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How exactly does that work? Say the Cadian 854th liberated/colonized a world. Would the older guardsmen be allowed to help settle the planet? Perhaps train the PDFs or even become pdf? How does colonizing it work and are the guardsmen rewarded?

Basically the regiment itself, and usually a contingent of other settlers from their homeworld, become the first colonists on the planet. This disbands the regiment from active duty in the Imperial Guard. That is the reward itself. There are only 2 ways out of the Imperial Guard, a glorious death for the Emperor or to be granted a planet to settle.

Usually the regimental officers will become the administrative officials, with the highest ranking officer usually becoming the governor.

These veterans would also almost certainly become the planet's PDF as well, as they retain their weaponry and equipment.

Best thing to keep in mind is that there is so much variation within the Guard (and the fluff about it) that you can really make it work however you want.

In general it seem to have been regiment conquers a world and the guardsman are retired to there. So basically if you are lucky enough to live to retirement age (whatever that might be) you get to go live on the first world you conquered.

If you never conquered one? Probably to some shrine world style place or something. Are there retirement worlds? :-)

As I said, there are two ways out of the Imperial Guard.

Death in battle, or being very lucky and getting a planet to settle.

So would a regiment's attached staff, such as commissars and enginseers, be allowed to settle with them or would they be reassigned?

And would the regiment's equipment be taken and re-issued or left with them?

What about members of the regiment who did not wish to settle, could they go with the equipment to join/ be 're-issued' to a new regiment?

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
So would a regiment's attached staff, such as commissars and enginseers, be allowed to settle with them or would they be reassigned?

And would the regiment's equipment be taken and re-issued or left with them?

What about members of the regiment who did not wish to settle, could they go with the equipment to join/ be 're-issued' to a new regiment?

I think that would be up to the individual commissar, as far as what they wanted, but I would assume that most commissars, and other staff, excluding the engineseers would probably move on the the next assignment as they are looking to further their careers., although every PDF needs a commissar. The enginseers would follow the tanks. IF the tanks stayed to be incorporated into the PDF armory, then they would stay too, but if the equipment was requisitioned and relocated then the support staff would follow it,

It's more or less what the romans did, you fight for a time period and then as you got older you would settle the last place you fought. This would help bring newly conquered areas into the fold as you now had trained loyal veterans mixing in with the natives.

TheWanderer wrote:
Are there retirement worlds? :-)

Welcome to planet Florida!

Commissars are assigned by the Commissariat to whatever units they are attached to. They're not "part" of that unit, really. So if the regiment they are part of just so happens to take part in a campaign on a planet that is not currently owned by the Imperium (which is most worlds the IG will fight on, which is why this happens so very rarely), defeats the enemy and crushes them utterly, one of the regiments involved in that action will be awarded that world and mustered out of active service, to serve as that planet's PDF, form its core colonial government, and begin the centuries-long process of building it into a stable world. The Departmento Munitorum might muster the Commissars out with them, it might not. All depends on what they need at the moment, and the whim of the Commissariat.

Hopefully, you won a nice place to live, and not some gak-hole Death World.

Guardsmen are attached to their Regiment on a permanent basis. You don't transfer from one Regiment to another, unless your Regiment suffers casualties rendering them incapable of combat operations, in which case you get merged with other, similar regiments, until sufficient combat readiness is achieved. So if your Regiment musters out? You muster out with it. The Imperium does not lack for manpower... losing a few thousand soldiers to settle a world is so statistically insignificant that they don't even consider it a problem. Literally no one in the Guard is unique, or irreplaceable.

What about superheavy tank regiments?

They're tiny, since 3 tanks is a company with 11 men per tank is 33 men plus support units per company, so, say, 100-500 men per company.

Let's say it's a pretty damn huge regiment with 20 companies (since 3 is minimum) - that's 2000-10.000 men to settle the world, which I guess is plausible if small.

