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How effective are Imperial Guard lore wise? Do they get s*it done? Or do they just hold the line until their bigger, badder forces of the IoM arrive?

P.S. Does this included the Imperial Navy or are they a separate entity?

Depends on the work.

As far as xenos invasions/renegade planets go, they do most of the work. Sometimes the Astartes might come along to take out a high priority target in order to tip the balance.

When it comes to Chaos invasions, on top of the Astartes when necessary, the Inquisition tends to show up in order to "help out" (see: burn everyone when the battle is over).

There are no "bigger, badder" forces, the Imperial Guard IS exactly that. Sure, space marines are more badass, but there is only a small number of them, their job is surgical strikes and shock assaults. Navy is a separate entity, intentionally.

As for getting gak done part, remember that Cadia broke before the Guard did.

The Imperial Guard is a vast organisation and the effectiveness of regiments vary's wildly between the most elite like the Mordian Iron Guard to poorly trained and equipped PDF and penal legions and everything in between!

In short though yes, they are an effective military force. The vast bulk of the fighting done to maintain and expand the Imperium over the last 10,000 years has been done by the Guard.
They can take on even the most power enemies of man, such as the Choas Space Marines and the Necrons, mainly through their limitless manpower and heavy ordinance.

There are loads of stories about them in Black Library, mainly because they are the most relatable characters in 40k. I suggest starting with the Gaunts Ghosts or any of the Imperial Guard Omnibuses if you like good stories, or the Siege of Vrakks Imperial Armour book if you prefer faux historical accounts.


As to you other question, no the Imperial Navy and Imperial Guard are deliberately separate organisations with separate authority structures to avoid the disastrous effects of one man accruing too much power like the Primarch Horus did in the Horus Heresy.
Some individuals like Lord Solar Macharius and Slaydo have bent this rule most the time the two organisations just work closely together (although rivalries can endanger this co-operation).

Indeed. 99.9% of soldiers are imperial guard, and normally its just them fighting and winning all the battles - planetary defence forces are tge local militia normally wainting for thehetter equipped guard to come rescue them.

its just that the 40k narrative inevitably focuses on the 0.1% of really, really big, lethal battles, because thats where marines, inquisitors and battle titans are to be seen.

The guard are a professional military and are actually pretty damn well equipped when you look at it: lasguns have the punch of a modern rifle (autogun) but a rechargable 60-shot magazine (about twice what you'd get in a modern rifle). Flak armour has a non-trivial chance of stopping heavy stubber fire, which appears to be a modern GPMG/HMG, and would go through contemporary armour like plywood.

99% of battles the guard will ever fight feature opponents along the lines of hormagaunts, ork boyz, chaos or genestealer cultists and other (renegade) guardsmen. Given that flak armour works against frag grenades, lasbolts, multilaser bursts, autogun, shotgun and shoota bullets, scything talons, choppas, heavy stubbers, hand flamers, dangerous terrain and exploding vehicles, its actually pretty well suited for the job the guard are supposed to do.

Most guardsmen will probably never see an xeno. Most of the time they fight fellow humans, of which it's extremely questionable of how many are actually followers of Chaos.

After that it's orks.... probably followed by followers of Chaos, the nids, then everyone else. Necrons are potentially the least well known.

People also forget that most planets in the imperium don't actually know about tyranids as their excursions have been small enough to be largely covered up in most of the imperium. Generally speaking only veterans of campaign against chaos or tyranids know of their true horror. Most normal humans who fight the forces of chaos for example will be mind wiped, forced into camps or killed to keep the secret.

By comparison rebels and Ork xenos are fairly well known about. Eldar raids are common enough to be known about along major trade routes and humans in the area's around the Tau empire trade with them to have fairly good knowledge about their species.

