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 Mr Morden wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Not enough distinction between them.

For Marines? Possibly hypocritical given my comment immediately before, but giving them lots of different flavours, even if some aren’t all that different, helps prevent the dominant army in the game becoming entirely boring and predictable.

Black Templars for instance have a sufficiently different playstyle to Space Wolves, Ultramarines and Dark Angels.

I think they could push the distinction somewhat between some though.

But for Guard? It’s just not there. The whole Codex offers a variety of options, from massed armour to massed infantry to massed artillery and everything in between.

Though I wouldn’t say no to Regiment Specific Specialists. For instance, a Catachan Saboteur type unit.

Sorry but that is complete and utter rubbush.

Guard regiments have always been far more distinct than Marines - Guard have primitives clad in furs, 18th century looking regiments complete with laslocks who march in lockstep, cavalry regiments with various creatures as mounts, jet pack units, airbourne units, regiments with cybernetics, units with steam powered power armour and walkers, units with laser reflective armour, etc etc

Contrast that to the Marines - even the ultra flanserised ones who have become little more than recurring jokes centered around a single word - Wolf, Dark, blood etc.

As they desperately added "unique" units to the Marines - they steadily took away all the flavour of the guard to make them all Cadian lite

Inclined to agree here. My understanding of guard from BL novels is that they're potentially hyper-diverse. Like, we should have everything Mordan just described plus steampunk terminator regiments (Fire Caste book), bird-riding cavalry guard (HH novels; one of the first few I think), and regiments that make extensive use of psykers to buff and coordinate their dudes (Legion). If anything, I can see GW simply not knowing which cool guard thing to produce models/rules for and to end up not trying because of the sheer variety.

Loyalist marines have what? 6 codices + Death Watch, and half of those are 90% just vanilla marines with a couple extra special versions of generic units. Or units that should be generic units but aren't for some reason (libby dreads).

If you asked me to choose the faction that "deserves" more books to represent their wide variety of fighting styles, I'd choose guard before marines in a heartbeat.

That said, I don't particularly like supplements. At least, not the way GW does them. I'd generally rather condense more content into fewer books where it's reasonable to do so. And the marine supplements that currently exist probably didn't need to. Or could have been rolled into another book for improved value or something. So while I think guard "deserve" supplements more than marines, I don't actually want GW to make supplements for guard.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:None of which necessarily requires multiple codexes.

Look at the old Lost and the Damned IA:13. One list, an absolute riot of options.

At least with some of the Marine Codexes there’s stuff a given Chapter won’t have.

LunarSol wrote:I'm not sure why anyone would want this. The worst part of marines is some of the stuff being locked behind extra books. It's more exploitation than special treatment.

Agree with both of these. IA:13 was a great example of packing a lot of varied flavor into a single book. Ditto the old IA stuff that contained the 7e corsair rules. Sooo much flavor in one place! I'm basically disappointed by every GW book that isn't doing something similar.

And I definitely don't want my non-marine factions to be infected with the gross supplement bug that marines have. I don't want Yriel and all the eldar wraith units to get locked behind an extra paywall just because they're the "Iyanden" units. I don't want Poisoned Tongue to get a splat that makes me pay extra money to use Malys and take Kabalite Envenomists" that are just warriors in fancier armor with +1 to a couple of stats.

Ozymandian wrote:
I don't think there's any argument for letting Marines have a bunch of books while excluding Guard - or, like, Orks or Nids or a bunch of others, for that matter - beyond 'I like the game to have a disproportionate focus on Marines and Marine-related matters'.

Well, the arguments are, "It makes money," and, "We've trained the marine players to accept it already."

Ozymandian wrote:
[...] If I got to design it, I'd make Guard detachments two separate picks from half a dozen or so options; one for your home world type, for your detachment rule and half your enhancements and stratagems, and then one for your regiment type, which would give the rest of your enhancements and stratagems, as well as tell you what your Battleline and Dedicated Transport picks are. [...]

I would also include a "scrapping the bottom of the barrel" regiment type that
- lorewise simulates the survivors of several depleted regiment being forced into a new one (as described several times in the Gaunts Ghosts books for example)
- modelwise allows you to take everything from the codex, so that beginners or collectors that just select "one of everything that looks cool" can build a legal army
- ruleswise "pays" for that flexibility by having a bit weaker stratagems and rules than the specialists with shorter army lists

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Not enough distinction between them.

For Marines? Possibly hypocritical given my comment immediately before, but giving them lots of different flavours, even if some aren’t all that different, helps prevent the dominant army in the game becoming entirely boring and predictable.

Black Templars for instance have a sufficiently different playstyle to Space Wolves, Ultramarines and Dark Angels.

I think they could push the distinction somewhat between some though.

But for Guard? It’s just not there. The whole Codex offers a variety of options, from massed armour to massed infantry to massed artillery and everything in between.

Though I wouldn’t say no to Regiment Specific Specialists. For instance, a Catachan Saboteur type unit.

Sorry but that is complete and utter rubbush.

Guard regiments have always been far more distinct than Marines - Guard have primitives clad in furs, 18th century looking regiments complete with laslocks who march in lockstep, cavalry regiments with various creatures as mounts, jet pack units, airbourne units, regiments with cybernetics, units with steam powered power armour and walkers, units with laser reflective armour, etc etc

Contrast that to the Marines - even the ultra flanserised ones who have become little more than recurring jokes centered around a single word - Wolf, Dark, blood etc.