The superheavy tanks would be discharged to form the planetary PDF with them? Or sent elsewhere? And if they're sent elsewhere, is a brand-new-from-scratch unit made who has to train on the tanks? With brand spanking new and green maintenance units and everything?

I suppose so, but IMO it would make sense to keep the crews inside the tanks they've become experts in for as long as possible, until they're literally dying at their stations from old age.

Also on a size vs cost calculation, a few reminents of the Regiment might be easier and less effort to retire them than ship them to a new unit, and such.

Give them to the PDF, maybe join the Navy as armsmen, or other such tasks that a trained and experienced combat veteran could easily be put to use like someone giving a "donation" and they join a private army for a trader or security for a big family.

Helping to provide security to a new settled planet seems within reason.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
So would a regiment's attached staff, such as commissars and enginseers, be allowed to settle with them or would they be reassigned?

And would the regiment's equipment be taken and re-issued or left with them?

What about members of the regiment who did not wish to settle, could they go with the equipment to join/ be 're-issued' to a new regiment?

The fluff has commissars who reign over PDFs. They'd probably work to make sure the newly formed PDF didn't go soft.

They are a regiment that just won a world, and they own the whole thing. Every single trooper in the regiment could have hundreds of acres worth of farmland, diamond mines, and factories in his personal possession. They're not like oh, I'll take a job as a senior armsman somewhere, you know because of the benefits package being good.

Now, maybe it's not always quite like that. Maybe only the few hundred remaining officers become the kings and dukes of entire land masses, and the rest of the troops become those officers' elite retainers, whose children only own two horses apiece and have to share servants, instead of owning entire stables like the dukes' children do.

this actually is very much what usually happens with rights of conquest, there is a very good example in the Pyran Dragoons from the Armageddon III book.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
What about superheavy tank regiments?

They're tiny, since 3 tanks is a company with 11 men per tank is 33 men plus support units per company, so, say, 100-500 men per company.

Let's say it's a pretty damn huge regiment with 20 companies (since 3 is minimum) - that's 2000-10.000 men to settle the world, which I guess is plausible if small.

The superheavy tanks would be discharged to form the planetary PDF with them? Or sent elsewhere? And if they're sent elsewhere, is a brand-new-from-scratch unit made who has to train on the tanks? With brand spanking new and green maintenance units and everything?

I suppose so, but IMO it would make sense to keep the crews inside the tanks they've become experts in for as long as possible, until they're literally dying at their stations from old age.

The thing is, where did the tanks come from in the first place? Usually, the founding planet has to provide most of the equipment for a regiment, including things like Leman Russ tanks. It's pretty simple in those cases, since the regiments can be based around preexisting PDF units that get turned over to the Guard. A planet that tithes a regular armored regiment would have to either provide or pay for all of its tanks.

That would probably have to include superheavy regiments too. It is not a problem that superheavies all usually come from Mechanicus forge worlds and not regular tithing imperial planets. You just said that a super heavy regiment has a very small number of troops, and also that having experienced troops is valuable. So, it would be a pretty worthless tithe to turn over just 10,000 troops who had never been in a super heavy. That means a planet has to either get the tanks from the Mechanicus directly, train its PDF in them, and then several generations later when they have a tradition of good quality regiments, turn over half or more of the tanks and men to the guard, or they have to provide the 10,000 raw recruits plus a huge amount of indentured labor, raw ore, and other things that the guard can then exchange with the Mechanicus for brand new super heavies.


Ah, well, they'd probably found a new regiment, or arrange to give them to the Mechanicus or other regiment in exchange for a significant surety.

I said join Navy as not every guardsmen may have a good record, be unpopular or desire to leave the regiment.

Just seems one career for a former veteran guardsman

pelicaniforce wrote:
They are a regiment that just won a world, and they own the whole thing. Every single trooper in the regiment could have hundreds of acres worth of farmland, diamond mines, and factories in his personal possession. They're not like oh, I'll take a job as a senior armsman somewhere, you know because of the benefits package being good.

