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Hi, all.

What I mean by the Subject is: can my Imperial Guard, in the fluff, be marines? By that, I mean actual marines, not Adeptus Astartes.

The definition of a marine is "A member of a body of troops trained to serve on land or sea", and by that they're usually attached to the Navy.

We all know how the Imperial Guard work. A planet raises XYZ amount of Regiments made up of numerous amount of men or vehicles, then they get fired into space never to be seen again - so sayeth Games Workshop's dumb-arse fluff authors.

What I'd like to do, though, is have my Imperial Guard Regiment trained and organised as a proper marine force, so by that I mean; tied into the Navy and deployed on tactical missions to strategic locations and generally run around and make a nuisance of themselves.

HOWEVER - 1) is this fluff worthy, and 2) if these Guardsmen become marines, I'm guessing this would mean that this Marine Regiment wouldn't have access to heavy armour, such as Leman Russ tanks, as these are provided by armoured cavalry Regiments of the Guard; there is no Infantry Regiments with organic armour, correct?

Thoughts?

To be honest, no one can ever stop you doing anything with IG. There's so many of them that the chances are, if you can think of it, it can be fluffified. I actually like the idea of fleet-based Guard, presumably specialising in precision and boarding operations (After all, the Marines can't have all the fun).

In terms of list building, I'd avoid things like Russes or artillery, and focus on the more 'elite' aspects, with a core of Veterans supported by Stormtroopers, all loaded up with Special Weapons. Sentinels would be fine, I think, but anything more than that is pushing it for a purely naval group. Of course, your armour could always be seconded from another regiment if you do want to use it.

Also, check out the Elysian Drop Troop list from Forge World, it's IG where everything can DS, and might fit the precision/fleet-based theme nicely.

Are they naval or guard assets? Because if they were naval then they wouldnt be IG. However, its fine as is though I am not sure why the navy would deploy their marines.

The Imperial Navy do have their own fighting assets, primarily deployed as part of boarding / counter-boarding actions and as ship-board security.

Basic troopers in the Navy are called 'Armsmen', and are generally equipped with carapace armour and shotguns. The navy doesn't have armoured detachments - they aren't allowed tanks or artillery assets - but they do have sole dominion over Imperial airpower (at least, until the recent retcon regarding Astartes aircraft).

Every Valkyrie and Vendetta fielded as part of an Imperial Guard army is "on loan" from the Imperial Navy. Some of them are on permanent loan, heh.

As far as representing a Navy army on the tabletop goes, the Elysian army list from Imperial Armour volume 3 second edition really is your best bet. Expanded access to fliers and deep striking units (to represent units that are carried in fliers, but that the fliers are dropping them off as part of another mission and don't loiter), as well as improved communications assets... the only thing that's missing, really, is the ability to call in pinpoint orbital strikes from the mothership since for some insane reason, the Elysians don't get a Master of Ordnance for their command squad.

Well, what Ordnance is there to fire?

The Elysian Drop Troops not only specialize in high altitude operations, but also in deep space boarding actions, fighting as traditional ship borne marines when Naval Armsmen aren't enough.

 Bobthehero wrote:
Well, what Ordnance is there to fire?

Lance strikes and torpedoes from their mothership.

You could always go with the "Rogue Trader's private mercenaries/retainers/armed forces" route

"Marines" on navy ships are called Armsmen. Likely just to avoid confusion with Space Marines.

So yes, you could have some IG that are Navel Armsmen.


Because they fight on ships, their armament tends to be limited to shotguns and other solid slug weaponry to avoid damaging the ships internal systems(don't want a lascannon punching a hole in the side of the ship)

They are mostly there strictly to repel boarding actions, but they might get deployed planetside occasionally. In which case they'd be issued with normal weaponry. They'd also likely have no vehicles of their own besides Valks and Vendettas(which are always Navy)

I love the idea! If you want tanks and artillery, there are many ways to justify their use.

I used to have a guard army that I ran as an attachment to Naval units, which would technically make them marines in the sense that they were ship based.

Took lots of shotguns, meltaguns, and grenade launchers. Had an irrational amount of sentinels and a handful of Ogryns. Had a few artillery units as well, two basilisks and a Griffon. For the Griffon I just used the basic model, Griffons are short ranged enough that I could see them being used to defend a landing bay or something. But for the basilisks I built them up as forward observation and communications trucks. Rather than "shooting" an earthshaker they called in strikes from the batteries of their parent vessels.

With the amount of options in the 5th Edition guard codex I have no doubt you could do a Naval/ Marine force.

One of the Only War splatbooks focuses on invading a star fort, where the Imperium calls in a regiment or something that specializes in Void Boarding actions, if that's what you mean.

