No-pants Friday: Imperial Guard

Over the years that I've been running Laubersheimer Industries, the focus has shifted. I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but whatever. the point is this: when I started this blog I had high hopes for it being some kind of amazing reference source and a showcase for my painting. In the beginning, painting was all I was pretty much interested in.

Fast forward to now. My interests in the hobby have shifted a bit. I'm still balls deep in the painting, but I've also started paying a lot more attention to the actual gaming. Things like list building and strategery are much more on my mind.

Which brings me to No Pants Friday.

While reading other blogs, Ive discovered that many gamers are masochists.
For whatever reason, punishing your readers in some way begets more readers.

Right along side Tutorial Tuesdays, I'm going to attempt to do a weekly series in which I talk about things that I have a less stable footing with. Strategy, list building and all that gaming related stuff that TKE, Kirbs and Stelek all do so well. Hopefully, I'll be rewarded by dropping trou and letting it hang out... rather than kicked in the junk.

Now that today's pictures has gotten me that 20% drop in employee satisfaction index scores Dethtron was talking about, I bring you the first No Pants Friday topic:

I Think I Know Why People Hate the Imperial Guard

People seem to hate the Imperial Guard Codex. I think I know the really real reason. Oh sure its a fine book for the people who play it - lots of options, good internal balance and lots of shooting. For many of the people who play against it, its often a different story. Even though the book has been out for more than year, people still complain about them being overpowered.* Hell, the IG are frequently rated as number one in people's top 10 competitive armies lists.

Since Dethtron is my regular opponent, I've played against guard a lot. I don't find them all that scary/irritating/worthy of scorn/broken. In my experience, an IG army is a pretty tough not to crack, but it's till just like any of the newer codices - you still have to know what you're doing to win with it and against it. In short, its good but its not that special. However, I have an advantage that many people do not.

I've seen a lot of people talk about the most obvious part of the IG reputation - the fact that they have a shit load of tanks. We all know that the one, inescapable fact about 5th edition is that tanks are good. But in my mind, that's only part of the bigger picture.

The reason I think that the IG get all the hate and see all the big tournament wins is because they can fuck with every aspect of people's game - even if the IG list isn't all that good. By its very nature, the IG army forces people to move past the same old shit they've been doing previous to the newest codex.

If it's not the IG tanks, its the IG numbers... or fucking with reserve rolls.. or the near unbreakable Commissar tarpit mega squads (my personal favorite)... or all the fast vehicles... or you get the idea. Like so many of the newer codices, it's all about the options. Whatever it is, some aspect of even a mediocre IG list is likely to put a monkey wrench in the works of Joe Gamer and his beloved Fluff Marines battle force.

And I understand why Joe Gamer is unhappy about all of this - in the little section of the blog-o-sphere that I nominally run in, its real easy to forget that there are a ton of people out there who just want to push their favorite miniatures around the table and call it good. Beer and pretzels types, hard core hobbyists, fluff bunnies - whatever it is, much of the 40k community is dudes in basements or fuckin' around in an FLGS drinkin' Mountain Dew and shooting the shit- not the tournament scenesters. Even if Basement Bob and FLGS Fred go to a tourney - they're still not all that concerned with optimization.

That advantage I mentioned - its a willingness to adapt.

So really, for me, what it comes down to is that by intent or accident**, the IG players kick over a lot of sand castles. The book is fine, it just changes the way people play more than any other army. And people hate that.

So this brings us to a close on my first serious steps outside of the painting studio (so to speak). Hopefully, I haven't simply regurgitated something everyone knew already. I;m sure if i did (or if people think I;m wrong) , I'll hear about it. Welp, constructive criticism is one of the keys to getting better. Be gentle.

------[Foot Notes]--------------------------------------
*was going to post a thread I found about this, but the same group of people were also bitching about Necrons being overpowered.

**Seriously, I do mean accident. There are tons of IG players out there who are firmly in the "I don't give a shit about optimization and high-level gaming" camp who just want to screw around with their IG codex.