Imperial Guard

This article is awesome. Do not fuck it up.

His name struck fear into hearts of men

"Battle is the most magnificent competition in which a human being can indulge. It brings out all that is best; it removes all that is base. All men are afraid in battle. The coward is the one who lets his fear overcome his sense of duty. Duty is the essence of manhood." - George S. Patton

"Quantity has a quality all of its own" - Stalin

"To each of us falls a task, and all the Emperor requires of us Guardsmen is that we stand the line, and we die fighting. It is what we do best - we die standing." - General Sturnn of the Imperial Guard

The Imperial Guard or more commonly known as living flashlights (officially titled the Astra Militarum as of 6th edition/7th edition, cause fuck your original name if GW can't trademark it, although they're still colloquially called Imperial Guard in fluff by anyone who isn't a faggot), are the foot soldiers of the Imperium in Warhammer 40,000. They only exist to die gloriously in the Empra's name. Commissars (like Holt and Ciaphas Cain) ensure they do so by shooting anyone who even looks like a deserter. Though the average Guardsman is only capable of drawing enemy fire and shining a flashlight at their enemies, much more fortunate Guardsmen get to drive the tanks and other armored vehicles fielded by the IG, which proceed to blow their enemies into little chunks from a very long way away.

Overview

It is worth noting that in a universe where the majority of the other armies are either:

• Ancient Murdering Robots that destroy the laws of physics with their tech and don't die even if they are nuked
• Genetically engineered killing machines
• The evil twin brother of the Genetically engineered killing machines, with equally evil goatees
• Clad in powered armor
• Extremely warlike genetically-engineered fungus able to grow bigger and stronger the more they fight.
• Manipulative space elves in possession of extremely cheesy technology and can jump around making damn accurate shots like Quake players
• The above-mentioned space elves' emo, bondage obsessed cousins who like to meet interesting people, shoot them a little, then torture them for eternity
• Highly-advanced space Communists with mecha and god-like firepower that surprisingly uses Combined Arms Warfare more than Imperial Guard
• Mutant 10ft tall space monsters with lots of teeth to devour you with
• Come in such a huge swarms that you literally run out of ammo before your guns can chew through half of them
• Daemons with a billion tentacles to rape you with
• Reptilian/Insectoid abominations that kill you and mutilate your body because they think its "Funny"
• Some combination of the above

"Welcome to the jungle, we've got fun and games!"

The foot soldiers of the Imperial Guard take to the field equipped with nothing more than the 40k equivalent of flak jackets, glorified laser pointers, a copy of the Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer (if they have not already used it for toilet paper.*BLAM* Note: it is highly recommended that you do not use it as toilet paper, to prevent BLAMing) and a pair of Mars-pattern forged titanium plated balls. Please note that whilst the Lasgun and Flak armor are very good by modern standards, they're just flashlights and t-shirts compared to the automatic mini-rocket launchers and power armor everyone else uses. This means they have balls of steel (as in Duke Nukem would say, "Holy shit! I thought I had balls of steel!").

Examples of Guardsmen going above and beyond this, demonstrating the possession of testicles so massive they should be deployed in battle as a separate unit, are plentiful; Ollanius Pius is one such Guardsman, standing up to fucking Horus himself (which unfortunatly has been retconned. Several times.); the original Dawn of War features the Blood Ravens running into a pair of Guardsmen who have held their position, without support, in the middle of a combined Chaos/Ork/Eldar invasion, for more than a week; Dawn of War II has Guardsmen rescued in an earlier mission returning in the finale to provide infantry support while the Blood Ravens launch an attack on a fucking Tyranid hive. These same guardsmen (led by the ever awesome Sergeant Merrick) SURVIVE the suicidal mission and fight on for TEN MORE YEARS against the remnants of the Tyranids/Orks/Eldar, and a group totaling up to 72 still loyal IG in six separate blob-groups on frozen over Aurelia during those same ten years manage to hold out against their late fellows now in Papa Nurgle's arms who are supported by the remnants of the Black Legion in the area, while just outside the new temple to Nurgle.

Although the average front line Guardsman is highly unlikely to survive his first deployment, veteran soldiers are considered to be some of the manliest motherfuckers the Imperium has to offer, putting even the fucking SPESS MEHRENS to a billion shames. One disturbing thing is that if the tactics of the Imperial Guard were improved from WWI style warfare (overuse of artillery and mass charges against machine guns and tanks) and updated to modern style warfare (such as taking cover and using air/armor/support) the Imperial Guard could become the most feared army in the Universe but NO that's not grimdark enough! And that's the Tau's tactic. Although, do note that some commanders themselves shove off this fact and do order their men to charge the enemy lines, with or without heavy armor/artillery support and regardless of terrain.

Dan Abnett's work and their latest edition turned them into Gods of Mechanized War and yet, they still suck compared to 8 feet tall Daemonic killing machines with chainaxes. To be fair, though, that's much like comparing a sedan to a tank. I mean, how are you NOT supposed to suck against things that will slice through meter thick steel armor like so much cheese?

It may sound harsh, but the cold, hard truth of the matter is that the lowest currency in the Imperium is human life. For example, in the modern day commanders would willingly sacrifice say... an IFV (infantry fighting vehicle), because of all that 'life matters most' crap. Nope, commanders do risk assessment. They're not going to devote resources just to save one lowly grunt if they're gonna loose a resource more expensive than what they're getting. Although to be fair, commanders who make these decisions know the moral implications of what they're doing while the Imperium treats this as a perfectly normal act.

