Lord Commissar

A Lord Commissar, for when you need a bigger hat to showcase how much you like BLAMMING your own subordinates.

"It's me versus a shred of their god!"

– LORD Commissar Bern, showing everyone that deeds are just as great a motivator as a laspistol to the head.

Lord Commissars are an upgrade and a step up to your typical red capped trigger happy motherfucker. Lord Commissars exemplify power and bravery, making them natural leaders with a reputation for turning the tide of battle, snatching victory from the jaws of defeat, they are usually promoted to this esteemed rank after displaying exemplary battlefield service. The battlefield heroics of a Lord-Commissar are often the stuff of legends to the average Guardsman. Like all Commissars they lead by example and they are always the first to step up to the firing line ready to repel an enemy assault.

A Lord Commissar appeared in Dawn of War II and was perhaps most recognized for barely (If at all) getting any line in the Imperial Guard campaign other then just standing behind Sergeant Merrick and pretending (And Failing) to look like he is in charge of keeping Merrick in check. This is likely because the campaign was written for the Space Marines and the voiceless "The Ancient" with all the other factions being shoehorned in their plot if you pick them. Despite his near pointlessness in the plot, he is one of the main hero units for the guard faction and he provides several neat buffs in multiplayer.

He is also noted from taking a meme and canonizing it in game. (For those who do not know, he is the one who literally said "Drive me closer! I want to hit them with my sword!)

Because of their 'eliteness', Lord Commissars are often grouped with the Militarum Tempestus where they can oversee and help provide firing support to the glory boys in blue. They act as a command unit and provide some decent leadership buffs. However due to the general lower model count for the Militarum Tempestus, it is ill-advised to actually Blam a model in the first place. Thus, Lord Commissars act more as a supplementary command unit to make them more survivable.

The fact that the Command-Vox Net provides excellent morale to most of the Scion army means that these guys' morale-boosting abilities are not really needed, and the fact that they cannot give orders means that they are a very inferior choice to a Tempestus Command Squad.

They got axed as a unit in 9th because GW hates things that are awesome even more than Erebus hates not being a cunt.

Officio Prefectus

You wouldn't even need to think twice once this guy is on the battlefield.

The Officio Prefectus, otherwise known as the Commissariat is the organisation to which all Commissars belong; even though all Commissars and Commissar Lords report to their respective regiments, they do have their own hierarchy and their own separate structure within the Officio Prefectus.

According to The End and the Death, the Officio Prefectus's predecessor, the Command Prefectus, was an idea realized in the final days of the Siege of Terra. The proto-Commissars were charged with keeping an eye on the refugees in the Imperial Palace to root out any heretic and traitor by *BLAM!*-ing.

The Commissariat oversees the activities of the Commissar officer corps within the Imperial Guard. The Commissariat attaches Commissars to most Regiments of the Imperial Guard to inspire its men, boost morale, and if necessary take control when its commanders or men are demonstrating a lack of zeal or competency. The Commissariat also recruits potential Commissars from the Ecclesiarchy's Schola Progenium then trains them for their duties within the Guard, as well as determining the ongoing fitness of Commissars in the performance of their duties.

There are increasing ranks within the Commissariat:

• Cadet Commissar: Officers in training, either a progena at the Schola Progenium undergoing their studies or a group of post-graduates who are combined into Commissar Training Squads where they can get battlefield experience before being attached to a Regiment.
• Junior Commissars: Aides to higher ranking Commissars where they can learn from their betters before getting assigned their own positions. Essentially the point of the career where they learn their actual practical job rather than being bombarded with propoganda or learning how to survive in battle. This is the point where they actually get posted to a regiment where they answer directly to the actual Commissars.
• Commissar: The normal one, attached to a regiment, fully ordained to enforce the Emperor's will.
• Commissar-Captain: A higher ranking Commissar who might still be attached to a regiment, but given superiority to other Commissars by virtue of experience. Essentially a formalization of seniority based authority.
• Lord Commissar: High ranked Commissar veterans trusted and respected enough to be given responsibilities above other Commissars; such as having subordinate Commissars under them, or taking teaching positions, or simply taking command of nearby troops and leading them in place of regular officers (without having to *BLAM* them first). Responsible for the entirety of whatever forces attached if there is a big campaign going on. The topic of Lord Commissars seems to be an point of contention within the Commissariat at the end of M41: Ciaphas Cain was known to be a detractor of the Lord honorific and never used it himself, despite having earned the accolade several times over.
• Commissar-General: The true masters of the Officio Prefectus, who oversee the operation of the department as a whole rather than get involved in regimental affairs.
• Commandant of the Schola Progenia: One of the minor High Lords of Terra and the senior most Commissar in the Imperium. The Officio Prefectus (through his office) and the day to day affairs of the Schola Progenia (through a deal with the Ecclesiarchy, because men screaming praises to masses don't tend to make good teachers generally speaking, exceptions still exist) are under his authority. Though in practice due to the stupid high numbers and distance involved, the Commissar-Generals do their own thing and report to his office through Sector and Segmentum Commands and the Schola's do the same thing.
• Colonel-Commissar: an unusual rank where the recipient Commissar also holds the regimental rank of Colonel in the Imperial Guard, attaching them to both separate branches of the military hierarchy at the same time and has to answer to two chains of command. The Commissariat generally sees this as a conflict of interest, considering that it is normally the Commissar's duty to oversee the Imperial Guard rather than be part of it, but war necessities are war necessities and for all the jokes made the Imperium isn't THAT stupid.

Therefore, the term "Officio Prefectus Commissar" is somewhat equivalent to "Adeptus Astartes Space Marine" and might as well simply mean a "Commissar who is a member of the Commissariat", as opposed to those Commissars who aren't, such as members of local PDF forces who don't have anywhere near the same authority, are called Commissar for the sake of convenience and merely authorised by the Planetary Governor's office to enforce discipline over the PDF while being overseen by an actual Commissar (frequently a retired, too old and/or crippled to actually fight veteran or an incompetent shmuck who got sent to a backwater shithole so that he doesn't mess up anything important) who works for the entire planet. That is unless the title is implying that the Commissar operates directly for the Officio rather than being attached to a regiment, although the rank of the Commissar in question cannot be immediately inferred because there are both junior and senior officers within the division who are not attached to a regiment.

The Imperial Navy also operates a corps of Commissars, known as the Fleet Commissariat. These officers perform the same function as their Imperial Guard counterparts.