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Just looking at a fun simple way to have an upgrade path for units in the Imperial Guard that captures the old favourites like Karskin.

The following would be for narrative battles for old crusties like me who like to use their old models.

So the base end is an infantryman for 4 points, and the high end is a Scion for 7 points.

10 man squads of Scions have better BS, armour, 4 special weapons, Hotshots, are troop options and deep strike.

Vets are in the middle with better BS, shotguns, 3 special weapons, 1 heavy weapon, 1 Heavy flamer and are elites (so worse command and control, i.e. less CP – interestingly veteran soldiers are not the amazing super soldiers portrayed in fiction, they are hard to get to do the dangerous stuff than newer troops who don’t know better…)

The old Elites are units like Karskin, Catachan Devils, Armageddon Firesweep Teams, Gaunts Ghosts Scouts, etc.

So looking at it we have
Stats
Armour
Extra special weapons
Alternative weapons
Extra Heavy weapon
Troops/Elite
Deep strike
5 man teams
4/5/6/7 point range

So I would have thought

Veteran status
+10 per squad
- can change basic weapon to shotgun
- extra 2 special weapon slots
- extra heavy weapon slot
- +1 BS OR WS
move to Elite slot

Elite
A further +10 per squad
- can change basic weapon to shotgun or hotshot
- can have carapace armour (4+ save) or advanced camouflage (+2 to save when in cover and Scout – i.e. move 9” before first battle round begins)
- can lose two heavy weapon slots to become troops

And for sake of argument
Scion
A further +10 per squad
- Gain Deepstrike
- Gain a Special Weapon slot
- Can be fielded in 5 man squads for half the cost

And just because
Inquisitorial Storm Troopers
A further +20 points per squad
- Increase LD by 1
- Each model additionally carries a hot shot pistol if they do not already have a pistol
- Unit no longer needs an officer and may instead give itself 1 order per turn

Heavy weapons choices include heavy flamers as standard (so could have two potentially in a squad).

Advanced Camouflage is universally worse than +1 armor save.

4+ in the open, 3+ in cover
As opposed to...
5+ in the open, 3+ in cover

Edit: missed that it also gave a scout move. My bad! That’s a reasonable trade off.

I think as the game has scaled up needing to have separate statlines/unit entries for more tiers of units has become more and more pointless. Space Marine Veterans compete for function with the regular units (most obvious in Vanguard v. Assault) to the point where you usually take one and ignore the other, Conscripts were better Guardsmen until the points change and the Commissar nerf made them worse Guardsmen, that kind of thing.

What I'd really like to see is "Guardsmen" and "Conscripts" rolled into one 10-20-model squad and "Veterans" and "Stormtroopers"/"Scions" given one unit entry.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
I think as the game has scaled up needing to have separate statlines/unit entries for more tiers of units has become more and more pointless. Space Marine Veterans compete for function with the regular units (most obvious in Vanguard v. Assault) to the point where you usually take one and ignore the other, Conscripts were better Guardsmen until the points change and the Commissar nerf made them worse Guardsmen, that kind of thing.

Yeah, no. "Conscripts were better Guardsmen" because they were being taken in soup lists with Commissars and a cheap as chips officer when they gave a guaranteed Order.

It was not until we saw the Guard codex drop with the "Raw Recruits"(Orders on a 4+) rule that we started seeing the officers get ditched, because there was no pretense really even needed anymore of "mah fluff list!".

What I'd really like to see is "Guardsmen" and "Conscripts" rolled into one 10-20-model squad and "Veterans" and "Stormtroopers"/"Scions" given one unit entry.

Cool, so let's just throw everyone's stuff into the same setup. Sounds good!

No. What needs to happen is Conscripts need to remain awful, Guardsmen go to a 4+ save and remain at 10 models, Scions and Grenadier Veterans go to a 3+.

