't hold well in a meta where "cover ignoring high strength good AP" pie plates are everywhere and "durable" has escalated in meaning tremendously, In ye olden days, durable meant "tyranid warriors with 2 wounds, eternal warrior, and a 3+ save for a decent price" but now that'd get a "pfft". Durable now means "these canoptek wraiths have 3++ saves, toughness 5, a 4+ RP roll, two wounds and they'll also be assaulting you by turn two" or it means "a wraithknight with fortune because screw you".

It would be very difficult to get our less elite armies to compete with that without in essence; becoming elite armies themselves like the top tier armies in 40k. Or without becoming significantly more complex armies with a bevy of special flavor rules for themselves to try and make them more potent in a unique way, which preserves their flavor but can run the risk of making them tiresome to play and play against.

Which is crazy, because both Orks and Nids have massive creatures that they should be able to run as a decent force. You look at SM with their centurions, bikers, etc. and then You would Ork bosses and Nobs should give them a run for their money. Nids should have the option to run armies of big bugs that pack a punch for their points cost.

IG are really the limiting factor here given they're humans, which they should be able to make up for with heavy weaponry. The kind of artillery power Renegades can bring on the cheap should be just as available for IG.

 Flanker wrote:

 Kain wrote:
Some of the most fundamental problems with the Guard, Orks, and Tyranids seems to stem from GW treating the Guard, Orks, and Nids as what amounts to faceless cannon fodder in a setting starring the Astartes, their spikey counterparts, the Space Elves, the Necrons, and the Tau. I mean, really take a look at what factions have been allowed to do anything of importance lately in and of themselves.

Big galaxy shaking external threats? Pretty much all done by the Necrons or the spikey lads now. Meanwhile the Orks and Nids' biggest contribution to the setting as of late has been essentially a self contained war of mutual annihilation between two sides incapable of being annihilated at Octarius; a supposedly epic demolition derby of a scale beyond any battle ever seen in the galaxy since the war in heaven...and yet all that's known about it can be summed up in a few paragraphs.

The Guard meanwhile, have basically become NPCs to the Astartes, Mechanicus, and Inquisition. Who's been doing all the moving and shaking in recent imperial fluff? The Mechanicus, Astartes, and Inquisition! Who has correspondingly gotten all the best and newest toys? The Astartes, Mechanicus, and Inquisition! The guard has all of one, maybe two characters who have any importance or impact on the wider setting while the big four (SMs, CSMs, Eldar, Necrons) are basically choking with characters upon whose shoulders the fate of large portions of the galaxy rests. And as of right now, one of those characters; Creed, is out of play, and Yarrick seems to have been entirely forgotten about. In a business driven by the sales of elaborate models; the Guard, Orks, and Tyranids find themselves struggling as a platform to push models to be sold. The guard are down to earth and don't lend themselves well to "character models" like the triumvirates released recently, the Orks are easily scratch built and GW doesn't seem to care to make ork boss characters look distinctive beyond their gear choices, and the Tyranids generally rankle at the idea of super special and unique dudes who can win battles on their own.

It's also noting that these are the three armies that most stereotypically rely on weight of numbers, but have hit a snag in that time and money cost is a very real limit on the size of an army with physical models; and while all three armies should have had at the least; points cuts across the board in the face of stupendous degrees of firepower and durability that not even pre-6th edition apocalypse would ever see fielded; even if you could field 2 point guardsmen, boys, and gants would you? It'd be a pain to set up outside of things like Vassal (where 40k in general is a much smoother game to play), it'd be a pain to move them all around, and the fact of the matter is that even literally a thousand guardsmen, gaunts, or boyz fielded for only 2000 points would be pretty easy to swat off the table in droves while not really having all that much firepower to them.

Thus; these armies end up suffering because they're balanced on the assumption of having some sort of mass to their advantage (whether that's mass of tanks, mass of monstrous creatures, or mass of infantry), but are in a meta where simple numbers aren't a particularly good form of durability anymore. Thus the assumptions that they're balanced around are pretty fundamentally broken from the word go, and the most obvious solutions to improve them without pushing them towards the elite end of the scale are not practical in the format of a tabletop wargame.

