It's nothing they can't overcome with wargear, really. Carapace armor: 4+ armor save, just as tough as a Fire Warrior and actually tougher than a Guardian, as well as over 2/3 of the DE codex. Then on the weapon side they have flamers, sniper rifles, grenade launchers, plasma guns, and the almighty melta gun as wargear options. Melta bombs and demo charges will give old PS2 tankers flashbacks of the C4 fairy. Most of these options are available on standard Guardsmen, and *all* of them (plus snare mines and camo cloaks) are available for Veterans. Oh, Sergeants can take power swords too, a nasty surprise for anyone who expects them to suck in close combat. If rank ends up being independent of class, this could be stretched to making power swords available to IG in general, perhaps at the cost of replacing your primary weapon with a pistol. Guardsmen are *extremely* customizable, and in my opinion their wargear options are more than enough to overcome their base stats. I'm pretty sure "guardsman squads" in both DoW games were Veterans, considering their ability to take more than one special weapon, and carapace armor.
So you're saying, maybe just make them all veterans? Or have the very basic troops be NPCs or something? I've never played guard (as or against) but would that work on an army compositional level?
Actually, Veterans *are* a basic Troops pick. A CCS and two Veterans is a completely legal army list. It's also a popular foundation for a Mechanized Guard list, because it's the cheapest way to fill out your mandatory HQ and 2 Troops, thus leaving as many points as possible for tanks.
Guardsmen's versatility to adapt in situations is their Horizontal edge, they are pretty much jack of all trades decent in all fronts but do not really excel at anything major though.
All very valid points. And in interest of "I really want to play my Enginseer" I gladly concede that IG would fit.
Tau, hands down. The only thing that could convince me to stop worshiping the dark gods is the greater good.
IG is definitely a very flexible codex. It can be played with almost any style: horde or elites, infantry, mechanized, air superiority, artillery, or combined arms. It does lean towards the shooty side in all cases and tends to be weak in melee, but good luck communicating that to a squad of pissed-off Ogryns. One common example of IG getting mileage out of surprisingly few troops is a pair of melta Vets in Chimeras. Veteran squads can take three melta guns each, and fire them out the back of a Chimera, a speedy AV 12 APC with fire ports. Any tank that gets too close eats six BS4 Melta shots. Any infantry that look at them funny can end up on the receiving end of a heavy bolter, a multilaser/second heavy bolter, a heavy stubber, and either ten BS4 lasguns (light infantry) or four lasguns and six meltas, still at BS4. Total cost of that formation is ~300 points, which means even in a small 500 point game they can *still* field a Leman Russ on top of that. Of course, even Guardsmen are quite capable of pulling off surprises there if you add a Commissar. Stubborn, two power weapons, LD 9, and all IG infantry get frag grenades by default. They may or may not kill much, but they'll hold the line for a surprisingly long time. They do lack jump packs, but that's because the Guard loves them some transports (Chimera, Valkyrie, Vendetta, take your pick) and usually tries to avoid melee anyway. They "can", as noted above, and I imagine a good sized blob with a Commissar and Priest might be able to pull off one hell of a bayonet charge, but those points are generally better spent shooting. Though, when making an army list (or kitting out a character) one should keep in mind that just because the codex can do it all, doesn't mean you should try to. It's best to pick an aspect to focus on, and then dig out the elements of the codex that play into that the best.
Three favorite armies lore wise are IG, CSM, and Orks. soo i would like to see IG. Tho im not sure how they could make them not default allies of the Space Marines.
i read somewhere in the lore that imperial guard have esylsian drop troopers and that some of the guard of jump packs ill try to find it
