Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

xerxeskingofking wrote:


the guard is a heterogenous mix of several different militaries form several different time periods, but the practices of the British army in late19th/early 20th century are the strongest inspirations. this makes sense for a setting dreamt up by English people, who grew up on adventure stories set in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. that, and those practices of geographically localised recruitment and naming mapped well on to the Imperium of Man as the lore was fleshed out properly in the early 90s.

the different regiements have different real world inspriations. the Catachan are the US and Vietnam, the Tallarn are Lawrence of Arabia, the mordians were early 20th century armies on parade, while the Pretorians were the late Victorian redcoats on campaign in Zululand. the Vostroyans are tsarist russia, while the valhallans are the Red Army at Stalingrad. the Steel Legion is ww2 germans in full blitzkrieg, while the Krieg are ww1 Germans with a heavy French influence.

the cadians are the the closest to "modern" armies, but they still are more of a "generic sci-fi military" (in line with colonial marines in Aliens, the UNSC in Halo, etc) than any specific modern army.

so, yhea, they borrow form ww1, but not just ww1. At least, until the whole "combat lifetime of 15 hours" one liner got taken out of context and blown out of proportion for MAXIMUM GRIMDARK.

Aye, aesthetically they come from a range of different time periods sure, but not in terms of organisation and not in terms of the real purpose of the faction within 40k and 40k lore. It's why the Death Korps of Krieg are a little too on the nose to simply be the French army during the first world war. Apart from the 'Krieg' part, there's nothing German about them.
I just don't think Death Guards of Guerre has the same ring to it.

In terms of the OPs question about founding of IG regiments my point stands that it's taken from the British ww1 battalion conscriptions. And there's a very good reason for that which plays out in the entire aesthetic of 40k in general.

Out of interest, why do you think all the Guard tanks look the way they do? Why do you think they rely on artillery and have heavy weapon platoons? There's a reason they aren't remotely modern or futuristic or even WW2. That design choice is supposed to immediately bring to mind the hopelessness of the line trooper and the fact they're meat for the machine. The miseries of trench warfare and wanton destruction. That's 40k.

 Olthannon wrote:


Aye, aesthetically they come from a range of different time periods sure, but not in terms of organisation and not in terms of the real purpose of the faction within 40k and 40k lore. It's why the Death Korps of Krieg are a little too on the nose to simply be the French army during the first world war. Apart from the 'Krieg' part, there's nothing German about them.
I just don't think Death Guards of Guerre has the same ring to it.

In terms of the OPs question about founding of IG regiments my point stands that it's taken from the British ww1 battalion conscriptions. And there's a very good reason for that which plays out in the entire aesthetic of 40k in general.

Out of interest, why do you think all the Guard tanks look the way they do? Why do you think they rely on artillery and have heavy weapon platoons? There's a reason they aren't remotely modern or futuristic or even WW2. That design choice is supposed to immediately bring to mind the hopelessness of the line trooper and the fact they're meat for the machine. The miseries of trench warfare and wanton destruction. That's 40k.

welll, it would "corps de guerre de la mort" for a straight french version, assuming the planets' name changed as well.


and i agree that the Russ has a very mk4 feel about it, with the rhomboid hull and the sponsons. However, the Chimera is actually much more modern, more like a BMP, or or maybe a Bradley with the firing port guns. most of the Chimera varients come off as ww2 ish (open backed cannon strapped ontop of the hull, a quad AA gun, etc.), and the Taurox takes its cues form the M3 halftrack or Sd kfz 251. the Scions armour harks back to old cavalry cuirasses, and they wear berets, only in limited service in ww2 and not general uk issue until after the war.

and the current heavy weapon teams look like.... almost every crew-served weapon form ww1 onwards, the tech hasnt changed much since then. they look very simmilar to a current gen m2 browning (which to be fair is a 1920 era weapon, but still), or a 40mm GMG, or a 80mm motar team, etc. the older metal teams for the old metal guards make me think of the late 19th century wheeled MGs and light field pieces, more than MG08s overlooking the Somme.


and while your right the basic background is the pals battalions raised by kitchener, their is more to the guard than "Meat for the grinder", and i feel the zap brannigan school of tactics has been a little over-represented, espically in lore. I get that it doesn't suit most peoples ideas of Grimdark, but the guard is more than just a punching bag for the Bad Guys of the Day.

It's not used by the Imperial Guard, but the Land Raider is basically just a mark IV or V turned backwards... Even the Chimera still has the tracks going "around" the hull; that's typical of early tanks. Still, it's not surprising that many vehicle designs in the Imperium look more modern than that, since there's so little to work with from WWI: just a handful of tank designs, many of them failures. The only IFVs/APCs were the same tanks, modified to fit soldiers inside... Horses were by far the most common way to move anything that couldn't be carried (and an absurd number of them died during the war, too).

