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Yea, actual lore friendly Guard organisation omfor a unit took a hit with 8th

Abaddon303 wrote:

9th edition really encourages movement and it would be nice to see Guard lean into that a little more...

This is also the wish of my guard playing friend after our last game a week ago. He wants to see a return of rough riders for extra mobility and counter attack potential.

Whilst he manoeuvred for line of sight, he couldn't push into my white scars successors in any meaningful way. It's a big weakness of the codex.

PenitentJake wrote:
A platoon commander may be literally a lieutenant, but if they are an elite choice instead of HQ, what they are literally doesn't mean jack because they can't actually lead a detachment in the game.

Hence our house rule making them HQ.

Why should they lead a detachment? They're lieutenants, you can take several platoons in a game. If you want extra characters you're better off house ruling a return to the old platoon mechanics.

So much stuff could be done to the guard. I have said for years, and will continue to say give the guard cavalry options. Heavy cav, light cav, shooty cav, fighty cav.

I want an option for all cavalry, and by cavalry I mean magnificent gene-bred horses, army. Mounted hqs, elite, troops, fast, and heavy. Maybe not heavy, but maybe horse drawn artillery or something would be fun.

Jarms48 wrote:

PenitentJake wrote:
A platoon commander may be literally a lieutenant, but if they are an elite choice instead of HQ, what they are literally doesn't mean jack because they can't actually lead a detachment in the game.

Hence our house rule making them HQ.

Why should they lead a detachment? They're lieutenants, you can take several platoons in a game. If you want extra characters you're better off house ruling a return to the old platoon mechanics.

So let's say you've got 5k points worth of guard on a planet. When they all come together, they can fight as a single HUGE Brigade, or a double Battalion.

From this 5k force, however, you need to station troops at 8 different locations to monitor activity. There are not 8 company commanders in the army, but each force needs to be able to hold its own until reinforcements arrive from neighbouring territories, which means it needs an HQ to lead it. I don't use named characters, and the Commissariat have not yet been assigned to this force.

Every army should have minimally two layers of generic command. Space Marine Lieutenants, if I'm not mistaken, are HQ choices. Sisters have their Palatine. Admech have layers to Techpriests, etc. It just doesn't make sense to me to create a character profile that has the word "Commander" in it, then make it a unit type that doesn't command.

Company level commanders feel fluffy to me if you have one per 2k points. It doesn't feel terribly fluffy to have more than that except under special story based circumstances. And it feels outright unfluffy to have more than 1 per 1k points.

As for returning to the Platoon system, I love that idea, and whole heartedly support it, but again, that can essentially be done using the detachment system... If you just make platoon commanders HQ. When they lead a Patrol Detachment, voila- that's their platoon. In a Combat Patrol sized game, the Platoon fights on its own. At Incursion, you may have a Command Battalion and the Platoon, or you could have two Platoons fighting together. The detachment system to me IS the platoon system, only more fleshed out- you just need a command section that includes appropriate HQ's to lead the various components.

PenitentJake wrote:

So let's say you've got 5k points worth of guard on a planet. When they all come together, they can fight as a single HUGE Brigade, or a double Battalion.

From this 5k force, however, you need to station troops at 8 different locations to monitor activity. There are not 8 company commanders in the army, but each force needs to be able to hold its own until reinforcements arrive from neighbouring territories, which means it needs an HQ to lead it. I don't use named characters, and the Commissariat have not yet been assigned to this force.

Every army should have minimally two layers of generic command. Space Marine Lieutenants, if I'm not mistaken, are HQ choices. Sisters have their Palatine. Admech have layers to Techpriests, etc. It just doesn't make sense to me to create a character profile that has the word "Commander" in it, then make it a unit type that doesn't command.

Company level commanders feel fluffy to me if you have one per 2k points. It doesn't feel terribly fluffy to have more than that except under special story based circumstances. And it feels outright unfluffy to have more than 1 per 1k points.

I don't know why you're using points. Lets use actual numbers. A planet with 10 billion people, with manpower equivalent to 1% of their population would have a PDF size of 100 million soldiers. Those 100 million soldiers, for ease of maths lets say they're broken up into armies of 200 thousand soldiers. That planet then has 500 field armies, each led by a General.

Those armies would be further broken up into Corps of about 4 Corps per army, so 50 thousand soldiers each. Led by a lesser General, most likely a Lieutenant General. Each Corps is then broken up into 4 divisions of 12.5 thousand soldiers, lead by a Major General.

