by JasonC

The new Imperial Guard ASTRA MILITARUM!!! (I’m just gonna stick with ‘Guard’)

So rumours abound but we have a pretty good idea of the newer aspects of the forthcoming guard book; the nerfs, buffs, new units, and units removed. While the book is out in a couple of days, all true sons of the Imperium will be dying to know as much as they can about their favourite army, perhaps hesitant about a lot of the changes we are hearing about.

This article is reasonably lengthy! If you aren’t interested in reading all the rumours you have already seen about the place — but are interested in some reasonable comments as to the effect certain changes will have on the book, find the section that interests you and start a discussion in the comments and/or forums. If you *really* don’t want to read it all, go for the summary at the end 🙂

I’m going to address things in a fairly orderly fashion with sticking where possible to the force org chart, though there’s some interaction between a few units as to the impact they might have.

HQ SECTION

So naturally we have a new warlord chart:

1) D3 units of the primary detachment gain outflank (nice right??)

2) Choose a codex, warlord and unit have preferred enemy against said codex (situational… but good for eg with a guard blob where your warlord is attached, or if these traits are used by tank commanders (punisher rerolling 1s to wound? – come back to this later)

3) Friendly guard units within 12 inches of the warlord don’t have to test for 25% casualties (woah… this might not seem like a big deal, but 0 chance of units breaking while holding objectives? Nice IMO)

4) Warlord and unit have relentless (see #2 but a relentless guard blob? No worries!)

5) Voice of command on warlord (ie orders) range is 18 inches. If he didn’t have voice of command he gets one order, at normal range. Solid given what the orders do.

6) Voice of command gives one additional order (again solid)

So all in all… solid to great I think. You should find use for most of these, and definitely better overall than the rule book equivalents. You could say a few of them wouldn’t find a place in say a non-blob guard force… but I think that is really where the guard will find their niche. Time will tell.

Speaking of orders… well,

Orders!

The ‘basic’ orders one presumes are available to a number of units in the game, whereas there are three additional orders available presumably for HQ units only (similar to now).

Basic orders:

1) Take Aim – gives unit precision shot. (Awesome – particularly en masse lasguns, allow you to remove certain problem models. In the case of blobs you’ll often get enough wounds through punch through look out sir, especially on standard characters/not ICs. Twinlink with div for best effect…)

2) Smite at Will – gives the unit split fire. Now, this could be useful if the orders effect models allied to the codex, joined to a guard blob. For instance, orbital bombardment, since if any model has split fire (one or more models), then any more can use it. But I think limited options will see little use.

3) First rank fire, second rank fire – yup, still there.

4) Forward for the emperor! Fire, then run. Nice little bonus.

5) Move, move, move – you know it, you love it.

6) Suppressive Fire – unit gains the pinning rule. Not that great but ok.. guard have plenty of pinning generally.

Bonus orders

1) Confers tank hunter and monster hunter (now we’re talking).

2) Ignore cover (not opponent rerolls, but ignore.. well everyone else got it).

3) Unit auto regroups (old school).

Tank Commander orders – so while we don’t know about warlord traits, they do get their own order set. Naturally this makes us assume tank commanders don’t access the orders listed above.

1) Full throttle – Tank commanders unit moves 6+d6 flat out, even though they are heavy. I suppose if you really need to move thats pretty fast? But I usually want to shoot.

2) Gunners, Kill on Sight – Tank commander basically split fires. I think this is what will mainly be used, as a pair of Russes as a HQ choice could be a good option. Also allows you to economise psyker powers.

3) Strike and Shroud – Tanks in the squadron shoot, then other tanks activate their smoke launchers. This seems to imply you couldn’t already do this lol, but not hugely relevant I think.

Tank Commanders and Pask

Speaking of tank commanders… Pask appears to be a HQ, with a tonne of rules to match.

– Tank commanders are characters – no clarification as of yet if they do not benefit from precision, look out sir, challenges (challenge mephy and have your other tanks drive away) but yeah…

– He gains the warlord trait ‘old rancors’, which will most likely be the preferred enemy rule, if tank commanders don’t get their own trait set. Again preferred enemy pask punisher, yeah baby.

– Pask rerolls to penetrate. Awesome.

– Bonus depending upon vehicle he is embarked in. Unclear if this is Pask only, or tank commanders, but…

Punisher and Exterminator gain rending (this boys and girls is where its at).