"The meaning of victory is not to defeat your enemy but to destroy him, to eradicate him from living memory, to leave no remnant of his endeavors, to crush utterly his every achievement and remove from all record his every trace of existence. From that defeat no enemy can ever recover. That is the meaning of victory."

Human life in itself is so worthless and insignificant in the Imperium because there are so many of them and they keep breeding more and more exponentially in overpopulated hive cities like a bunch of Tyranids. The Imperium instead looks at the skills possessed by the individual than just their lives (if you can't fight like a Stormtrooper or have a unique set of skills to offer the Imperium, have fun being cannon fodder or a human servitor).

A bit of maths, if you will. There are 32,380 Hive Worlds in the Imperium. The average population of these worlds is around 200 billion each. We put these together and we get 6.476E15 (6,476,000,000,000,000 or 6.476 Quadrillion or 6.476 million billion) people on Hive worlds ALONE. And keep in mind that, as famous overpopulation speculator Thomas Malthus pointed out, reproduction is geometric and exponential, and may exceed industrial production which is arithmetical: if the average reproductive rate is 2 children, then multiply 6,476 Quadrillion by 2. If the average rate of children is 4? Then multiply 6,476 Quadrillion by 2 and then again by 2(is that 2 children per person or per couple? because per couple would mean the population stays the same). If people kept fucking and had an average of a dozen? Oh my God. This isn't even counting the populations of non-Hive Worlds! Eventually there would be more human retard-babies that there would be soylens viridians and lasguns to come out of the Forge World assembly lines. In other words, Slannesh would have been birthed by the Imperium if the Eldar didn't beat them to it.

Wait what? Somebody left Tzeentch in the corner again with Nurgle and Khorne. Could someone find him please? Right, there's a little problem with that Slaanesh given birth to by non-protected/non-aborted massive amounts of sex leading to massive amounts of babies. How many of those Hive Worlds do you really think can or will feed those children? How many of those families will be able to even see the next day? Remember food, it still isn't abundant everywhere, like was and is for the Eldar.

So now you see why humans are worth so little. But this also means that once they get their ass in gear and onto the battlefield, they ALWAYS win, because they have all but unlimited manpower and resources, compare it to water bashing against rocks. Sure, a few gallons won't do jack, but countless billions of tonnes crashing down on it WILL destroy it in a surprisingly short amount of time. (Do keep in mind, it's not like they commit quintillions of troops to one battle. The Imperium frequently has to withdraw, but it's like saying "We lost the battle, BUT NOT THE WAR!") The Tyranids still win at numbers, though Yet, you cannot really compare the Imperial Guard's massing tactics to that of the Tyranids, because the Guard have the benefit of superior artillery and balls o' steel compared to a hive minded monstrosity whose lynchpins are usually flimsier than the rest of them.

In fact, it is point-blank stated numerous times that guardsmen are way cheaper than their lasguns. Because, you know, there are far more Hive Worlds to produce humans, than there are Forge Worlds to produce lasguns. And to add more grimdark, Imperium lost a lot of forge worlds and mining worlds during the Time of Ending, so there are even less lasguns and cardboard jackets coming from assembly lines. The Death Korps of Krieg have a specific guy who runs around battlefields shooting the wounded and collecting their gear (as well as blood and organs to fix those who still can be saved to fight next day). In fact, the Death Korps practically demand their own section in the grimdark record book for having by far the single most depressing backstory and current history. Their home world, Krieg, rebelled some 500+ years into the past, but one guard officer stayed loyal and nuked the ever living fuck out of the planet, thus evening the odds enough for his side to triumph after a mere five centuries of grinding attrition warfare. During this period the entire planet went underground and they started doing some weird and just fucking horrible things to their women-folk to get them breeding new men ASAP. They developed a frankly terrifying version of the Imperial religion, where the only possible thing you can aspire to is dying painfully for the emperor. How you gonna fight that? Eventually they reclaimed the planet. And then the bureaucrats that run the Imperium showed up and said 'So you've not been paying your taxes these past few hundred years...'. But it was ok, because now instead of fighting the other guys on Krieg, they just sent out every man possible to fight in the most hazardous wars possible. And kept doing the aforementioned fucking horrible things to their women for no particular reason. Life expectancy in Krieg regiments is extremely fucking low. Promotion is through survival alone. If you survive as an infantryman, you get to be a grenadier and holy fuck if you thought you were expendable before, you ain't seen nothing yet. The grenadiers lead every attack, and stop calling each other by name because there's no point. They consider themselves as already dead. Then if you survive that, you get to be a sergeant. And thence off to officerhood. Once you make general, you MIGHT actually live, but before then you are expected to be in the leading rank of the infantry. Oh and the most recent success of the Death Korp? Siege of Vraks. Expected casualties: 10 million, expected time to victory 12 years. Actual casualties: 14 million, actual time to victory 18 years. You don't know hell until you have lived through Vraks. And then the fucking grey fucking knights showed up 10 minutes before the close and stole all the glory. Bastards.

Of course, you will occasionally read some contradictory fluff that says that the Imperium's resources are stretched very thin and that they often don't have the manpower to defend all their worlds under threat. The Imperial Guard is vast, but "vast" is a relative term. The Orks alone are said to outnumber all humans, and every Ork is a warrior looking for a fight, whilst most humans are not. Throw in the Tyranids and every other alien race looking to shish-kebab humanity and you'll see that the Imperial military strategies are disastrously wasteful. Warhammer 40K is often inconsistent because it is built by a whole bunch of writers who don't always communicate and coordinate.