Now, maybe it's not always quite like that. Maybe only the few hundred remaining officers become the kings and dukes of entire land masses, and the rest of the troops become those officers' elite retainers, whose children only own two horses apiece and have to share servants, instead of owning entire stables like the dukes' children do.

this actually is very much what usually happens with rights of conquest, there is a very good example in the Pyran Dragoons from the Armageddon III book.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
What about superheavy tank regiments?

They're tiny, since 3 tanks is a company with 11 men per tank is 33 men plus support units per company, so, say, 100-500 men per company.

Let's say it's a pretty damn huge regiment with 20 companies (since 3 is minimum) - that's 2000-10.000 men to settle the world, which I guess is plausible if small.

The superheavy tanks would be discharged to form the planetary PDF with them? Or sent elsewhere? And if they're sent elsewhere, is a brand-new-from-scratch unit made who has to train on the tanks? With brand spanking new and green maintenance units and everything?

I suppose so, but IMO it would make sense to keep the crews inside the tanks they've become experts in for as long as possible, until they're literally dying at their stations from old age.

The thing is, where did the tanks come from in the first place? Usually, the founding planet has to provide most of the equipment for a regiment, including things like Leman Russ tanks. It's pretty simple in those cases, since the regiments can be based around preexisting PDF units that get turned over to the Guard. A planet that tithes a regular armored regiment would have to either provide or pay for all of its tanks.

That would probably have to include superheavy regiments too. It is not a problem that superheavies all usually come from Mechanicus forge worlds and not regular tithing imperial planets. You just said that a super heavy regiment has a very small number of troops, and also that having experienced troops is valuable. So, it would be a pretty worthless tithe to turn over just 10,000 troops who had never been in a super heavy. That means a planet has to either get the tanks from the Mechanicus directly, train its PDF in them, and then several generations later when they have a tradition of good quality regiments, turn over half or more of the tanks and men to the guard, or they have to provide the 10,000 raw recruits plus a huge amount of indentured labor, raw ore, and other things that the guard can then exchange with the Mechanicus for brand new super heavies.


Ah, well, they'd probably found a new regiment, or arrange to give them to the Mechanicus or other regiment in exchange for a significant surety.

So the tanks actually would be retired with the regiment and left with their crews, at least until the new planet can raise another regiment?

Does that mean that some backwater world somewhere suddenly gets attacked by pirates and then wheels out thirty Baneblades in response?

WD Compendium, pg.146, 3rd paragraph:

A successful Regiment can look forward to being granted the overlordship of the planet to which they are posted. If the planet remains peaceful and meets all its quotas, the Regimental Commander may in time be rewarded with the title of Imperial Commander and the governorship of the planet, while substantial land grants may be made to Guard veterans who retire from active service due to old age. In due corse of time, the Regiment will become a hereditary nobility, almost indistinguishable from the now-peaceful native population. The descendants of the original garrison may well be recruited, first into the planetary defense force, and then into the Imperial Guard Regiments that are raised there.

Unit1126PLL wrote:So would a regiment's attached staff, such as commissars and enginseers, be allowed to settle with them or would they be reassigned?

And would the regiment's equipment be taken and re-issued or left with them?

What about members of the regiment who did not wish to settle, could they go with the equipment to join/ be 're-issued' to a new regiment?

Pretty shure this would be something that would be on case-to-case basis.

TheWanderer wrote:Best thing to keep in mind is that there is so much variation within the Guard (and the fluff about it) that you can really make it work however you want.

In general it seem to have been regiment conquers a world and the guardsman are retired to there. So basically if you are lucky enough to live to retirement age (whatever that might be) you get to go live on the first world you conquered.

If you never conquered one? Probably to some shrine world style place or something. Are there retirement worlds? :-)

It could also be possible to head back to your homeworld.

Grey Templar wrote:As I said, there are two ways out of the Imperial Guard.

Death in battle, or being very lucky and getting a planet to settle.

Or as a third option; going AWOL and becoming a merc.

