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I'm starting an Imperial Guard army and working on the fluff to justify it. The problem is that the models I have for it currently (not to mention the ones I'll be getting) are from different "themes": Catachan, Tallaran and Cadian currently, and I wouldn't be surprised to see some Death Korps soon. Is there some pre-established fluff for mashed-up companies built up from the remnants of other units? I was also thinking of making it a Penal Company. Anyway, any insight is welcome.

If i recall correctly.
If a regiment is reduced beyond a certin point where its fighting effectiveness is diminished it will be combined with another regiment that has the same problem.
There is no limit to how many times this may occour that I myself have read. So in theory a regiment could consist of Catachan, Cadian, and Tallarn all at the same time.

Death Korp on the other hand im not sure they usually stick together as per how they are trained and bred but I belive if the circumstances are right it could happen but it would be a one off occourance, and im not sure a cadian or catachan could stand the "Dead" personality of a Kreiger when there is no fighting.

Off the top of my head 2 opposite regiments that were combined (i can't remember if this was in the codex or something else) but a combo of a Catachan regiment and a Elysian regiment made a good airborne jungle ops regiment.

A amalgum of Cadian, Catachan, Tallarn and DK.... im not sure. Your mixing water, oil, stone, and air here. they don't seem to totally mix to give a single thing.
Its shock troops, mixed with jungle fighters, mixed with desert operation, and WW1 style grinder tactics. What do you have exactly?

Personally I see a mixed regiment with.
DK tanks/armor, Catachan foot troops, with tallarn fast attack/flankers like rough riders and sentinals, and Cadian Air power. Its a mixed regiment if there ever was one but you never mentioned what you have exactly.

Basically just some infantry from each of these units, and I'm eyeing a Death Korps Commissar and maybe an infantry squad because I love the models. I'm basically just getting what I can for cheap on ebay though because I'm not paying GW prices anymore, so inevitably I'm getting a mixture.

In terms of armour, I currently have a Vendetta and 2 Chimeras as well.

Well, they don't have to be from different planets. It may be entirely possible that they're all from the same planet, just different countries or regions.

Like, the Catachan models come from the feral jungles of the planet, and the Death Korp (if you get them) were all trained on the outskirts of the planet's Hivestack where they all needed gas masks due to the smog. The planet's Imperial Guard regiments consist of soldiers from all around the planet so that they can be prepared for any environment they may encounter.

The 40k universe is huge. If it doesn't explicitly say you can't, then anything is possible!

Edit: Example, I wanted to start a Tau army, but it's so small I can't really field them by themselves. My solution? Enslave the little blue bastards! Now, I have a small Tau force allied with my Chaos Spess Mehreens. Why? Why not. It never said I couldn't, so I did.

That's a good point.

When I played IG my basic troops were Cadians but I used Catachans as Veterans. In my personal fluff they were the biggest, baddest and toughest survivors of earlier campaigns. Vicious killers that went into combat carrying only what they needed to kill as many enemies as possible, in contrast to the "rookies" who were carting along their entire kit.

You could do the same, maybe. These guys have masks because... These guys are huge because... These guys look normal because they are normal.

How about having the regiment have different uniforms for specialists? Then you can, for example, make the tallarns in to stealth veterans, and the catachan in to penal legion to represent close combat specailists, etc.

From what I've read reduced Guard regiments get combined with others from their own homeworld to maintain unit coherency. What if your army was cut off behind enemy lines somehow, or trapped behind a Warp Storm, and ended up with a regiment of people mixed from all over the place after they got out? There's precedent for regimental Commissars getting organizational changes pushed through the bureaucracy (see Cain's getting the Valhallan 597th renamed), it'd be somewhat plausible for them to stay like that.

 Engine of War wrote:
Your mixing water, oil, stone, and air here.

Strangely enough, I think that is how you make cement.

They don't necessarily have to be the same regiment. Anyone that is a real life veteran or current military will tell you that the same regiment doesn't fight a lone. Often elements are split up amongst areas of operation where their strengths can be utilized.

I don't think the Tacticus Imperialias says anything about using multiple forces to fight in one battle lol. So just say they are all converging on the same objective. That solves all your problems.

Andilus Greatsword wrote:Is there some pre-established fluff for mashed-up companies built up from the remnants of other units?

Yeah, the fluff almost implies that most guard regiments are mixed. As guard units start taking casualties, half-strength units get blobbed together to make full-strength ones. Usually they're not very picky about who goes where, so units from different planets are often just sort of crammed together.

If you wanted to have several in the same army, you could just say that you're at the end of a very long campaign, and your army is made up of the survivors of many other units.

Ailaros wrote:

Andilus Greatsword wrote:Is there some pre-established fluff for mashed-up companies built up from the remnants of other units?

Yeah, the fluff almost implies that most guard regiments are mixed. As guard units start taking casualties, half-strength units get blobbed together to make full-strength ones. Usually they're not very picky about who goes where, so units from different planets are often just sort of crammed together.

If you wanted to have several in the same army, you could just say that you're at the end of a very long campaign, and your army is made up of the survivors of many other units.

Ok, makes sense. Doesn't the fluff say that each planet only provides 1 aspect of war too (eg, 1 planet will provide artillery only, 1 infantry only, etc)?