But what the Imperium does have going for itself is the individual heroism of its protectors. The Imperium has countless heroes, without whom the Imperium would have fallen ages ago. Notable heroes of the Imperial Guard include: Ollanius Pius, Straken, Creed, Lord Solar Macharius, Ciaphas Cain HERO OF THE IMPERIUM, Vance Motherfucking Stubbs, Yarrick, and countless others. These unique men and women inspire the masses around them to truly heroic deeds, and through those deeds, ensure that the Imperium will never falter.

Play Style

No ALL Some Most Cadians can be this badass derpy These aren't Cadians. They are men of the Brimlock Eleventh, fighting on Voor against Orks. All Cadians can still be this awesome though.

"You see, the Killbots have a preset kill limit. Knowing their weakness, I sent wave after wave of my own men at them, until they reached their limit and shut down." - Zapp Brannigan, Twenty-five Star General of the Imperial Guard.

The Imperial Guard are notorious for their SIGAOD methodology; that is, Shooty Imperial Guard Army Of Doom for the less than nerdy. The basic lasguns are downright pathetic, but can still be effective if used en masse. The effect is a little like how medieval archers cavemen throwing rocks could still be a threat to fully armored knights. It only takes one lucky shot and they don't stop shooting until they get lucky. Of course, the only reason this works is because the Imperial Guard has literally trillions of Guardsmen and a limitless supply of lasguns the other way around. They have so many men that they have to employ commissars to shoot the most cowardly one in a bunch. This kind of works out, since the armor they wear is only resistant to the gun they use (so basically, the only thing worse than their armor is their own guns).

The IG has loads of vehicles. Loads of vehicles. They can take a whole squadron as a single Fast Attack or Heavy Support slot, and most are fairly cheap and most pretty good for what you pay for. There are three principle IG vehicles of note:

• First is the Chimera, which is basically a troop transport with a turret. Its armor is aluminum and it is not particularly fast, but it's cheap and the passengers can still shoot while inside.
• The second vehicle is the iconic Leman Russ Battle Tank. It is in every way a solid, dependable, warhorse. Everything from the optional heavy sponsons, to the BFG on the turret, to the completely exposed engine in the rear. Apparently, they ran out of badass when they designed it.
• The last vehicle of note is the Basilisk. Apparently, some tech-priest decided to take a Chimera, rip off the turret and troop compartment and replace it with the biggest piece of artillery he could find. Unfortunately, there weren't any Titan legions nearby so he settled for the Earthshaker cannon. The Earthshaker is far more powerful than even the BFG they stuck on the Leman Russ and has ten times the range. No WH40k game has been played where a target has been out of range of the Basilisk.

The three vehicles above are only a small selection of what the Guard has to offer, but they provide pretty reliable workhorses of most builds and strategies. Most other vehicles are specialized variants of the above, being largely situational units.

Let's not forget the Deathstrike Missile, which GW decided to give UNLIMITED RANGE. AS IN ACTUALLY UNLIMITED. I have called up GW stores the next town over and told them that I'm dropping a Deathstrike in the middle of whatever battle is closest, and they've accepted.

Also of note is 6th Edition's contribution of flyer units. The IG has the most non-apocalypse flyer units in 40k, and while some of them are absolutely useless for anything but flavor, some of them kick all kinds of ass. Triple twin-linked lascannon, twin-linked Punisher Gatling cannons, or a flying tank-busting mega-bolter kinds of ass to be specific. Raep from above.

In summary, the Imperial Guard wins by having firepower, cannon fodder, and lots of both.

Unfortunately for the Guard, though, the Imperial Navy has a bad habit of taking ships that were designed to launch atmospheric craft in support of the Guard (such as Marauders) and instead sticks void combat attack craft inside (such as Furies). The result of this is painfully obvious if you're a Guardsman on the ground. Not to say they don't have air support, but that their air support has a presence that is completely at odds with the number of atmospheric fighters and bombers a ship can carry. The Navy literally fits whatever atmospheric fighters and bombers they can into whatever excess space remains after putting their Furies and Starhawks into hangers designed for holding countless Lightnings, Thunderbolts, Marauders, and Avengers, instead. Grimdark? No, just uncooperative morons. Enter the Hydra. The only tank designed to take out aircraft. That is BADASS. Screw the navy. In the navy.... Sadly, that doesn't change the fact you lack air-support and have the numbers and industrial capacity to have a fighter per guard squad or more... Hell, some regiments have a Leman Russ for every infantry squad! Do that with Thunderbolts or Lightnings in addition to the Russ and...yeah, epic-stomp.

Notable Figures of the Imperial Guard

Who's "ded 'ard" NOW, you fat, grammatically challenged cucumber?!

