4-points Guardsmen

Apparently there are a lot of people complaining about 4-points Guardsmen. I'm not sure why they claim that 4-point Guardsmen are mathematically superior to any unit in the game. In what way? They are more durable? I think that's BS. They put out more firepower than any other unit in the game, point for point? Uh...no?

Let's see. They are Toughness 3, 1 wound, with a 5+ armor save, and are BS 4+ with Strength 3 lasguns. I always take one with a plasma gun, so that skews things a little, though even with the Cadian re-rolls - which I don't get if I move them to capture Objectives - it's still risky. But for 4 points it doesn't matter if they die, right? So why are they mathematically superior, to say, a squad of Scouts? I've been playing my Draconian Imperial Guard for so long, and I'll just point out, most of the time they don't really win me the game. With Toughness 3 and a 5+ armor save, they die to a stiff breeze. Yes, they are much more durable in comparison to the past, but in 7th edition you had all those stupid cover saves (just because you're in a building, you suddenly get 4+ even against plasma cannons or battle cannons, that was stupid as hell). Honestly, the best way to play last edition was to have high Strength blast template weapons that ignored cover (like the Stormsword). The Emperor's Wrath Artillery Company formation from the Cadian Battle Group in 7th Edition was so strong because you could essentially order those AP3 Basilisks to Ignore Cover.

And their lasguns do absolutely nothing. Even with First Rank, Fire! Second Rank, Fire!, my Guardsmen do not kill anything. Usually it's the plasma gun that actually kills something, but the lasguns are pretty pathetic. Not only do they not wound anything Toughness 4, with AP 0, my opponent always makes all his saves. My Guardsmen literally do nothing against Space Marines, Terminators, Marine Equivalents or Terminator Equivalents. Maybe they kill 2-3 Orks with 32 shots from their lasguns (and 2 shots from the plasma gun), but...yeah, that's 14-21 points of enemy units from 47 points before they get slaughtered in combat. Very mathematically superior indeed.

They are more durable, I'll give you that. A 55-point Scout squad killed 5 Guardsmen with boltguns and in melee, but I got lucky with morale (I rolled a 2). Normally that would have been 2 Guardsmen fleeing on statistical averages, but it takes 55 points of a Scout squad to kill 20-28 points worth of Guardsmen. On the other hand, it took 2 entire squads of Guardsmen to kill 5 Scouts (so 80-94 points of Guardsmen to kill 55 points' worth of Scouts). On the other hand, 10 Orks can kill 20 Guardsmen easily, with 10 points left. Only if you're stupid enough to put your 2 infantry squads close enough for the 10 Orks to charge them both, of course, but we're talking about mathematical value here. And I think it took just 5 Tau Fire Warriors to wipe out an entire infantry squad despite them being close in points, whereas an infantry squad could only kill 2 or so Fire Warriors.

Yeah, and I remember a bunch of Termagaunts shooting 2 infantry squads to death in just one turn. Never mind I was in cover. It just took a single round of shooting, and 2 infantry squads were wiped out. Granted, there were 30 Termagaunts, but think about it. If you bump the cost of the infantry squads up by even 1 point per model, it would swing the advantage further toward the Termagaunts, who even had Deep Strike capability. Now, I'm not saying infantry squads are bad. But they are nowhere as durable or resilient or powerful as people make them out to be, and unless I'm doing my math wrong, 4 points is all right for such a fragile and weak unit. Of course I believe Cultists should go back down to 4 points, and not be 5 points, but that's just me.

And if we're talking about 4-point expendable models being the best unit in the game (second to Knights), then why are Guardsmen the only target? I mean, if they're so good and worth their value, then why hasn't anyone been using Renegades and Heretics? We have 4-point Traitor Guardsmen in Renegades and Heretics, but for some reason Chaos players don't use them to flood the board with bodies. We always hear about the Loyal 32 (and I agree, it's a problem, but I think it's more to do with the Command Point system than the points cost of Guardsmen) but why does Chaos not field the Renegade 32? In fact, the Renegade 32 is even cheaper than the Loyal 32, clocking in at 170 points instead of 180 points, and it has the advantage in that you can bring dual flamers per renegade militia squad rather than just 1 special weapon. Obviously the Loyalists have their Regimental Doctrines and Orders. But then if it's the Orders that make the whole difference, shouldn't the Company Commander or Platoon Commander see their points increased instead of the Guardsmen? In other words, if you don't have the Commanders to give Orders, the Guardsmen are practically worthless on their own. So why bump them up to 5 points? Might as well increase the Commanders instead. By the way, the Cultists don't need Orders to work on their own, especially since they get access to Stratagems such as Veterans of the Long War (which is ridiculous, to be honest) and Tide of Traitors (which they don't have to pay reinforcement points for, but Valhallans have to pay for their Stratagem, what the hell?!). They can even shoot twice if you give them the Mark of Slaanesh, but why you would waste your Endless Cacophony on them like that that is beyond me. Even so, I still think Cultists are only worth 4 points per model. The only cheaper Battalion than the Renegade 32 is a Skitarii Battalion at 165 points, with 2 Tech-priests Enginseer and 3 squads of 5 Skitarii Rangers.

So if the Loyal 32 is so powerful, then why does no one use the Renegade 32? Are 4-point Guardsmen really the problem? Why do Chaos players continue to use Cultists over 4-point Renegade Guardsmen? Or does the lower BS (BS 5+), lower armor save (6+) and lack of Orders make all the difference? Again, if it's the Orders, then the problem should be the Commanders, right?

Another thing to take note of is that the majority of competitive Imperial Guard builds revolve around Catachans. Nobody takes Cadians except me. I hardly see any Militarum Tempestus armies in tournaments like the Las Vegas Open. Other than the occasional Valhallan regiment, it's dominated only by Catachans - where are the Cadians, Vostroyans, Tallarns, Armageddon Steel Legionnaires and Storm Troopers? Why does no one use them?

That's because Catachan is too strong. 4-point Guardsmen at Strength 3, Toughness 3 are fine on their own, but with the Catachan Regimental Doctrine, they suddenly become Strength 4. They even get buffed by Ministorum Priests, Harken, etc. and suddenly they become as good as Space Marines in melee despite costing less than half their points. The problem is not with the 4-points Guardsmen - you don't see them dominating the table in other regimental doctrines. The problem is the Catachan Regimental Doctrine giving them Strength 4 and going around smashing people's faces as if they are Space Marines. Yes, they are fluffy, but...yeah, they are definitely worth more than 4 points if they are Strength 4.

I believe the solution is to tweak the Catachan Regimental Doctrine (or nerf it a little). Keep the Guardsmen at 4 points, weaken the Brutal Strength Regimental Doctrine, and then let's see how the tournament unfolds. Will Guardsmen continue to dominate the tabletop with 4-point models? Or will people be taking less of them, and less Catachans? Instead of overreacting and making sweeping changes, let's hope a small, tiny change will be enough. If it isn't, then it's not too late to roll out the next change, which is the 1 point increase. But honestly, with how my Guardsmen literally do nothing but die, and them not damaging anything at all, I honestly don't think they are worth 5 points per model. Maybe it's just me rolling badly and my opponent making all his armor saves all the time. But the Guardsmen don't seem that durable or powerful to me. Perhaps it's just me stubbornly sticking to the Cadian Regimental Doctrine and using more Leman Russ tanks than infantry. I don't know. But based on my experience, my Guardsmen don't do much except die when they get shot at or charged at.

Has anyone ever fielded the Renegade 32 alongside Chaos Space Marines before?