and then they die

i LOVE THE IG, but i would not want to be an individual in their army. and making that a faction in an mmo is a bad idea. space marines are still far above any mere storm trooper, any commisar, hell--commissar lords are not super human, they are just extraordinary humans and super skilled--the fact that they have more wounds than a marine is purely balance. a tactical marine could take on a commisar lord, lieutenant guy any day..and before you say that they are generally armed with something like a power fist or power weapon, space marines are fast as fuck and arent slowed down really at all by their armor, thus making it easy to avoid a humans strikes...and we arent going to have players in the IG running around with power swords and things that are above lasguns or hellguns...plasma guns are SUPER RARE in the imperial guard, and a guardsmen or stormtrooper with a plasma gun vs a space marine tactical with a plasma gun will really always lose unless they have a lot of luck.

I wouldn't worry about dying too much, it's going to happen a lot no matter which faction you're on.

For example, Planetside 2 topped 1 billion casualties a few weeks ago. How many Space Marines are there in the entire galaxy again?

Additionally, keep in mind that IG is primarily a ranged, heavily mechanized faction. If you're making a major push without any vehicles as IG, you're doing it wrong. If you're charging into melee and you're not an Ogryn, you're doing it wrong.

Different armies in 40k require different mentalities, and the Imperial Guard is no exception. You can't play them like a Space Marine any more than you could play an Eldar army or Ork army as Space Marines. Chaos is probably the closest you'll get to one 40k faction really being an equivalent of another, and even they have their own twists that require dramatic changes in their approach to fighting.

For example, people often like to point out that a Nob "can" be easily as tough as a Space Marine... in melee, with standard close combat weapons. But a one-wound, 3+ save Space Marine would be in more trouble against a S3 AP 3 hellgun than a two-wound, 6+ save Nob, while the Nobs would be more vulnerable to an S7 AP4 autocannon or an S5 AP4 heavy bolter because in that situation the Marine gets a save and the Nob doesn't. Of course, a S8 AP3 Battle Cannon gibs both just as easily due to Instant Death.

Understanding IG just requires a shift in perspective: they're not about heavily armored knights charging into the fray to swing their swords around, they're about using effective cover while putting out a vast volume of ranged firepower. Their primary line-breaking units are not melee squads, they're tanks.

I guarantee you that if the Leman Russ retains its ability to insta-gib Nobs and Marines in a large blast template (keep in mind that to scale, that's enough to clear small rooms in one shot), nobody in their right mind will think of IG as "weak". Keep in mind that the Chimera is also strong enough to roll right up to other factions' transports and kill them, and if allowed to take an autocannon it's even a threat to some faction's MBTs. The Imperial Guard easily has the strongest vehicle game in all of 40k.

This does of course mean that IG is likely to be more reliant on logistics than other factions: they need to keep their tank zerg rolling, and they're going to burn through respawns pretty fast. But they could easily be given a bonus to resource generation and/or have a higher capacity logistics vehicle so that they can fuel their war machine. Lasguns and flak vests are also dirt cheap, so it would make sense if their respawns cost less than other factions'.

I also think the IG has a place in EC as playable. Especially since the EC devs have said that they will emphasize asymmetrical balance.What this means is that there won't be as many perfectly mirrored gameplay elements between factions and that they hopefully will play quite differently with their own unique strengths and weaknesses.

The IG could be very weak in melee while strong at range. They could have lower HP but higher spawn rates or be able to spawn in on teammates like in Planetside. They could have unique wargear like deployable heavy weapons that the other factions do not have access to. They could have the more effective vehicle options or some of their class choices could be super specialists who excel beyond the other factions in niché roles.

There are many ways for Behaviour Interactive to implement the Imperial Guard with this kind of stuff in mind.

The IG are too popular to not be in the game but implementing them is definitely going to be tricky. Lets face it, if they become a F2P race the Ork faction is going to die horribly. They already have the smallest population of any of the factions if the polls are somewhat accurate so they rely on those players. I have a feeling they'd lose well over 50% of the F2P population and cease to be the horde faction the Devs envisioned them as.

I'm also not the biggest fan of the player controlled squad idea largely because I don't want to be fighting AI in my PvP and I'm having a hard time imagining a class that is capable of either generating infinite troops or being crippled for the rest of the life after a grenade wipes out the basic infantry.

What I'd like to see is the guardsman being able to keep their infantry coming back from just behind the front lines. Maybe give them the ability to build temporary spawning points for their troops similar to how Battleground Europe handled it with the forward resupply units. Give the guardsman the lowest respawn times and the IG will at least have a steady stream of infantry pouring into the fight, even if they are the same players jumping back in. With some armor there to support them, I'd imagine it wouldn't be easy to get rid of the IG once they're dug in.

The only way the IG would make sense:

IG are P2P, for good reason - You're never alone unless you want to be.

You are a Sergeant - commanding several IG. You outfit them in the same manner as your own character - so in essence, if you are playing the IG, you're not playing just one character, but a whole squad, with you as its undisputed leader. You can outfit them in any way you think necessary. In the UI, you can customize both how you look, and each of your squadmates. You can only control up to 4 squad members in the same fashion as Freedom Fighters:



Your Doctrines will determine how you fight on the battlefield. You can change up your squad like you can your equipment, exchanging Guardsmen for Catachan's, Ogryns, Storm Troopers, or be your own hero depending on how you want to play. Likewise, as you progress, you can become a Commissar, or advance up the ranks of the IG to the rank of Lieutenant.

You can operate vehicles to their full capacity on your own with the aid of your squad - making the IG the undisputed armored force of the galaxy.

You can heal your troops like they do in Freedom Fighters, or have a Guardsmen do it for you if he's equipped with a medpack. Likewise, if you die, your medic might be able to get you back onto your feet.

That's pretty much all I need from the Guard. Fragile, but capable, especially when competently commanded.

I have to agree with Raz. Most people are in the mind set of their faction but not thinking like IG. I would not really play a WH40k game without IG being present. I also think th a that the devs want to keep bringing the other fsctions as long as the game continues to be popular and keeps going so eventually IG will come.

i did not read ANY of your post, but i love Freedom Fighters, i want to go play it now *blows dust off the disc case*

Then I have done well, because that's basically how I want the IG to play in EC.

That seems to be the best way imo as well, if the engine allows for it.

Well unless we're conscripts getting a 5:1 population multiplier would make IG horribly OP, at least using TT as a metric. Infantry squads (9 Guardsmen and a Sergeant) are balanced to roughly 1/3 the combat value of a 10-man Tactical squad (or 2/3 of a 5 man tac squad), before wargear. Veterans are generally balanced to half a tactical marine.

This has been tested and generally pans out accurately when shooting (before modifiers such as cover or FRFSRF), though they tend to underperform in melee.

This would be even more of an issue if we were getting 5 Ogryns or 5 Stormtroopers for the price of one, those things can actually 1v1 Space Marines in the right situation!

Honestly I would only use this mechanic for Conscripts, which would also work around your inability to customize them because Conscripts don't really get any wargear. An Infantry squad could *maybe* get one companion, Veterans and up would have to go it alone. Though since a Veteran is basically an Infantry with more experience and more unlocks, arguably they'd be the same class and the latter is just someone who's been playing longer and has expensive toys like Carapace Armor.

Ogryns and Stormtroopers definitely don't need companions, they're already on par with the other factions and hopefully, unlike the current situation on tabletop, their price will be on par here too. (seriously, Ogryns are strong, but they're not 40 points/model strong)