• Ciaphas Cain - HERO OF THE IMPERIUM (Charming Commissar in the Harry Flashman/Edmund Blackadder tradition.)
• Colonel-Commissar Ibram Gaunt - (Rambo + Sharpe + 40,000 kg of awesome) Main protagonist of Gaunt's Ghosts, and a REAL hero of the Imperium, unjustly doomed to lowly obscurity.
• Commissar Yarrick - Old one-eye. Saviour of Armageddon, twice. Known for having an Ork Klaw on his arm, having a personal Baneblade, and a bizarre relationship with the ork warlord Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka.
• Commissar Holt - Awesome cinematics are awesome, from Warhammer 40,000: Final Liberation.
• Commissar Dan - "But Commissar Dan says we're on a blaze for glory run!" "Commissar Dan is a maniac! Never listen to anything he says." Also canon thanks to FFG, because raisins.
• Commissar Fuklaw - Currently in service with the Angry Marines.
• Commissar Raege - Currently trolling faggoty Space Marines.
• General Sturnn - Manly damn old son of a bitch, from Dawn of War: Winter Assault. Struggles with grammar because of the grit in his teeth.
• Lord General Castor - Sporting a manly mustache and known for having a trophy room full of Tyranid heads.
• Ollanius Pius - The catalyst for the Emperor finally slaying erasing Horus out of existence. (No longer canon, which is BULLSHIT! Though he DOES still exist as a Saint of the IG. No worries, IG /tg/ is keeping his story alive.)
• Vance Motherfucking Stubbs - Another manly bastard, famous for "losing" a hundred Baneblades.*BLAM*LIES AND CHAOS PROPAGANDA!!! There is nothing written about the Baneblades being lost.
• Colonel "I ate a Miral landshark for breakfast" Straken - Yet another manly fucker and another solid contender for biggest balls in the Imperial Guard.
• Knight Commander Pask - Ed harris in 40k. A Leman Russ tank ace that has destroyed Titans and Gargants. With a Leman Russ.
• Colonel Greiss - Straken's former commander and proof that the manliest fuckers the Imperial Guard have aren't necessarily the biggest.
• Lord Castellan Usarkar E. Creed - Famous for outflanking enemies with Titans. Must have been the work of some sort of tactical geniu-CREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEED!!!
• Johnny Bravo - OK, he isn't really. But it would be awesome. Or at least funny
• Merrick - Tough bastard who survived a Tyranid Invasion, a Chaos uprising, ten years of nonstop combat, and putting a gun to his superior's head. Also fucking strong, since he can carry an entire heavy weapons setup on his own.
• Sly Marbo - ...by time you have read this... you are already dead... Gone, just like Creed's ability to scout titans, because GW hates awesome things.
• Engineseers - All of them. Want to repair your own tank, do you? HERE'S THE FUCKING MANUAL. By the way, it's Heresy to do it yourself. One of the few members of the Adeptus Mechanicus who actually does something useful for the Imperium. Explains why they are shunned by the majority of the Cult Mechanicus.
• Miranda "Mira" Nero - Notable for being a rare female junior officer (rare in terms of the number of junior officers that are female depicted in book-fluff and the board game alike, not in terms of reality fluff, and the book fluff is beginning to catch up) in charge of an entire defense group, and damn hard. Whenever her troops fight alongside Captain Titus, they never fall back. An experienced veteran of the 203rd Cadian Shock Troops on it's way to a far-flung war zone, but were redirected to defend the critical Forge World Graia (they are one of the Forge Worlds that makes bolters, and it's even named after them the Graia Pattern, along with experimental weapons and a Warlord Titan forge) from an Ork Waagh led by Warboss Grimskull. 2nd Lt. Mira smoothly takes command when all the other officers with a higher rank are eventually killed by greenskins along with most of the 203rd. She leads a guerrilla war effort with expert tactical skill and fierce passion for humanity, also earns incredible loyalty from the Guards under her command. When the Space Smurfs (they are led by an awesome Captain this time) finally show up (and are also the fastest response team available to the Imperium in that sector?! Well there is like just the captain squad isn't it? They were probably doing something else. And one day latter some Bloody Magpies shows up with a Black Templars company.), the Guard is still going, hunkered down in the Manufactorum holding a Warlord Class Titan, and so is Mira. In combat, she fights with a standard lasgun (though, apparently 203rd Cadian Shock Troops consider scoped lasguns without bayonets to be standard). Let me repeat that. She survived leading an Ork siege with nothing but a scoped semiautomatic flashlight and skilled command. There's no way her ballistic skill is anything less than 5. 2nd Lt. Mira and the respective IG, Smurfs, Orks of the siege of Graia appear in the video game Space Marine. Also known as the female and younger but no less dangerous counterpart of Creed, who, instead of Scouting Titans, wears out an invaders patience and numbers with expert defense of an inactive Titan. Someone in IG High Command seriously needs to promote her.
• Lord Commander Solar Macharius - A Brilliant tactician who Gets Shit Done (in fluff) and the most useless command choice from the Second Edition Codex: Imperial Guard who would habitually screw up your entire battle plan since he rolled for his strategy rating on a D6 (which decided who got the first turn) and 4-6 would stop you firing your army-fucking pre-battle barrage. On a 6 you also had to put everything you had in reserve on the table. He also had no model and the fluff gave no idea what he looked like. IMPROVED IN 3RD ED WHEN HE GOT BETTER RULES AND A MODEL: Baseline stats are: WS D3+2, BS4, S3, T3, W4, I4, A D3+1, LD10
  • Because he is slow in his old age, he has an initiative of 4, which is pretty bad, but he can potentially have four attacks with a mastercrafted power weapon at a WS of 5. He's still too wild of a character to use in a serious game, so save him for your fuck-around games, or Apocalypse.
  • In conclusion, he has a terrible crunch but have a ridiculously awesome fluff being as the most successful Warmaster ever existed since the Great Crusade
• Colonel Schaeffer - The most crazy, malicious, heinous and downright evil imperial guard officer to ever exist. Most other officers are either incompetent when battlefield tactics are concerned or egocentric to the point of believing nothing else around them has a pulse, ultimately resulting in the average footslogger having such a brief lifespan. Colonel Schaeffer on the other hand, intends to make those under his command suffer in the most gruelling, painful and surprisingly productive way possible.
• Colonel Jurten - Nuked the living shit out of his own planet, 'cuz Krieg ain't belonging to no one but the Big E. Then inhabited it solely with clones, mostly of himself.
• Commander Kubrik Chenkov "Now see here comrade, is all for great glory of great Stalin empero- Нет! Вернись , свинья ! *BLAM* What happens when a soviet commander gets transplanted into 40k. Known for being the most famous user of the "send in the next wave" tactic, wherein a squad of 50 conscript guardsman are sent into a charge and another is sent in immediately when they all inevitably die.

