Imperial Guard

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The Imperial Guard are the footsoldiers of the Imperium. 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 looks like deserting. Though the average Guardsman is only capable of drawing enemy fire and shining a torch 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.

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

Ancient Murdering Robots that wear the flesh Of their newest victims
Genetically engineered killing machines
The evil twin brother of the Genetically engineered killing machines with equally evil goatees
Clad in powered armor
In possession of extremely cheesy technology and can jump around making damn accurate shots like Quake players
Space Communists with god-like firepower
Some combination of the above

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, and a copy of the Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer (if they have not already used it for toilet paper). Please note that the Lasgun and Flak armor are rather good by modern standards, they're just flashlights and t-shirts compared to the automatic mini-rocket launchers and power armor everyone else uses. They have 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; 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. 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. One disturbing thing is that if the tactics of the Imperial Guard were improved from WWI style warfare (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!

Notable Figures of the Imperial Guard

Ciaphas Cain - HERO OF THE IMPERIUM (Charming Commissar in the Harry Flashman tradition.)
Colonel-Commissar Ibram Gaunt - Main protagonist of Gaunt's Ghosts.
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 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.
Ollanius Pius - The catalyst for the Emperor finally slaying Horus. (No longer canon, which is BULLSHIT)
Vance Motherfucking Stubbs - Another manly bastard, famous for losing 100 Baneblades.
Lord Castellan Usarkar E. Creed - Famous for outflanking enemies with Titans.

Main Advantages of Fielding an Imperial Guard Army

Shit loads of men to throw around the battlefield.
BASILISKS
BANEBLADES
*BLAM*
Titans acting as scouts.
Reasonable prices for vehicles.
Cool looking models and plenty of variety to choose from.
Balls of Steel.
YOU COULD NOT POSSIBLY FORGET THAT YOUR GUYS FIELD THE BEST TANKS OF THE GAME, RIGHT?
Cheap, expendable soldiers that die in the millions to take one planet. Grimdark is it not?

Downsides to being a Guardsman

While your local propaganda might say that being in the guard is the most honorable thing you could ever get into, there are some downsides to being one. Here is a small list of reasons why it's not always the best idea to join the Imperial Guard:

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.
You're expendable.
Your Commissar might execute you to make your squadmates fight harder.
Unless you're in a special forces division like the Kasrkin, you're really just a meatshield in large scale assaults.
Your standard weapon is a laser pointer and you have armor that's been outdated since 1944.
Your standard weapon replaced the Autogun because the Munitorium decided effective weapons were too much to ask for.
Even you can't die when you want to.
Even your own allies want to kill you.
You might be: mutilated, eaten alive, sacrificed for the Chaos Gods, disemboweled, left for dead, tortured for fun by xenos, mutants, heretics and zealots.
You cannot think differently as it's heresy.
You will be sent into hopeless situations and your superiors expect you to fight without retreating or cowardice.

Play Style

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 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 billions of Guardsmen and a limitless supply of lasguns. 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).

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 Main 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 twice the range. No WH40k game has been played where a target has been out of range of the Basilisk.

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

Memorable Quotations

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

- "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!"

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- "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]

-Infantry wins firefights, tanks win battles, artillery wins wars.

A Piece of Writefaggotry That Explains the Imperial Guard

At the end of the day, though he's been ferried through Space Hell on a ship that's four thousand years old to his destination, though he deployed from high orbit with a grav chute, though he is one of ten million men raised from his homeworld to fight a war he barely understands, though he has been given a weapon that fires miniature suns and might annihilate him when he fires it because no-one knows how it works anymore, though his company is supported by tractor-tanks that run on anything you can burn, though he wages war against a devouring hivemind, space demons or a group of space communists...

...a Guardsman is a man, just like you, though he grew up in another culture. He has no millennia-old genetic engineering, no prophetic leader, no miracles of faith. He has his lasgun, his orders, and his fellow soldiers.

And he will hold the line.

/tg/'s ascination with female Guardsmen

Although there are very little mentions of females serving in the imperial guard many fa/tg/uys insist that female guard are just as common as male guard. This is a fallacy created because of the common neckbeards obsession with mixing sex and his hobbies. In fact the imperial gaur is much alike the internet, it is made up of people from all walks of life, a high percentile of the people can be considered degenerates or some form rapist and lastly it has almost no women. And the women it does have appear so manly that they would have to drop trou to prove femininity.

The Imperial Guard's anthem

[2] - (none of that faggy 'mercan shite)
[3] - A marching song that most Training worlds use to this day.
[4] - Standard cadence song sung by veteran units.
[5] - Rumored to be used by Praetorian Guard Regiments.
[6] - Again, a rumored anthem.

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..........IN SPAAAACE!

Cadian Shock Troops (World-War-Two-Allies-With-A-Modern-Aesthetic In Space!)
Tallarn Desert Raiders (BEDOUINS IN SPACE!)
Catachan Jungle Fighters (RAMBO IN SPACE FUCK YEAH!)
Death Korps of Krieg (German WW1 Incarnate, In Space!)
Armageddon Steel Legion (Nazi Mechanized Divisions in SPACE!)
Valhallan Ice Warriors (Soviets In Space!)
Tanith First (And Only) (Brits in Space!) T_T Irish really (Jesus Christ they're Scottish you dumbasses)
Praetorian Guards (Redcoats IN SPACE!)
Mordian Iron Guard (Prussians IN SPACE!)
Vostroyan Firstborn (Russian Cossacks IN SPACE!)