There have been a lot of things released recently that have been guard related, mostly as snippets of bigger things but still, these small things could be important to future guard codicies.
Firstly we have the Warhammer community post about points drops and while there was a lot of points adjustments for Necrons and Marines, there was also one for guard. The Leman Russ battle tank will drop 10 points. Now, there are still a couple of questions, does this only apply to the standard Russ, or will it include commanders and Pask? If it's just the standard, I don't think it will make a massive difference, yes, it will make them more viable but most people rank tank commanders anyway, so will probably continue to do so. If it is on all Russ tanks, then, again, there will be little change but we might see a few more upgrades included with the extra points. Overall I think this will be a good change if it includes all versions, otherwise it's not going to do much.
Also along side the points changes there have also been a few rules changes, the one that has caught my eye at the moment is the change for detachments and armies. My main worry with this is how it will interact with my mixed forces armies, such as my Scion force with guard support. Now, I haven't seen the rules in their original form but there has been lots of speculation and discussion about them. The WarCom article discussed how your whole army now has to have the same selectable keyword, such as <chapter>, which would mean that the army would have to be purely Scion or purely guard. However, there are some people saying that it doesn't stop multiple detachments being different, as if they don't have the same selectable keyword, such as <regiment> and <tempests regiment> then they aren't affected by the rules. Meaning that you couldn't have Cadian and Catachan together but you could have Cadian and Lambdan Lions. Personally I am not sure about all this, it feels to me that the main idea is to make armies mono-faction and stop soup lists, however this would cause me a few problems. Hopefully I will be able to get a look at the actual rules fairly soon and be able to figure out exactly what it says and means.
Next up are the rumours, those whispers in the dark that may, or may not, be accurate. There are 3 basic rumours going around that seem substantial enough to actually take seriously, those being a new tank, 3 new regiments and the wheel teaser.
We'll start with the tank. From various rumours the new tank is somewhere between the Leman Russ and Baneblade, I guess something like Macharius or Malcador. I really don't know what this tank is about or what it's for? We have an good super heavy tank (a few rules tweaks and it's would be great) and we have a good heavy tank, so I don't really see where another tank would fit. I can see where a light tank would fit, something like the chimerax, chimerro or chimedon, or even a kit with all three, and with suitably restricted transport capacity. That would fill an actual gap in the range, rather than some imagined one. What will trigger some people even more is the fact that it's apparently called the Rogal Dorn tank.
Next we have the teased wheel. Now most people agree that this is an imperial wheel, the main question is which imperial? Realistically we are looking at guard or marines, as all the other factions would use something other than standard wheels. I don't think it would be marine, as although the rumoured codex 2.0 is coming, I can't think of a vehicle that would be wheeled and would fit in to the codex, as we have a bike and buggy (old attack bike) and the speeders have been replaced like for like. I really don't see where another wheeled vehicle would fit. There are however a couple of vehicles that could fit very nicely in the guard range that would be wheeled. The first ones that spring to mind and also to a lot of other people's minds are the Tauros and Tauros Venator (that's Tauros and not Taurox, confusing I know!). These recently left the forge world website and would be excellent candidates for GW to make into plastic models. They would fit the line up really nicely, sitting above the sentinel but below the Russ and even hellhound (and variants). Another option are rough riders with a quad like buggy for heavier weapons, much like the GSC Jackals. Either of these could be viable options and I really would like to see some more fast attack options for the guard codex.
Last up we have to most distant rumour, the new line up of 3 new regiments, possibly taking us up to 5 plastic regiment boxes for guard. I can see there being an expanded line up, as we now have plastic DKoK troops and it wouldn't take much to add in a command and heavy weapons squad as much of the work has been done by forge world and it would be the relatively simple process of transferring that to plastic (ok,so it's not as simple as that sounds). There is also rumours that the second will be Elysian drop troops. These were until recently a forge world army but they have been dropped by forgeworld, possible as GW are going to take them up. This would also for with the Tauros link as these were Elysian vehicles. The third army is as yet, to me anyway, unknown. I would like to think that it's not a new range but the Catachan range updated, getting rid of the funnily looking troopers for some proper looking figures. These three lines would sit along side the Cadian line quite nicely and make a full and varied guard line up.
The last thing I wanted to talk about has only just been released and it is this;
No why do I want to talk about Kroot and Tau? I dont, who does! Anyway, it's more the rules that I want to talk about. The pack rule means that for every troop slot that you take, you get a fast attack and two elite slots for free! That is quite some saving on spaces. This means that you could easily end up with a patrol detachment with 3 troops, 8 elite and 5 fast attack or battalion with 6 troop, 18 elite and 9 fast attack! That's a lot of extra slots. Why do I mention this? Simple, platoons. Imagine if they brought a similar system to guard, maybe take an infantry squad and get a special weapons squad and heavy weapons squad (one elite and one heavy slot) for free. While this is not the old platoon formation of old, it does give us some of that format back and not in a game breaking way. While I would love the old system back, this would work, although I might change the numbers around a little, say for every two troop choices you'd get one special and one heavy squad, to try and maintain the old format a bit more. Will they do this? I doubt it but it would be cool if they did give us something fun and fluffy.
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