Micro store items will likely include custom looks for your soldiers across the board, it's likely that alot of things will be added in this manner such as Marine chapters. So fingers crossed at the end of the day we can have any look we want for our troops.
As Tornadium says. You're not going to look so different you aren't recognizable as being part of X faction/type. And, no playable Imperial Guard? .....yet.
Oke I got to admit i haven't read all 28 pages of this thread, so I'm not sure if any of this has been mentioned yet but if they ever implement IG as a playable race they are going to need a different system of healing then the other playable races ... I mean healing individual guardsmen just feels wrong So you start off with each player having a squat of weak guardsmen (from what I've seen all the weapons on the battlefield are going to 1-2 hit any guardsmen, so you would need to give a player a bit more then one guardsmen to do anything) And use troop transports as "healing" for guard squads/players. If you get close to a troop transport your squad will slowly gain members from the transport until you are full again. This way you can use individual guardsmen as "hitpoints" for the squad. Give the player a single decent (bigger then a lasgun) gun or chainsword per squad and let him respawn as a different squadmate if the player gets killed. Then he can try to get back his weapon, or fall back without it ... That way a guard player will end up as the last person of his squad, without any good weapon having to run back to his transports. While the enemy has to wade through countless waves of puny guardsmen to try and catch their command and supply units to make the waves stop.... Guard vs Guard would be a horrible mess of AI combat that will probably crash the server ... but hey, it sounds coll right ?
Alot of people have thought similar things (player controlling 1 squad), but I don't believe that is the direction the devs want to go. In my opinion, if we were going to control squads in the Imperial Guard, than the entire game should be like that. Points cost in table top is the balance you are looking for (5 space marines, 10 Guardsmen). The Imperial Guards uniqueness is so defining, it would be a little more difficult to implement than the other factions. You might take a look at my post a few pages back, I think I've got some good ideas you might want to see. Basically, the guardsmen play like the Ork Boyz, in that they are a horde army, maybe f2p as well, but they could benefit from proximity to other guardsmen (in lore, it takes the combined firepower to overcome their enemies). They already have this kind of mechanic in their vision, except it is a standard bearer, and the benefits can't stack.
Even if they don't have a straight-up horde bonus (though that would be cool, if possibly OP), I can definitely see Imperial Guard stacking leadership bonuses from their large number of leader units. Though probably instead of each leadership role being a "class", they might have an equipment/skill tree that allows a single support class to fill various leadership roles depending on loadout. Whether each is an individual class or they're all specs of a single Leader class, in the end you'd have the following roles: Commissar: boosts firepower, either with more powerful shots, higher rate of fire, or both. Sergeant: boosts durability, with either more HP, regen for nearby units (though this should take second seat to the Medic), damage resist, or some combination of the above. Priest: boosts melee power, and possibly forward run speed (though the latter might be temporary, for charges). Officer (PCS/CCS): Versatile Leader unit that doesn't have passive benefits, but uses Orders to provide buffs as the situation demands. Unlike other leader units, the benefit of an Order is centered on the Order's map marker, rather than the Officer. To avoid Orders taking up a large number of keybinds, they could be put into a commo rose (similar to the Q and T menus in Battlefield 2). If issuing Orders with your weapon out is OP, it can be tied to an item like a pair of binoculars or a radio. Orders would expire after a set period of time, and have to be re-issued or replaced with a new Order. Leader classes would have to be limited to people who are actually in leadership positions of course, they would be sort of halfway between a hero unit and a normal unit. The way I see it, Squad Leaders can be a Commissar, Sergeant, or Priest, while Platoon Leaders and Company Commanders gain access to Officers in addition to the other Leader classes. To avoid one-man squads/platoons/companies, there will have to be minimum requirements (ie 3+ people to a squad, 2+ squads to a platoon, 2+ platoons to a company) in order for them to count as leaders. This provides a strong incentive for IG players to squad up and establish chains of command. Squad Leader bonuses would stack and apply to anybody standing nearby to encourage blobbing, while Officer's Orders would stack but only apply to people under the Officer's command to encourage following your own chain of command, which means that people will generally only benefit from two Orders at a time: one from their Platoon Leader, the other from their Company Commander. Squad leaders can still give orders (lower-case) for communication purposes, but these don't provide buffs the way an Officer's does. Vox casters could be a support tool that boosts the buff range of any nearby leadership class. So Squad Leaders would have a larger aura when near a vox caster, while Officer's Orders would affect a larger radius around the marker when the Officer is near a vox caster.
Cool. I forgot about Vox Casters. Just another way that 40k already has all the concepts needed to implement this faction. Vox casters increasing the effective range of certain orders/buffs. I'll go one step further: For Command squads, 'Bring it Down', 'Fire on My Target', and for Platoons, 'First Rank Fire! Second Rank Fire!' and "Move! Move! Move!'.
I feel guardsmen should get a minor proximity buff for sticking by each other. the more guardsmen stand nearby you the greater the buff effect, but this would have to be capped to a certain point.