My friend has a USMC themed imperial guard army complete with m16's, humvee's for transports, black hawks for Valkyries and yes Abrahams for leman russ's it was quite impressive to see that much effort

People forget this is a hobby where you can do whatever you want with your army !!

 Furyou Miko wrote:
the only thing that's missing, really, is the ability to call in pinpoint orbital strikes from the mothership since for some insane reason, the Elysians don't get a Master of Ordnance for their command squad.

Simple fix: throw in a single Inquisitor with an Orbital Strike Relay. 75pts, bombardments every turn. Model him as a MoO and you're golden.

Cheers, guys.

I'm aware that the Navy has 'security', or armsmen that repell boarders, etc. But what I was mainly thinking was having a ship-based Regiment of troops who are part of the Navy but deployed for first-strike, strategic mission. If I'm honest, I forgot all about the Elysians, but I fear I don't have the £££ for that type of thing, plus it's Forge World, and you always get whiners about using Forge World; I can think of one friend in particular. If he wins, it's 'cos he's better than you, if you win, it's 'cos the game's bull shaz.

Anyway, I was thinking of having Naval marines as Veterans and Stormtroopers and the heavy vehicles, like Leman Russes would come from another Imperial Guard Regiment.

As much as I like my Cadians, I am getting a little dull of the Cadian copy 'n' paste, so I may look for third party pieces. I'm thinking of trying to get a First World War feel, maybe. Not 'Death Korp' per es, but something a approaching that, but without the Death Korp feel, mainly as I dislike them.

Cheers for the input, peep.

For a WW1-look, there are a few options.

The cheapest (and in my opinion the best) is the original Warzone minis from Prince August models:

http://shop.princeaugust.ie/warzone-mutant-chronicles-wargame/warzone-games-expansion-sets/tg2420-1-warzone-mutant-chronicles-bag-of-80-plastic-soldiers/

You get 40 brit-style models with wide-brimmed helmets and bayoneted guns, and 40 german-style ones with spiked helmets guns that could easily pull duty as shotguns. If you're going the Vet/ST route, then you can get the bulk of the army for just £25. Their shipping is very fast and the models, once painted up, look great. All you lose out on is some variety, but hey, this is IG. If the enemy has time to look at each individual model, something's already gone wrong!

The other option, slightly more expensive and arguable worse models, is Wargames Factory's Greatcoats. These guys scale better with Cadians (so weapon swaps are easier) but the detail is quite soft and the proportions are a bit off. They're still decent models, but I'd go with the Warzone ones personally.

http://www.waylandgames.co.uk/wargames-factory/sci-fi-miniatures/shock-troops-boxed-set/prod_9007.html

Hopefully that helps.

I don't use Elysian models for my Elysian army, outside the Tauros and the punishers I used to convert a valkyrie into a Vulture. I use Shadowforge Marines. Not really WW1 style, but just throwing it out as an example of how you don't have to use Elysian models any more than you have to use Cadian models, and that the argument that Forge World stuff is "pay to win" is completely fallacious.

As for your whiny friend, point out that if he wins against a Forge World list, he must be really freaking awesome, since they're so broken (even though we people living in the real world know that the Elysian list has a hella lot of weaknesses compared to a straight-up Guard army!)

Cool, cheers, guys.

Abnett made up a whole aviators-only Guard regiment. The Phantine Air Corps are equipped with and trained to use Navy aircraft such as Lightening, Thunderbolt and Marauder. Save for a select few drop troops, the regiment has no infantry or armour elements at all.

If there's a Guard regiment that's made up of Naval craft, then a Guard regiment made up of Naval marines is hardly out of the question.

Just for the fluff, the Guard and Navy used to be one single armed force called the Imperial Army. The command structures were split because it was deemed that if a Commander with both ships and troops under his command goes rogue, they stand a good chance of putting up a coordinated fight against the Imperium.

However, I'd think that you could make an interesting army based on what assets the Navy does have. You've got Naval Security, who are described as being elite troops. They are deployed planetside in Eisenhorn. They were carapace armour and use hellguns, so you can use Kasrkin models for these guys. They also use landspeeders, so perhaps convert a landspeeder and use it as a Chimera. Another interesting thing you could look at is Navy Intelligence from Gaunt's Ghosts.

EDIT: Alternatively, if you'd like to use Marines in the aquatic sense rather than astronautic, then I believe that assets such as sea-ships and submarines are in fact of the Imperial Guard and PDFs, so you could indeed do up your IG as Navy/Marines.

 Tower75 wrote:


What I'd like to do, though, is have my Imperial Guard Regiment trained and organised as a proper marine force, so by that I mean; tied into the Navy and deployed on tactical missions to strategic locations and generally run around and make a nuisance of themselves.