As such the vast majority of combat you see guardsmen undertake is against other humans. The variety of quality between both Imperial Guard regiments and PDF forces means it can be either a total mismatch or a fairly even fight, akin to modern combat situations, albeit with potentially even larger extremes (aka cultures without even blackpowder tech vs lasguns).

Also some planets potentially have better weapons than the imperial guard. For example the lasgun is mostly used to it's ease of supply, which is needed when you have a military so large. Arguably the Autogun is more deadly, exchanged for larger supply lines due to ammunition and a slight decrease in reliability. You can also bet that there are going to be many native forces with weapons akin to what we have today that would fare quite well against Imperial Guard tactics.

Also the claim the imperial guard are the best of a planets armed forces is questionable, as many planets keep their best soldiers (albeit illegally) for themselves.

The TLDR version, around 99.99% of the fighting in the imperium is done by the imperial guard. The real world comparison of their actual fighting capability (and equipment weirdly enough) would range from anything from arming a medieval peasant with an assault rifle all the way up to modern special forces.

99% of the time, all the work is done by the Imperial Guard.

Of course it bears reminding that the Imperial Guard isn't just a bunch of dudes with lasguns. The Imperial Guard also means all of the tanks, artillery, and even their own special forces such as Storm Troopers. The Imperial Guard is a complete package. The vast majority of the time they are more than sufficient, even if sufficient means that you simply outlast the enemy.

Most of the time, the Imperial Guard are fighting other humans or manageable alien threats. Of course, these stories aren't interesting. Nobody is going to want to hear the 999 stories of how the Imperial Guard put down a rebellion, wiped out a minor alien race, or held a sector vs a minor force of heretics. The really interesting stories are the ones where some foe showed up that the Imperial Guard couldn't handle. Imperial Guard are quite capable soldiers, but they are ultimately the Red Shirts of the 40k universe.

Well without it.... There wouldn't be an Imperium of Man would there? Or at least there wouldn't be one for very long. SM are great and all..

But they can't HOLD THE LINE against the countless foes that seek to destroy the Imperium from within and without.

Also some guard regiments are specalist units.

Catchans on a open artic world is bad. Confined hive city or jungle gonna get gak done.

Got a seige. Death korps. Useless in a manoover war that requires initive though.

The guard has a few who excel used right. There is a enormous range of regiments. Some even rarely geneticaly altered for campaigns on perticarly tough worlds.

I loved Dragonball, I loved the story, loved the depth, loved the characters, loved the ending - and it was supposed to end there, just like DBZ was supposed to end after Frieza, after Cell and after Buu.
Anyway.
Yamcha, Krillin/Kuririn, Tien and Roshi were all stupidly powerful but as DBZ progressed they got used more and more as punching bags to show just how powerful the latest threat really was - just how far beyond human ability the setting had progressed.

Same is true of white gi with black belts and the whole ninja suit.

Guard are more than just capable but most Space Marine writers use them as a curbstomp to show how powerful the threat they've written about is, problem is this technique has been used so much that Guard look incompetent.

A maxim of the Guard is; if brute force has not solved your problem, it is because you have yet to apply enough. The guard has billions of men at its disposal at all times. Unless they're fighting Nids or Orks they usually can win a war of attrition. Too bad most races won't fight that way (Eldar, Tau, CSM).

 Baldeagle91 wrote:
Most guardsmen will probably never see an xeno. Most of the time they fight fellow humans, of which it's extremely questionable of how many are actually followers of Chaos.

After that it's orks.... probably followed by followers of Chaos, the nids, then everyone else. Necrons are potentially the least well known.

People also forget that most planets in the imperium don't actually know about tyranids as their excursions have been small enough to be largely covered up in most of the imperium. Generally speaking only veterans of campaign against chaos or tyranids know of their true horror. Most normal humans who fight the forces of chaos for example will be mind wiped, forced into camps or killed to keep the secret.

By comparison rebels and Ork xenos are fairly well known about. Eldar raids are common enough to be known about along major trade routes and humans in the area's around the Tau empire trade with them to have fairly good knowledge about their species.

