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 kirotheavenger wrote:

If you can take a grenade launcher as a weapon option, that means the grenade launcher will have a points value. That means you pay those points for the first grenade launcher as well.
40k points aren't structured like that anymore - that's the point.

Ignoring the fact I am sure I can find a datafax that does give you stuff in a squad then lets you get more for extra points, this would be why you couldn't give a sergeant a lasgun then because you would have to buy 9 more?

Well a lasgun would just be 0pts so would be redundant.
If you can find something that breaks this rule, be my guest.
Only possible exception is Tau - they have increasing costs per repeat weapon. But they still pay points for the default weapon as if it were a "new" weapon anyway.

What's even the significance of it being free?
If you want a Guard squad to be 55pts and have to take at least one special weapon for those points, just make them 50pts (assuming the cheapest special weapon is 5pts) with a special weapon already on their datasheet.

 kirotheavenger wrote:
Oh I forgot you wanted every individual 2 man base to be a separate unit. I thought you were saying take the squads in like groups of 9 then split them into 3s!
Bollocks to that, that's ridiculous. It was obnoxious when Tau drones did it and it'll be obnoxious when Guard HWTs do it.

It's the only reasonable thing to do, frankly. And it was "obnoxious" with Drones because so bloody much of the army could take them. And if someone decided to be cheeky? You couldn't necessarily tell which were "wargear" drones that separated out or squads of drones.

You still haven't explained what this magical character protection that isn't character protection is though.
I think that's an important part of your master plan.

Sure I have. You just didn't pay attention to it any of the times you've chosen to talk down at me over this concept in a multitude of threads.

Anyways, there's a ton of different character protections in the game at this point. Whether it's making them untargetable in terrain, reducing the amount of wounds they can take per turn, etc.

The point of integrating heavy weapon squads into larger infantry squads is that it prevents the heavy weapons from all being immediately killed, without needing to resort to easily exploitable character protection.

Sorry, but given the "obscene amount of firepower evaporating our infantry squads" per other posters--there's no fix that is a real fix without redesigning everything from the ground up.

After all, didn't you hear? Someone made 116 shots in one turn with a Crisis Suit Squad or something at a tourney!

It also allows them to benefit from voxes and more easily get orders.

Know what else would do that?
Giving them voxes. Or putting the "Vox" keyword on Chimeras.

It'll be like the old platoon structure that allowed you to combine everything together, although I suggest on a smaller scale.

No, it wouldn't "be like the old platoon structure". You could not combine those things together outside of just from the FOC bit. Infantry Squads were the only thing that could actually be combined into a single unit. It was right there in the rules for "Combined Squad".


Anyways as a random fun historical fact there were also, in the Doctrines book, rules for "Remnant Squads". For every 2 full 10 model Infantry Squad you had? You could take a smaller squad that did not have a Heavy Weapons Team as an option.

 Kanluwen wrote:
Sorry, but why is a Guard radio acting like an aura while being an imitation of the Mechanicus' far superior data-tether or the Tempestus' Clarion Vox and neither of which do so?

Well, the Storm Trooper vox would be in the same book as the Imperial Guard vox, so in theory would end up equivalent to it at worst - and given that when you compare the vox-caster to the Glory Boy Clarion Vox in the 7th edition Codex they're doing completely different things (order reliability vs. Ld bubble on 3 types of tests, two of which don't exist any more), I'm not entirely sure you can say one was strictly better than the other...

I don't know where it started, but could we somehow find our way back to a less confrontative tone while discussing ideas? I think there are enough interesting ones from multiple posters, but if they are paired with "your idea of Guard is just plain wrong!!1!" It's a bit difficult to engage in a productive exchange of thoughts.


On one very specific point that turned up quite some pages ago, but that stuck in my mind. Someone mentioned that certain "Doctrines" like heavy infantry etc. should be only available to guardsmen modeled as such and that you "just have to put a bit of effort into at least Basic conversion". That's something I would find hard to accept. It takes a lot of time and money to get a build and painted Guard army and I would find it pretty unfun to get frack for trying my Tallarn looking dudes with a heavy infantry doctrine because I want to try it out.