Executioner can fire alternative single shot large blast plasma, that also causes blind (meh)

Heavy cannon, Vanquisher, Demolisher, or Nova Cannon rerolls to hit (okish).

Putting pask into context… put him in a punisher, get some divination flying around, and you have 29 heavy bolter rending shots twinlinked a turn, with tank hunter, and preferred enemy. Rude. That is around 19 wounds with three rending. With precision shots if he indeed benefits from it. Or around 8 rending hits vs a vehicle… 8 results vs armour 11-12, 5 vs armour 13, 2-3 vs armour 14.

Other HQ Notes

A number of special characters have been listed as still in the book, I think based on the summary chart at the back of the codex. These include…

– Straken

– Color Sergeant Kill (Krull? However it is spelt?)

– Yarrick

– Creed

– Nork Deddog (model wise apparently you can assemble him from the new ogryn box)

And furthermore, but with few details available as to exactly how they will operate,

– Astropath

– Commissar Prime

– Company Commander (so yes, still get your command squads)

– Enginseer (apparently you can take 3)

– Primaris Psyker (apparently you can take 3 – no word on powers yet)

– Master of Ordinance

– Officer of the Fleet

So most things are still there. I am very keen to see how the Primaris works, especially if you take three as one slot, or if they are additional in the same vein as advisors have been. But my sources hint they are still IC’s at ld9.

DEDICATED TRANSPORT SECTION

Chimeras – so they went up 10 points, not a huge deal, but not really warranted… they have to buy searchlights at one point as well. I’ll consider them for the searchlight but I mean, Chimeras really weren’t viable anymore with tau/elder (we know the theme) mauling them. The points hike encourages the purchase of the new Taurox I suppose. Yeah, it hurts I guess? But we weren’t going to spam these anyway.

Taurox – I won’t really cover these, you can read about them in the recent scion reviews around the place. Its a cheap transport, if you need a transport.

TROOPS SECTION

Veterans.

The big one. They’ve been nerfed to carry only 2 specials and 1 heavy, though they’re 10 points cheaper base and have similar/same upgrades as before (camo, 4+ armour, demo/melta) for decent points cost. The biggest impact I see on veterans though is the change to the vendetta… which though we’ll address again later, has been limited to a 6 man capacity. Even with the special weapon nerf, I don’t see these getting delivered any time soon to really make use of their weapons. And considering the nerf, why would you go to the effort. Anyway, cheap backfield scoring I guess, but go for the blob. I kind of see their role as when you want to ally in guard and bring a cheap unit.

Platoon

These appear to the mostly the same at the moment. Heavy weapon missile launchers can take flakk missiles, but as discussed elsewhere in depth, why you’d want to… well you can, and at least guard can twinlink and tank hunter. Expensive (+25 points or so total?) over a normal heavy weapon.

Conscripts are cheap (I think around 3 points a model) but meh.. we’ll see. Guardsmen blob will be where its at.

Special weapons and platoon command squads still around, and these will be the ones in your 6 man vendetta platforms.

Priests – apparently, these are the same priests that you get in your sisters army.

Note on the Blob – Again, this could be where the real power of guard lies. You have a veritable smorgasbord of abilities you can swiss army knife into this unit, with access to all the various inquisition and marine elements in the game. Hit and run, easy. Divination, no worries. 4+ Invuln, scout, hammer hand, rad grenades, tanking characters, outflank, it is all there. Perhaps not the deathstar equivalent of other armies. With a priest, you’re rerolling to hit and rerolling to wound, and youre rerolling your armour saves – which easily gives you a 2+ rerollable character in combat if you need it. Your guard blob will work well with the new tank commanders as well, swarming around to protect against deepstrike and combat.

Other random notes – It appears the penal legion are gone. Some people will lament but rules wise, can live with this.

ELITE SECTION

Psyker Battle Squad – yeah, they’ve been nerfed from god like to simply nasty. They appear to be mastery one with a few lores to pick from, including divination (their new default), biomancy, pyromancy, and telekinesis. Most powers you really want buffing other squads, unless they get some special rule – so handing out prescience, and the occasional 4+ invuln, misfortune, or scyers gaze seems to be where this squad will hang out. Drop to leadership 8, and lose the overseer.

