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I was just brainstorming ideas for a homebrew Astra Militarum regiment when I though of this: a regiment of guardsmen specialising in drop or aerial assaults in Hive cities! I mean, it would be a cool concept, of guardsmen jumping out of low flying Valkyries onto rooftops or grav-chuting into the streets below. So my question is, does a regiment like this exist, how plausible is my concept, and could it be improved?

The thing that you can say about Hives is that no two Hives are ever the same. Some of them might be huge, continent-spanning cities... like, say, New York or London or LA, just much more massive than their RL counterparts, but ostensibly "flat".

Other Hives are single, massive buildings, like a gargantuan ziggurat, that house millions to billions of human (and otherwise) souls within its warrens of cyclopean corridors. Of course, in such cases, the "footprint" of these Hives might be hundreds of miles on a side... but it's still a single building (plus towers and spires and all that kind of gak sticking out of it to make it Gothic).

Other Hives build down, rather than up. Some might even be anchored to floating mega-icebergs or land-shelves, descending into the depths of a water world's seas, and revealing only venting-towers and the like above sea-level.

So, while "urban warfare" specialist IG regiments might exist, I believe that what constitutes "urban environments" in the Imperium (let alone Xenos) is such a broad range of scenarios that it would be impractical to train specifically towards it.

Kriegs cities are below ground, well the inhabiatble ones, they could specialise in close qauter battle tactics, urban warfare, cities all share one thing, tight spaces, lots of room/building clearance, flame throwers and the hell hound tanks etc could be a favoured weapon.

Sort of? I suspect an airborne regiment from a hive world (therefore skilled in urban and airborne warfare) wouldn't be outside the realm of possibility, though.

I'd imagine vultures and vendetta's, survival suits (I'd imagine being on the outside of any mega-city a hazardous place..), the first wave some form of breaching charges...melta..to break through the outer shell/rock formation/mountain/alien biomass ect that no doubt hinders entrance. I'd probably throw a regiment full of men at it first cos I'd imagine it would be a battle of the somme meets arnheim in 1944..with stalingrad thrown in!! Second wave with flamers ect and carapace?

True, airborne is a solid route but flamers and other deadly close range weapons are not impossible to imagine or combination of two, first then second heavier equipped wave.

Yeah, you'd want lots of meltas and flamers -- meltas to burn through walls as much as through enemies, because if you get stuck in a dead-end corridor or behind a blast door, you're dead. (You'd also like power armour, but then you'd be Battle Sisters with Valkyries, which is totally a thing in my headcanon.

First wave comes in Valkyries and Vendettas for first support, but for the second wave you need something larger that disgorges a whole platoon or company at a time.... wait a sec, I'll homebrew something, hold on....

You know if you secured the roof of a building and had gravchutes it would allow you to get to street level real fast not to mention the fact that the chutes have those jet things that could help with increasing jumping distance.

In battle I could see the first wave gravchuting in with all the breaching goodness while the second uses Valkyries and Vendettas to bring a bit of pain, both waves could be covered by Lightnings and Avengers, possibly operating INSIDE some hive structures... For that matter infantry could blow holes in the roof and then gravchute down into the structure - This concept is just getting cooler and cooler the more I think about it...

Don't forget sky talons dropping funstuff in the streets to make their way before barricades and enemy forces can assemble as a disruptive role. You may also want to include storm troopers and ratings (for infiltrate)) to represent disruption forces.

Yeah, that sounds cool! So if I were to play with this regiment, I'd take a ton of Grenadier and Demolitions Vets with meltaguns and Militarum Scions all in Valkyrie/Vendettas? Because that's freaking awesome. Though if I did, what would go on the ground first turn?

Ratlings! They've infiltrated ahead of the airborne as pathfinders....


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Or inquisition allies, who are the ones who called the air cavalry in the first place.

You could have heavier support but say its a follow up wave, secure the breach then bring in the bigger guns, hell hounds, even the Vulcan mega bolter bane blades going for the ultimate.


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Say they escalate force as they need it if resistance is met.

The harder the fight, the bigger the weapons deployed to break the enemy.

The sun rises over the hive walls as the guards mount their daily vigil protecting their successionist lord.
Cue epic germanic music from 19th century as a marauder destroyer comes in low blasting the hell out of the defences and before the guards recover melta vets are dropping onto defences from valkyries as vultures unleash hell.
In the streets confusion reigns as demo charges go off and civilians drop to accurate sniper fire clogging the streets with refugee's.
The second wave comes in and lands heavier equipment....tauroses race away from sky talons and spread carnage amongst the packed thoroughfares.
All the while a heavy shock force in carapace takes command of generatorums, defence lasers and the gate controls.....the spire topples to accurate Lance strikes called in through the raised shield by on the ground embedded naval liasons... sorry got carried away.

I like to have the regiment on it's own, so it probably wouldn't have any form of tank or artillery support in it's own infrastructure. I love the Ratling idea, but I'd use Guardsman models, don't like using abhumans!

Okay, here are your giant Imperial Navy landing craft for your regiment's second or third wave. The smaller Juno can carry 36 men or a tank. The larger Overlord can carry 100 men or 3 tanks... or a Baneblade.

No regiment can take a city with minus the mech support.

The drop ships are as good way to say the first wave secures, desables most enemy anti air weapons then in come the big transports and weaponry to exploit the breach and drive deeper in to the city.