 Pyroalchi wrote:
I don't know where it started, but could we somehow find our way back to a less confrontative tone while discussing ideas? I think there are enough interesting ones from multiple posters, but if they are paired with "your idea of Guard is just plain wrong!!1!" It's a bit difficult to engage in a productive exchange of thoughts.


On one very specific point that turned up quite some pages ago, but that stuck in my mind. Someone mentioned that certain "Doctrines" like heavy infantry etc. should be only available to guardsmen modeled as such and that you "just have to put a bit of effort into at least Basic conversion". That's something I would find hard to accept. It takes a lot of time and money to get a build and painted Guard army and I would find it pretty unfun to get frack for trying my Tallarn looking dudes with a heavy infantry doctrine because I want to try it out.

It started when Kanluwen joined the conversation and refused anyone's opinions that didnt align with theirs.

Personally i think guard needs to roll less dice, i don't know how they would change it but as it stands, shooting with infantry squads mostly feels like wasting time.

 Kanluwen wrote:

I have zero interest in playing the "let's pretend!" game with someone on this crap at this stage in my life. Buy the right kit to represent what you're fielding or take the initiative and convert things.

Because Warhammer 40k it TOTALLY REAL and not fantastical at all, right?

You do seem to be down to play "let's pretend" when it comes to claiming that a 175 person tournament is small/irrelevant lol


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Pyroalchi wrote:
I don't know where it started, but could we somehow find our way back to a less confrontative tone while discussing ideas? I think there are enough interesting ones from multiple posters, but if they are paired with "your idea of Guard is just plain wrong!!1!" It's a bit difficult to engage in a productive exchange of thoughts.

Until the mods tell Kanluwen to can it, they're going to keep being obnoxious.

 Pyroalchi wrote:
I don't know where it started, but could we somehow find our way back to a less confrontative tone while discussing ideas? I think there are enough interesting ones from multiple posters, but if they are paired with "your idea of Guard is just plain wrong!!1!" It's a bit difficult to engage in a productive exchange of thoughts.

It's hard to do that when people don't acknowledge little things, yes.

Like the existence of differently equipped regiments. Like the existence of differently equipped squads. Like the existence of lascarbines. Or a million little stupid things that people chose to try to gak all over me on for this discussion.

On one very specific point that turned up quite some pages ago, but that stuck in my mind. Someone mentioned that certain "Doctrines" like heavy infantry etc. should be only available to guardsmen modeled as such and that you "just have to put a bit of effort into at least Basic conversion".

So we're clear, I suggested that certain squads be generally unavailable to certain regiments. Tallarn isn't known for its heavily armored infantry squads and the Valhallans aren't known for their airborne units.

That's something I would find hard to accept. It takes a lot of time and money to get a build and painted Guard army and I would find it pretty unfun to get frack for trying my Tallarn looking dudes with a heavy infantry doctrine because I want to try it out.

Proxying is a thing. If you're seriously wanting to "try it out", that's a you+your opponent thing--not something that should be affecting rules development.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Dysartes wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
Sorry, but why is a Guard radio acting like an aura while being an imitation of the Mechanicus' far superior data-tether or the Tempestus' Clarion Vox and neither of which do so?

Well, the Storm Trooper vox would be in the same book as the Imperial Guard vox, so in theory would end up equivalent to it at worst - and given that when you compare the vox-caster to the Glory Boy Clarion Vox in the 7th edition Codex they're doing completely different things (order reliability vs. Ld bubble on 3 types of tests, two of which don't exist any more), I'm not entirely sure you can say one was strictly better than the other...

Clarion Vox was a special rule tied to the Tempestor Prime, Dysartes. It was "in addition to" Vox-Casters in general.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Dysartes wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
Sorry, but why is a Guard radio acting like an aura while being an imitation of the Mechanicus' far superior data-tether or the Tempestus' Clarion Vox and neither of which do so?

Well, the Storm Trooper vox would be in the same book as the Imperial Guard vox, so in theory would end up equivalent to it at worst - and given that when you compare the vox-caster to the Glory Boy Clarion Vox in the 7th edition Codex they're doing completely different things (order reliability vs. Ld bubble on 3 types of tests, two of which don't exist any more), I'm not entirely sure you can say one was strictly better than the other...

