Editing Imperial Guard (section)

==Steel Balls, Then and Now==
[[File:Marines and ig.jpg|thumb|The Imperial Guard back in the [[Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader|Rogue Trader]] days, a Guardsman pulling a wounded Space Marine to safety, proving they were badass even back in the first edition. <s>holy shit is that a [[Squat]] in the background</s>|250px]]
In the ancient days of /tg/ before the Great Purge of 2009, the running meme for the Guard was that they had "steel balls", and it was well-deserved. In 4th edition and most editions prior, the Guard were stuck in the awkward position of being the Imperium's first line of defense, but were also obligated to be objectively worse than everyone at everything. The Guard were like the little brothers to the Space Marines, and when the Marines got a tank that had spearheaded human dominance for millennia, the Guard got a hand-me-down tank that used to be a tractor. This constant relegation, coupled with the Guard's system of shooting anyone who backed down from a fight, gained them a reputation as being patently badass against all odds. Everyone was a bully to them, and yet they stood up tall and spat in every bully's face!

But in 5th edition, Robin Cruddace took the helm for writing the Imperial Guard, and since it was his personal army and these were the days of "Spiritual Liege" writing, the Guard have shaped into bullies themselves. Since that time, the Guard have been able to field some of the most devastating weapons the game has to offer, with the largest armored battalions, to create some of the most frustrating meta environments possible. Tanks variants were also introduced that allowed the Leman Russ to escape the thumb of the Space Marines, so the "little brother" stigma came to a close. In fact it's now treated as a major crunch advantage to have access to some of the Guard's armory and design structure, and any competitive list will take the Guard meta into consideration. It's a foregone conclusion that they'll be in the upper tiers of play.

While it is logical that Space Marines would become an auxiliary to the Guard given the lore, and their sheer numbers set victory by attrition to be assured in the long run, the factions that would rival them based on the stories (though would lose strategically due to Imperial manufacturing power and organization) haven't held up well on the table. Orkz, the most militant and numerous combatants in the galaxy, have spent many long years suffering from poor accuracy and inane tactical pigeon-holes. It was, for example, standard procedure for Ork players to kill tanks by punching them because it's easier to have Orkz run after a moving vehicle than it is to get Tank Bustaz to shoot straight. As for Tyranids, the other race beyond numbers - Cruddace was allowed to write their codex and they paid dearly for it. For the better part of a decade, the bugs have also been using limited options to jury-rig solutions to basic problems that appear in every conventional 40k game.

[[Bullshit|Over time, people quit talking about how "badass" the Guard were.]] They aren't really underdogs in lore or crunch, and it's difficult to think of them as "bold" when you watch a Guard player table your army in a single round of shooting. If anything, it's the Orkz and everyone else who are brave as all hell for standing up to the bastards, or too stupid to stop, or both. Although, if you became a Guardsman you’d probably go insane quickly from the horrific space monsters and daemonic shit. So, still balls of steel. And their kit and tanks are so damn cool.