True but I think this is an 'alpha' strike type force. Take and hold (or raid and disrupt-destroy) whilst heavier assets can be mobilised. The harakoni warhawks being used as a sacrifice in 'wrath of iron' spring to mind or the drop regiments attacking the vapour mills on phantine another..

The 40k universe is a big place and what you can think of almost always exist

There'll be some cities too dense to get armored vehicles in -- eg if the whole thing is one massive building or tunnel complex. On the other hand, there may be mega-buildings with internal tunnels (eg for subways) so big you can fly a Valkyrie through them, though it may start looking a lot like the Rebels flying inside the second Death Star in Return of the Jedi.

Then there are the kilometer high towers where you need a flier to get to the middle floors and then have to grav-chute through the windows - or whatever hole your Valk has blown for you. There are buildings so big and flat you can have conventional tank battles on the roof -- just watch for the enemy firing anti-tank weapons through the roof from the level below. And there are sprawling shanty towns where, this being grimdark, you can just land on and drive through whatever you like, because it's all made of wood or corrugated metal sheeting, who cares if you smash a few proles?

For what it's worth, it's not remotely unrealistic for even Titans to fight in hives. I recall in 'Wrath of Iron' by Chris Wraight:



It's always surprises me that people assume airbourne units fight very lightly equipped - sure, the average squaddie can't land with a lot of gear, and resupplying is difficult, but even a 'flimsy' glider can carry quite a weight - the British regularly transported anti-tank artillery (Ordinance QF 6pdr's) and conventional artillery (First the 3.7 Mountain Howitzer and later the U.S M116 'Pack' Howitzer) in Horsa gliders during the Second World War. Hence, in a 40K context (Everything turned up to 11), with 40K aircraft, I can very well imagine armoured units (albeit maybe not the 319 ton Baneblades) being airlifted in alongside airbourne infantry. It's possible even nowadays for armour to be airlifted in support of infantry. The Russians in particular developed a specialist airbourne support tank range - from the ASU-57 to the BTR-D. Granted, it wasn't 'Heavy' armour, as the BTR-D weighs in at only 8 tons in comparison to the Leman Russ's 60 tons, (Which itself, just to put that in comparison, is only 12 tons lighter than a Challenger II MBT), but the concept is there. I can very well imagine that the IoM would develop a similar 'light' AFV for this sort of role (40k's definition of light being the 38 ton Chimera - roughly the same as an M4 Sherman ). In fact, I'm surprised FW passed up the chance to release one with the Elysian Drop Troops range. Actually, scratch that - deepstriking armour would certainly have been... interesting?

TLDR: Anything goes really. Airlifting artillery? - it's a real thing. Airlifting tanks? - that's been done too. It's just a case of working out some headcanon to Warhammerise it.

 Warpig1815 wrote:
For what it's worth, it's not remotely unrealistic for even Titans to fight in hives. I recall in 'Wrath of Iron' by Chris Wraight:

Spoiler:

The Iron Hands spearhead an assault by Guardsmen from the 127th Tactical Regiment (IG) and Warhound titans of the Legio Astorum through a vast underground tunnel in the Melamar Hive on Shardennus to reach the Capatolis, in which Julius Kaeseron (Now a Daemon Prince) was attempting to enslave the Contqual Sector.

It's always surprises me that people assume airbourne units fight very lightly equipped - sure, the average squaddie can't land with a lot of gear, and resupplying is difficult, but even a 'flimsy' glider can carry quite a weight - the British regularly transported anti-tank artillery (Ordinance QF 6pdr's) and conventional artillery (First the 3.7 Mountain Howitzer and later the U.S M116 'Pack' Howitzer) in Horsa gliders during the Second World War. Hence, in a 40K context (Everything turned up to 11), with 40K aircraft, I can very well imagine armoured units (albeit maybe not the 319 ton Baneblades) being airlifted in alongside airbourne infantry. It's possible even nowadays for armour to be airlifted in support of infantry. The Russians in particular developed a specialist airbourne support tank range - from the ASU-57 to the BTR-D. Granted, it wasn't 'Heavy' armour, as the BTR-D weighs in at only 8 tons in comparison to the Leman Russ's 60 tons, (Which itself, just to put that in comparison, is only 12 tons lighter than a Challenger II MBT), but the concept is there. I can very well imagine that the IoM would develop a similar 'light' AFV for this sort of role (40k's definition of light being the 38 ton Chimera - roughly the same as an M4 Sherman ). In fact, I'm surprised FW passed up the chance to release one with the Elysian Drop Troops range. Actually, scratch that - deepstriking armour would certainly have been... interesting?

TLDR: Anything goes really. Airlifting artillery? - it's a real thing. Airlifting tanks? - that's been done too. It's just a case of working out some headcanon to Warhammerise it.

True, maybe not dropping in a baneblade, but if you go on thunder hawk lines that could drop off a leman Russ, its lighter than a land raider. A basalisk is lighter, self propelled guns, hell hounds, maybe even custom lighter hulled big guns for increased mobility.

@jhe90 - Certainly if it was along the lines of an IG transport similar to a Thunderhawk transporter, then it'd manage a Leman Russ or two Chimera's easily.

Homebrewed dropships capable of carrying 1 Leman Russ (small version) or 1 Baneblade (large version).

Could you say have a short barreled basalisk or folding barrel, could be modeled as a modified version to say make air transport more efficient


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You could get two on one vs only one self propelled gun

We already have elysian drop troops its definitely feasible for there to be other regiments like them! You'd just have to find a way to diversify them from the elysians