As such the vast majority of combat you see guardsmen undertake is against other humans. The variety of quality between both Imperial Guard regiments and PDF forces means it can be either a total mismatch or a fairly even fight, akin to modern combat situations, albeit with potentially even larger extremes (aka cultures without even blackpowder tech vs lasguns).

Also some planets potentially have better weapons than the imperial guard. For example the lasgun is mostly used to it's ease of supply, which is needed when you have a military so large. Arguably the Autogun is more deadly, exchanged for larger supply lines due to ammunition and a slight decrease in reliability. You can also bet that there are going to be many native forces with weapons akin to what we have today that would fare quite well against Imperial Guard tactics.

Also the claim the imperial guard are the best of a planets armed forces is questionable, as many planets keep their best soldiers (albeit illegally) for themselves.

The TLDR version, around 99.99% of the fighting in the imperium is done by the imperial guard. The real world comparison of their actual fighting capability (and equipment weirdly enough) would range from anything from arming a medieval peasant with an assault rifle all the way up to modern special forces.

The autogun is NOT more deadly. It's common knowledge that lasguns are more powerful. Even In the Necromunda rules lasguns had a -1 save modifier while autoguns didn't.
SW:A has them with the same stats because it's a game which features almost all factions, not just gangers where the differences in weapons can be seen in more detail

True, but then other, later games had the Autogun be more effective - Inquisitor and the first Dark Heresy rules had the two weapons have the same punch, but the autogun could fire single shot, semi-automatic, or full automatic whilst the lasgun was limited to single shot or semi-auto, making the autogun much better for suppressing fire.

Sone patterns of lasgun did have overcharge options (or hot shot packs), but then the autogun could get manstopper bullets and similar special ammo.

They're the hammer of the emprah! They will grind everyone and everything down to nothing.

locarno24 wrote:
True, but then other, later games had the Autogun be more effective - Inquisitor and the first Dark Heresy rules had the two weapons have the same punch, but the autogun could fire single shot, semi-automatic, or full automatic whilst the lasgun was limited to single shot or semi-auto, making the autogun much better for suppressing fire.

Sone patterns of lasgun did have overcharge options (or hot shot packs), but then the autogun could get manstopper bullets and similar special ammo.

Those weren't GW games though we're they? I was under the impression FF games were kind of ambiguous in terms of fluff

 jhe90 wrote:
Also some guard regiments are specalist units.

Catchans on a open artic world is bad. Confined hive city or jungle gonna get gak done.

Got a seige. Death korps. Useless in a manoover war that requires initive though.

The guard has a few who excel used right. There is a enormous range of regiments. Some even rarely geneticaly altered for campaigns on perticarly tough worlds.

True, but not quite in the way you mean it. There are Krieg and Catachan armoured regiments, for example.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

123ply wrote:

locarno24 wrote:
True, but then other, later games had the Autogun be more effective - Inquisitor and the first Dark Heresy rules had the two weapons have the same punch, but the autogun could fire single shot, semi-automatic, or full automatic whilst the lasgun was limited to single shot or semi-auto, making the autogun much better for suppressing fire.

Sone patterns of lasgun did have overcharge options (or hot shot packs), but then the autogun could get manstopper bullets and similar special ammo.

Those weren't GW games though we're they? I was under the impression FF games were kind of ambiguous in terms of fluff

Everything with a 40k logo on it is ambiguous in terms of fluff.

For a nice view into how guard play at the level guard really play, your have to see them in EPIC. Massed tank formations backed by entire artillery parks and scores of moderatly effective infantry. Alternatively marines are fine but if you really want an airborne assault you need to watch entire companies of drop troops backed by waved of ground attack aircraft, overwatched by fighters, bombers, and the occasional planetary fire support.

For a pretty Grimdark view of the DKoK at work read Dead Men Walking. Not too shabby a yarn.