Clarion Vox was a special rule tied to the Tempestor Prime, Dysartes. It was "in addition to" Vox-Casters in general.

OK, missed that when I was looking up the rules - did Codex: Big Toy Soldiers give any information on what this Clario doo-hickey was meant to be, as the Storm Trooper Offier page in the IG 'dex doesn't describe it, just mentions it as a rule.

 Dysartes wrote:

OK, missed that when I was looking up the rules - did Codex: Big Toy Soldiers give any information on what this Clario doo-hickey was meant to be, as the Storm Trooper Offier page in the IG 'dex doesn't describe it, just mentions it as a rule.

Militarum Tempestus p9 wrote:
The cumbersome vox arrays of the Astra Militarum are often known as 'ghost boxes', for with the white noise and interference patterns of battle raging all around it is difficult to coax more than a whisper from their speakers. Not so the clarion vox array of the Militarum Tempestus, a triumph of audio-military hardware that overrides its designated airwaves with the crystal clear and perfectly enunciated commands of the Tempestors leading each detachment.

The TLDR?

Standard voxes are kinda trash. They're basically like the white noise generators used by paranormal groups for white noise machines, constantly hopping frequencies.

Clarions are frequency locked.

 kirotheavenger wrote:
The way 40k is set up presently you can't really get the first weapon free.

How so? That's exactly how Special Weapon Squads work now.

They have the Sniper Rifle as a "free" option, as its inbuilt in their unit cost. Then can upgrade to grenade launchers, flamers, plasma, or melta for 3 points instead of 5. Just do that for Infantry Squads.

 Pyroalchi wrote:

Personally i think guard needs to roll less dice, i don't know how they would change it but as it stands, shooting with infantry squads mostly feels like wasting time.

It's not that we need to roll less dice, it's that the dice we roll needs to be more effective. The fundamental problem there is our BS4. Compare to 4 dice at BS2 with re-rolls, we'd need to roll 10 dice to be roughly comparable. Given our variance on the to-hit, the way we would compensate is to make our wounding & AP better. If you look at most of the guard heavy weapons, that's what they're intended to do, have lots of shots that miss, but those that do hit are strong enough to wound and punch thru the armor.

Kanluwen wrote:

 Pyroalchi wrote:
I don't know where it started, but could we somehow find our way back to a less confrontative tone while discussing ideas? I think there are enough interesting ones from multiple posters, but if they are paired with "your idea of Guard is just plain wrong!!1!" It's a bit difficult to engage in a productive exchange of thoughts.

It's hard to do that when people don't acknowledge little things, yes.

Like the existence of differently equipped regiments. Like the existence of differently equipped squads. Like the existence of lascarbines. Or a million little stupid things that people chose to try to gak all over me on for this discussion.

It depends on if the post is constructive. Just saying "idea X sucks" is not constructive.

Having regiments not being able to take certain units doesn't do anything, unless there is something special to replace them (like SW Grey Hunters and BCs vs. Tac/Assault Marines). Just let the players pick which unit(s) they want. It's not that Valhallans don't have Valkyies, they just don't use them as often. Same for AV6 on Catachans. I agree it's fluffy but not meaningful. To make it meaningful, it would have to be a trade-off for something valuable. So for Catachans, what do I get for being AV6? If Valhallans can't take Valkyries, what do they get in return? Cheaper Chimeras? A new transport that holds 30 conscripts?

Having Lascarbines is definitely an option, but in-an-of-itself doesn't solve the guard infantry output problem (it's still mean 1.5W for 27 dice). We're still over-paying and under-performing unless it goes to Assault4. Having differently equipped squads doesn't solve the output or durability problem either. Anything visible in 9th just dies (especially infantry), so unless the unit can do something, you make it as cheap as possible (meaning no special/heavy weapons) so it doesn't trade down. Right now, a guard squad is trading 55 points for 10 points. Adding 2 special weapons for 20 points doesn't help it from being picked up by 100 Airburst Frag rounds, so we would still make the squad as cheap as possible (meaning no SWs/HWs).

