Imperial Guard Discussion

[enasni127]

1. Osinski is absolutely right in my opinion. even replays show that ig often breaks in/suffers lots of squad losses in tier 2 and recovers in t3 then. i think this thread is absolutely valid and ig really needs some overhauls.

2. this is not an ogryn balance thread, it's about ig as a faction and its problems, which are imo:

- ig has no jump squad. catachans and spotters are nice but often can't force setup teams off the field. especially catachans just push setup teams back so that you can't reach them in time and they just set up again. spotters are better but as many other ig units only playable with lots of support units.

- ig always needs synergy. in 1v1's ig's capping power is limited cause of the "forced" sentinel+gm play. if you don't play them together, you'll have to retreat as soon as you are attacked by almost any unit. sentinel-repair is another very bad thing for map control. this is why i think ig is much better in team games than in 1v1's but suffers from t2 on when the aoe attacks melt your blob.

- ig has horrible energy costs on t2 which are by far more than most other factions have. the argument that ig has low energy costs on t1 is just wrong. you ->CAN<- play on low energy using double sentinel for example but if your opponent wants he can easily force you to build units which cost energy and then your t1 gets very expensive.

- ig has (as only factions in this game) no anti-everything unit on t2 which does heavy melee + ranged damage and is immun against knock back and supression. in other words: they don't have a walker. this leads to following problem: as soon as you face a walker, you need av, and this means a lascannon setup team! melta storm troopers are a bad idea vs walkers, cause they die easily and their short range is a guarantee for them to end in melee combat. ogryns DON'T counter walkers, it's a waste of money and time. the only chance is a setup team.

@ torpid: i think your "ogryns + unit XY" strategy vs walkers is invalid cause unit XY cost a lot of money and so IG outplays itself by investing too much money - and often money which you don't even have. so it just doesn't work that way.

the worst case scenario for ig is a vp defended by an assault cannon dreadnought supported by a plasma devastator.
-> manticore doesn't work cause you need sight (if you don't play the CL, you are in deep shit)
-> infiltrated units usually die cause scouts detect them and the plasma dev kills them easily
-> spotters don't have enough (sight)range to shut down the PD or get killed by the dread
-> ogryns eat 1 shot of the PD, lose about 50-60% of their life and have to retreat
-> lascannon hwt's die against the dread
-> full army attack with the use of all your necessary abilities usually ist not at all cost efficient and even if you win, you outplay your economy

another weak point are ork nobs imo. when playing sm or csm i just build a plasma cannon or blastmaster and can knock back the nobs and deal significant damage to them. when playing ig i have many abilities to supress them or knock them back but none of them deals suitable damage.


possible solutions:

1.
(cause people talked about it often) add a hellhound to the ig roaster AND give it a Devil Dog Upgrade (basically a hellhound with a melta instead of a flamer, could work as the GK av-rhino)
the range/speed must not bee too much cause it couled make it op. this would be something really new and i don't know if it wouldn't be pretty bad news for one or the other faction.

2. vs nobs -> whether ig gets something like a knockback-plasma-damage-setup-team OR ogryns get a t3 (not t2!!) upgrade, which maybe makes them a bone'ead squad which has a more life, damage and makes them immun to supression when charging or something like that. another idea would be an autocannon-upgrade for the sentinel which deals very low damage to vehicles but good amount of damage vs heavy infantry and has fotm.


i know this is pretty much text and alot of changes but i think it will work with the right testing and balancing. if it is too much there would be the chance to balance it all out by changing ogryns. but in my opinion this would mean that ogryns would need whether a buff/overhaul or a price decrease. right now i build them rarely cause they are often just useless.

[Ven]

- ig has no jump squad. catachans and spotters are nice but often can't force setup teams off the field. especially catachans just push setup teams back so that you can't reach them in time and they just set up again. spotters are better but as many other ig units only playable with lots of support units.

well, thats not necessarily a problem. spotters and catachans are the best setup team counters IF supported, as torpid pointed out me earlier. this however can be said of any IG unit. IG really lacks any solo units other than perhaps the catachans and maybe the sent for a duration until it needs repairs.

