We've gone over this a hundred times: the Guard's advantages will be vehicles and leadership buffs. You start off by giving them Veterans with carapace armor, which is a 100% canon upgrade available in TT, DoW, and every RPG book that includes Guardsmen. This beefs them up a bit so that while they're still not as tanky as Marines, they can take a bit of a beating from most anti-infantry weapons. You then give them the Chimera and the Leman Russ, which will hands down be the toughest, strongest transport and MBT in the game respectively. If the current factions get their Land Raider-tier units, then we get a Baneblade. The Imperial Guard will rule the space between bases because as long as they have vehicle support they will be very difficult to beat. If we have a good logistics system, they should be able to leverage this to help them seize bases despite their difficulty fighting in close quarters where their vehicles can't reach (though really that's what Ogryns are for). Back with the infantry though, another thing the Imperial Guard is known for is its officers. Both on tabletop and to a lesser extent the DoW games, officers give the other Guardsmen the strength they need to take on things like Necrons and Chaos Marines. In DoW this is usually a passive bonus (such as having a Sergeant vastly increase your squad's health), but on TT this takes the form of Orders. First Rank, Fire! Second Rank, Fire!: massive (50%-100% on TT, probably less here because +100% DPS would be hilariously OP in this setting) rate of fire buff, the DPS boost from this order is hilarious. Incoming!: A large defensive buff (it can rather easily grant a 2+ save in many situations), but only active while holding still in a crouch/prone position. For simplicity's sake someone manning a stationary heavy weapon would count as crouched/prone, so they benefit. Move, move, move!: As the name implies, a speed buff. Pretty self-explanatory. Bring It Down!: on TT this grants you twin-linked against MCs and vehicles, but I'm not sure how to translate that into a shooter. Faster reload speed on heavy weapons? A damage bonus when hitting MCs and vehicles? Fire On My Target!: This would probably just be a simple communication tool, to get people to concentrate fire. As such it would not override other orders. Alternatively, it could be an accuracy buff (tightens cone of fire), in which case it would override your other orders because it's actually buffing something. A chain of command could allow multiple buffs to be on a squad at once. For example they could get FRFSRF from their platoon commander and FOMT from their squad leader. Likely the way it would work is people higher up the chain would try to keep universally useful things like FRFSRF and FOMT active, while lower-level leaders use situational things like MMM, BID, or Incoming! as-needed. We could also come up with new orders that have different effects, or that are exclusive to certain leadership positions.
Well, I was rather thinking they would be implemented as faction supplements (not really sub-factions, but something relatively close to it, featuring unique classes).
This, so much. Though I would hope for numbers, too - rather than carapace armour, I'd rather have my own AI comrades. Not many, just one or two, at most five once you've been promoted to Sergeant. Not sure if the engine can handle this in larger battles, but there's no reason to believe otherwise before we've been told "no". (also, engine stress could be mitigated by higher-ranking players "stealing" some of your comrades rather than spawning a new set - see the attached link for an example from another game) But that's also because I see quantity as being one of the Imperial Guard's primary themes. Carapace sort of lowers the "underdog" factor, and the "balls of steel" get progressively lighter the closer the individual brave soldier facing down a Tyranid invasion gets to the expensively equipped Sororitas or the genetically enhanced Space Marines. It should definitely be available as an upgrade later on, but at the start you ought to feel like some insignificant cog in the most powerful war machine of the galaxy - which will only make your first victorious skirmish, earned with sweat, blood, and the shells of a dozen supporting artillery pieces, feel all the sweeter. Or at least that's what I'd hope for.
The nature of their implementation doesent exclude their popularity though. If the Guard (or LoD) get implemented in any way than the actual fans of the same will gather around it, supplement or army the same. And we will still get the massive influx towards the Imperium while the other races are left in the shadows.
A big reason SM and IG shouldn't be united into a single faction is that a large portion of their balance depends on them not being able to use each others' gear. SM have strong infantry but weak vehicles, IG has weak infantry but strong vehicles. If you make them one faction everyone will just use the IG's vehicles and the SM's infantry. Really, in my opinion the best option is to leave them independent and capable of fighting each other, but set up their map position and objectives so that they do not have a strong incentive to do so. It would be rather interesting if the Guard had a territorial objective while many other factions had non-territorial objectives such as "capture relics" or "protect webway gates". This would open up the possibility of them negotiating with other factions to allow the Guard to hold territory, in exchange for being allowed to go through it and collect relics or the promise that the webway gates will be left intact. Of course, the need for resources to fuel their own war efforts will always create pressure for all factions to at least hold some territory even if it's not their victory condition. Asymmetric objectives (and the possibility of multiple factions "winning" at the same time) could create a rather interesting diplomatic field. It would also help dampen the "if you can't beat 'em join 'em" effect, since one faction accomplishing their objectives does not necessarily prevent your faction from accomplishing their own.
I dunno.... But if we conjoin IG and SM (and SoB later on) we risk the critical mass phenomenon that the fanbase will create. Either make them be allied but place them in different location that they couldnt possibly unite (which again people who really want to will find a way, and carve a path to one another) or make a messy lorebreak to balance things out. Lorebreaks of this scale are a messy thing indeed and should be used as a last resort. But in retrospect everyone seeing this one side dominating everything every campaign will either make people leave or make people swap to them making the other races concede from playing at all. EDIT: You can see this conceding phenomenon in GW2, where the majority of one servers community simply stops playing out of protest if they are spending their entire day fighting with a scale of 4 players for a single one of theirs. Leading to basically a zergball that destroys everything it comes upon and the other servers are left to run away at any sign of a fight (or put them in a position where their numbers dont matter, which are far in between to matter).
Yea this would be terrible. I think one way would be to make it just the Inquisition, so then you have shocktroopers, Inquisitor, etc.. and guardsmen can still be a f2p option. I can also see how Sisters would fit into the Inquisition and share a spotlight with them as one faction...I know DoW broke some lore rules putting IG against SM for no apparent reason but, it is the best example to use: When it came down to the online multiplayer everyone was fighting/playing each other, no one really cared and it was just good fun. It will be impossible to add IG and not break lore boundaries IMHO.
