On the New Imperial Guard

Naturally, there's a lot of muss 'n' fuss about the new IG codex coming out.

The Tanks
Some of it includes hubbub over the Leman Russ Squadrons. I'm mixed over this. On the one hand, people are all about 'YOU CAN TAKE NINE TANKS!!!11WTFOMGLOLROFLCOPTER!" On the other hand? One Russ is 150, with the main gun and perhaps a hull-mounted gun in the front. Triple Russ is a minimum of 450. Three squads of 450 are 1350, which means you'll see that in 1850-200 only, since you're spending a minimum of ~50 on the HQ, and probably 150 on the troops to get decent minimal units.

I think some of the non-Russ tanks deserve a look. 75 points for the flak tank with a pair of twin-linked autocannons? 225 for three decently-armored tanks with autocannons? Ack-ack, what?

The four-shot artillery piece doesn't impress me, since it gets...four shots. Granted, it's big freakin' templates, but I've seen my Fire Prism scatter off-target enough to know not to rely on that.

Hellhounds, fast? Fire, good? Oh, yes.

Send in the Walkers
What can I say? I'm a fan of Sentinels for the sculpt. 35 for AV10 open-topped, or 45-50 for AV12 front, close-topped, and more armor. The Armored Sentinels also lose Move Through Cover and Scout, but so it goes. They get heavier weapon options, and I think I'd be paying a little over 200 for three guys with AV12 front armor and lascannons.

A note on Vehicle Squadrons
The bright side? You get 3 vehicles per Force Org slot, so you can get 9 of any given tank in the army. Or, you can get a variety of tanks. It looks like a total of 9 Heavy Support, 9 Fast Attack, 6 Troops, 3 Elites, and 2 HQ transports, though 8 of that's Chimera at a minimum.

The cons? 50% chance of getting popped on a penetrating hit; 15% chance of getting popped on a glance. You'll never be totally frozen in place on a given turn, though, since stunned = shaken via vehicle squad rules.

We stop sending bodies in when we stop seeing human bodies flying
Seriously, it's IG. Life is cheap. Lasguns COST, dammit!

The real strength/weakness of the Guard still seems to be in getting lots of heavy weapons in; I think an infantry platoon with an autocannon runs you 60-70 points. You can 'mob up' to get your troop selections into fewer KP, though this does deprive you of speed bumps. I can see folding Platoon Command into an Infantry Platoon. KP got consolidated, though guard will be KP-heavy any way you cut it.

I also don't mind that you can get three Vets with BS4 meltaguns into a Chimera as troops for about 160 points. I'm down with that.

Ride of the Valkyries
Looks damned cool. I wonder if I can make a place for it, though running 6 Grav Tanks is giving me a taste for how long/short AV12 will last...

Overall
I've had a few read-throughs of the Guard Codex. If I DO get around to doing Guard, I'm going to mod the tanks. I just can't get into the Leman Russ body. I want something more like an Abrams, though I might go looking at Helghast tanks if I go that route.