Main Advantages of Fielding an Imperial Guard Army

• Shit loads of men to throw around the battlefield
• BASILISKS
• BANEBLADES
• MANTICORES
• LEMAN RUSSES
• *BLAM*
• Titans acting as scouts.
• Reasonable prices for vehicles.
• Tank Squadrons.
• The first and best Flak Tank.
• Loyal soldiers that can and will hold the line to the bitter end.
• Commissar Yarrick
• Cool looking models and plenty of variety to choose from.
• Standard issue adamantium balls.
• YOU COULD NOT POSSIBLY FORGET THAT YOUR GUYS FIELD THE BEST TANKS OF THE GAME, RIGHT?
• VANQUISHERS, FUCK YOU BLUE SKINNED PANZIES
• Cheap, expendable soldiers that die in the millions to take one planet. Grimdark is it not? Millions of lives have been lost just trying to take a single continent during earths history. The loss of millions of soldiers in order to take a single planet is considerably smaller. actuality it is Grimdark ww1 and ww2 took place over 4-5 years with WW1 using trench warfare (what the guard do but without tanks or body Armour) and had commanders that make your standard guardsmen commanders look competent, and in WW2 most of the casualties where civilians and it occurred over 2 continents and an ocean. While a standard guard campaign takes 4-24 mouths and the casualties mentioned are military personal/ imperial guard only.
• Oh and did we mention the FUCK HUEG NUMBER OF CHEAP EXPENDABLE SOLDIERS? Just making sure you understand.
• Did we forget to mention that all units have standard issue balls of steel? Except for Yarrick. He has adamantium balls. And that guy in the cardboard box. He has Power Balls.(No one has ever been able to confirm what kind of balls he has no one fucks with Sly is any form of the word and lives to tell the tale)

Downsides to being a Guardsman Highly fanciful scenarios that most likely will not occur during your glorious service as a Guardsman

While your local propaganda might say that being in the guard is the most honorable thing you could ever get into, and it is!GOD WHO LET THE MINOSTORUM IN HERE? there are some downsides to being one. Here is a small list of things that will very likely never happen to you and are entirely preventable with forethought, your trusty lasgun, and endless faith in the Emperor:

Heroic last stands not included, but encouraged greatly.

• You will die in the line of duty and no-one but your family and friends will remember you unless you've done something that only a Space Marine could do in combat or save an important Imperial figure. Anyone can do it!
• You're expendable in every sense of the word. Freedom isn't free and you're the currency that pays for it!
• Your common life-expectancy in combat is 15 hours or less (which, if 15 hours straight, still better than can be said for some 21st century militaries, like the average life expectancy of mechanized AT squad leader, 15 seconds into engagement). Maths, who needs it? Am I right, fellas?
• Your Commissar might execute you to make your friends fight harder. You deserved it.
• Your Commissar might execute your friends to make you fight harder. They deserved it.
• Unless you're in a special forces division like the Kasrkin, you're really just a meatshield in large scale assaults. A glorious, spiffy looking meatshield!
• Your standard weapon replaced the Autogun because the Munitorum decided effective weapons were too much to ask for. Lasgun is superior to the Autogun. Though a shot from a Autogun is the same as a shot from a Lasgun, the Lasgun has no recoil, can fire 100 shots per magazine as opposed to the Autogun's 30 and more ammo can be gained simply by leaving the power pack out in the sun. They also jammed less frequently if old Necromunda rules can be treated as canon (in Dark Heresy, they only had a 1 in 1000 chance of jamming). The increased simplicity, reliability, ease of maintenance and general sturdiness of the lasgun makes it the superior weapon (especially for primitive feral worders and such) See how great this is? Your very own laser gun!
• You can't even die when you want to. You don't want to be a quitter, do you?
• Even your own allies want to kill you. You deserve it.
• You might be: mutilated, disemboweled, eaten alive, disassembled into your component atoms, sacrificed to the Chaos Gods, left for dead, tortured for fun by xenos, mutants, heretics and zealots, stuffed with shurikens and lasers better than yours, or blasted by railgun rounds that have to be blue for the Greater Good instead of an actual railgun, you know, a high caliber gauss round with a 200km range. But you'll earn the eternal gratitude of the Emperor!
• You cannot think differently as it's heresy. Who wants to be unique anyway?
• You will be sent into hopeless situations and your superiors expect you to fight without retreating or showing cowardice. Just do it, no one likes a crybaby!
• You may be used as mine clearance. By being forced to march through the minefield. That's right boys, you can teach those dastardly mines who's boss by blowing them up!
• Even if after losing your entire regiment, watching your last-minute friends die horrendous deaths, and generally do the most gruesome work to win the day; the minute Space Marines come crashing down from the sky; They'll take all the credit for it, even if the marines themselves attribute the win to you. They deserve it.
• You will be taken from your home planet and dropped on the other side of the universe to fight in a war you didn't know existed. Think of the interesting people you'll meet, and then subsequently possibly kill!
• There are more black and asians in the Space Marines than yet seen in the rank and file of the Emperor's Fist. However, fluff authors never really describe what most Imperial Guard troopers look like, which leads us to believe they might all be impersonating or impersonated by pseudo-clones of this person/peoples.
• You will NEVER see your home planet again unless you are stationed there. In which case it is likely under siege by yet another one of the Imperium's foes, and will likely remain so for the remainder of your short life. Think of the interesting places you'll see, and then subsequently blow up!
• 5 Million of you dying under a four hour assault by orks, is considered a flawless victory by Segmentum Command (Then again that would likely be either a very large ork warband or a WAAAGH!, so GOOD JOB!). Better than 5 million and one, am I right?
• If you fight along side Grey Knights, you will be *BLAMMED*, or mindfucked and lobotomized, after the battle in the interest of secrecy. Grey Knights don't exist, that's silly.
• Hell, just fighting Chaos has a slight chance of you getting disposed off after the battle because the Inquisitor investigating your regiment thinks that you may be a slight, bit, tad tainted. You wouldn't want to spread that taint would you?
• When your Morale officer said: "Only in death does duty end", he wasn't kidding, you will forever spend you life in the Imperial Guard until you die (or until your conscription papers need to be renewed after 20 years of service. Then again, you have to be one of the most extremely lucky guardsmen in the world to even survive a year of front-line combat service.). Pray to the Emperor that you get sent to a mechanized regiment so you at least get to be inside an armored vehicle. Life in the service of the Emperor is a life worth living!
• Even when your army are the only ones that still uses combined arms warfare, your army still sucks, since it's routinely losing entire brigades(Complete with Armor vehicles and aircraft) to any single bog-standard Space Marine and/or xeno mook. But not you! Your buddies and you can definitely take 'em!
• Whatever your army got allied with, there's good chance that Space Marines will teams up with Chaos forces and xenos to betray both you and Sisters of Battle. Highly irregular occurrence!

