Astra Militarum makes me sad; I'm already planning my 'Counts as'

Like other Guard players, I'm looking forwards to adding a few more miniatures over the next few months, but not as many as I'd have hoped.

With the happy folks of the internet documenting changes to the new Astra Militarum codex fairly cohesively, I'm looking ahead with some money on my mind, and some conversions. 

The major changes to miniatures currently owned read as; 

New Wyvern/Hydra.

I've played with a Wyvern proxy (which to clarify is read as Why Vern, rather than Wiv Urn), and its a nice tank, dropping multiple blasts by itself for its price is very welcome, re rolling hits and wounds are nice touches too. 

Which  army you're facing however does defines its usefulness however.

Against Guard, Eldar, Tyranids, Chaos Daemons, Orks, Dark Eldar, Tau you're likely to run into something light, with a cover save or numbers on its side and this tank works brilliantly against these thus far.

Against the Adepta Sororitas, Necrons, and Chaos and normal Space Marines, you'll struggle to drop the regular troops easily as their toughness and armour saves will help them survive most things. I'll be tempted to take on some of the harder to wound units with which you can get a few more guaranteed hits against (i.e. remove those pesky Bikes saving lascannon hits with a jink save).

New Ogryns (http://www.talkwargaming.com/2014/03/leaked-imperial-guard-pictures-of.html)

The Bullgryns are a hit and a miss for me. Fluff wise, they are a non-existent unit, and the models themselves have become rather corny with repeated viewings. Rules-wise they benefit the horde-guard armies, which are fairly few and far between compared to the armoured companies, and points-wise I can envisage them being fairly pricey.

Along with the need for multiple boxes of miniatures and more guard squads to benefit from their rules, the Bullgryns look to be pricier still.

The Counts as replacements;

Some of the sideline units that I'm hoping have some changes are the standard Ogryns, and the Rough Riders. 

Whilst the original Rough Rider horses were fairly fluffy, the miniatures were rather god-awful, and would be terrible conversions for Guard, unless you do something like this by Frank Murch, which is just awesome.

For a Traitor guard force, rather than actually having horses, I'm thinking of sticking some blast collars on these guys, maybe some magnetised servo-arms for the special weapons. 

I'll measure a standard Rough rider, and add a large rock so that the 'sergeant' of the unit will be representative of heights to not cheat with line of sight etc.

Then the other temptation would be to get a box of these guys, and magnetise them for Bullgryn, Ogryn, or count as heavy weapon teams.

It also looks like I'll need to convert a few more Primaris Psykers, as Divination should make the Guard fun indeed.

For now, lets prepare for the weekend of Guard-goodness.