Marbo – gone – yeah, kinda sad? But then again, with so many broadside sms/intercept around, I wasn’t using him.

Stormtroopers – you can see the new scion rules around the place, but basically guard get a small platoon of these in the one slot. You take 1-3 stormtrooper units plus 1 command scion unit. These can be decent delivery as they deepstrike, are on the cheap (around 65 points for one stormtrooper unit + weapons?) and the command unit gives orders + has 4 special slots. The actual stormtrooper base units only get the two specials still. It’s an option, and the platoon status means you aren’t competing for the psyker slots or other elite choices).

Ogryns – the new nasty? You get two varieties now, the standard which you know and love (though apparently you lose stubborn now, though a commissar is always an option) and the ‘Bullogryn’. The bulls weigh in at 45 points, with the same(ish?) statline they’ve had in the past, but at 4+ armour. They carry a shield which if in b2b with another shield model, gives them +1 armour save (now we’re talking) and +1 cover to models they are concealing (and they’re pretty big). So 45 pts per model for t5, str 5?, 3+ armour, 3 wound models, with guard buffs like priests/commissars or allied marine characters… yeah I can see this as viable. They can pay 15 points extra for a power maul and 5+ invuln but I probably wouldn’t go there. Oh and they get impact hits which is again solid, with the 15 pt upgrade allowing them to reroll to wound with impacts.

FAST ATTACK SECTION

So this all appears fairly similar, with the main exception of the…

Vendetta – up to 170 points (ok, we were expecting a hike), capacity is down to 6 models (yikes?). I don’t think this is huge.. we can probably deal with the points, especially if things are a bit cheaper here and there elsewhere in the codex, and tbh it really was a bit under. A bit. The capacity though as above makes me want to drop veterans generally speaking, but SWS and Platoon Commands shouldn’t care that much, if you really want you can put storm troopers (especially the scion unit?) inside to deliver 4 specials that way with orders.

Rough Riders, hellhound variants, and sentinels are all pretty similar – though the Armoured sentinel has dropped considerably in price. I still don’t see them being *that* viable considering all the tau and elder out there, with their small frame and side armour 10. But you never know, some people might go there.

HEAVY SUPPORT SECTION

Alright, so the dearly departed… it is sad to see models going, though we saw the same in the nids book (I think most likely GW aren’t producing rules for models they don’t intend to release soon).

– Colossus

– Medusa

– Griffon

Specific Vehicles

Manticore – 10 point increase but still the same? Great!

Hydra – Similar points, no interceptor. Damn.

Russes – these will really be appearing in the HQ slot I think? But appear to be the same more or less.

Doomsday tank missile thing – didn’t go to strength D. Thank God, I was half expecting it.

New ‘Wyvern’ Tank – now, there has been some discussion but it *appears* this thing has 2 weapons; and each weapon fires 2 (small) blasts at str 4, barrage, shred (rerolls to wound), twinlinked, ignores cover. Thats pretty nice for around 70 points – 4 blasts in total. Can be squadroned. I believe its ap6 so people can poo-poo the ignores cover, but this really helps clear out buffed/pinned scoring like kroot, horrors, plague bearers, etc. Especially as a lot of these deathstar armies really are minimising their troop numbers. I think this makes up for the griffon for the most part but time will tell. It is a decent tank in any case.

IN SUMMARY

So there we have it!

Is it better? Well… the blow to psyker battle squads is probably the biggest thing, dropping leadership was a great ability. You do get to spam divination, however, which is a nice compromise. The vendetta costing is liveable, and the dropped units weren’t crucial. The increase in blob support, combined with other recent releases is nice, and the ogryns are, well, interesting. And the orders + warlord traits are significantly better.

The tank commanders seem great… PASK <3 <3 <3 and you can ally this guy plus a token squad into another army if you really wanted to (though he’d lose the preferred enemy).

So… yes? I’m gonna go with they are better, but with the caveat that they are fairly ‘similar’ to what they’ve always done. With the exception of Pask and Ogryns I imagine guard armies won’t change all that much in function or look, and that is perhaps a little boring.

And so with the end of this little exercise, we’ll find out that guardsmen are actually one point each and can all carry special weapons, primaris psykers get 15 powers of their choice and reroll to cast, and manticores have adopted the Forgeworld str 9 ap 2 7 inch blast template. But it was fun to write and consolidate the rumours that have been jumping around!