People keep thinking "GUARDSMEN NEED TO BE MORE EXPENSIVE!". You want them more expensive, you damn well better make them worth the points.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
I think as the game has scaled up needing to have separate statlines/unit entries for more tiers of units has become more and more pointless. Space Marine Veterans compete for function with the regular units (most obvious in Vanguard v. Assault) to the point where you usually take one and ignore the other, Conscripts were better Guardsmen until the points change and the Commissar nerf made them worse Guardsmen, that kind of thing.

Yeah, no. "Conscripts were better Guardsmen" because they were being taken in soup lists with Commissars and a cheap as chips officer when they gave a guaranteed Order.

It was not until we saw the Guard codex drop with the "Raw Recruits"(Orders on a 4+) rule that we started seeing the officers get ditched, because there was no pretense really even needed anymore of "mah fluff list!".

Wasn't the bigger nerf the one to the Commissar's rule? Orders on Conscripts were highly efficient, but the big problem with conscripts (iirc) was that you could functionally take enormous blobs of fearless wounds for cheaper than anyone else in the game.

What I'd really like to see is "Guardsmen" and "Conscripts" rolled into one 10-20-model squad and "Veterans" and "Stormtroopers"/"Scions" given one unit entry.

Cool, so let's just throw everyone's stuff into the same setup. Sounds good!

I mean... my guardian defenders/storm guardians could absolutely be a single unit entry. So could strike and breacher fire warriors. Terminators too (heck, chaos terminators are kind of just what happens if you fuse loyalist shooty and assault termies into a single bundle of wargear options). Really, any of my units that are only differentiated by wargear options could probably get fused together without it being a big deal.

No. What needs to happen is Conscripts need to remain awful, Guardsmen go to a 4+ save and remain at 10 models, Scions and Grenadier Veterans go to a 3+.

People keep thinking "GUARDSMEN NEED TO BE MORE EXPENSIVE!". You want them more expensive, you damn well better make them worth the points.

Nah. I have scions. I have sisters of battle. I don't particularly want my scions cramping my sisters' style by making carapace armor as protective as power armor. If you made everything in the game a couple of points more expensive, you'd make guardsmen/conscripts proportionately more expensive than more expensive bodies. It would give designers more room to balance points rather than racing to the bottom to be as cost-efficient as cheap, spammable guardsmen.

 Kanluwen wrote:
...Cool, so let's just throw everyone's stuff into the same setup. Sounds good!

No. What needs to happen is Conscripts need to remain awful, Guardsmen go to a 4+ save and remain at 10 models, Scions and Grenadier Veterans go to a 3+.

People keep thinking "GUARDSMEN NEED TO BE MORE EXPENSIVE!". You want them more expensive, you damn well better make them worth the points.

We're playing a game where you need to be able to simulate Grots and Titans in the same system, and you want four tiers of statline for "slightly better-trained dude with lasrifle".

There is a point at which the bloat is just bloat.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Wyldhunt wrote:
...Nah. I have scions. I have sisters of battle. I don't particularly want my scions cramping my sisters' style by making carapace armor as protective as power armor. If you made everything in the game a couple of points more expensive, you'd make guardsmen/conscripts proportionately more expensive than more expensive bodies. It would give designers more room to balance points rather than racing to the bottom to be as cost-efficient as cheap, spammable guardsmen.

Pursuant to this:

Right now just within infantry in the Imperium we need to be able to simulate Conscripts < Guardsmen < Veterans < Scions < Skitarii < Battle Sisters < Celestians < Marine Scouts < Sicarans < Marines < Marine Veterans < Primaris Marines < Terminators < Aggressors < Custodians < Custodian Wardens < Centurions < Custodian Allarus. At the moment if you do a stat change to pretty much any of these you need to consider whether you need it to propagate up or down the stack because a lot of these differ from each other by one number, or occasionally two.

One way to differentiate Vets and make them more attractive is let an Officer give orders to them from further away than normal.