Those divisions are broken into 5 brigades of 2500 soldiers each, led by a Brigadier. Then those divisions are broken up into 2 regiments of 1250 soldiers, led by a Colonel. Those regiments are broken up into 5 companies of 250 soldiers, led by a Major or Captain. Those companies are then broken up into 5 platoons, led by a Lieutenant.

So this hypothetical planet would have:
- Some unspecified senior command staff not specified here overseeing the army generals, as well as a supreme commander.
- 500 Generals
- 2000 Lieutenant Generals
- 8000 Major Generals
- 40,000 Brigadiers
- 80,000 Colonels
- 400,000 Majors or Captains
- 2,000,000 Lieutenants

Do you see the problem here? A single planet has more Lieutenants than there are space marines in the galaxy, and you want to make them HQ choices.

Lieutenants make sense in a Marine detachment because in a single Marine company there might only be 1 Captain and 2 Lieutenants.

A single Guard regiment might have 5 or more Captains and 25 or more Lieutenants. For that very reason I see no issue with up to 3 Captains or "Company Commanders" being on the battlefield at one time.

Of course this example isn't perfect, real world numbers, organisational structure, and even ranks aren't the same across every country. The same could be said for the Imperium as well. The Guard aren't perfectly standardised across the galaxy.

The same thing could be said for Tank Commanders who would be the equivalent to a Captain in a tank company. Lord Commissars and Primaris Pskyers, where there may only be 1 of which in the entire regiment. Yet, you don't seem to have any restrictions on them?

Jarms48 wrote:

Lieutenants make sense in a Marine detachment because in a single Marine company there might only be 1 Captain and 2 Lieutenants.

That's actually exactly how many we're told a Company has. Add in the Chaplain, Apothecary, Ancient, and Company Champion and you have the command staff of a single Marine Company.

The world in question is an Agri-world with a population of less than one million. With an M.

Scale way, way down.

But in theory, even if we didn't scale down to the size of my planet, lets talk about your regiment with it's five captains and twenty five lieutenants. How many points would that regiment be?

If you divided that regiment by five, because that's how many HQ's there are, how big would those armies be? More than 3k points I bet.

Even if not, 5 HQ's mean the entire regiment has to fit into one Brigade and one Battalion. Any more than that and you're out of HQ's. This regiment, with its five HQ's could hold five territories max, and that would mean each of the five could only be defended with a Patrol detachment.

Starting to see it yet?

We need more ranks of generic HQ. The Commissariat, Telepathicus and Scion Command is parallel and disconnected from the command structure of the guard itself.

I can't honestly believe anyone is defending a single level of generic Command in an army as huge as the guard- especially when it's so easy to fix- you don't have to change anything on the Platoon Commander's datacard at all to make it work- just change the unit type and call it a day.

They don't need new units, they need to bring back Kasrkins and every single model in the range needs a visual update, with better proportions and at least some modularity for crying out loud. If they scale creep the infantry then all the tanks need to be bigger too. Bring back Mordians, even if it's just a single box of infantry. If they can release dozens of redundant marine units they can release some alternate troops for Guard.

An entire army of plastic Krieg would be acceptable too.

If they absolutely must include females(debatable), make them optional heads only, no different body shapes/sizes.

IG could be one of the most popular armies if done right. Or just build me a time machine instead.

PenitentJake wrote:
The world in question is an Agri-world with a population of less than one million. With an M.

Scale way, way down.

Even if the planet was 1 million people and they had 1% of their population under arms that's still 10,000 soldiers. You'd still be looking at around 200 Lieutenants. Which is the equivalent of 2 space marine companies, who have a maximum of 4 lieutenants.

PenitentJake wrote:
But in theory, even if we didn't scale down to the size of my planet, lets talk about your regiment with it's five captains and twenty five lieutenants. How many points would that regiment be?

If you divided that regiment by five, because that's how many HQ's there are, how big would those armies be? More than 3k points I bet.

Even if not, 5 HQ's mean the entire regiment has to fit into one Brigade and one Battalion. Any more than that and you're out of HQ's. This regiment, with its five HQ's could hold five territories max, and that would mean each of the five could only be defended with a Patrol detachment.

That's not hard to work out:

HQ:
- 5 company commanders and their command squads is 300 points with no upgrades.