- ig always needs synergy. in 1v1's ig's capping power is limited cause of the "forced" sentinel+gm play. if you don't play them together, you'll have to retreat as soon as you are attacked by almost any unit. sentinel-repair is another very bad thing for map control. this is why i think ig is much better in team games than in 1v1's but suffers from t2 on when the aoe attacks melt your blob.

thats one of IGs biggest weakness and why they have the worst T1 in 1v1s. they lack capping power, as i said before the only real units that can solo to a degree is the catachans and the sent, but in some MUs you need them in your army to counter-initiate.

- ig has horrible energy costs on t2 which are by far more than most other factions have. the argument that ig has low energy costs on t1 is just wrong. you ->CAN<- play on low energy using double sentinel for example but if your opponent wants he can easily force you to build units which cost energy and then your t1 gets very expensive.

thats the thing though, IG T1 is very power and req light, this allows IG players to put up gens faster (usually), spend less power in T1 and thus get to T2 quicker. while the IG T2 is heavy, its arguably one of the better T2s in the game, with ogryns being basically mini-terminators. the manticore being the best artillery in the game. the chimera being a very good transport. there is always the option of storm troopers aswell, that cost no power initially.

- ig has (as only factions in this game) no anti-everything unit on t2 which does heavy melee + ranged damage and is immun against knock back and supression. in other words: they don't have a walker. this leads to following problem: as soon as you face a walker, you need av, and this means a lascannon setup team! melta storm troopers are a bad idea vs walkers, cause they die easily and their short range is a guarantee for them to end in melee combat. ogryns DON'T counter walkers, it's a waste of money and time. the only chance is a setup team.

this has been discussed time and time again, IG does not need a walker. the sentinel is already one of the best walkers in the game with the missle laucher if used well tbh. i've killed Mok dreads and SM dreads using one sentinel missle launcher.

walkers are not anti-everything. infact melee walkers are pretty meh, easily snared and hard to get out of trouble.

setup teams beat or atleast force off walkers 100% of the time provided you've got your positioning and counter-initiation right, and if you kill it then its a massive win for you, you payed 300/30 for a lascannon, he payed somewhere around 450/120 for the walker. melta storms arent the best idea vs walkers yes, but melta storms are more for sneaking about and killing weak vehicles that you normally would struggle to get to. ogryns counter ranged walkers. ranged walkers do not have melee resist like the melee walkers do.

@ torpid: i think your "ogryns + unit XY" strategy vs walkers is invalid cause unit XY cost a lot of money and so IG outplays itself by investing too much money - and often money which you don't even have. so it just doesn't work that way.

errr. thats kinda how the game works friend, sometimes you need 2 units to counter one unit.

another weak point are ork nobs imo. when playing sm or csm i just build a plasma cannon or blastmaster and can knock back the nobs and deal significant damage to them. when playing ig i have many abilities to supress them or knock them back but none of them deals suitable damage.

plasma gun guardmen melt nobz provided you dont use frenzy. sentinel stomp or catachans are your best bet vs nobz. you just need to micro them correctly.

ogryns get a t3 (not t2!!) upgrade, which maybe makes them a bone'ead squad which has a more life, damage and makes them immun to supression when charging or something like that.

hmmm that might not be so bad, ogryns do sometimes struggle to scale in to T3 in some MUs. but im not sure.

i know this is pretty much text and alot of changes but i think it will work with the right testing and balancing. if it is too much there would be the chance to balance it all out by changing ogryns. but in my opinion this would mean that ogryns would need whether a buff/overhaul or a price decrease. right now i build them rarely cause they are often just useless.

thats the thing though, ogryns are a niche unit.

[enasni127]

@ ven:

you pointed out the obvious i won't quote myself through this cause i think it's faster that way:

artillery: yes, the manticore is great but its role is completely different from a plasma devastator or blastmaster. imo the plasma devs and alike are much better vs units like ogryns or nobs cause of the enduring knock back and high damage. on the other hand the manticore is much better for protecting vp's or fighting of setup teams and super units(vehicles).

ogryns: i really think an ogryn upgrade on t3 could help ig alot to fight off units like nobs or terminators and would be a great addition. ofcourse this upgrade should only make them a bit stronger and not change them completely or let them eat termis, nobs and lr's.

sentinels: you mentioned the sentinel stomp works fine vs nobs and this is true. but sadly there aren't so many sentinels on t3 cause there are many counters for them at this point of the game. i think an autocannon would be great on the sentinel cause the missile launcher doesn't have fire on the move and is so bad for kiting strong melee units. an autocannon-upgrade would also reward players who keep their sentinels alive all game long and make the sentinel a bit more of a melee infantry counter.