I agree with you that just adding bodies to HWTs and HWSs doesn't accomplish the goal. It add wounds, but make the teams more vulnerable to blast, which really isn't an improvement, it's just a side-grade with additional complexity. With all the BS2, indirect, bikes, and blast weapons, unless we stop them from being targeted (better T, W and AV are beyond our reach), they'll just get picked up like they are today. It's the next escalation past everything getting an invulnerable save. That's why I proposed LOS! for HWTs. Then the HWTs stay in the back providing covering fire, while being harder to target.

brainpsyk wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:

 Pyroalchi wrote:
I don't know where it started, but could we somehow find our way back to a less confrontative tone while discussing ideas? I think there are enough interesting ones from multiple posters, but if they are paired with "your idea of Guard is just plain wrong!!1!" It's a bit difficult to engage in a productive exchange of thoughts.

It's hard to do that when people don't acknowledge little things, yes.

Like the existence of differently equipped regiments. Like the existence of differently equipped squads. Like the existence of lascarbines. Or a million little stupid things that people chose to try to gak all over me on for this discussion.

It depends on if the post is constructive. Just saying "idea X sucks" is not constructive.

That's fair, but frankly there is only so many times that you can really not feel like you've banged your head against a wall over this topic being broached over and over and over and over again. Even before 8E, it should have been abundantly clear to people that something needed to change and simply screwing with points would not be enough.

Having regiments not being able to take certain units doesn't do anything, unless there is something special to replace them (like SW Grey Hunters and BCs vs. Tac/Assault Marines). Just let the players pick which unit(s) they want. It's not that Valhallans don't have Valkyies, they just don't use them as often. Same for AV6 on Catachans. I agree it's fluffy but not meaningful. To make it meaningful, it would have to be a trade-off for something valuable. So for Catachans, what do I get for being AV6?

Always counting in cover, even in the open, and getting to impose a negative hit modifier while within cover.

Additionally, Catachan Devil units, Harker, and Straken?

If Valhallans can't take Valkyries, what do they get in return? Cheaper Chimeras? A new transport that holds 30 conscripts?

They get recycling Conscripts, or Conscripts that can take Orders. There's never been anything about them not having Valkyries--I used the example of Drop Troops because that's a specific regimental and doctrinal setup that is more or less implied to be out of their wheelhouse due to the nature of their world. Lots of caves and ice would make air drops not great as an operational doctrine.

Having Lascarbines is definitely an option, but in-an-of-itself doesn't solve the guard infantry output problem (it's still mean 1.5W for 27 dice). We're still over-paying and under-performing unless it goes to Assault4. Having differently equipped squads doesn't solve the output or durability problem either. Anything visible in 9th just dies (especially infantry), so unless the unit can do something, you make it as cheap as possible (meaning no special/heavy weapons) so it doesn't trade down. Right now, a guard squad is trading 55 points for 10 points. Adding 2 special weapons for 20 points doesn't help it from being picked up by 100 Airburst Frag rounds, so we would still make the squad as cheap as possible (meaning no SWs/HWs).

Bluntly, balancing off of the gimmicky garbage played in tournaments is pointless. GW has yet to learn that, and with the current crop of playtesters they have? They won't be learning it anytime soon.

I agree with you that just adding bodies to HWTs and HWSs doesn't accomplish the goal. It add wounds, but make the teams more vulnerable to blast, which really isn't an improvement, it's just a side-grade with additional complexity. With all the BS2, indirect, bikes, and blast weapons, unless we stop them from being targeted (better T, W and AV are beyond our reach), they'll just get picked up like they are today. It's the next escalation past everything getting an invulnerable save. That's why I proposed LOS! for HWTs. Then the HWTs stay in the back providing covering fire, while being harder to target.

Problem, IMO, is that LOS is going to be wildly subject to change. Hence why I've suggested something else.