Troops:
- 125 infantry squads is 6875 points.

Elites:
- 25 platoon commanders and their command squads is 1250 points.

All together that's 8425 points. With no upgrades, no special weapon squads, no heavy weapon squads, no commissars, no priests, etc. Dividing that by 5 is 1685 points.

PenitentJake wrote:
Starting to see it yet?

We need more ranks of generic HQ. The Commissariat, Telepathicus and Scion Command is parallel and disconnected from the command structure of the guard itself.

I can't honestly believe anyone is defending a single level of generic Command in an army as huge as the guard- especially when it's so easy to fix- you don't have to change anything on the Platoon Commander's datacard at all to make it work- just change the unit type and call it a day.

You're missing the most fundamental point here. A single Guard lieutenant is so miniscule in the setting that they should not be comparable to a space marine lieutenant in the lore. That's why they should be troops. An infantry platoon in 5th edition consisted of 1 platoon command squad (back then the lieutenant was included in the cost), 2 - 5 infantry squads, 0 -5 heavy weapon squads, 0 - 2 special weapon squads, and 0-1 conscript squad.

That was so close to being perfect. The only thing that needed to change in 5th edition was to remove conscripts from it. That way you could spam cheap infantry and avoid the platoon command squad tax, but you'd lose out on the order, and utility the platoon gave you.

There's another issue I haven't mentioned by moving platoon commanders to HQ rather than keeping them as Elites, or bringing back platoons. You're losing orders, at the moment you can take 3 company commanders and 3 platoon commanders that's 9 orders. Some people take a brigade and a battalion of infantry squads, or 3 battalions of infantry squads. By implementing this you've just restricted our maximum orders to 4 in a single battalion. That's a huge nerf.

Goose LeChance wrote:
They don't need new units, they need to bring back Kasrkins and every single model in the range needs a visual update, with better proportions and at least some modularity for crying out loud. If they scale creep the infantry then all the tanks need to be bigger too. Bring back Mordians, even if it's just a single box of infantry. If they can release dozens of redundant marine units they can release some alternate troops for Guard.

Generic grenadiers would be awesome.

Yeah.

And I didn't mean to trash on the idea of new units entirely, but the model range has been neglected for so long, it needs a complete overhaul. There is also the ever present fear of an ATV/TacSuit/Nundam situation.

Goose LeChance wrote:
Yeah.

And I didn't mean to trash on the idea of new units entirely, but the model range has been neglected for so long, it needs a complete overhaul. There is also the ever present fear of an ATV/TacSuit/Nundam situation.

and by a "ATV/TacSuit/Nundam" you mean "GW might introduce a model you yourself think is ugly" cause I got one word for you sir, Taurox

It's not just that I think they're ugly, but in the case of the Nundam and Warsuit, they step on the toes of far better looking, and thematically appropriate models.

Nobody was asking for them either, so it's not like GW listens to community feedback on new units to add anyway.

Goose LeChance wrote:
It's not just that I think they're ugly, but in the case of the Nundam and Warsuit, they step on the toes of far better looking, and thematically appropriate models.

Nobody was asking for them either, so it's not like GW listens to community feedback on new units to add anyway.

of course no one was asking for the paragorn warsuit, because sisters players where too busy on cloud nine happy we got our line in plastic. the idea of a second line of new units was more then anyone expected.

That said generally the types of things your average sisters player asked for was a MBT (the exorcist was artillery, the hole in the order of battle was pretty obvious) some sort of "tougher infantry unit, ala terminators, and maybe an awesome melee unit.

the paragorn warsuit fills the "terminator" role nicely without just being "more stolen marine wargear"

Having a Guard army there are some things I would like to see added - based on the general WW2 / Stormtrooper aesthetic GW went for,

Infantry Fortifications. I don't mean buildings, I mean the ability for a guard unit to place down sandbag walls that provide cover - actual sandbag models.
Bomber. Guard have essentially only one flier - I'd like to see a bomber added to the range.
Psyker models - Actual, decent models.
Bikers - (because horses are silly). A scouting unit that can zoom up and have a "deadzone" effect where units cannot deepstrike within a much larger radius (bit like what SM has, but much more mobile)

In reality we will get Gaunt's Ghosts, an upgrade sprue and maybe some dice.