Memorable Quotations

- "The enemies of mankind may employ dark sciences or alien weapons beyond Humanity's ken, but such deviance comes to naught in the face of honest human intolerance backed by a sufficient number of guns."

-DRIVE ME CLOSER! I want to hit them with my sword! (originally a meme that started from a picture of a Commissar standing up in a tank hatch brandishing his sword, the phrase became so popular it is one of Commissar Lord Bernn's in campaign/skirmish/multiplayer lines when he gets in a Chimera in Dawn of War II, Retribution)

- "When in doubt, throw more men at it."

- "That which I cannot crush with words alone, I shall crush with the tanks of the Imperial Guard!"

- "You're a fearsome warrior! Act like it!" - General Castor

- "You don't die until I say so!"

- "Glory to the first man to die! CHARGE!!!"

- "Yes, you shall die when assaulting a well maintained fortress under a competent commander. But at least strive to make your death useful." (Paraphrased)

- "We go beyond the emperor's light. To the darkest reaches in the galaxy. Good thing we brought our flashlights!"

- "To each of us falls a task, and all the Emperor requires of us Guardsmen is that we stand the line, and we die fighting. It is what we do best: We die standing." - General Sturnn, Dawn of War: Winter Assault[1]

- "All right men! TIME TO WAGE TO WAR!" - Sturnn

-"Remember, we have more numbers men!"-sergeant in skirmish/multiplayer line from Dawn of War II Retribution

- "Let's see them fight ALL of us!" Guardsman, Dawn of War: Soulstorm

- "Infantry wins firefights, tanks win battles, artillery wins wars." - Tactica Imperialis

- "A Guardsman's LIFE is to die. My job has always been to send them where they CAN die. I'm not afraid to spend men, but I never waste them!" - General Castor

-"Eldar suck they can't even save their mams never mind them selves" - some tank commander from the 319th Catachan tank company

- "Your foe is well equipped, well-trained, battle-hardened. He believes his gods are on his side. Let him believe what he will. We have the tanks on ours." - Colonel Joachim Pfeiff, Krieg 14th Armoured Regiment

- "Baaah!" - General Sir Anthony Cecil Hogmanay Melchett

- "Okay, okay, you caught me, (gasp), oh but look who it is! It's the God Emperor (pointing to his right)!!!" - Cornered Guardsman "The God Emperor!?" - Sororitas "You're all so STUPID!!!" - Fleeing Guardsman

- "We'd offer a pension if we thought you needed it..." - Unknown Recruiting Officer.

- "When in mortal danger, when beset by doubt, run in little circles, wave your hands and shout." - Parody of the Litany of Command. (More popular then you think)

- "LET ME PREACH HIS NAME!" - Priest

- "A good general does not lead an army to destruction just because he knows it will follow." - The Tactica Imperialis

- "If at first you don't succeed, bring heavier firepower!"