Frankly the easiest solution is likely to require a bit more "oomph" in the form of an "Engineer Squad" that can deploy fortifications or bolster terrain for our units to take advantage of.

brainpsyk wrote:
It's not that we need to roll less dice, it's that the dice we roll needs to be more effective. The fundamental problem there is our BS4. Compare to 4 dice at BS2 with re-rolls, we'd need to roll 10 dice to be roughly comparable. Given our variance on the to-hit, the way we would compensate is to make our wounding & AP better. If you look at most of the guard heavy weapons, that's what they're intended to do, have lots of shots that miss, but those that do hit are strong enough to wound and punch thru the armor.

Our infantry need both. Our vehicles only need to be more effective.

That's why I'm saying FRFSRF should be altered to work just like Radium weapons. As in:

"Each time an attack is made with this weapon against an enemy unit (excluding VEHICLE units), an unmodified hit roll of 6 automatically wounds the target."

For example: A single Infantry Squad with FRFSRF will currently kill 1 marine. With the suggested change to FRFSRF you'd get 18 shots instead of 36, but immediately you'd get 3 wounds and 2 more from rolling the rest of your hits, for a total of 0.833 dead marines. You've already saved half the time from rolling attacks, then another 16.67% of your time rolling to wound. Multiplied across 18 infantry squads that's a lot of time off the clock saved, making it actually viable to try for chip damage.

It's slightly worse mathematically while taking significantly less time to roll. It's also more resilient against -1 to Hit and benefits more from RR to Hit.

Kanluwen wrote:

 alextroy wrote:
One thing we can be sure of is GW isn't going to give us rules options that don't have models. There will be no light/normal/heavy infantry because there are no such models. There will be no different types of lasguns because there is no such models.

We literally have rules for Lascarbines right now. They came with Gaunt's Ghosts(Corbec has one). Larkin's got rules for the Long-Las as well.

The one thing we can be sure of right now is that we cannot be sure of anything.

I'm pretty sure there are no other models outside of this squad armed with either of those weapons. Might as well be asking for all Space Marine Captains to have the Gauntlets of Ultramar as standard issue.... well, they can have just one gauntlet if they wear Gravis Armor.

Voss wrote:

 alextroy wrote:

I'm not saying my idea is perfect, but I hope GW has a way of making Guard Infantry viable other than making the base Lasgun stats better. You certainly can't make the AP -1 without every bolter in the game going "What about me!"

Shuriken catapults and fleshborers wave energetically.
'Oh baby bolter, you'll catch up one day.'

At least those were only Bolter equivalent weapons during the dark ages of 3rd to 7th

Canonically aren't snipers normally armed with long las?

 alextroy wrote:

Voss wrote:

 alextroy wrote:

I'm not saying my idea is perfect, but I hope GW has a way of making Guard Infantry viable other than making the base Lasgun stats better. You certainly can't make the AP -1 without every bolter in the game going "What about me!"

Shuriken catapults and fleshborers wave energetically.
'Oh baby bolter, you'll catch up one day.'

At least those were only Bolter equivalent weapons during the dark ages of 3rd to 7th

Er... they weren't. The catapult never recovered from the nerfing into a shotgun equivalent, and the fleshborer was a bolt pistol. That they're suddenly better than bolters is actually a good sign for lasguns getting an upgrade into 'vaguely useful' territory.
But we're all going to pay for the upgrades when the next Marine book comes around (well, the loyalist one, anyway).

 Kanluwen wrote:
Bluntly, balancing off of the gimmicky garbage played in tournaments is pointless.

This doesn't even seem specious, this is flat-out wrong.

You guys are thinking too small. Here is my fix: PRIMARIS GUARD!

The fluff doesn't matter. SomethingsomethingGulliman, somethingsomethingAdMech. But now there are Guardsmen who are totally better equipped and more awesome than the normal ones. Maybe a full-blown expansion of the Scions line? You get the idea, new but familiar aesthetics, new but familiar weapons, and a new but familiar faction design.

Primaris Guardsmen would be armed with three-barrelled lasguns, so their weapons are obviously Salvo 3 (but stay R24", S3 and AP0). They have more awesome special weapons like Turbosun Plasma Rifles (R30", Assault 3), Melta Crucifiers (D8, causes D6 Mortal Wounds at half range), and Übergrenade Launchers (dunno, +1S and better Blast?). There is also the El Johnson tank that is totally better than the Leman Russ and has 6 different awesome guns and stuff. Again, you get the idea, why bother with reinventing old stuff when you can make up new stuff that is totally more awesome? And you have to, like, re-buy your entire army, so everyone wins: you get more awesome models and GW gets more money!