Sumilidon wrote:
Having a Guard army there are some things I would like to see added - based on the general WW2 / Stormtrooper aesthetic GW went for,

Infantry Fortifications. I don't mean buildings, I mean the ability for a guard unit to place down sandbag walls that provide cover - actual sandbag models.
Bomber. Guard have essentially only one flier - I'd like to see a bomber added to the range.
Psyker models - Actual, decent models.
Bikers - (because horses are silly). A scouting unit that can zoom up and have a "deadzone" effect where units cannot deepstrike within a much larger radius (bit like what SM has, but much more mobile)

In reality we will get Gaunt's Ghosts, an upgrade sprue and maybe some dice.

Guard have a ton of flyers, they're just all Forge World. The Vendetta and Vulture should just be added back into the Guard codex like they were in 5th edition, they combine them all into a single kit like the Leman Russ being able to build 1 of 4 variants. Guard also have 2 bombers, the only issue is that they're LoW choices. That being both Marauder variants. If they just made them flyers they might actually be alright.

Though I would love a bomber that's not based off of the Flying Fortress. Something more akin to a WW2 dive bomber would be awesome.

Minefields, barbed wire, tank traps, maybe even deploying sentry guns, could be interesting too. Though these could be pre-game actions for Infantry Squads than point costed units. Maybe making a generic combat engineer unit that can set up tank fighting positions, reinforce pre-existing terrain pieces, foxholes, and slit trenches. Make Guard unique in that they can add terrain into their deployment zone rather than just having to rely on (currently useless) fortifications. GW could even make purchasable terrain for players to use with these abilities.

I'd like to see more defensive psykers, ones trained to specifically shutdown enemy psykers. I'd like to see at least a second Guard psychic powers table with more enemy debuffs, things like give an enemy unit a -1 to hit, something that can turn off a units aura for a turn, something that can reduce move/advance/charge distance on a unit for a turn, etc.

I don't mind bikes being added, but not at the expense of horses. The Imperium is vast. There's 100% feral, feudal and black powder worlds out there that are made up of cavalry and just been given more advanced infantry equipment by the Munitorum. On the flip side more advanced worlds might have robotic horses like the Ad-Mech, or genetically altered horses like Krieg.

Jarms48 wrote:

That's not hard to work out:

HQ:
- 5 company commanders and their command squads is 300 points with no upgrades.

Troops:
- 125 infantry squads is 6875 points.

Elites:
- 25 platoon commanders and their command squads is 1250 points.

All together that's 8425 points. With no upgrades, no special weapon squads, no heavy weapon squads, no commissars, no priests, etc. Dividing that by 5 is 1685 points.

So then the question is: can you field a 1685 army with one HQ. If the answer is no (and it is), then you NEED an HQ that isn't a company commander OR you need more than five company commanders. Period. If calling them lieutenants is the problem, call them whatever else you need to call them to make it work.

Jarms48 wrote:

You're missing the most fundamental point here. A single Guard lieutenant is so miniscule in the setting that they should not be comparable to a space marine lieutenant in the lore.

It isn't about the setting- it's about the mechanics of an army. Guard lieutenants may be insignificant because there are trillions of soldiers in the guard, but their job is to lead battle groups, and that is the HQ battlefield role description in a nut shell. Their stats won't change, so they are nowhere near comparable to a Space Marine lieutenant (or even a more typical Space Marine).

Jarms48 wrote:

That's why they should be troops. An infantry platoon in 5th edition consisted of 1 platoon command squad (back then the lieutenant was included in the cost), 2 - 5 infantry squads, 0 -5 heavy weapon squads, 0 - 2 special weapon squads, and 0-1 conscript squad.

That was so close to being perfect. The only thing that needed to change in 5th edition was to remove conscripts from it. That way you could spam cheap infantry and avoid the platoon command squad tax, but you'd lose out on the order, and utility the platoon gave you.

I liked the platoon system myself- I view it as the predecessor to both Formations and Detachments. But if I recall correctly, platoons could only exist within armies- they couldn't fight on their own like detachments can. That's specifically where my complaint is coming from- you have a huge army; you want to break it up into battlegroups so that you can achieve multiple objectives on different fronts. You need HQ to do that.

Jarms48 wrote:

There's another issue I haven't mentioned by moving platoon commanders to HQ rather than keeping them as Elites, or bringing back platoons. You're losing orders, at the moment you can take 3 company commanders and 3 platoon commanders that's 9 orders. Some people take a brigade and a battalion of infantry squads, or 3 battalions of infantry squads. By implementing this you've just restricted our maximum orders to 4 in a single battalion. That's a huge nerf.