So 40k's three armies most famous for the usage of cannon fodder have in essence; become cannon fodder on a meta level. Both in the fluff where they seem to exist to serve as backdrops for the armies more favoured by GW and on the tabletop where the core conceit of their factions doesn't hold well in a meta where "cover ignoring high strength good AP" pie plates are everywhere and "durable" has escalated in meaning tremendously, In ye olden days, durable meant "tyranid warriors with 2 wounds, eternal warrior, and a 3+ save for a decent price" but now that'd get a "pfft". Durable now means "these canoptek wraiths have 3++ saves, toughness 5, a 4+ RP roll, two wounds and they'll also be assaulting you by turn two" or it means "a wraithknight with fortune because screw you".

It would be very difficult to get our less elite armies to compete with that without in essence; becoming elite armies themselves like the top tier armies in 40k. Or without becoming significantly more complex armies with a bevy of special flavor rules for themselves to try and make them more potent in a unique way, which preserves their flavor but can run the risk of making them tiresome to play and play against.

Which is crazy, because both Orks and Nids have massive creatures that they should be able to run as a decent force. You look at SM with their centurions, bikers, etc. and then You would Ork bosses and Nobs should give them a run for their money. Nids should have the option to run armies of big bugs that pack a punch for their points cost.

IG are really the limiting factor here given they're humans, which they should be able to make up for with heavy weaponry. The kind of artillery power Renegades can bring on the cheap should be just as available for IG.

The thing about TMCs is that by now I'm pretty sure most people can field better monstrous creatures. Perhaps not more, but certainly better ones. Certainly less fragile ones. And for an army that's presented as an in your face close quarters army; the Tyranids (much like Khornate armies for that matter) are resoundingly underwhelming at assault because the meta is so stuffed to the gills with devastatingly powerful shooting options that if you can't fly across the board and laugh off tank shells to the face you may as well not even bother with assault. The tyranids simply don't have anything as fast and as tough as canoptek wraiths or wraithknights and unlike the genestealer cult don't have the special rules to get into CQC regardless.

The Orks have a similar issue in actually getting anything into close combat to smash faces. The days of a footslogging mob of boyz being able to get into assault in one piece are pretty thoroughly long gone while trukks don't have enough carrying capacity and battlewagons are expensive and not all that tough in the current meta. And like the Tyranids, the Orks simply don't have the kind of devastating shooting that the top tier armies have, or the obscene durability that many of them have (Necrons in particular) so their supposed forte and strength is something that doesn't actually matter in a lot of games.

The Guard may not be a close quarters oriented army, but their core conceit is that they are the least elite of the armies of the Imperium man for man, and instead rely on being numerous, flexible, and having top class armour support. The issue is that large numbers of GEQs don't take much longer to die than small numbers of GEQs in the current meta thanks to the incredible amounts of firepower available to the current player's top tier armies, the guard's flexibility seems to now mostly manifest as "being just kind of mediocre at everything" as they're lacking in actual firepower, and Imperial Guard vehicles have fallen a long ways away from the peak they had in 5th edition. And perhaps more insultingly, it's quite arguable that armies like the Eldar, Necrons, or the Astartes are just plain better at the mechanized warfare thing than the Guard are now. The Leman Russ and Chimera look great on paper; in practice they can't compete with the bonanza of special rules the top tier armies can give their vehicles either right outside the box or as part of a formation., Much like how in the current meta, it's pretty easy to argue that other armies are now simply better than the Tyranids when it comes to fielding monstrous and gargantuan creatures or tough-semi monstrous infantry (warriors, shrikes, and raveners are pretty mediocre at best but you have things like Canopteks and Centurions running around that are just flat out better).

The Guard and the Tyranids have suffered from other armies outclassing them in what was supposed to be their specialty.

 Kain wrote:
Some of the most fundamental problems with the Guard, Orks, and Tyranids seems to stem from GW treating the Guard, Orks, and Nids as what amounts to faceless cannon fodder in a setting starring the Astartes, their spikey counterparts, the Space Elves, the Necrons, and the Tau.

As above nothing obviously wrong with that, assuming that fodder is actually fodder. If IG / Nid / Ork units didn't give KPs, then they're all truly expendable, which would greatly help with the notion of winning "at any cost" against the all-stars. KP missions become a HUGE advantage for the fodder armies, while still allowing MSU "acceptable losses" when going after objectives.

If they went back to unit costs, that would be truly fair. Or they could do what AoS does and have victory depend upon securing objectives first, with KPs only used as a tie breaker.

As for what they can do with the Astra Militarum...they must be able to keep them, right?

I think they should focus on the warmachines. Humans are squishy. Russes are deadly.