Overall I'd say the similarities with the Great War are overwhelming: the war seems to go on forever with no clear progress one way or the other. Every victory costs massive casualties and whatever was gained may be lost soon anyway. Retreat is never an option and every bit of land is fought for, whether it's actually important or not. The average soldier may not even know or care what he's fighting for but does so because refusing to fight will get him executed on the spot. A trooper hiding in his trench with nothing but a rifle while artillery shelled his position for hours must have felt about as helpless as the Imperial Guardsman facing some giant space monster with only his lasgun...

There are other influences obviously, but when it comes to the Guard, I think WWI is really the main one.

Regarding percentages of soldiers raised by a planet, I think the most reliable source we can turn to is the Domesday Book written in very early Norman times (1089 AD) regarding the Anglo-Saxon fyrd system. One equipped soldier should come from every five hides to include the money to feed him for two months of campaigning. Plenty of time given the life expectancy of the Astra Militarum - those Anglo-Saxons were forward thinking! A hide was enough land to feed a family. So work out how many hides your planet has and there you go.

Another number from the Gaunts Ghosts novels (however canon compliant one might judge them): a hive of 40 million (a bit small dir a hive) has a standing army of 500.000 in Necropolis after a 90 year peace period in "Necropolis". So a bit more than 1% on a peaceful planet.

 Tiennos wrote:


Overall I'd say the similarities with the Great War are overwhelming: the war seems to go on forever with no clear progress one way or the other. Every victory costs massive casualties and whatever was gained may be lost soon anyway. Retreat is never an option and every bit of land is fought for, whether it's actually important or not. The average soldier may not even know or care what he's fighting for but does so because refusing to fight will get him executed on the spot. A trooper hiding in his trench with nothing but a rifle while artillery shelled his position for hours must have felt about as helpless as the Imperial Guardsman facing some giant space monster with only his lasgun...

There are other influences obviously, but when it comes to the Guard, I think WWI is really the main one.

Tiennos put it far more succinctly and eloquently than I was trying to before. That's the design element of the guard right there. When you look at a guard army that's what your brain is supposed to be piecing together by design. Massed ranks of infantry backed up by some mighty, heroic tanks and even mightier but possibly less heroic artillery. Its why the guard have bayonets and the fact that Rough Riders even exist in the army. The reason "grimdark" became an internet meme is because it is hammy on purpose. I'm not saying there's not more variation in the guard. Far from it, that's why I like them so much. But this is the basics here. That's your first visualisation when you see them.

With regards to replacements: generally a regiment is allowed to erode by attrition. When it falls too low, the surviving (valuable) veterans are either combined with other reduced units to create a new combat-strength formation (either under a new designation as in the Caine novels or with one regiment keeping it's identity as in the Gaunt books), or the regiment is retired and the veterans demobbed if the war is over locally and it's more effort to ship them somewhere useful.

That's munitorium doctrine - there are obviously exceptions.

The most famous one is the Firstborn - the Vostroyans *do* make a specific effort to keep Vostroyan units supplied with fresh warm bodies, which means instead of veteran and green Vostroyans regiments, every unit tends to have a cadre of old grumblers alongside the rookies.

 Olthannon wrote:

 Tiennos wrote:


Overall I'd say the similarities with the Great War are overwhelming: the war seems to go on forever with no clear progress one way or the other. Every victory costs massive casualties and whatever was gained may be lost soon anyway. Retreat is never an option and every bit of land is fought for, whether it's actually important or not. The average soldier may not even know or care what he's fighting for but does so because refusing to fight will get him executed on the spot. A trooper hiding in his trench with nothing but a rifle while artillery shelled his position for hours must have felt about as helpless as the Imperial Guardsman facing some giant space monster with only his lasgun...

There are other influences obviously, but when it comes to the Guard, I think WWI is really the main one.

Tiennos put it far more succinctly and eloquently than I was trying to before. That's the design element of the guard right there. When you look at a guard army that's what your brain is supposed to be piecing together by design. Massed ranks of infantry backed up by some mighty, heroic tanks and even mightier but possibly less heroic artillery. Its why the guard have bayonets and the fact that Rough Riders even exist in the army. The reason "grimdark" became an internet meme is because it is hammy on purpose. I'm not saying there's not more variation in the guard. Far from it, that's why I like them so much. But this is the basics here. That's your first visualisation when you see them.

Which is why 1917 is the greatest 40k film ever made. Just add a few lasers...

 Pyroalchi wrote:

I also know from the Codex and Wiki that the size of regiments varies wildly between ~ 500 and 100.000, the latter being relativly rare (the example is a Valhallan infantry regiment). The size is choosen in a way to have more or less equal fighting power between the regiments. Last but not least I read that the tithe is usually expected to contain ~ 10% of the PDF forces of a planet.

The problem with 40k here is scale. The regiment sizes are ridiculously small for the amount of soldiers they can realistically draft. Here's an example:

A single civilized world with a population of 10 billion. It has a PDF size equivalent to 1% of its total population. That's 100 million soldiers in the PDF. The Imperium come along and demand their tithe. Then the PDF give them the top 10% of their soldiery.