A Piece of Writing That Explains the Imperial Guard

At the end of the day, though he's been ferried through hell on a ship that's ten thousand years old to some godforsaken, war-torn rock; though he deployed from high orbit with nothing but a grav chute; though he is one of ten million men and women snatched from his homeworld to fight a war he barely understands; though he has been given a weapon that fires small suns and may annihilate him as he fires because the knowledge of how it functions has been lost; though his company is supported by tractor-tanks that run on anything you can burn; though he wages war against a devouring hivemind, ravenous demons and hordes of hyper-advanced aliens with strange technologies and sorceries he never dreamed existed; no one will remember his sacrifice, there will be no records of his deeds, no glorious parades in his honor, and no remembrance of his name. All he will earn is a shallow, unmarked grave on a forgotten world untold lightyears from home.

Yet for all this thankless sacrifice a Guardsman is a man, just like you. He has no millennia-old genetic engineering, no prophetic leader, no miracles of faith. He has his lasgun, his orders, and those beside him. He is the Imperial Guard.

And he will hold the line.

The Imperial Guard's anthems

For more Imperial anthems, consult your Uplifting Primer.

While the Ecclesiarchy and several, if not all, Chapters of Space Marines look down upon the frivolities of music (unless said music is sung in somberly in High Gothic and praises the Emperor) as distracting to any soldier in carrying out his Divine Duty, the Imperial Guard still makes heavy use of marching themes and anthems. Examples are given below:

• [2] - Baleeted no longer
• [3] - (none of that faggy 'mercan shite)(It's pronounced 'Murican)
• [4] - A marching song that most Training worlds use to this day.
• [5] - Standard cadence song sung by veteran units.
• [6] - Sung at the Funeral of Fallen Death Korps soldiers.
• [7] - Rumored to be used by Praetorian Guard Regiments.
• [8] - Again, a rumored anthem.
• [9] - This is sung by extremely hardcore and grim regiments, is rumored to have originated from Krieg.
• [10] - Popular parade piece for the Phantine Air Corps
• [11] - Sung at the funerals of the nameless heroes
• [12] - Rumored to be used by the Men of Tanith
• [13] - A lament for lost Tanith
• [14] - Sung by many of the Imperial armored regiments
• [15] - National Anthem of the Valhallan Ice Warriors
• [16]- National Anthem of the Death Korps of Krieg
• [17] - March of the Death Korps of Krieg
• [18] - March of the Praetorian Lifeguard
• [19] - sang by Cadian Regiments, also popular with Imperial Navy Pilots
• [20] - Planetary Anthem of Cadia
• [21] - Regimental march of the Kronus 1st "Liberators"
• [22] - Heard being sung by Praetorian Hussars returning from deployment in the Crimean sector
• [23] - Sung by the guardsmen of the Armageddon Steel Legion
• [24] - Another favorite of the Steel Legion
• [25] - Often sung by Veteran Guardsmen of Cadia during planetary deployment between outbreaks of combat.
• [26] - Elysian Drop Troops are sometimes required to memorize the lyrics as part of their training.
• [27] - The Elysians also love singing that while they are maintaining their FAMAS Accatran Lasgun
• [28] - A traditional folk/drinking song of the Vostroyan Light Armor and Mounted regiments.
• [29] - Traditional Catachan folk song. Catachan Guardsmen are sometimes heard either humming, warbling or whistling this song while on Guard duty.
• [30] - This is song is inevitably played over loudspeakers whenever there are two or more Valkyries entering the battlefield.
• [31] - This song begun to resurface throughout Valhallan Armored Regiments after a few joint missions with Knight Commander Pask's Cadian 423rd Armoured Regiment.
• [32] - another anthem for Cadian Shock Troops
• [33] - Quite popular among Vostroyan artillery regiments.
• [34] - Heard from a regiment of Storm Troopers surfacing from an extensive period hiding behind enemy lines on an Ork-controlled world.
• [35] - A list of Commonly sung Krieg songs.
• [36]- Common song by the Elysian drop troops commemorating famous battles.
• [37]- Sung by many Kreig units that found themselves in city warfare.
• [38]- A common tune by Valhallan snipers between warzones
• [39]- Often sung by storm troopers during risky and/or frontal assaults on enemy forward positions or leading massive charges.
• [40] - A campfire song often heard from Drookian Fen Guard encampments.
• [41] - Commonly sung by Valhallan Armoured Regiments as they drive into battle
• [42] - A fight song of various Cadian regiments heard while on long marches or before an offensive push
• [43]- A song of Armoured Regiments of the Armageddon Steel Legion.
• [44] - Another Krieg March song.
• [45] - Schola Progenium's unofficial anthem.
• [46] - Undisputed Anthem of the Imperial Guard.
• [47] - Popular among Atillan Rough riders Between deployments.

There is a disturbing lack of hell march in this list. Whoever is responsible report to your local commissar and prepare for summary blamming.

• Problem with that: It's Hell March. The local Commissar wants to see you.

Nothing wrong with "Hell" march, if it was "Warp" March or "Heretic" March, there'd be a problem. As it goes, does the imperial guard nor deliver the Emperor's judgement upon the Traitor, Mutant and Heretic? Their wrath(Firepower) can rightly be described as "Hell" should it be directed at you.

• [48] - Chenkov's theme whenever he Sends in the Next Wave.
• [49] - Followed by battalions of tanks and artillery barrage.
• [50] - And this is when the Imperial Guard goes full-scale war, game over.
• [51] - Funeral hymn utilized by multiple Guard regiments.

Notable Imperial Guard Forces

Because GW was too lazy to create an original themed Imperial Guard army, they basically used RL armies as a base for them, gave them a little touch of Grimdark, assorted amounts of tempered ceramite balls and placed them..........IIIIIINNN SPAAAACE!