HOWEVER - 1) is this fluff worthy, and 2) if these Guardsmen become marines, I'm guessing this would mean that this Marine Regiment wouldn't have access to heavy armour, such as Leman Russ tanks, as these are provided by armoured cavalry Regiments of the Guard; there is no Infantry Regiments with organic armour, correct?

Thoughts?

Well, there's nothing that says your IG has to really be "Imperial Guard".

How about fielding a "Planetary Defense Force" for a world with many habitable moons and an accessible asteroid belt?

The PDF is normally seen as kind of a second banana to the 'real soldiers' of the IG, but if you imagine a large planetary system with multiple habitable moons, then the PDF might need some sort of stellar travel capacity (kind of like the Imperial Navy). If that planetary system also has a nearby asteroid belt, then you might also have a PDF which regularly deals with smugglers, ork freebooters, dark eldar pirates, and Chaos reavers. Such a PDF might be a lot more capable than your average PDF groups. Your 'guardsmen' wouldn't just hang around and defend the peace, but might be needed on interdiction operations in space lanes, or even called to moons, asteroids, and orbital platforms to defend them (or retake them) from aliens.

Of course, the Imperial Navy is 'supposed' to be patrolling space lanes, but if a planetary system has loads of short range orbital traffic, then the planetary government is going to need a capacity to travel in that area.

Such a unit would probably be mounted in a System Monitor - a frigate-sized ship with no Warp drive and a single weapons battery.

The Navy does have "marines" for boarding actions but I'm not sure I'd represent them with the Guard rules; the organizational restrictions introduced after the Heresy mean you wouldn't have much in the way of heavy weapons or vehicles at all.

Hold on sir! Deploy the Leman Russ to fire ordinance down the alley! In all seriousness, the navy keeps to a very specific set of equipment. Simply put, they do not want to bring guns that can damage the ship. Flamers, close combat weapons, shot guns, (I think) lasguns... These are the most popular weapons. Missile launchers are a no no along with lascannon rounds.

If you're interested in a naval marine kind of army, try reading Xenos, the first book in the Eisenhorn trilogy (while you're at it read the whole trilogy, it's some of the best 40k novels out there).

The Battlefleet Scarus Naval troopers sounded so awesome in that book I was sorely tempted to go "good guys" and build a non-chaos army for once.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 StarTrotter wrote:
Hold on sir! Deploy the Leman Russ to fire ordinance down the alley! In all seriousness, the navy keeps to a very specific set of equipment. Simply put, they do not want to bring guns that can damage the ship. Flamers, close combat weapons, shot guns, (I think) lasguns... These are the most popular weapons. Missile launchers are a no no along with lascannon rounds.

And he's totally right, in Xenos, they even mention that the Troopers carried Autoguns loaded with glass bullets. Perfect for shredding a man without puncturing the bulkhead behind him.

Fluff-wise, the IG is not seconded to the Navy, not since the end of the Heresy, for obvious reasons.... but this does not prevent the Navy from having boarding teams and the like.

What the Navy is not supposed to be capable of doing is launching troops from the ship to the ground, which is why they are stuck with the armsmen, which simply don't appear in numbers sufficient to pose a threat to an Imperial World with any sort of PDF or Arbites presence, as this capability really bit the Imperium in the ass during the Heresy.

So... from a fluff perspective, having tanks and ordnance and all that is a definite no-go. Having IG-like soldiers aboard a spaceship is ok, as long as you note that they are Navy Armsmen.

An alternative would be the mercenary forces in the employ of a Rogue Trader. In this case, anything goes.

Who knows, though. Maybe the fluff will be completely different when the Imperial Guard Codex comes out. After all, these Knight things have come out of the wood work, but have supposedly been around for centuries.

Well consider a regiment retains its original name.

So let's assume planet Genericum is a world that has a significant asteroid mining or moons, or whatever. These mining installations need to be protected. Marines are a natural name, they would likely be based on systemdefence monitors, or limited space faring for in system defence.

So say the 2nd Genericum Marine Corps gets called up by the guard.
Well they would have to leave their system defence monitors behind, the Munitorum may see fit to equip them with armoured vehicles, or use them as a light infantry. They may function like the Elysium drop troopers, or just thrown into the trenches of wherever they are dumped.

So basically I would say that a Marine regiment could be equipped with anything the Munitorum saw fit to issue them with.

 Tower75 wrote:
Who knows, though. Maybe the fluff will be completely different when the Imperial Guard Codex comes out. After all, these Knight things have come out of the wood work, but have supposedly been around for centuries.

Nah, Knights are a case of ancient fluff being revived rather than something being retconned.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
the only thing that's missing, really, is the ability to call in pinpoint orbital strikes from the mothership since for some insane reason, the Elysians don't get a Master of Ordnance for their command squad.

That's because the Elysians have had barely a third the love that the Krieg have gotten from FW.