That's 10 million soldiers just drafted into the Guard. There's black library stories with populations parading and celebrating regiments of a few thousand soldiers as if that's some major feat.

Now consider these 2 things as well. That 1% number is based off our current Earths percentage of armed forces to population, not the highly militaristic Imperiums so that number could be far higher. Potentially up to 10% if they have a completely focused war-economy. The second thing to consider is the ridiculousness in numbers when coming to Terra and hive worlds in general. Terra could have a tithe in the billions if its population is actually in the quadrillions, while hive worlds could have a tithe of hundreds of millions.

When it comes to things like mining or agri worlds those numbers would be far, far smaller. Though that's due to the nature of both their smaller populations and that their tithes are in resources.

 Pyroalchi wrote:

1. I might be blind to the text passage, but how often do these tithes come? Is this "10% of the PDF" meant as yearly, per decade, per generation? Is it fluctuating depending on the urgency of the wartheater or the whim of the Munitorum?

Straight from the wiki:

Initial forces will be drawn from localised assets deemed sufficient for the task at hand. This includes any Guardsmen already mobilised within response range, along with regiments raised from neighbouring worlds. Such forces can be disparate in nature, requiring officers to prove themselves adept at working with whatever materiel is at hand. Should a threat escalate, or prove greater than initial response forces can handle, the Munitorum will expand their designated conflict zone, drawing down relentless waves of reinforcements to crash upon the foe until it is entirely ground to dust.

So, it really depends on need. It could be once a year, sometimes more.

 Pyroalchi wrote:

2. Who decides which type of regiment is mustered (in the sense of light/heavy infantry, armored, artillery etc.)? Is this chosen by the tithed planet or by munitorum officials?
3. Who decides how big the individual regiments have to be? Is there some kind of rough overview like "Superheavy: 3 Baneblades, 5 Support tanks + Crew and technical staff, Light infantry: 4000 + 100 heavy weapon" etc. which is adjusted by the Munitorum Clerk in charge?

Typically it's decided by the Munitorum. The Munitorum dictate how many soldiers, what equipment, resources and material is required to win a war.

As for actually securing the machinery of war there doesn't appear to be a standard procedure for this one. It largely depends on the world their from and what's available. Armageddon is known for their mechanised regiments because they themselves manufacture so many Chimeras. So, the Munitorum would probably look to the world they're tithing from first to see what they can muster.

Then from there they'll start to lobby forge worlds and manufactorums to send the weapons and materials required for the manpower they've just tithed.

Regiment organisation is typically up to the planet themselves. You could have 8 - 10 man squads, 4 - 6 squads per platoon, 3 - 5 platoons per company, and 8 - 10 companies to a regiment. It's up to you.

However, super heavy companies are typically very different than other regiments. In that a super heavy regiment might only have 5 - 10 baneblades, with those vehicles either being deployed in a single mass or split up to support other units.

 Pyroalchi wrote:

4. Related to that: if a regiment shows in the field that its performance deviates from the expectations, are they split/fused to adjust? I mean the case that a line infantry regiment numbering 4000 shows to be half as efficient as the usual regiment this size, are they forced to fuse with another regiment?

This happens fairly frequently. Understrength regiments are fused together to keep them at maximum strength. Preferably from the same world and culture, but that's not always the case.

Regiments are typically fought till exhaustion, if they're particularly lucky they might get the Right of Settlement. Right of Settlement allowing them to become the PDF and governors of the world they settled or reconquered.

 Pyroalchi wrote:

5. Has anyone ever read in any novel what happens, when the review of troops upon the founding is deemed insufficient equipped? Would this mean the tithing fleet just loads in another 10 % of the PDF to adjust or is the planetary governor given a reprieve to muster the difference within a year or something?

I recall there being one instance of a tithe being done 9 times in one year. I can't remember if that was due to insufficient quality or quantity of troops, or just the severity of the conflict. This part is also up to you, worst case the governor would be removed or killed and replaced with someone who will get the job done.

 Pyroalchi wrote:

6. Is it common to "fill up" partly depleted regiments of a world first before founding new regiments when the next tithe comes? I mean: assume half of planets regiments from the first tithe are still kicking at half their manpower, would those first be filled up to full strength or would the second tithe be purely "fresh" regiments?

It depends on distance and the frequency of tithes. If the conflict is on a neighbouring world and tithes are done regularly. Then it's highly possible. If they're being thrown into another sub-sector entirely then they'd be forced to be reshuffled into another regiment.

 Pyroalchi wrote:

7. Judging from the example from the codex of a Tallarn armored regiment being reclassified as infantry regiment upon a successful attack on foot after their fuel ran out I assume this happens too? So when a regiments equipment drastically changes during deployment, they can be reclassified (either after it lost all its tanks or the other way around captured enough to change from infantry to mobile infantry)?

These can happen, though it largely depends on the Munitorum and/or what's locally available. It can work the other way as well. A regiment could say lose all their tanks and forced to fight on foot, but due to the immense bureaucracy of the Imperium could still be listed as an Armoured regiment and redeployed as such.