Members of the Young Guard are specialists in urban combat, defending
not only Imperial's "homeworld" of Victoria, but its holdings on the
other planets of the solar system as well. They are all hand-picked
veterans of other special forces, and are so dedicated to valorous
conduct that they never hide from danger. They wear dark jumpsuits
of ballistic nylon, giving them some protection from bullets and
relatively high mobility.
Special Rules: Young Guards may never Hide. They are immune to
fear, and thus never have to take Panic or Rout tests.
Equipment: Young Guards are typically armed with Invader rifles.
One Young Guard may replace his Invader with a heavy weapon from the
General Armory or Imperial weapons lists, or else with an Assailant
sniper rifle. [Note: This deviates from the normal rule that only
individuals may use sniper rifles.]
Structure: Young Guards are organized into units of 4 to 6
Troopers, led by a Young Guard Sergeant. If the Young Guard unit contains a total of 7 soldiers (including the
Sergeant), then a second member of the unit may replace his Invader
rifle with a heavy weapon or Assailant sniper rifle.
Young Guard Captains are individuals, and may be armed with any
weapon from the General Armory or Imperial weapons lists. You may have a Young Guard Captain only if you also have at least one
Young Guard unit in your force.
Representation: The Blood Berets pack would serve best to represent
your rank-and-file Young Guardsmen and Sergeant, painted with black
body-suits, pauldrons and berets, with a silver skull symbol in lieu
of the Imperial logo on the left shoulderpad (or right, for a
Captain). The arms are painted red -- and you might use a bit of
putty to suggest "sleeves". (The only visual reference available, to
my knowledge, is the cover of the "Imperial: The Clans of Damnation"
RPG sourcebook.)
For heavy weapons or Assailant carriers (or your Hero), things may be
a bit trickier, since at this writing there are no models with
Assailant sniper rifles or Southpaw rocket launchers. Unless you're
up to a major kitbash, I'd recommend just using the Blood Berets
models with Deathlockdrum or Mandible to represent a different
armament, or perhaps paint a different colored spot on the base.
Design Notes: The Young Guardsmen are designed starting with the
Blood Berets profile. First of all, armor was dropped from 24 to 22,
offset by raising the MV to 4. For the Sergeant and Captain (who
would normally have an Armor of 26), this greater difference was made
up by adding 2 points to Leadership, resulting in the large
Leadership value of 18. (I justify this by their near-fanatic and
elite-of-the-elite nature.)
CC and MW scores were altered from the basic profile, taking from the
CC and adding to the MW, as this group seems to be more of a marksman
group than a "get-up-close-and-personal" close combat squad.
The Blood Berets' Jungle Training was dropped and essentially
replaced with the Fearless ability and a disadvantage of being unable
to hide. (Note that all Imperial special forces are immune to
Routing anyway.) While I believe the inability to hide to be a very
serious disadvantage, in the urban scenarios for which the Young
Guard were designed, it's almost a moot point, with no "tall grass
and depressions" to provide hiding spots out in the open. Also, I
could consider this offset by the liberties I took with changing the
combat statistics and allowing the use of sniper rifles among the
regular troopers to fit a particular combat role.
Play Notes: In an urban scenario (using house rules which I've
described elsewhere), the Young Guard actually did pretty good.
Their high mobility proved helpful in maneuvering Young Guardsmen
into better positions to shoot around the various buildings and other
obstacles covering the board. The unit is rather expensive, though,
and it wasn't hard to fill up a 500-point force with just a single
Young Guard unit and Captain. We've not really found any great use
for the option of using sniper rifles -- That was more inspired by
the armaments shown in the Imperial sourcebook cover than any
tactical consideration.
(Southpaws seem to be worth the extra cost rather than using the
heavy weapons allowances for sniper rifles. Many a time an enemy Dark
Legion unit would try to hide behind towers or around corners, but if
one straggler was out in the open, there was a chance of targeting
him with a Southpaw and catching some of the rest of the unit (out of
LOS) in the blast.)
Considering that the Young Guardsmen certainly have their weaknesses
(high expense, low close-combat potential) and that they did take
quite a pounding in our play-tests, I think they have shown
themselves to be a reasonably balanced group that would (of course)
work better in some terrain and scenarios than in others.
2nd Young Guards