Russes are actually crap right now. That's part of their problem.

There's a whole thread on making the Russ great again. It could be done.

There are little to no KPs in warhammer 40.000 7th edition.

If you're unhappy with some house rules, take it to the tournament organizers.

Big galaxy shaking external threats? Pretty much all done by the Necrons or the spikey lads now. Meanwhile the Orks and Nids' biggest contribution to the setting as of late has been essentially a self contained war of mutual annihilation between two sides incapable of being annihilated at Octarius; a supposedly epic demolition derby of a scale beyond any battle ever seen in the galaxy since the war in heaven...and yet all that's known about it can be summed up in a few paragraphs.

Actually Ghazzies Waagh! Was mentioned in Gathering Storm where apparently they've mastered the ability to tellyport entire fleets across sectors.

 Kain wrote:
The Guard meanwhile, have basically become NPCs to the Astartes, Mechanicus, and Inquisition.

^THIS. This is exactly why guard players are pissed off. The guard have become a backdrop to the rest of the setting. I seriously cannot even imagine how Cadian players feel right now. The destruction of Cadia was to be your finest hour. Yeah the planet was destroyed before Cadians were, but you barely even received mention in the gathering storms books. The vast majority of the writing was spent talking about the emotions of demi-gods (Celestine, Cawl, Greyfox, Abaddon etc). Not nearly enough time was spent highlighting the actions & bravery of Cadians on the planet or Kell/Creed.

Now with Creed in Trazyn's pokeball, Cadians are leaderless. Sure there are billions, likely trillions of Cadians left in the galaxy but who is leading them? Guilliman? Is Guilliman now the supreme leader of the guard as well? Isn't the reason the guard were separated into regiments into the first place was to prevent mass heresy? Guilliman can't be everywhere at once, nor should he. The guard need heroes as well, and right now we don't.

Who's left?

Yarrick, Pask, Nedogg, Straken & Harker (sort of?)

Thats it. In a setting where guard outnumber marines a billion if not a trillion to one, these are what we have left. Marines meanwhile have dozens if not well over a hundred heroes between chapters.

GW needs to tread carefully because I already know what is coming. The 4th war of Armageddon is about to begin. Angron is going to return for reasons and its going to be all about him and chaos. Meanwhile, Armageddon has been all about the ork/guard conflict for nearly two decades.

Don't piss off your ork/guard players GW. Don't do it.

Commissar Benny wrote:

 Kain wrote:
The Guard meanwhile, have basically become NPCs to the Astartes, Mechanicus, and Inquisition.

^THIS. This is exactly why guard players are pissed off. The guard have become a backdrop to the rest of the setting. I seriously cannot even imagine how Cadian players feel right now. The destruction of Cadia was to be your finest hour. Yeah the planet was destroyed before Cadians were, but you barely even received mention in the gathering storms books. The vast majority of the writing was spent talking about the emotions of demi-gods (Celestine, Cawl, Greyfox, Abaddon etc). Not nearly enough time was spent highlighting the actions & bravery of Cadians on the planet or Kell/Creed.

Now with Creed in Trazyn's pokeball, Cadians are leaderless. Sure there are billions, likely trillions of Cadians left in the galaxy but who is leading them? Guilliman? Is Guilliman now the supreme leader of the guard as well? Isn't the reason the guard were separated into regiments into the first place was to prevent mass heresy? Guilliman can't be everywhere at once, nor should he. The guard need heroes as well, and right now we don't.

Who's left?

Yarrick, Pask, Nedogg, Straken & Harker (sort of?)

Thats it. In a setting where guard outnumber marines a billion if not a trillion to one, these are what we have left. Marines meanwhile have dozens if not well over a hundred heroes between chapters.

GW needs to tread carefully because I already know what is coming. The 4th war of Armageddon is about to begin. Angron is going to return for reasons and its going to be all about him and chaos. Meanwhile, Armageddon has been all about the ork/guard conflict for nearly two decades.

Don't piss off your ork/guard players GW. Don't do it.

Yeah, the game has not been particularly kind to its "horde armies" in either the fluff or the crunch throughout this edition. I mean, by all rights the majority of the setting's conflicts should feature Orks, Tyranids, and the Guard due to them being the most numerous and widespread factions by far (well, we aren't sure on the Necrons anyway and Daemons while theoretically numerous have pretty harsh limitations on the scale of their incursions due to finding it hard to stay in the materium) and yet you take a look at what engagements have been getting all the press as of late and you'll realize something striking. It's basically all about the Marines, Inquisition, Mechanicus, Eldar, Chaos, and 'Crons now; with the Tau fitting in after them. All armies where it's easy to push big flashy "character models" (or in the Tau's case "battlesuits, all the battlesuits").