The Imperial Guard is the only reason the Imperium still stands as a single unified entity 10,000 years after the Horus Heresy, instead of becoming a hundred thousand space kingdoms led by space marine chapters or petty warlords.

 NoiseMarine with Tinnitus wrote:
For a pretty Grimdark view of the DKoK at work read Dead Men Walking. Not too shabby a yarn.

And its sorta sequel/prequel Down Amongst the Dead Men. Steve Lyons writes wonderful DKoK

Astra Miliarum are the most efficient fighting force the IoM can buy. They use them for most of the fighting and most of the time they win.

Space marines are a higher level of force concentration and more politically reliable. Whole regiments of IG go renegade every single day. Space Marines turning traitor happens too, but a bit less.

 Bobthehero wrote:

 NoiseMarine with Tinnitus wrote:
For a pretty Grimdark view of the DKoK at work read Dead Men Walking. Not too shabby a yarn.

And its sorta sequel/prequel Down Amongst the Dead Men. Steve Lyons writes wonderful DKoK

Agreed, those books alone made my Honour Imperialis book worth it, without all the other ones in there (I didn't really like redemption corps. At all. Cadian blood was good though.)

But yes, the Guard is amazing. If GW brought out some new models I would almost certainly collect them and try to make space ANZAC's.

Those weren't GW games though we're they? I was under the imression FF games were kind of ambiguous in terms of fluff

They really aren't

1) all FFG products had to be vetted by GWs head of IP -alan merrit - which means they went through the same "fluff control" as black library books.

2) the Dark Heresy core rulebook and Inquisitors handbook - the books Im talking about were written by black library, before the ffg license deal. Even afterwards, a lot of their contributing authors were also black library authors (such as john french,who wrote a lot of the tzeench supplement tome of fate, and also wrote the ahriman novel trilogy).

3) Inquisitor was purely a gw game, and is in fact where most of todays background on inquisitors, ordos, and factions began.

4) Having read and gm-ed the ffg stuff, I can honestly say it's at least as consistent with the established background and makes a damn sight more sense than some stuff the design studio came out with over the years.

123ply wrote:
The autogun is NOT more deadly. It's common knowledge that lasguns are more powerful. Even In the Necromunda rules lasguns had a -1 save modifier while autoguns didn't.
SW:A has them with the same stats because it's a game which features almost all factions, not just gangers where the differences in weapons can be seen in more detail

Rules don't always match the fluff.

Autoguns are generally represented as causing more damage than lasguns, because despite having a very similar 'punch' the lasgun cauterizes the wound. The Autogun doesn't which can leave people to bleed out. then you have issues like tumbling slugs etc, which will cause worse wounds. Lasgun shots simply will not do that due to the physics of how the laser rounds kill. Aka lasguns kill via raw damage, autoguns can drop opponents without necessarily killing them outright.

Also inquisitor which is 'very' official in terms of GW and is used more as a role playing game with stats more basis in fluff. In inquisitor the autogun is capable of full auto fire and does slightly more damage. However it's heavier with smaller clip sizes.

In purely fluff senses the main difference is the ammunition issue and fairly few lasguns having fully automatic settings. The autogun is 'almost' as reliable and as easy to maintain as a lasgun. I suppose the main difference being you could give a lasgun to someone with 'absolutely' no training at all, while you could give an autogun to someone with 'virtually' no training.

It's not uncommon to see guardsmen with autoguns and I wouldn't be surprised if there would even be entire regiments equipped with them. That said their production is more native than being produced on forge worlds specifically to arm the imperial guard (though exceptions will obviously exist).

Also in Flesh and Iron the Autogun was shown to be incredibly popular with Guardsmen (who you have to remember are usually highly trained), potentially even for so than the lasgun. Plus fluff shows Autoguns are better vs orks due to the effect noise helps with suppressive fire, while fairly quiet cracks and snaps don't really do that job well.

