So, the AM pretty much suck. Their Warlord is a much weaker version of Zarathur, and half of the Guards main units can't even use Strakens ability (because they are conscripts/scouts/psykers/vehicles etc., rather than soldiers). Many of his units (Mortars) don't work with the tokens (not army units), and they lack any sort of direct damage actions to deal with enemy units. If you ally for more soldiers/warriors, many abilities/events/support are AM only and won't work with the allied units.

Support is nice, but at some point the rest of the deck needs some synergy. There are way too many parts that just refuse to work with one another to let the entire thing come together into a competitive whole. Maybe with a few more cards released they will amount to something, but right now they really seem to be on the short end of the stick.

I am killing an hour or so a night just randomly trying a game with myself on both sides . ( It's not completely impossible , I view each sides hand and really decide if this is what I had to play , what would I do ) .

The only difficulty I have is Warlord Deployment . But I did have an Eldar vs Imperial Astro Guard and they were crushed . That's just one game , and its vs Eldar , so against someone else who knows . My decks are from 2 core so theres 48 for mono faction with room for 2 neutrals .

The Astro Military aren't my go to right now thats for sure.

Guard have a disproportionately high number of 4+ cost units... Mono-guard, especially using all cards in two starters, has a very hard time because of that... They can be very powerful on a you cut the fat, and add some adequate support

We must also factor in all of the yet UN-released cards that will most certainly add to the AM deck power, but as of yet those packs haven't been released yet.... I say give it mire time and you shall see a playable faction, with or without support.

yeah,
Some players will pick up the core set, as a complete game and stop there.
All factions should thus be equally balanced within the core set.

Panic...

Guard with Marine support has become my go-to deck. The crazy power of the soldier marines under Stracken, combined with the crazy conscripts with the marine supports in play in addition to the guard ones, makes for a nasty set of combos

I'll admit that I wasn't very jazzed about them coming in. But now I find I really enjoy playing with them!

I think they have one of the best event cards in the game - Preemptive Barrage. Giving 3 units ranged is awesome. Combined with Straken at the planet and a copy or two of Catachan Outpost I think it's one of the biggest swings in momentum to be had, other than a board-wipe card (and you can obviously pair them with Exterminatus if you want to do that too). Plus, your opponent can try his best to play so that Exterminatus and Doom don't wreck him too bad if he sees you playing with SM or Eldar. Other than Nullify I can't think of anycard or play-style to avoid Preemptive. I love that card.

Try looking at some decks online that utilize this combo and see if you can be inspired to give these guys another shot. Hitting your oppenet for around anywhere between 6 - 15 attack before he gets a swing, when he thought his initiative was going to be good enough to have him swing first, can be a game changer!

AAAANND now we have an inquisitor spoiled for Guard, and the world rejoices, and the Guard get revitalized (not that they needed it) and I can't wait

Most of FFGs LCG's have a weak faction when the Starter Set comes out, but they even out after a war pack or two.

Nah, I've been playing massive amounts since GenCon and I can safely say that the Guard don't suck, at all.

I've seen a lot times people stating that Straken is just a watered down Zarathur, but I can see some instances where Straken is better. Take a 1ATK warrior/soldier unit and attack your opponent. If he plays one shield, Zarathur does not get to deal +1 dmg, because no damage was actually dealt. On the other hand, he will take 1 damage if Straken is your warlord.
Not saying that this will happen a lot or that in general Straken is better, on pair, or worse, but they definitely work differently, and their differences could expand even more with the card pool. Just saying.

Freeman, in your scenario, 2 damage will still be dealt with Zarathur - just not applied. Shields don't negate damage dealt, only damage assigned. That said, I still like AM!

Straken works better with Tank Busta Bommaz. I imagine in the future there will be other cards like Tank Busta Bommaz that will benefit more from +1 ATK vs +1 damage. There just aren't many now.

Also, it's important to note that the Imperial Guard have other strengths as a faction, and Straken's signature squad is pretty good.

Warlords do not exist in a vacuum. You can't expect them all to be of exactly equal power. If the game were designed that way, it would be very limiting.

To the less experienced players who don't know to look at a faction holistically instead of piece-by-piece, Guard might appear underpowered. This isn't the case.

Also, Straken works better with Goff Boys when not at the first planet. In fact, he works better with any Warrior or Soldier that has 0 ATK. Whether that's just the unit's base ATK or a unit's ATK has been reduced to zero by an enemy card.

... Hitting your oppenet for around anywhere between 6 - 15 attack before he gets a swing, when he thought his initiative was going to be good enough to have him swing first, can be a game changer!

This.

Other than Nullify I can't think of anycard or play-style to avoid Preemptive. I love that card.

Anything that can exhaust or rout a unit prevents it from participating in the ranged skirmish (Cadian Mortar Squad or other self-readying units are an exception, but the Mortar Squad at least doesn't need the Barrage). This includes effects played ahead of time to make Preemptive Barrage a poor choice that battle (like Eldorath's ability) or action responses, like Archon's Terror.

That's not to say that I agree Guard are bad, and I especially don't think the Barrage is a bad card--it's great! But there's a lot more counters than just Nullify.