Ork players tend to prefer to scratch build their big superheavy vehicles, and out of the Ork characters with models; only Ghazghkull is really important on a galactic scale the way Calgar, Dante, or Grimnar are. With an army that absolutely can produce lovable and visually distinctive characters who can beatstick with the best of them; the paucity of such characters for the Orks is pretty baffling. For the Guards, having a big giant beatstick character model that you must have kind of goes against the feel of the army in a big way, Straken, Deddog, and Yarrick are the best the guard can produce in that regard and they'd get mulched in moments by any serious heavy hitters; which is fine thematically as the Guard are humans that lack in transhuman augments (either biological like the astartes, or mechanical like the Mechanicus; though it's more to say that a Guardsman can never get cyborg augments as good as a Techpriest can than to say that they can't have any) or power armor like the Sororitas or Inquisition. However, this does mean that even if you dig for famous Guardsmen like Ciaphas Cain or Lord General Castor they're not going to be as impressive as anything other armies can pull (I mean, his stupendous luck and fighting skill aside, Cain has a chainsword, a laspistol, and carapace armor; that's not going to translate into amazing stats).

Similarly, most Guardsmen special characters are localized in a way that the more famous Space marines, Inquisitors, Daemons, Eldar and so on are not. Straken doesn't really go around the galaxy, meanwhile Calgar's fought battles in every segmentum. This means that the guard's special characters end up quite frankly being less special than nearly everyone else's because they're almost never really allowed to have more than a local effect (something shared by most Tyranid and Ork special characters). Prince Yriel is a galaxy trotting badass with a spear that can cause pain to GODS! Deddog on the other hand is uh...he's an extended forest gump reference with some super strength and is a pretty decent guard? Logan Grimnar's fought battles with every army in existence and beaten down the mightiest champions of Khorne and flipped off the inquisition! The Deathleaper is urm...an extra spooky lictor who made taking this one planet easier. Azhek Ahriman's schemes are a web that ensnares the entire galaxy and when given time his spells can summon forth planet sized warpspawn and he plans on becoming a god! Zogwort's really just Wurzzag from Warhammer fantasy except without the Merlin references, and is also not in the game anymore.

All three armies get like; one character each who's allowed to be important on a wider scale (Creed, the Swarmlord, Ghazghkull) even though if GW tried they could do way better than that (yes, even with the Tyranids: at the very least the Tyranid Special characters could not be one offs but instead some special strains spawned as needed. Hell; the Godzilla series, Jurassic Park, and Moby Dick show it's perfectly possible to characterize something that can't speak) meanwhile GW's favoured armies have a laundry list of characters whose decisions have a massive degree of influence.

And this is all on top of how it seems GW either does not know how to, or is unwilling to keep these three spam armies competitive with its favorites; with updates that tend to reduce flavor and options, new additions that only rarely address actual needs for the army (did anyone really need what things like the Taurox, Haruspex, or the Gorka/Morkanauts were bringing to the table? Nevermind that they don't compare very favorably to their counterparts in other armies), and as far as formations go; the decurion detachments of the top tier armies are just plainly better than anything the three horde armies get (though to be fair, the closest to a Decurion detachment the Tyranids get is the Living Tide formation of formations which seems like a prototype of the decurion concept; which is far more rigid and has a nutty minimum points requirement).

You'd think that at the very least, if they want us to be expendable cannon fodder we could at least get more formations that allow for respawning and don't count for killpoints or something; things like the Skyblight Swarm formation are a pretty good start on that if that's the direction they want to go. It'd probably be more manageable for everyone that doing something like doubling the model count of what we can bring to the table for the same points cost and actually make the supposed strength in attrition warfare that the Guard, Orks, and Tyranids have matter more. Right now, if there's anyone who dominates in attritional warfare it's the Necrons and bizarrely; the army perhaps best suited to bringing so many units to the table it's impossible to table them all (barring summoning shenanigans) practicably are...the marines and their free vehicles.

So we're in this rather bad spot where we are, as the Daleks would say

(I mean, his stupendous luck and fighting skill aside, Cain has a chainsword, a laspistol, and carapace armor; that's not going to translate into amazing stats).

