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.

Hello dakka! I have a curious quandary. How do regiments work exactly? When I look at DKoK or Elesians, it seems evident every regiment from these planets seem to produce a single form of regiment (siege and rapid shoot deployment).

Anyways, back to the question. Do planets produce only one variant of regiment? Or do they produce multiple different kinds of regiments with specializations (so certain planets might heavily or entirely focus on building up siege armies for example).

For any answers... thank you very much and have a great day!

Some vary quite a bit, like Cadia and Tallarn, while others don't really have too much diversity, like Elysia. But they do still have some diversity either within the regiment or between regiments, I can't remember if the tanks in IA8 are part of the drop troop regiment or a separate regiment in and of themselves. Or if it is even in IA8...or even Elysian.

edit: Wait I do remember! It's in the Word Bearer books, they have tanks, now I just can't remember if they were a separate regiment, or if they were part of the main drop trooper regiment.

While not GW official, Fantasy Flight Games (makers of WH40K the RPG) has this to say about regiments:

In truth, the regiment is a
difficult thing to define, but some might classify it thusly:
a regiment is the operational unit of the Imperial Guard, a
discrete formation of Imperial Guardsmen, all trained and
equipped to operate in a single way, and all drawn from a
single world. All other factors are subject to local variation
and prevailing logistical doctrine

Well thank you for the answers so quickly!

Each regiment will be specialized. So you have armoured regiments, infantry regiments, mechanized regiments, artillery regiments, drop troop regiments etc.

A planet is free to raise any kinds of regiments it can, it's just that some planets have come to specialize in certain regiments thanks to fame, tradition or Imperial requirements.

What a planet produces is dependent on the resources and technology it has access to. Armageddon is one of the premier chimera manufacturing facilities in the galaxy. As such they produce mechanized regiments. An agri world isn't likely to have such a high technology base and so will tithe light infantry or cavalry regiments.

Yup. The Guard Codex goes a bit into detail regarding this, mentioning how most warzones are fought over by Army Groups that consist of multiple specialised regiments, who basically trade units for the duration of the engagement to have infantry sections provide cover for otherwise undefended artillery batteries or deploy alongside armoured formations that have little infantry of their own.
This is done to make the individual Guard regiment as ineffective as possible, forcing the troops to rely on other Imperial forces to conduct warfare and thus lower the chances of defection, or at least render the traitors an easier target afterwards - similar to how Guard regiments also do not have their own interstellar transports or (usually) even aerial support but have to rely on the Navy for that.

Non-GW sources may sometimes feature deviating descriptions. As usual, there is no single truth, just lots of possibilities.

 rems01 wrote:
An agri world isn't likely to have such a high technology base and so will tithe light infantry or cavalry regiments.

Or perhaps even no regiments. Their food production is likely to be worth more for nearby factory/hive worlds than taking a few silly farmhands away as a little orphan regiment. And they can produce some of the food for the multitide of regiments raised from that nearby hive world too! As always, the Imperial tithe system is a complex mess - but it does usually allow your world to do the one thing it's good at in preference to all else. Unless you happen to be Cadia ofc.

I think that's unlikely. All Imperial worlds are required to maintain an adequate planetary defence force, a portion of which is then tithed to the Imperial Guard. For an agri-world to matter to the Imperium it would have to be at least half covered in farms which would necessitate a sizable population, giving no reason for an exemption. The Hive World example cuts both ways - recruiting from a Hive World reduces the workers available for the factories to produce weapons and equipment.

SerQuintus wrote:
I think that's unlikely. All Imperial worlds are required to maintain an adequate planetary defence force, a portion of which is then tithed to the Imperial Guard. For an agri-world to matter to the Imperium it would have to be at least half covered in farms which would necessitate a sizable population, giving no reason for an exemption. The Hive World example cuts both ways - recruiting from a Hive World reduces the workers available for the factories to produce weapons and equipment.

Unless it's an industrial hive world, your standard Hive world's main export will be people. You're probably thinking of Forge Worlds.

No, all Hive Worlds are industrial, that's what Hives are: giant factories. Excess population is merely a side-effect.

Hive Worlds are Industrial Worlds under an Imperial Governor.
Forge Worlds are Industrial Worlds under the Adeptus Mechanicus.

Hive Worlds are industrial worlds only because you have to have these people doing something. It is not necessarily advanced industry, however. You can have a population of a few hundred billion living on a mineral-rich, mountainous world mining it with pick axes and shovels.... still a Hive World, but not particularly industrialized.

A Hive World's main resource is people, as it will continue to be a Hive World long after its other resources are depleted.

Given that most "here's a list of all the stuff that showed up in this campaign" lists in canon don't list more than one or two regiments from an individual world? I could see one world-one specialization from worlds further from direct warfare that don't have to fight on their own soil.

Generally the famed regiments from famed worlds (such as the Mordian Iron Guard) are epitomes of a certain way of fighting, much in the same way the Primarch's & their Legions are the epitome of different ways of waging war. For example the Armageddon Steel Legion is renowned for it's ability to wage mechanised warfare on a grand scale, it's what they excel at, but there are still Steel Legion infantry regiments, armoured regiments, artillery regiments etc. As another example, the Death Korps of Krieg is famed for it's relentless siege regiments - of course siege/attritional warfare is what the Death Korps excel at, thus siege warfare, the most prominent form of attritional warfare, fits the bill perfectly for them & thus the Siege Regiments are the most famous.

However the reverse is true for some worlds. The Harakoni Warhawks live on a world where the best means of transporting oneself is with a grav-glider* and thus the Warhawks make perfect, natural drop-troops and I'd be surprised if any differing types of regiment were raised on that planet.

*They also use them to hunt prey, notably the flying Vapour wyrms.

Just like really World Regiments, you get lots of Variation.

1. Mechanised Infantry - Infantry taken to battle in Battle Taxi's e.g AFV or IFV and are very mobile and able to escort and compliment Armoured (read tank) forces.

2. Line/motorised Infantry - A Basic Infantry Formation usually with some sort of soft vehicles (trucks etc) or possible Foot mobile. Able to move,assault, take and hold ground.

3. Light Infantry - Fast moving, foot-mobile usually used for assaulting, raiding, moving ahead of forces, scouting, moving through terrain unsuitable for vehicles heavy forest, marshland etc.

4. Assault Infantry - Specialists in Assaulting positions, being the tip of the spear, skilled in cracking tough nuts.

5.Mountain Infantry - Like Line/ light infantry but specialised in cold or climbing or the requirements of mountain fighting.

6. Airborne - Paratroopers (generally like Light Infantry)

7. Airmobile - Helo Ops (generally like Light Infantry)

SerQuintus wrote:
I think that's unlikely. All Imperial worlds are required to maintain an adequate planetary defence force, a portion of which is then tithed to the Imperial Guard. For an agri-world to matter to the Imperium it would have to be at least half covered in farms which would necessitate a sizable population, giving no reason for an exemption. The Hive World example cuts both ways - recruiting from a Hive World reduces the workers available for the factories to produce weapons and equipment.

Unless the Agri-World is also at least 20th century-level technology, where automation and industrialization allows a relatively small number of people to manage a comparatively vast region of farmland. An Earth-sized Hive World might have thirty billion people on it, while an Earth-sized Agri World might have ten million. Remember that vast stretches of a Hive World will be virtually uninhabitable (due to environmental concerns, toxic waste, etc). A Hive World's chief export is people. The goods it produces are secondary, as all the really good stuff is produced by a Forge World.

In this example, the Agri-World might have a token PDF force, but will probably not frequently tithe a regiment to the IG (perhaps once a century, maybe even less frequently).