So yeah, that's my idea. And I'm only half-sarcastic here.

 AtoMaki wrote:
but stay R24", S3 and AP0

Don't forget the originals would go to S3, AP +1 - the originals have to be 1AP worse than the new ones.

 ClockworkZion wrote:
Canonically aren't snipers normally armed with long las?

IIRC yes, with the usual caveat of "millions of worlds with millions of doctrines and millions of tech levels" (which leads to some being armed with exotic needle rifles, some getting solid projectiles, some getting fancy crossbows, etc etc - the old "as long as it's obviously a sniper weapon, model it however you want").

 AtoMaki wrote:
You guys are thinking too small. Here is my fix: PRIMARIS GUARD!

The fluff doesn't matter. SomethingsomethingGulliman, somethingsomethingAdMech. But now there are Guardsmen who are totally better equipped and more awesome than the normal ones. Maybe a full-blown expansion of the Scions line? You get the idea, new but familiar aesthetics, new but familiar weapons, and a new but familiar faction design.

Primaris Guardsmen would be armed with three-barrelled lasguns, so their weapons are obviously Salvo 3 (but stay R24", S3 and AP0). They have more awesome special weapons like Turbosun Plasma Rifles (R30", Assault 3), Melta Crucifiers (D8, causes D6 Mortal Wounds at half range), and Übergrenade Launchers (dunno, +1S and better Blast?). There is also the El Johnson tank that is totally better than the Leman Russ and has 6 different awesome guns and stuff. Again, you get the idea, why bother with reinventing old stuff when you can make up new stuff that is totally more awesome? And you have to, like, re-buy your entire army, so everyone wins: you get more awesome models and GW gets more money!

So yeah, that's my idea. And I'm only half-sarcastic here.

All for it. And Catachans should be armed with miniguns: https://youtu.be/ylnZ22mJuBw?t=21

 AtoMaki wrote:
There is also the El Johnson tank that is totally better than the Leman Russ and has 6 different awesome guns and stuff.

Don't forget it has heavy stubbers all over it, too.

Preemptive request. Stop/don't take things away offer more sprues (or on-demand 3d prints from GW) on the side to model things that aren't in the main kit rather than just delete. GW should gear up to 3d print however many elysian bits i want to order and throw it in a flat rate box rather than delete to simplify production/inventory.

When marines are getting a new captain or lieutenant every year guard shouldn't have things pushed into legends

I don't really know about 'fixing' guard, but I'd like to see more synergies between units - make Guard the human Combined Arms faction.

Something like: Vox-caster units spot for artillery giving them a bonus. Officers can use Vox-casters to call in artillery strikes (the MoO doing it betterer of course). Ogryns/Bullgryns being bodyguards for their 'little brothers'. Transports being allowed to fire overwatch with a unit that disembarked from them.

Or whatever - the point being each individual unit is not very good on its own, but when combined with other units of different types supporting them, they are greater than the sum of their parts. We already sort of have that in Orders, it's just only Infantry squads get better when an officer is around.

 Kcalehc wrote:
I don't really know about 'fixing' guard, but I'd like to see more synergies between units - make Guard the human Combined Arms faction.

Something like: Vox-caster units spot for artillery giving them a bonus. Officers can use Vox-casters to call in artillery strikes (the MoO doing it betterer of course). Ogryns/Bullgryns being bodyguards for their 'little brothers'. Transports being allowed to fire overwatch with a unit that disembarked from them.

Or whatever - the point being each individual unit is not very good on its own, but when combined with other units of different types supporting them, they are greater than the sum of their parts. We already sort of have that in Orders, it's just only Infantry squads get better when an officer is around.

I kind of like this idea. It feels like it would help differentiate guard from other armies more.