Well you could make a great Cain character:

WS6, BS5, S3, T3, I 5, W3, A3, LD10 - plenty of special rules: Eternal Warrior, Precision Shot, Rending attacks, some dice manipulation abilities to represent his luck, ability to give orders etc . Add in Jurgan with his Blank (Sisters of Silence rules) abilities to screw over Psykers and a Precision Shot Melta-gun

Could be fun.

Sadly Sandy Mitchel does not seem to be writing new stuff :(

This is all true guys, and it depresses me so.

I know what they can do. Bring out really high ranking generals (Lord Militants or whatever they're called), and stick them into Baneblades. This is assuming that tanks are fixed in the new edition to be less vulnerable. Yarrick on the Fortress of Argogance is a prime example of an IG heavy hitter. It would be hard to complain about us being weak when we can literally squash other characters under our tracks!

It solves the fluff issue too. These guys would be in command of millions of troops across a whole sector. That can help face multiple enemies.

I'm going to make some fanfiction called "fall of Macragge".

It's going to be about every notable guard regiment and barely mention space marines at all.


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The problem that arises for human characters when the timeline advances a couple hundred years is that they tend to die of old age...
Plot advancement=bad news for existing characters. Look at Macharius.


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The IG lost so many characters from 5th it's ridiculous!


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5th edition was the best codex not just for tanks but unique characters too.

 Future War Cultist wrote:
This is all true guys, and it depresses me so.

I know what they can do. Bring out really high ranking generals (Lord Militants or whatever they're called), and stick them into Baneblades. This is assuming that tanks are fixed in the new edition to be less vulnerable. Yarrick on the Fortress of Argogance is a prime example of an IG heavy hitter. It would be hard to complain about us being weak when we can literally squash other characters under our tracks!

It solves the fluff issue too. These guys would be in command of millions of troops across a whole sector. That can help face multiple enemies.

We had that following the 13th Black Crusade in White Dwarf.

"Imperial Guard High Command" or something to that effect. It actually was fairly interesting, as it let you take Stormtroopers instead of Veterans and other interesting options.

Just nothing silly like "mounted in Baneblades".


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 Mr Morden wrote:
(I mean, his stupendous luck and fighting skill aside, Cain has a chainsword, a laspistol, and carapace armor; that's not going to translate into amazing stats).

Well you could make a great Cain character:

WS6, BS5, S3, T3, I 5, W3, A3, LD10 - plenty of special rules: Eternal Warrior, Precision Shot, Rending attacks, some dice manipulation abilities to represent his luck, ability to give orders etc . Add in Jurgan with his Blank (Sisters of Silence rules) abilities to screw over Psykers and a Precision Shot Melta-gun

Could be fun.

Sadly Sandy Mitchel does not seem to be writing new stuff :(

Or anything good.

Commissar Benny wrote:

 Kain wrote:
The Guard meanwhile, have basically become NPCs to the Astartes, Mechanicus, and Inquisition.

^THIS. This is exactly why guard players are pissed off. The guard have become a backdrop to the rest of the setting. I seriously cannot even imagine how Cadian players feel right now. The destruction of Cadia was to be your finest hour. Yeah the planet was destroyed before Cadians were, but you barely even received mention in the gathering storms books. The vast majority of the writing was spent talking about the emotions of demi-gods (Celestine, Cawl, Greyfox, Abaddon etc). Not nearly enough time was spent highlighting the actions & bravery of Cadians on the planet or Kell/Creed.

Of course we didn't get much mention in the Gathering Storm books. The only one that Cadians actually featured in was "Fall of Cadia". After that, the books were set in totally different areas of the galaxy.

Now with Creed in Trazyn's pokeball, Cadians are leaderless. Sure there are billions, likely trillions of Cadians left in the galaxy but who is leading them?

Whoever their regimental leader is?

You didn't think that Creed was in direct command of every single Cadian, did you?

Guilliman? Is Guilliman now the supreme leader of the guard as well?

No, but it's not like Creed was "Supreme Leader of Cadian Shock Troops" either. He was the Lord Castellan of Cadia, a title that was intended for times of war to give a leader unquestioned authority on Cadia itself.

Isn't the reason the guard were separated into regiments into the first place was to prevent mass heresy?

That's the reason why the Navy and Guard were split.

Guilliman can't be everywhere at once, nor should he.