Order reduction is a valid point, and one which I hadn't considered.

But look at the armies you are describing and then think back to our theoretical regiment above. Let's assume we're dealing with 2k armies. So in your first scenario (Single Brigade), you're using 60% of your command resources to control less than 25% of your army? It doesn't feel like that makes a lot of sense to me, though it does still technically work... But it's all downhill from here.

Now lets look at Scenario two (Brigade + Battalion). That uses your entire command section- all five HQ choices in the entire regiment- to command less than 25% of your forces. An unpredicted series of orbital bombardments wipes out that army, and you've got 6400 points of troops with no command. Is this logical? Does it make sense? Is it fluffy?

Now let's look at your third scenario (3 Battalions). Sorry, not possible. It requires 6 HQ's, and we've only got 5.

Maybe to get around the Order Issue, two lieutenants count as a single HQ? Maybe you have the option of taking them as HQ or Elite? I don't know, but there's a fix there somewhere. An army list just needs multiple levels of generic command in order to be functional.

The good news is I think we'll get that in the new dex- it might not be achieved by making Platoon Commanders HQ- they may invent something ABOVE the company command AND something BELOW. I'd be fine with that; it would give a standing force the flexibility to deploy multiple detachments to multiple locations. That's really all I'm looking for.

So then the question is: can you field a 1685 army with one HQ. If the answer is no (and it is), then you NEED an HQ that isn't a company commander OR you need more than five company commanders. Period. If calling them lieutenants is the problem, call them whatever else you need to call them to make it work.

You certainly could, it's called a Patrol, Outrider, Spearhead, and Vanguard detachment. Do you know how many companies are typically in a brigade in real life? Typically 4. A brigade is a real-life formation, and if Infantry Platoons return the you could 100% field enough infantry to represent 2-3 infantry companies working together. It would actually be very realistic.

It isn't about the setting- it's about the mechanics of an army. Guard lieutenants may be insignificant because there are trillions of soldiers in the guard, but their job is to lead battle groups, and that is the HQ battlefield role description in a nut shell. Their stats won't change, so they are nowhere near comparable to a Space Marine lieutenant (or even a more typical Space Marine).

It is about the mechanics of an army. That's what I've been breaking down for you. How a functional army works, marines aren't a typical standing army but Guard are. That's why I'm drawing from real-life, making real-life assumptions and just adding a few simplifications.

I liked the platoon system myself- I view it as the predecessor to both Formations and Detachments. But if I recall correctly, platoons could only exist within armies- they couldn't fight on their own like detachments can. That's specifically where my complaint is coming from- you have a huge army; you want to break it up into battlegroups so that you can achieve multiple objectives on different fronts. You need HQ to do that.

Platoons for Guard have existed since the inception of Guard as a faction. It was only 8th edition that removed them, because it was a completely fundamental change in army construction where you wanted to gain as much CP as possible by taking as many detachments as possible. This is the only time when you could ever justify that each "brigade" being the equivalent to a previous "platoon".

Now with 9th edition and each detachment costing CP you want to take as little detachments as possible. So a 9th edition Guard codex should be a return to form, where you are deploying a company or companies of Guardsmen in a single brigade. Which compared to other factions actually makes brigade and battalion detachments make thematic sense.

Order reduction is a valid point, and one which I hadn't considered.

But look at the armies you are describing and then think back to our theoretical regiment above. Let's assume we're dealing with 2k armies. So in your first scenario (Single Brigade), you're using 60% of your command resources to control less than 25% of your army? It doesn't feel like that makes a lot of sense to me, though it does still technically work... But it's all downhill from here.

My example is based off of actual military organisation, mixed with how the Guard is described to be organised typically in the lore, as well as on the table top. Obviously there won't be enough order coverage for every single unit in this scenario.

Now lets look at Scenario two (Brigade + Battalion). That uses your entire command section- all five HQ choices in the entire regiment- to command less than 25% of your forces. An unpredicted series of orbital bombardments wipes out that army, and you've got 6400 points of troops with no command. Is this logical? Does it make sense? Is it fluffy?