• Cadian Shock Troops Generic occidental army/Starship troopers clones... IIIIIINNN SPAAAACE! FOR IMPERIUM AND EMPEROR! COME ON YOU APES, YOU WANNA LIVE FOREVER? Shh! Who do you think we are? Chem-dogs? Discipline, man! Discipline! You'll get the Commissar riled!
• Catachan Jungle Fighters Vietnam war U.S. (And Australian) military... IIIIIINNN SPAAAACE! GOOD MORNING CATACHAN!
• Tallarn Desert Raiders BEDOUINS... IIIIIINNN SPAAAACE!
• Armageddon Steel Legion Wehrmacht Mechanized Divisions... IIIIIINNN SPAAAACE! FÜR DEN IMPERATOR, FEUER FREI!
• Valhallan Ice Warriors Soviet Red Army... IIIIIINNN SPAAAACE! ЗА РОДИНУ! ЗА ТОВАРИЩА ИМПЕРАТОРА! НИ ШАГУ НАЗАД!
• Mordian Iron Guard Prussians and Napoleonites... IIIIIINNN SPAAAACE! I TRY TO BE A SOLDIER AND A HALF!
• Death Korps of Krieg WWI Western Front... IIIIIINNN SPAAAACE! OVER THE TOP!
• Vostroyan Firstborn Russian/Ukrainian Cossacks IIIIIINNN SPAAAACE! FUCK THY MOTHER IN THE NAME OF EMPEROR!
• Elysian Drop Troops French or British army paratroopers... IIIIIINNN SPAAAACE! QUI OSE GAGNE! POUR L'EMPEREUR! (Taros Campaign = Dien Bien Phu or Op: Market-Garden)
• Harakoni Warhawks Heavy U.S Paratroopers... IIIIIINNNN SPACE! GREEN LIGHT!!! LET'S GO!
• Tanith First (And Only) Scots and Welsh... IIIIIINNN SPAAAACE! AR GYFER Y EMPEROR!
• Attilan Rough Riders The Huns... IIIIIINNN SPAAAACE!
• Savlar Chem-Dogs Vietnam War US Tunnel Rats (and a bit of Mad Max PA Raiders)... IIIIIINNN SPAAAACE!
• Drookian Fen Guard Anglo-Scottish Border Reivers... IIIIIINNN SPAAAACE!
• Praetorian Guard The British Empire IIIIIINNN SPAAAACE! GUARDSMEN NEEEEVVERRRR YIELD! (ever seen Zulu? Like that)
• Kanak Skull-Takers Apache Native Americans... IIIIIINNN SPAAAACE!
• Phantine Air Corps Battle of Britain RAF... IIIIIINNN SPAAAACE!

/tg/ Homebrew Guard Forces

• Cendran Abolishers Pyromaniacs who eat the burnt flesh of their enemies.
• Darmine Marshalls Elite sharpshooters supported by huge amounts of explosive collar-fitted penal troopers.
• Ferdain Mustangs Cavalry regiment that use genetically tailored horses that are practically heavy armour.
• Sauristoni Ghostchasers Renowned scouts and trackers who are experts on Eldar.
• 1st Membranes A regiment made almost entirely of psykers from a black ship that crashed on a forge world.
• Arianius Divided Regiments Regiments that are segregated along gender lines. Men are slicey women are shooty.
• Kandamii Crabhunters A regiment made up of Augmented soldiers who specialize in Oceanic and Aerial warfare.
• Terran Knights Elite regiments recruited exclusively from Terra. As a result they have some of the best equipment in the Imperium.
• 2478th Penal Legion, "Hell Harlots" All-female penal legion close combat drop troops made up entirely of the same religious prison gang.

See Also

• Lasgun
• Chem-chan
• Sentinel
• Hellhound
• Basilisk
• Leman Russ Battle Tank
• Baneblade
• Commissar
• Imperium
• Tactics/Imperial Guard
• Only War - The official Tabletop RPG of the Guard!
• Kasrkin-chan
• [52] - The Imperial Guard before they became the Astra Militarum of today, The awesome looking SOLAR AUXILIA! Thank the Emperor for Forge World.

Gallery

This article contains PROMOTIONS! Don't say we didn't warn you.

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  This is painfully accurate. Except for missing the FUCKHEUG BALLS OF STEEL.

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  But this works too.

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  Come and get some, fucking green-skinned faggots!

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  Who needs Pauldrons?

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  Commissar in action

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  What the Jokaero should have been.

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  Imagine this, only 4 times bigger, heck even the women have 'em!

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  Shouldn't this instead be called 'Full Metal Flak-Jacket'? FMJs are bullets,and lasrifles don't have bullets.

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  "Thank the Emperor! Action!"

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  Ponytails and light weaponry are standard issue. The light weaponry part is for everybody. What, you thought the heavy bolter IG use is considered heavy by the Imperium? IG Heavy Bolters=Space Marine Bolters in the fluff.

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• File:Tallarn chan Colored by FilthyBusiness.jpg
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  Vostroya is a cold and crappy place. Still people like it there. Guess why?

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  Painfully true

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  Even pregnant chicks get conscripted.

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  One should never underestimate the awesomeness of a Guardsman.

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  Guardsmen - They Just Never Stop

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  This man shows doubt. He will soon be executed.

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  wat

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  Basilisks are AWESOME

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  In the grimdarkness of the 41st millennium, there is still old men playing checkers.

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  AVE IMPERATOR MOTHERFUCKERS!