Just like Creed, Yarrick, Pask, Nork Deddog(who's a bodyguard not a hero proper), etc.

The guard need heroes as well, and right now we don't have any.

But therein lies the issue.

Why do we need individual named heroes done the way we have them now? As it stands right now, aside from Yarrick--Guard heroes are just "upgrades" to generic units. A Company Command Squad can take Straken and Nork Deddog, Harker can be taken in a Veteran Squad, Pask upgrades from a Tank Commander.

It is and always should have been that a named character came with his named Command Squad. I mean, for the longest time that's how Creed and Kell worked. You bought one, you got the other and they had to stay together. Then Cruddace went and Cruddace'd it up.

Who's left?

Yarrick,

Not Guard by anything but the loosest measures(Commissariat are their own deal, fluffwise), and certainly not an actual hero. He's an old Commissar who's been beaten repeatedly by an Ork, who let Yarrick live because it amuses him.

Yarrick just gets Guardsmen killed. Woooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo, hero?

Pask, Nedogg, Straken & Harker (sort of?)

That's it. In a setting where guard outnumber marines a billion if not a trillion to one, these are what we have left. Marines meanwhile have dozens if not well over a hundred heroes between chapters.

Those are the ones with rules, yes. Go look at the various Marine books. You're looking at a similar number of heroes for each Chapter(in some cases, far less) when narrowing it down to those with "actual rules".

Raven Guard--Captain (Whenever he gets redone, he'll be Chapter Master since they killed the Chapter Master off in spectacularly awful fashion) Shrike
Salamanders--Forgefather(essentially a Questing Knight) Vulkan
Imperial Fists--Captain Lysander(1st Company Captain)
Crimson Fists-Chapter Master Pedro Kantor
White Scars--Khan(Master of the Hunt)
Ultramarines-Captain Sicarus(2nd Company Captain), Marneus Calgar(Chapter Master), Chief Librarian Tigurius, Chaplain Cassius(Master of the Chaplaincy), Sergeant Telion(10th Company Veteran), Sergeant Chronus(tank commander). Ultramarines are the outlier in that they got loaded heavily with characters. Nobody really knows why, but people love to speculate that it was Ward's doing. Personally, I think it is that some of them were intended to be part of other Chapters initially but given the way the old Chapter Tactics worked(you could have characters present, Chapter Tactics applied to the army not individual characters) they likely just foisted them off as "counts as" opportunities.

Black Templars--High Marshal Helbrecht, Emperor's Champion, Chaplain Grimaldus

So. My Raven Guard have a single character(two if you count Korvidae from FW and Imperial Armour 8, which is loooong since out of print and out of date). Don't hear me complaining I need more characters.

Guard had a character for the Steel Legion players(Yarrick), two for Catachans(Straken and Harker--down from 3 with Marbo), three for Cadians(Creed, Kell, Pask--down from 4 with Bastonne in the previous book). And then you had Nork Deddog, a named bodyguard Ogryn who could show up anywhere.

GW needs to tread carefully because I already know what is coming. The 4th war of Armageddon is about to begin. Angron is going to return for reasons and its going to be all about him and chaos. Meanwhile, Armageddon has been all about the ork/guard conflict for nearly two decades.

Well, except for that whole bit about there having been a number of Sisters of Battle Orders and Chapters being involved.
Oh, and Hive Gangers forming ad hoc guerilla organizations.

Totally all about the ork/guard conflict. Totally.

Don't piss off your ork/guard players GW. Don't do it.

I'm not sure named characters is the answer. IG won't have single characters who will stand up to the likes of Guilliman or Magnus. GW could release a bigger Ghazkhull who's become stronger and larger due to a larger WAAAGH and make Nids MCs more resilient.
With a potentially new Armageddon campaign on the rise, I see potential for new IG formations. As much as I dislike formations, IG could benefit from ones that don't require you take an entire army with paltry bonuses like they have now. Look at Eldar. Aspect formation is just 3 squads of aspect warriors who get either +1 WS or BS. Why can't IG get a similar veteran/scion formation with a similar buff? The Chaos Cyclopia Cabal is just 3 sorcerors. IG could use more flexibility with some punch. If you take an airborne formation, they get some benefits from going all air. SM have so many different valid playstyles and IG have only a few.

Yeah Imperial Guard formations as they stand are pretty abominably bad or resoundingly mediocre outside of a few stand outs.