Freeman, in your scenario, 2 damage will still be dealt with Zarathur - just not applied. Shields don't negate damage dealt, only damage assigned. That said, I still like AM!

Damm, you're right! My bad.

Barrage is awesome. It singlehandedly turned around a game that I was comfortably ahead on. It got my opponent on a roll. Fortunately, I had my own surprise, in the form of two Infernal Gateways, to return the favor later on. Otherwise, it would have been dicey.

Initially I thought AM was one of the worse factions to pick up from a single Core set, now however, I don't think this is the case anymore, for sure you need your Support cards to make it all work out but this seems to be their trick also for constructed play.

Personally I have had quite some fun with their Ranged units and Catachan Outpost, the combination of these cards can lead to early headages for your opponent quite fast. Its also important to note that almost no faction has a way to deal with your awesome Support cards, which again leads to more and more advantage in the lategame with the giant Infantry Conscripts beatstick.

- Straken does feel like a Warlord designed for constructed gameplay much more than any other hero, that is totally true. Combined with Orks however he'll show that he can do some insane things.

Personally I feel the balance in the single Core set is quite good and honestly only feel that Chaos can become very inconsistent if you do not win your initial command struggles/battles and winning command struggles is not their biggest advantage, which could bog your hand up with a multitude of Soul Grinders or Black Dragon Helldrake you'll never be able to cast unless you "won" those initial turns.

built a deck around 3 cores and tossed in 3 Promethium Pits . by the time my Infantry Constcripts came up they had +12 the one game and +8 the next . In both games the build came up with two Pits adding resources , Outpost and both Rockette and Imperial bunker , I have seriously overlooked and underestimated these bad boys . I am re evaluating the power of the Astral Gaurd , or Imperial Militarium , or whatevs...

built a deck around 3 cores and tossed in 3 Promethium Pits . by the time my Infantry Constcripts came up they had +12 the one game and +8 the next . In both games the build came up with two Pits adding resources , Outpost and both Rockette and Imperial bunker , I have seriously overlooked and underestimated these bad boys . I am re evaluating the power of the Astral Gaurd , or Imperial Militarium , or whatevs...

For sure this is what I was hinting at. Apart from the Pits you can also add all other kinds of support cards from the ally faction to further boost the Conscripts. Ork Kannon for example can remove all the tokens (bar Guard) that would chomp down your Conscripts by sheer number otherwise. Making the Conscripts able to destroy pretty much any unit/Warlord if you have iniative. Imho they are only outshined by the Chaos Possessed but Chaos and it's ally suffer much harder in the early game Command Struggles.

The games where I had 3-4 Supports early to midgame I won because of Conscripts in the core set. It seems that the fact they have no Command Icons also is not really relevant in the mid to late game where the wins are decides by winning battles and not so much the Command Struggles.

The Astrum Militarum/Imperial Guard are a great faction, in the Core but even more so in constructed, much like the Space Marine who have a balance in being able to do everything quite well, command and command can be theirs versus a multitude of factions. It is important to note however that I feel that Space Marines are much better in the early game as the AM and the AM dominate in the mid to lategame where all the Support pieces begin to add up. A prime example of this are offcourse the Conscripts but also the Ratling Deadeye that become extremely annoying/strong once you've got Catachan Outpost on the table.

It's not so much that they suck as they just have a bad matchups against Eldar/DE or DE/Eldar which are two of the more popular decks. It actually does pretty well against SM/Tau or Tau/Eldar and even Chaos builds for its ability to slug it out during combat with the supports, but there is nothing worse than having a valkyrie get routed from archon's terror, my conscript get exhausted from starbane, and then my preemptive barrage getting nullified in one battle. That's when table flipping and card throwing occurs. Or even worse is when the card choke from DE gets going and you have two cards all game. Until they get answers and not more of the same which is what I see in the warpack, it's going to be tough against those decks. It is a fun deck to mix it up with and if you see a ton of SM/Tau it's a pretty good choice actually. Maybe Coteaz will change things up.

I feel you do have a valid point altough at the same time I still feel it takes a tremendous ammount of resources for the DE/E or E/DE set up to actually cancel out all your benifits st1200L . The funny thing is that in a constructed deck you are actually quite well set up to win the commands against the DE/E match up and win the early battles against the E/DE match up.

It all depends on how fast you can get your Catachan Outpost/Land Raider on the table imho. However I do agree that lategame versus the DE/E and E/DE match up you will be in more trouble if you have not bloodied your opponents hero in the inital stages of the game. The thing is that you can set up well enough in both scenario's. Not only Eldar/Dark Eldar will have a fantasic set up while AM will not. Also if you chose Straken you are also forced to either included a heavy ammount of Space Marine Soldiers or Ork Warriors. This currently isn't favoured by anyone because it feels like a limitation. But I do think that Blood Angels Veterans, Daring Assault Squad, Goff Boyz and even Tankbusta Bommaz become rediculously good under him.

As for the purist and the players who like to splash an allied faction rather than rely heavily on them I do agree that Coteaz will offer much more to those AM players. It's true that for a core starter Straken feels really mediocre with no heavy interaction with his own faction deck.