This is simply incorrect, there's still going to be Generals, Brigadiers, Colonels, and Majors. Lieutenants, Captains, Majors, and Colonels are all field-grade offices who fight on or close to the conflict. If there's a orbital bombardment that wipes out a company level officer, so the captains, the most experienced Lieutenants in those companies would be promoted to Captain.

It's actually incredibly simple. To replace those Lieutenants they'd start promoting NCO's.

Maybe to get around the Order Issue, two lieutenants count as a single HQ? Maybe you have the option of taking them as HQ or Elite? I don't know, but there's a fix there somewhere. An army list just needs multiple levels of generic command in order to be functional.

The good news is I think we'll get that in the new dex- it might not be achieved by making Platoon Commanders HQ- they may invent something ABOVE the company command AND something BELOW. I'd be fine with that; it would give a standing force the flexibility to deploy multiple detachments to multiple locations. That's really all I'm looking for.

We did previously have this, but it was scrapped after the 3.5 edition codex. You could take a Captain, Major, or Colonel for your Company Commander. Whilst the Infantry Platoon was lead by a Lieutenant.

Guard could use other HQ vehicles (that I've already covered here as well), such as:
- Sentinel Commanders: That can order Sentinels.
- Chimera Artillery Command Vehicles: That can order any of our many Artillery vehicles.
- Tank Commanders becoming more diverse: Being able to be taken in Carnodon's, Hellhound's, Leman Russ Tanks, Malcadors, or Thunderers. While also being able to order each of those vehicles.
- Super-heavy Tank Commanders: Which would be awesome to see.

Jarms48 wrote:

You certainly could, it's called a Patrol, Outrider, Spearhead, and Vanguard detachment. Do you know how many companies are typically in a brigade in real life? Typically 4. A brigade is a real-life formation, and if Infantry Platoons return the you could 100% field enough infantry to represent 2-3 infantry companies working together. It would actually be very realistic.

Okay, I haven't done the math, but guard are cheap; you probably can get a Patrol up to 1685, or lets round to 2000 by maxing out all your unit sizes, especially your tanks. But there aren't a lot of slots in a Patrol, and only certain builds will and play styles will allow you to build a 2k army using only a single Patrol detachment, and I don't think it would be possible to field build a 3k army with using the current rules using only a single Patrol detachment, unless there are super expensive Forgeworld units I don't know about.

As for the other detachment types, some of those might be easier to get to 2k or even 3k, but they also come with a CP cost. If platoons return, but platoon commanders continue to be elites or troops, it doesn't really solve this problem, because the platoon could not function on its own in a game of 40k because it acts as a single troop choice, so it would still need a Company Commander model to accompany it.

Jarms48 wrote:

It is about the mechanics of an army. That's what I've been breaking down for you. How a functional army works, marines aren't a typical standing army but Guard are. That's why I'm drawing from real-life, making real-life assumptions and just adding a few simplifications.

This is the misunderstanding part. When I say "army", I mean the thing I'm putting on the table; I appreciate your knowledge of how real armies work, and thanks for the education, but it isn't relevant to any of the points I'm making. I am very specifically talking about how if you build an Astra Militarum roster that allows you to field detachments using the existing rules to capture and defend territories, it doesn't make sense for all the detachments that you're going to need as you expand your footprint to be led by Company Commander models. Perhaps I wasn't clear enough in my original post.

So lets say in my theoretical roster, I get to start with 9 territories, so I need 9 detachments. Let's say I get a 2k Brigade, 2 x 1500 Battalions, 3 other mixed detachments (your choice between Patrol, Vanguard, Outrider or Spearhead) at 1k each and 3 final mixed detachments of 500 points each. That model means I must have 13 Company Commander models on my roster. This means that if I conquer territories, and I have to break my standing forces into smaller detachments in or to hold them, I will only be able to conquer four territories before I run out of HQ models. Now if I use the optional HQ spots in each of those detachments, I can get an additional 10 HQ in there for a total of 23 Company Commander models. This means I can now hold 23 territories in total.

Even at the minimum number of HQ choices (13), I'm not sure the ratio of Company Commander models to other models in the army is appropriate. But at the maximum number of HQ choices (23), that ratio is way out of whack. What I am arguing is that IF Platoon Commanders were HQ choices, then I could field, say 6 Company Commanders- one for each of the 6 largest detachments, and I could fill every other HQ slot with a Platoon Commander (17). So you're dealing with the same 9500 points worth of models in total, but now instead of having the whacky ratio of 23 Company Commander models to the rest of the roster, it's 6 Company Commanders and 17 Platoon Commanders to the rest of the roster. This just seems more nuanced, and gives you a bit more structure to work with.