Bongfu wrote:They don't necessarily have to be the same regiment. Anyone that is a real life veteran or current military will tell you that the same regiment doesn't fight a lone. Often elements are split up amongst areas of operation where their strengths can be utilized.

I don't think the Tacticus Imperialias says anything about using multiple forces to fight in one battle lol. So just say they are all converging on the same objective. That solves all your problems.

...this is true. This might be my best bet.

A few scenarios:

1.) Your army is a multi-Regiment task force under a single commander (this is usually the case in IG campaigns anyway)
2.) Your army consists of a hastily formed ad-hoc group of Companies from all over nearby areas due to an emergency situation.

 Andilus Greatsword wrote:
[Ok, makes sense. Doesn't the fluff say that each planet only provides 1 aspect of war too (eg, 1 planet will provide artillery only, 1 infantry only, etc)?

Not as far as I am aware - otherwise Krieg would only provide Siege Regiments, not any of the infantry, armoured, Death Rider, artillery etc regiments it raises in great numbers each year for its tithe. Perhaps a small world will tithe a single regiment every few years and maybe that planet might have a speciality so for example they might be a mining world which provides expert regiments of engineers/pioneers, but then a military world like Cadia will produce every type of formation a Guard army would need (infantry, armour & artillery).

Having mixed regiments is fine, whether it's because the units have been banded together out of a desperation to consolidate dwindling numbers across the units, or they're together for a special purpose (a taskforce if you will) or whatever reason, there are +/- 1 million Imperial worlds in the galaxy so with the huge number of conflicts going on at any one time you could base it on pretty much whatever you wish.

Lots of good suggestions already. I would recommend going either the "battlegroup" approach (task force pulled from multiple regiments) or the veterans. The 5E Guard Codex flat-out says that the longer a regiment stays in service, the less uniform it will look simply because they'll start to "adopt" understrength units from all over the galaxy to fill up their ranks.

Fun fact: The Cadians in the normal IG Codex are actually already considered a "mixed" regiment because normally, they would not field Ogryns. Codex: Eye of Terror has an army list for a "pure Cadian" regiment, and it also explained that the Cadians from the IG Codex would be a regiment that has already seen lots of service and thus had its ranks supplemented by units from elsewhere to make up for any casualties.

Most regiments are mixed in the fluff. Most players just like having a coherent force.

I might be wrong but I thought if the regiment was so small it had to be combined with more than one other regiment it was basically beyond help. I was pretty sure it was like a rule of two or something.

The mixed regiment, understrength remnants approach works well.

Another explanation is the way in which the Guard is organised. Different regiments are thrown together for crusades, army and battle groups with little consideration for what they actually are. So you're going to see Cadians serving alongside the Death Korps for example. A campaign is not likely to be fought entirely by one planet's recruits. So your army could simply reflect this.

So you could paint them as all part of the same regiment, or many different regiments serving in the one warzone. You might like to have each type of Guard in it's own platoon with its own officer.s

Why don't you combine the Cadians and Catachans? You can switch arms and combine bits. That way it cuts down the differences to only 3 regiments. Cadians and catachans combined would give kind of the Aliens/ Vietnam look.

 Freytag93 wrote:
Why don't you combine the Cadians and Catachans? You can switch arms and combine bits. That way it cuts down the differences to only 3 regiments. Cadians and catachans combined would give kind of the Aliens/ Vietnam look.

I did that to make penal legion, and I can say that it looks fantastic.

 Freytag93 wrote:
Why don't you combine the Cadians and Catachans? You can switch arms and combine bits. That way it cuts down the differences to only 3 regiments. Cadians and catachans combined would give kind of the Aliens/ Vietnam look.

Yeah, I was going to suggest that as well, combine the bits and arms and heads and you can make a one planet regiment that has various specializations and that have a more unified feel. might look very bad if you don't do it well though.
Fluff- they are from one planet but from many regions and have many specializations.

Just throwingthis outer there.

My guard regiment mixes Valhallans, Mordians and a smattering of Tallarn.

In my fluff The Mordians are the leadership, Acting as commanders trying to control the Valhallan dressed proletariat rabble that are my foot troops. The Regimental uniforms work well with the winter undie dressed Valls'

Tallarns act as veterans or Special weapon squads.

My regiment is based loosely around Tzarist and Soviet Russia with the Tallarns as part of an absorbed country/Hive/Moon etc.

I believe what you are thinking of is that each regiment can only be one thing. Like, an Infantry Regiment, Tank Regiment, etc. That's so that no combined arms regiments can rebel and not be countered (a common issue in the combined arms Imperial Army of old).

And it's pretty common to see mixed regiments. Once a regiment is destroyed beyond effectiveness then it's combined with another under-strength regiment to make some...interesting combos.

For instance, one of the most effective was an under-strength Catachan regiment was mixed with an under-strength Elysian regiment making a BRUTALLY effective Jungle-AirCav regiment.

You could also follow the ideas laid out in the Guant's Ghost series about your company falling understrength and then looking for volunteers in the planets they have saved/liberated or recruit straight from the local PDF to explain the varying uniforms.