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.

Since my WH army is now SoB and can't have inquisitors nor inducted guard I have found myself in possession of a small IG army that is in need of direction. My guardsmen started out with a penal legion theme (I had just finished reading the last chancers series), Cadian models with green armor over bright orange fatigues (prison jumpsuits). Then I bought a big batch of models that were on sale at my lfgs (seriously cheap stuff). so now I had mordians, steel legion, tallarn, valhallen, and some necromunda dudes. Then a friend bought a couple boxes of guard for his dedicated cadian army from ebay, it was supposed to be three boxes of cadian infantry, it was instead 2 cadians and a catachan. I offered to trade him an unopened box of Cadians I had for the box of Catachans he wouldn't use. Finally when Vostroyens came out i picked up a blister of them, because at that point, why not. So I have a completely incoherent set of guard models. As all these accumulate I decide that the prison fluff isn't working, and refluff them as individuals that my Inquisitor lord picked up in his travels for his own private army. This worked up until the new SoB codex came out. Now my IG that picked up for the primary purpose of giving my WH army a Leman Russ, now has to stand on it's own feet.

So what should I do with the fluff on these guys? The basic infantry men are mostly cadians and catachan, but all of my heavy weapon teams, most of my special weapons, and several sergeants and officers are from every other regiment. Should I keep them as an Inquisitors personal forces? I'd rather not do that, and instead build up my inquisitors personal army as a GK force. The Original Penal theme also seems a bit off as the regimental uniforms would be traded for what their jailors would provide.

TL/DR; What's some good fluff for a guard army made of a mix of regiments.

Remnants of a particularly brutal campaign folded into one for convenience sake? Could be an opportunity to convert or paint muck and battle damage.

Or they,re surrounded and have to join up for survivals sake and afterwards the munitorum being lazy just makes them one regiment.

Pro Tip: Catachan arms on Cadian bodies looks cool.

I have Kitbashed tons of my IG troopers. My regiment is pure Cadians, Catachans, and Steel Legion with mixed up members with Cadian tops, Catachan legs and arms, or Cadian Bodies with Catachan heads and Legs.....

Some of my mixed units have Pig-Iron Heads on Cadian troopers.....(Pig Iron Heads need the Cadian style i feel)

Just keep the primary colors in their painting the same and it will look well on the gaming table.

As for a back story just say they are the remains of a particularly brutal multiregiment assault and the remains all fit on one Cruiser.

As a lot of those models are metal and a little hellish to convert properly bar a head swap you might want to go for the remnants idea that's already been posted. The idea that they may be the remains of a bunch of regiments that have banded together to face off the enemy in one last stand may hold up for one battle, but how are you going to explain how next week your fighting a different army in another last stand situation on another world with the same men? Of course you could always just chuck similar gasmasks on the lot of them and say that their different parts of ne regiments-Mordians/Vostroyens the officers guard, Tallarn your recon, Steel Legion your Armoured Fist squads, Valhallens your scrounges who won't give up their winter gear from the last campaign, catachans being a bunch of raw recruits from your regiment's homeworld's mining colonies, etc. =P