The discussion about named characters was more about how the Imperial Guard's characters are ultimately; very rarely allowed to be as important as their counterparts in the "posterboy" armies to the overall setting. It's a symptom of how the Imperial Guard has essentially become the NPC faction of the Imperium. They're almost background elements while the Inquisition, Space Marines, and Mechanicus are the ones who bask in the limelight.

 Kain wrote:
Yeah Imperial Guard formations as they stand are pretty abominably bad or resoundingly mediocre outside of a few stand outs.

The discussion about named characters was more about how the Imperial Guard's characters are ultimately; very rarely allowed to be as important as their counterparts in the "posterboy" armies to the overall setting. It's a symptom of how the Imperial Guard has essentially become the NPC faction of the Imperium. They're almost background elements while the Inquisition, Space Marines, and Mechanicus are the ones who bask in the limelight.

Right, but at the end of the day, they're still humans. And IG generals won't be on the battlefield. As one of my friends who's an infantry officer said "Once you move past Captain and you use your weapon, something is wrong." Commanders are back at high command making large operational and strategic decisions like moving entire regiments and divisions. Sadly, whenever Inquisitors or SM commanders show up, IG pretty much has to say "omg my lords, do whatever you want. We are at your disposal." I think some IG characters who are mid-level commanders (from Captains to Colonels) who give their armies bonuses is a step in the right direction. It's not making them incredible CC machines, but using their intellect to outwit the enemy. Colonel Johnson is a strict drillmaster so infantry units within 18" of him reroll 1s on shooting. Captain Snuffy has been revolutionizing air assault; so he has a formation where Valkyries are cheaper and add +1 to reserve rolls. IG characters could be force multipliers, not gargantuan killing machines.

Gentlemen, I present to you FALL OF MACRAGGE:

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/720977.page#9258746

As much as I am worried for the future of the guard because I see GW turbo charging herohammer for the foreseeable future thus sidelining guard as the faction the least amenable to the herohammer approach, I don't see the guard at present as being in such a terrible place now though.

Some reasons why guard are okay if not great:

- No other faction has more super-heavy options (which goes for double if you include forgeworld).
- Guard have a very good variety of vehicles.
- Infantry plus attached characters plus orders allows for a lot of tactical variety.
- There are some pretty good and useful guard formations now which is something many factions still lack. The guard decurion is hard to pull off without an apocalypse sized budget of points but then that is probably how it should be.

 Flanker wrote:
I'm not sure named characters is the answer.

I concur. I think IG needs better support characters who AREN'T named. And better formations, too. In fact, out of all of the factions, the Imperial Guard should really benefit the MOST from formations, IMO.

Commissar Benny wrote:
Now with Creed in Trazyn's pokeball, Cadians are leaderless. Sure there are billions, likely trillions of Cadians left in the galaxy but who is leading them? Guilliman? Is Guilliman now the supreme leader of the guard as well? Isn't the reason the guard were separated into regiments into the first place was to prevent mass heresy? Guilliman can't be everywhere at once, nor should he. The guard need heroes as well, and right now we don't.

Who's left?

Yarrick, Pask, Nedogg, Straken & Harker (sort of?)

The billions of Chadians will be led by...

...Nork Deddog!

In all seriousness this question about who's running the Guard will probably be lampshaded until the heat death of the universe.

Guard can do hard cheddar if you don't mind being a massive dick.

Take the Emperor's Fury Formation with 3 Baneblade variants with a transport capacity. Fill up the SHV transport capacity with taxless enginseers + servitors from the imperial agents book and enjoy an army composed entirely of SHV vehicles that each regenerate 3HP per turn.

I'm not personally a fan of named characters outside of narrative games in settings where they actually fit. I guess most people like using them, though, so I'm not going to get all worked up over it.

That said, I could see a named command squad making sense. Like, a full command squad with all sorts of advisors and every single model has a name and something special that it does. Stick them in a command vehicle that trades firepower for void shields and enhances the abilities of the command squad even further.

It totally doesn't make sense to have your general fighting from the front, but I can see how it could fall under the rule of cool.

Something that could also be cool is for the Guard to have named "character" tanks. I actually like that idea more than most named characters.

@ Dakka Flakka Flame

Do you mean a named character in the tank or the tank itself is a named character? Either way, I can support that.

Something that could also be cool is for the Guard to have named "character" tanks. I actually like that idea more than most named characters.

Pask. Comes in three different varieties depending on the Russ variant chosen for him.