[Cheah18]

IG tier 2 is extremely potent. Honestly can't think of a T2 I'd rather have. GK is crazy strong but the cost is way high.

However, its getting there comfortably which is the hard part. You have to survive a rocky, defensive tier 1. That's why I think the hellhound is such a good idea; it will provide a quick riposte, that will either result in regaining some map control and composure at worst, or forcing the enemy off and bashing at best. In similar way that the bloodcrusher can.

Devil dog upgrade would be so unnecessarily potent, given that missile launcher sents are actually similar to las rhino in many ways.

@ven I wouldn't say Ogryns are 'niche' actually, I don't think I did but if I did earlier I'm revising that. The inclusion of Ogryns in your army opens up so much compositionally, but it takes a lot to turn that opportunity into results. However they are more often than not a good choice, and they can be used differently at different times, so no, not niche imo. I do maintain however that there are some times when getting them is just a waste of resources and time.

[Atlas]

Ogryns can counter walkers, but there's some pretty glaring instances where getting them to do that stated purpose is just not practical. IG vs SM really highlights that but vs eldar and vs gk are also MU's where they might be useful if they were't completely shut down practically speaking.

I also want to contend that you need "dedicated" counters to deal with ogryns. How dedicated are shotgun scouts? Shurikens? Some heroes like CL and FC can just shut down ogryns entirely by themselves and in the case of the CL just out of the gate. This is what I meant by an earlier post (not sure if in this thread) saying that Ogryns are very cost inefficient and you basically have to hope that the opponent invested wrong or just made a huge mistake.

The only case where you can sort of bypass that are with Inq and infiltrated ogryns, since they won't see it coming and you could potentially wipe an important squad off the field. Even then though, a scout sarg/heretic AC/rangers completely negates that. Even worse in the rangers case since it also can harass storms like crazy and it can help zone out sents even more.

That being said, I think that IG T2 has other ways to deal with walkers in the form of buffed lascannons and melta storms. IG T2 is great in general. I just disagree that ogryns are in a good spot right now in terms of their stated purpose.

[Cheah18]

I also want to contend that you need "dedicated" counters to deal with ogryns. How dedicated are shotgun scouts? Shurikens?

It sounds from your wording that you are implying these counters are enough to not warrant dedicated counters. I wouldn't say these are sufficient counters: shotguns scouts own shees because of the effects it has and damage it does to those squishy models. Not the case with ogryns, they can tank and walk through them, and shurikens do very little as aswell. In fact a shuriken shooting ogryns is sometimes counter-productive because the ogryns can be used to tank the suppression and this allows for manoeuvre.

Maybe you're semantically right in that you dont need a straight up 'dedicated' counter (I can't think of any anyway). But you really need a HARD counter—something that can do damage such as artillery or inferno bolts—in tandem with these counters or snare or something.

[Torpid]

Suppression is no problem for ogryns specifically, it is a problem for IG in general. If you have to go T2 to get a suppression counter then you have probably already lost in T1 since any decent opponent will get lots of suppression vs IG in t1. Come T2 as the IG dps sky-rockets and you get access to half a dozen new suppression counters suppression shouldn't be a problem for your ogryns at all.

[Atlas]

My main point about ogyrns is that the same stuff that counters things like banshees and warriors and sluggas also counter ogyrns but the big difference is that ogryns come to about 550/115 out the gate + leader, bleed at 75/15 a tick (100/25 if your leader dies... and he will die) and are T2. The opponent doesn't need to drastically change his composition (sometimes not at all like vs eldar, chaos, nids) to deal with them; just some competent play.

I don't know what I'm really arguing for at this point, since I don't really have any buffs/nerfs in mind. I'm just saying that I find it difficult to build ogryns in almost any matchup because I'd rather spend all that money into way more efficient things like a chimera and gm upgrades, or a manti or storms. At least the chimera forces the opponent to get a brightlance/lashavoc/whatever instead of a suppression team against my guardsman.

----end ogryns talk----

I'm really really liking assault stormtroopers. And so far the catachan smoke idea is hit and miss. I kind of have to rely on my opponent making a mistake and not putting the setup team in cover. But I really do want to make it work since that means I can keep catas as a capping unit later in the game and I feel they offer more than the spotters do.