Jarms48 wrote:

Now with 9th edition and each detachment costing CP you want to take as little detachments as possible. So a 9th edition Guard codex should be a return to form, where you are deploying a company or companies of Guardsmen in a single brigade. Which compared to other factions actually makes brigade and battalion detachments make thematic sense.

In a single battle, I'm usually only going to field a single detachment, but I need the potential to create as many small detachments as I can using only the total number of HQ choices I get according to my starting detachment breakdown.

Jarms48 wrote:

My example is based off of actual military organisation, mixed with how the Guard is described to be organised typically in the lore, as well as on the table top.

Again, I'm only interested in how the Guard are organized on the tabletop. Sorry I wasn't more clear.

Jarms48 wrote:

... there's still going to be Generals, Brigadiers, Colonels, and Majors. Lieutenants, Captains, Majors, and Colonels are all field-grade offices who fight on or close to the conflict.

No there aren't because none of those things have 40k datacards or models. The only HQ choices that exists in 40K is the Company Commander, the Tank Commander and a bunch of named dudes. The Commissariat and Telepathica are separate organizations, so their HQ's aren't relevant to my point either.

Jarms48 wrote:


We did previously have this, but it was scrapped after the 3.5 edition codex. You could take a Captain, Major, or Colonel for your Company Commander. Whilst the Infantry Platoon was lead by a Lieutenant.

Guard could use other HQ vehicles (that I've already covered here as well), such as:
- Sentinel Commanders: That can order Sentinels.
- Chimera Artillery Command Vehicles: That can order any of our many Artillery vehicles.
- Tank Commanders becoming more diverse: Being able to be taken in Carnodon's, Hellhound's, Leman Russ Tanks, Malcadors, or Thunderers. While also being able to order each of those vehicles.
- Super-heavy Tank Commanders: Which would be awesome to see.

Yes, now we're on the same page again, because if anything on this list returned, platoon commanders could stay elite- there would be enough other generic HQ Choices. My argument all along has been that limiting the generic command structure of the guard to a single rank is far too limiting for a roster that needs to be able to simultaneously field many small detachments in order to hold territory. I proposed making Platoon Commanders HQ choices because they currently have datacards, and it would somewhat solve the problem with the least amount of effort. Certainly bringing back all the stuff you mention is a better solution, but it would be so much work for GW that I don't want to dream that impossible dream. I'd be happy with 2-3 ranks of generic HQ; what they are called is irrelevant to me.

PenitentJake wrote:
Yes, now we're on the same page again, because if anything on this list returned, platoon commanders could stay elite- there would be enough other generic HQ Choices. My argument all along has been that limiting the generic command structure of the guard to a single rank is far too limiting for a roster that needs to be able to simultaneously field many small detachments in order to hold territory. I proposed making Platoon Commanders HQ choices because they currently have datacards, and it would somewhat solve the problem with the least amount of effort. Certainly bringing back all the stuff you mention is a better solution, but it would be so much work for GW that I don't want to dream that impossible dream. I'd be happy with 2-3 ranks of generic HQ; what they are called is irrelevant to me.

I could write more, but you seem very passionate and not willing to capitulate. So let's just agree to disagree. I don't want platoon commanders to be elites, I want platoons back in a more simplistic form to suit the new 9th edition format and for platoon commanders to be troops. As well as command squads to be merged back with platoon and company commanders. That's what I want.

Anyway, back to the topic.

I've just noticed the FW Lightning doesn't have the autocannon anymore.



I'd love these to come back, give it what I've been suggesting for the Hydra. Long barrelled autocannon 72 inch, Heavy 2, S7, AP-1, Damage 3, +1 against Aircraft.

I'd also love to see the Thunderbolt Fury variant comeback, with the twin avenger bolt cannons. So compared to the Avenger Strike Fighter it'd have Heavy 20, S6, AP-2, Damage 2 shots. I'd probably have to go up to like 270+ points though.

GW have been going about adding scenery with guns recently to various armies, so I could see it happening quite easily with the guard. Heavy weapons teams already exist but perhaps options for them to be "entrenched" to add more defences? Maybe that wouldn't equate to new units though..