Editing Warhammer 40,000/9th Edition Tactics/Imperial Guard (section)

===Cons===
*'''Cadia Centric:''' Changes to Regiments aside, '''BORN SOLDIERS''' is so powerful that taking anything else almost seems like a mistake. If you're a Cadian player, this isn't a Con, but if you shelled out for Krieg or still have the metal Armageddon or Tallarn models, your either playing them as counts-as Cadians or going all in on certain builds.
*'''Flimsy Obsec infantry:''' T3 and a 5+ save is nothing in an edition so full of AP that they had to give the posterboys a rule to stay competitive. If something aims at a Guardsman squad, [[Fist of the North Star|they are already dead]]. 
*'''Too many options, too few slots''': Building on the above point, Guard lists are always about quantity and redundancy. If something does something important, you need ''at least'' ''THREE'' of them, and in an edition where detachments cost a third or more of their CP allotment, Guard players will struggle to fit their armies into a detachments, and taking a Brigade means a mandatory tax. 
**It's not like [[Dark Eldar|detachment refunds]] is [[Primarch|broken or anything]].
** Less of a problem with the Arks, as you get to choose where your mandatory slots are without having to spend CP.
*'''Horde Nerf:''' Grognards were hyped when they learned PLATOONS and SQUADRONS (letting you fit multiple units in a single slot) would be coming back, only to be disappointed when it turned out to just [[Fail|be a fucking keyword]]. Even worse, they significantly reduced the number of units that could squad up and removed [[Whiteshield Conscript|Conscripts]]. If you want ObSec units to survive to the late-game, transports or deepstriking is necessary.
*'''Gun Control:''' GW came for our infantry's special weapons, just like they did with the Chosen and Chaos Terminators. Special Weapon Squads are [[Squatted|gone]], and you can only take at most 2 of a gun. Partly this is because GW is getting a hardon for keeping options limited to "what's in the box"...except Guard players should have a fuckton of bits on principle. 
**This is particularly egregious because they sell [[Horus Heresy Tactics|upgrade sprues]] ''and'' [[Eradicator|weapon spam units]]. Textbook Astartes Posterboy Syndrome.
*'''Weak Melee:''' Comparatively weak in assault. S3/T3 with 1A and 1W each is not doing you any favors. Avoid close combat like the plague, unless you're using dedicated melee units like Bullgryns and Rough Riders. 
*'''Playing Imperial Guard is tedious:''' Whether its literally counting out ''hundreds'' of dice for shooting (bring bags, and expect to lose some) or spending more than half an hour just deploying your army (movement trays, learn to love them). Fortunately [[Grimdark|your turns will go by faster once you start piling up casualties.]]
*'''Massive Footprint:''' The board sizes are significantly smaller in 9th, and that affects you on a fundamental level, because Guard is all about ''lots of vehicles''. Certain deployments (Abandoned Sanctuaries/Tide of Conviction in Nephilim) are only 10" deep which can fuck you over if you bring Tank Squadrons or [[Rogal Dorn Battle Tank|massive]] fucking [[Baneblade|tanks]]. It also makes your artillery more vulnerable than before.
*'''Expensive Collection:''' Although your units are cheap in points, they're not cheap in cash, ''particularly'' if you buy from Games Workshop, instead of a cheaper source.  You ''will'' want to find a [[Proxy|cheaper]], [[3DPrinting|alternative source of models]], unless you're interested in supporting your FLGS - store owners ''love'' new Guard players.
**If you want to proxy, currently wargames Atlantic offer some of the cheapest guard building options with models that could be a convincing stand-in for Krieg, Vostroyan and Steel Legion, £25 for 24 men, yes please[[https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Wargames_Atlantic#External_Links|Wargames_Atlantic]]
*To tie in all these reasons why there's a lot of caveats to playing Guard? You're not GW's [[Space Marines| favourite children.]] Even [[Sisters of Battle]] and [[Squats|the Dwarfs]] get attention before you.
*Jury is still in on whether or not the Guard Codex fixes a lot of the big issues Guard players struggled with from mid-8th to well into 9th (flimsy ObSec units, unhelpful faction abilities, mediocre secondaries, lack of extreme AP). The Ingrained Precision + Overcharged LasCell combo is pretty broken, being a weird mix of Votann Grudges and AdMech Wrath of Mars. Considering the changes to Grudges, a nerf seems likely, [[Games Workshop|but most nerfs are being rolled back anyway.]]
*Congrats, the Imperial Guard Codex is coming in....[[Derp|Winter 2023]]. You can get the codex now if you want to drop a few hundred bucks on an army box, but you also won't be able to play it in Official games until the New Year. 
*[[FAIL|10th edition is coming, and it means your 60 dollar codex has a lifetime of ''months'']]. Seriously, the fucking SQUATS came back before you got your 9th edition codex.