The_Shaman said:

As much as I'm shocked to be in this situation, I agree with AluminiumWolf.

Fundamentally, the Imperial Guard must possess a certain degree of per-soldier quality - it's actually a requirement of the laws of the Imperium. A tithe of Guardsmen consists of at least ten percent of the armed forces of the world being tithed at that particular moment - whether that forms a single regiment or many varies for numerous reasons. The Departmento Munitorum is within their right to demand sanctions be placed upon a world that provides fighting forces of insufficient quality. Now, every world is required by law - that is, the Lex Imperialis, which is enforced by the Adeptus Arbites - to maintain a standing Planetary Defence Force. Failure to do this is a criminal act on the part of the Imperial Commander (the official term for a planetary governor) of that world, and one that will be punished swiftly. As the primary standing armed force, this means that PDF forces will be the primary source of Imperial Guardsmen.

It stands to reason, then, that the regiments of the Imperial Guard will be at least as effective in battle as local PDF forces... because they were drawn from those forces and then given further training. And that's just the baseline. Worlds which produce almost nothing but Imperial Guard tend to produce an extremely high standard of soldier in large quantities as a matter of pride and/or because their worlds are just so dangerous to live on in the first place.

This doesn't preclude a 'bury the enemy in our corpses' strategy... but that's a matter for the Generals to decide more often than not (many of whom view strategy as a mathematical equation and the soldiers under their command as nothing more than a quantified resource to be expended), rather than officers within the regiments.

Yes, the Imperial Guard do get outnumbered and outgunned - in the Imperium, as abundant as many resources (including manpower) are, their distribution is frequently uneven and access to those resources isn't always where it needs to be. It isn't unusual for Imperial Guard forces to be cut off from supply or reinforcement (indeed, the reliability and rechargeable nature of the lasgun is an asset in precisely such circumstances - lasguns keep firing long after you've run out of flamer fuel or autocannon shells), stuck on a world where their numbers are dwindling and the enemy outnumbers them heavily.

This is key with the Imperial Guard - they're the primary armed force of the Imperium, alongside the Imperial Navy. That means, if there's a ground war somewhere, whatever the conditions, then it's more than likely that the Imperial Guard will be fighting it.

There''''s also at least two other ''''bury them in bodies'''' armies out there.  Really, three, when you go truly thematic and add in rogue guard/chaos sorts.

The three?

Orks.  Very possibly outnumber a guard army.

Tyranids.  Mostly outnumber everything.

And aforementioned Renegade Guard/Chaos/etc - which is basically just guard with spiky bits.

And that''s just three groups that are common foes.

peterstepon said:

You can''t go one level down from DH, DH is already the lowest level.

Game mechanics are going to be close to BC, because FFG has been tinkering and improving the game mechanics everytime it produces a new game, which is something I appreciate.  Power level is probably going to be close to DH, but a little bit higher because baseline DH is simply too low.  We know there will be Careers like Heavy Gunner, which is going to require better starting weapon talents than DH by its every nature and that equipment and starting abilities for Careers like Commissar (chain weapons usual showing up around the 2k mark in DH) and Stormtrooper have to better than DH or render those starting Careers a joke.  There will probably be less gear creep so the upper levels won't get crazy as things like force fields and power weapons are very rare in the Imperial Guard.