Some other ideas that have been rattling around in my brain pan (not sure if they'd be good, bad, or game breaking):

1) Non-sponson/non-hull vehicle-based blast weapons spill over damage to other models in the unit. Sure there's the argument of "why don't other imperial vehicles get this" to which I reply, "maybe in SM 2.0" . On a more serious note though, I would expect this would amp up the killing power of our tanks/artillery. Then make the vanquisher cannon the ignore invuln weapon (probably still won't be worth taking, sadly)

2) Either increase the range for vox-casters or just give them range over the entire battlefield for simplicity (and give vehicles an equal-costed upgrade that does the same thing). For everyone, not just the Cadians.

3) Give custom regiments a third trait and add even more options to the list or make the existing options stronger (to make up for them losing out on regiment locked relics and orders). Maybe add a list of orders that you can pick one of for your custom regiment. Personally, I'm not a fan of taking the name-brand regiments myself. I don't care if someone else takes them and I really like that they exist, but I love creating fluff for my regiment from the ground up (my current regiment is raised on an arid Mars-like mining and trade world where the equatorial seas evaporated long ago and the resulting salt plains are now used for weapons testing by techpriests from a forge world within the same system: gunnery experts and spotter details fluffed into slightly upgraded weaponry works better than standard issue). Maybe this is just my personal bias, but I wish the custom regiments were as strong as the name-brand regiments. Either way, guard come from countless planets and being able to represent that without completely losing out on all the nice stuff would give me the warm fuzzies . (On a related note, custom storm trooper regiments as well, please?)

5) Give us back "Incoming!" (In 5th, when I last played, it was a platoon commander order that gave a +2 cover save at the cost of not be able to act normally until the end of the player's next turn), let it break the +1/-1 modifier rule. Alternatively, make this a guard-specific version of the Take Cover strategem. The idea behind this is to make it harder to force us off of objectives at range. Let Guardsmen hold the line like the God-Emperor intended. Generally speaking, I'd like to see a lot of defensive buffs to guard (not necessarily in the stat lines, but that's certainly one way to do it). [edit: +2 cover save is apparently fine...still getting to grips with the details of the 9th ed rules it would seem heh]

6) Give us more ways to recoup CP as a representation of the massive logistical support that the guard have.

Again, I'm not sure if these are good, bad, or game breaking, but I think they'd help Guard be stronger and more guard-y

Note that the max of +1/-1 for modifiers is Hit Rolls and Wound Rolls only.

It does NOT apply to save rolls.

 JNAProductions wrote:
Note that the max of +1/-1 for modifiers is Hit Rolls and Wound Rolls only.

It does NOT apply to save rolls.

Thanks for the correction. For some reason I was thinking it was hit and save rather than hit and wound heh.

Thought crossed my mind: what if guard got the Drukari option where they can take up to three foc charts as a single army, each with different faction rules at no penalty. Like a patrol, vanguard, spearhead, outrider or super heavy detachment in any combination (with 0-1 of each you take) at no CP cost or penalty for tournament play.

It'd fit the guard very well, but regimenting it to be a minimum of 3 would also reflect the regidity of the guard as you'd be forced to take a tax in each detachment for the benefit of mixing regiments as you see fit.

 Kcalehc wrote:
I don't really know about 'fixing' guard, but I'd like to see more synergies between units - make Guard the human Combined Arms faction.

Something like: Vox-caster units spot for artillery giving them a bonus. Officers can use Vox-casters to call in artillery strikes (the MoO doing it betterer of course). Ogryns/Bullgryns being bodyguards for their 'little brothers'. Transports being allowed to fire overwatch with a unit that disembarked from them.

Or whatever - the point being each individual unit is not very good on its own, but when combined with other units of different types supporting them, they are greater than the sum of their parts. We already sort of have that in Orders, it's just only Infantry squads get better when an officer is around.

I would LOVE something like this.
* infantry get cover/Ld when near tanks
* some kind of bonus when 2 or more units fire at the same target
* as you stated, a 'spotter' bonus, just for having a vox caster and LOS to a target for artillery, or even a mortar pit. Or even with Gunships, so the gunships are targeting the priorities for the boots on the ground, instead of just picking targets of opportunity.