As they desperately added "unique" units to the Marines - they steadily took away all the flavour of the guard to make them all Cadian lite

And which of those can’t you assemble as a themed force using the core Codex? The rest is stylistic stuff, which is the realm of converting and kitbashing. I’m not arguing Marines get more than their share, and it’s been diminishing returns since I’d say Heavy Intercessors (who are cool, it’s what followed I’m meaning).

But given just ridiculously popular Marines are? They get some milage out of Chapter Specific Codexes. Guard don’t need that in the same way.

Which argument are your trying to make here?

As I have shown above, Guard are far more diverse in every way than any Marine Chapter, and that's without even mentioning that the Guard have have both men and women under arms.

Is is that Guard don;t deserve more models, rules, etc because they are not Marines and so not as popular - which is potentially a circular argument related to- well if one faction gets all the stuff why play another.

If its "good enough" for Guard - What marine Chapters could not be assembled as a themed, kitbashed forces and just use basic rules if its good enough for Guard.

Now it has got better over the last few years - but Marines have two entire ranges - 40k and 30k dedicated to them. Personally I would like GW to look at failed aspirants and thralls etc and give them models - maybe a codex add on to Knights, Sisters and Marines that covered their support troops. Be better than the constant "new gun" Marines.

I don't really want full codexes of different regiments - back in the day they could and did cover the forces in one codex - so we could have primitives with a couple of axes or elite stealth trooper regiments with snipers or cyber enhanced soldiers but it is hugely irritating to be told that Marines are more diverse than Guard - that I am afraid is total rubbish

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
None of which necessarily requires multiple codexes.

Look at the old Lost and the Damned IA:13. One list, an absolute riot of options.

At least with some of the Marine Codexes there’s stuff a given Chapter won’t have.

And you just list what items specific Chapters can;t have or you have a list of choices so that you get X but can't use Y. I know some players want their Chapters to all be Marines +1 but the whole point of the relatively unique chapters is that they don't have everything - they exchange one advantage for not having another.

Guard used to be the same - you could select say Barbarian warriors but you might then say they don't use vehicles etc etc.

Wyldhunt makes very good points - GW can;t make good codexes anymore - these days it just a collection of new models vaguely linked to a few old ones that would have just been options before in a main codex. Guard codexes would be the same so by all means make a chunkier main Guard codex with vast array of options not the churned out junk they make now for factions.

Really all the excitement drains away once you factor in 'no model no rules'. Becomes a project GW can't do, and to be honest conversions/non standard lists that aren't sold, all those aren't the new corporate game in boxes direction they want. While a few shreds of a more wargaming ethos hangs in there, its pretty much gone.

But something else designers don't do very well is presumably the baseline guard are the best, and any variants have to be worse in some ways to get other advantages.

I would love say a Steel legion list. Years back we tried something like core is Guard squad in a Chimera, with optional rocket launcher team (as chimera can transport 12 guys). Footsloggers are pressganged hive gangers with autoguns and a few different upgrades (using Necro Hive scum models). New model is a conversion sprue for a chimera that lets you have a the turret set at the back of the IFV and different turret weapon options.
Rest of the options are the same as guard regulars but rules differences are Chimeras all have Voxs for officers and no tank commanders and Steel legion officers can issue tank order instead of infantry orders to a Chimera or the new converted Chimera to show what they favour using and their identity as mech infantry.

The old (much cooler) Guard codices, especially the great 3.5 one was basically GW inviting you to make your infantry out of whatever 28mm humans you wanted, and just sci fi them up with bits from GW and some GW tanks.

Modern GW would never do that, and it's a real shame because the opportunities for wild and wacky Guard regiment cultures is greater than ever due to the absolute cornucopia of plastic kits available now, and that's before you even touch on 3D printing. Everyone could have a completely unique, bespoke guard regiment.

Just last summer I had loads of fun kitbashing Oathmark Human Light Infantry into Tanith First and Only using the spare parts from my Stargrave and Cadian sprues. I got a whole army done for about 80c a dude and I'm very happy with it.

The_Real_Chris wrote:

I would love say a Steel legion list. Years back we tried something like core is Guard squad in a Chimera, with optional rocket launcher team (as chimera can transport 12 guys). Footsloggers are pressganged hive gangers with autoguns and a few different upgrades (using Necro Hive scum models). New model is a conversion sprue for a chimera that lets you have a the turret set at the back of the IFV and different turret weapon options.
Rest of the options are the same as guard regulars but rules differences are Chimeras all have Voxs for officers and no tank commanders and Steel legion officers can issue tank order instead of infantry orders to a Chimera or the new converted Chimera to show what they favour using and their identity as mech infantry.

The Steel Legion being largely mechanized infantry doesn't preclude them battle tanks (and tank commanders).

It doesn't. Hence why they can take them (the tanks). The big difference is in the orders, harking back to them being a mechanised force (so no tank commanders as they are a source of tank orders).

You would expect their mech units to be better than regular guard mech and other units slightly worse. Otherwise they are just more elite guard by being equal in all areas and better in their specialism.

It goes back to considering the core (Cadian) list to be the archtypial Guard army. The best of humanities mortal army regiments. The other regiments have specialisms but aren't better than the Cadian standard, or they would be the one the Imperium uses as a base. So you need ways of encouraging the army to use its stereotypical units and ways of showing why they would.

Of course you can just take a cadian mech infantry army and say it is steel legion. You just end up with a slightly worse guard army on the tabletop, as the codex army isn't designed as a mech infantry force.