Might add infiltrated catas to the mix now

[enasni127]

hm, somehow most of what i read here convinces me even more of 2 points.

1. ogryns on t2 are very situational but their fighting power is quite reasonable. maybe their costs could be a bit lower (i absolutely would like to see that, and think it is justified). also i think they could need a T3 upgrade for health and damage to better fit in their role in late game.

2. the sentinels role is important up to late t3 but the sentinel itself has hard times to survive that long. in addition the rocket launcher (which can be usefull) has no fire on the move and so makes kiting of melee units like nobs and others very difficult.
in my opinion it would be fair and absolutely no problem to add a new dedicated anti-infantry weapon to the sentinel which has fotm. i would like an autocannon which deals good damage to heavy infantry but is pretty bad vs vehicles. i absolutely hate "anti-everything" weapons

i hope i don't mix it up with another thread but just to say it: the gk av-rhino and the sentinel are not almost equal. i would even say they are very different from each other.

- sentinel is not a transport
- armor class is different and the sentinel can't change it to vehicle armor.
- sentinel AV can't fire while moving
- sentinel AI is more "artillery like"

imo the sentinel is a nice support walker for guardsmen and designed to fight off melee units on t1. the gk rhino seems to be designed to counter supression teams and aoe-weapons on t1.

[Flash]

completely haven't thought this through, but just have the bone head leader and ability come with the squad?

[Torpid]

My main point about ogyrns is that the same stuff that counters things like banshees and warriors and sluggas also counter ogyrns but the big difference is that ogryns come to about 550/115 out the gate + leader, bleed at 75/15 a tick (100/25 if your leader dies... and he will die) and are T2. The opponent doesn't need to drastically change his composition (sometimes not at all like vs eldar, chaos, nids) to deal with them; just some competent play.

I don't know what I'm really arguing for at this point, since I don't really have any buffs/nerfs in mind. I'm just saying that I find it difficult to build ogryns in almost any matchup because I'd rather spend all that money into way more efficient things like a chimera and gm upgrades, or a manti or storms. At least the chimera forces the opponent to get a brightlance/lashavoc/whatever instead of a suppression team against my guardsman.

This notion that ogryns are countered by the same thing as banshees is very very misguided.

Ogryns are a huge compositional shock to the foe fighting IG. Before now they have not had to deal with a melee unit, nor any SHI units. Most of their T1 will have revolved around spamming ranged piercing damage units - units which are very very very ineffective vs ogryns. Furthermore the ogryns perform well vs jump squads in T2, something which otherwise is extremely effective vs IG because catachans can no longer deal with such squads, guardsmen gain more firepower and so trying to out-shoot them fails, stormtroopers likewise, hwts likewise. Then to add to that ogryns do far better vs vehicles of all sorts than banshees and while they aren't amazing vs transports sentinels can kill transports with ease so the prospect of getting transports vs IG is not as great as one may think, whereas banshees suffer tremendously vs transports and require the very risky and expensive purchase of a warp spider squad to be able to do proper damage to such vehicles without bleeding incessantly.

This ignores the fact that banshees are a no-brainer choice in most MUs and are countered by T1 counters. Shotgun scouts do a hell of a lot more to T2 shees than they do to ogryns. A plasma gun does far less to ogryns than sternguard do to banshees - the respective "counters" that tacs adopt vs both unit types. In addition eldar has isn't necessarily going to have a full counter to the banshee-counters in T1 whereas IG MUST HAVE a full counter to the "ogryn" counters that you mentioned earlier such as suppression and melee squads, in T1 already, this is because they've been exposes to melee squads and suppression teams since T1 and so their whole T1 composition should be about dealing with such.

Suppression teams do not counter any decent IG composition with ogryns. If an IG player wants to go 3 guardsmen, hwt, hwt into ogryns then sure, suppression and melee squads will make the ogryns useless, but this is silly talk really because no remotely average IG would do such a thing. These so called counters to ogryns are took out of play by mandatory units that the IG already has in T1 by the time they purchase T2- catachans, spotters and sentinels. This is what forces dedicated counters from the foe seeing the ogryns - artillery and powerful melee counter-initiation units such as KCSM/bloodletteers/gene-strealers/T2 ork sluggas/T2 banshees and so on.