 Baldeagle91 wrote:

Autoguns are generally represented as causing more damage than lasguns, because despite having a very similar 'punch' the lasgun cauterizes the wound. The Autogun doesn't which can leave people to bleed out. then you have issues like tumbling slugs etc, which will cause worse wounds. Lasgun shots simply will not do that due to the physics of how the laser rounds kill. Aka lasguns kill via raw damage, autoguns can drop opponents without necessarily killing them outright.

Slight correction: lasguns do cauterize wounds, but they also can blow out chunks of flesh (due to water flash-vaporizing) and leave nasty burns that can incapacitate just as easily as bleeding. I think the damage they do is comparable on a broad scale.

In inquisitor the autogun is capable of full auto fire and does slightly more damage. However it's heavier with smaller clip sizes.

In purely fluff senses the main difference is the ammunition issue and fairly few lasguns having fully automatic settings. The autogun is 'almost' as reliable and as easy to maintain as a lasgun. I suppose the main difference being you could give a lasgun to someone with 'absolutely' no training at all, while you could give an autogun to someone with 'virtually' no training.

This can vary with different patterns of autogun or lasgun. The common M35 Galaxy pattern has fully automatic settings, while the Death Korp's Lucius-patterns have a higher output but slower recharge. Autogun performance also varies by pattern.

It's not uncommon to see guardsmen with autoguns and I wouldn't be surprised if there would even be entire regiments equipped with them. That said their production is more native than being produced on forge worlds specifically to arm the imperial guard (though exceptions will obviously exist).

Also in Flesh and Iron the Autogun was shown to be incredibly popular with Guardsmen (who you have to remember are usually highly trained), potentially even for so than the lasgun. Plus fluff shows Autoguns are better vs orks due to the effect noise helps with suppressive fire, while fairly quiet cracks and snaps don't really do that job well.

I think autoguns are more common in PDF regiments than Guard, if only because it simplifies Munitorum supply issues. You're not wrong, though.

Also, I'd disagree with the fluff about autogun noise being effective against orks. Orks as I understand them would be attracted to the noise, since that means there's a good scrap goin' down.

Oooh, but what if the autogun works better against Orks because they hear the gun, and think it does more damage then the lasgun, therefor, since the Ork thinks it does more damage, it actually does do more damage?

Ork Logic.

 Amanax wrote:
Oooh, but what if the autogun works better against Orks because they hear the gun, and think it does more damage then the lasgun, therefor, since the Ork thinks it does more damage, it actually does do more damage?

Ork Logic.

Ah, but that's balanced by the orky instinct of "dat shoota's proppa loud, I gotta get me hands on it!"

 Formerly Wu wrote:

 Amanax wrote:
Oooh, but what if the autogun works better against Orks because they hear the gun, and think it does more damage then the lasgun, therefor, since the Ork thinks it does more damage, it actually does do more damage?

Ork Logic.

Ah, but that's balanced by the orky instinct of "dat shoota's proppa loud, I gotta get me hands on it!"

IIRC correctly it's more to do with ork respect.

They respect the Autogun more because of it's noise over the lasgun. As such they are more likely to run from an autogun because they think it can actually harm them while they view the lasgun more as a puny hummie flashlight. All said and done, without proper leadership orks are quite cowardly. Steel legion and catachan logic at least.

It's either leadership or numbers. With enough numbers, they're fearless regardless of the leader. With a strong enough leader, they're fearless regardless of the numbers. With both, they're nigh-unstoppable.

 Melissia wrote:
It's either leadership or numbers. With enough numbers, they're fearless regardless of the leader. With a strong enough leader, they're fearless regardless of the numbers. With both, they're nigh-unstoppable.

Even in the large numbers, in the fluff once a panic is caused it can spread through the orky ranks extremely quickly unless there's a big enough ork to bass skulz together. Just look at the battle of Niz-Pazar.