 Finlandiaperkele wrote:
It could also be possible to head back to your homeworld.

One of the worlds Inquisitor Eisenhorn works on in the omnibus handles it like this. Regiments are raised and sent out to fight, and if by some chance there's still someone left alive after their term is up (they did 20 years IIRC) they're allowed to come back home to live out their lives.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

pelicaniforce wrote:
They are a regiment that just won a world, and they own the whole thing. Every single trooper in the regiment could have hundreds of acres worth of farmland, diamond mines, and factories in his personal possession. They're not like oh, I'll take a job as a senior armsman somewhere, you know because of the benefits package being good.

Now, maybe it's not always quite like that. Maybe only the few hundred remaining officers become the kings and dukes of entire land masses, and the rest of the troops become those officers' elite retainers, whose children only own two horses apiece and have to share servants, instead of owning entire stables like the dukes' children do.

this actually is very much what usually happens with rights of conquest, there is a very good example in the Pyran Dragoons from the Armageddon III book.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
What about superheavy tank regiments?

They're tiny, since 3 tanks is a company with 11 men per tank is 33 men plus support units per company, so, say, 100-500 men per company.

Let's say it's a pretty damn huge regiment with 20 companies (since 3 is minimum) - that's 2000-10.000 men to settle the world, which I guess is plausible if small.

The superheavy tanks would be discharged to form the planetary PDF with them? Or sent elsewhere? And if they're sent elsewhere, is a brand-new-from-scratch unit made who has to train on the tanks? With brand spanking new and green maintenance units and everything?

I suppose so, but IMO it would make sense to keep the crews inside the tanks they've become experts in for as long as possible, until they're literally dying at their stations from old age.

The thing is, where did the tanks come from in the first place? Usually, the founding planet has to provide most of the equipment for a regiment, including things like Leman Russ tanks. It's pretty simple in those cases, since the regiments can be based around preexisting PDF units that get turned over to the Guard. A planet that tithes a regular armored regiment would have to either provide or pay for all of its tanks.

That would probably have to include superheavy regiments too. It is not a problem that superheavies all usually come from Mechanicus forge worlds and not regular tithing imperial planets. You just said that a super heavy regiment has a very small number of troops, and also that having experienced troops is valuable. So, it would be a pretty worthless tithe to turn over just 10,000 troops who had never been in a super heavy. That means a planet has to either get the tanks from the Mechanicus directly, train its PDF in them, and then several generations later when they have a tradition of good quality regiments, turn over half or more of the tanks and men to the guard, or they have to provide the 10,000 raw recruits plus a huge amount of indentured labor, raw ore, and other things that the guard can then exchange with the Mechanicus for brand new super heavies.


Ah, well, they'd probably found a new regiment, or arrange to give them to the Mechanicus or other regiment in exchange for a significant surety.

So the tanks actually would be retired with the regiment and left with their crews, at least until the new planet can raise another regiment?

Does that mean that some backwater world somewhere suddenly gets attacked by pirates and then wheels out thirty Baneblades in response?

No the Imperium is definitely not going to let so many Baneblades rust on some backwater. I don't think superheavy regiments would ever be granted a right to settle, their rare equipment and specialist training make them too valueable to be used as settlers. Infantrymen are expandable, superheavy tank crews much less so, and most superheavy tanks not at all.
If a regiment is granted a right to settle, any valueable equipment they have probably is retained by the force they were part of and distributed to other regiments. Expendable equipment like LR tanks and Chimeras probably is turned over to the new PDF force of the planet.
Then again, we do not really have any information on how this process goes exactly.

So basically exactly how I thought it would go - either the regiment is forbidden from resettling and the guardsmen crew their tanks until they die of old age in their bucket-seats, or the tanks are repurposed to other regiments and the world is left to fend for itself, perhaps with only a few hundred tank crewmen with laspistols for the PDF.

LOL.

My guess is that a Super Heavy regiment would either not be retired or they wouldn't keep their baneblades. A regiment being granted settlement rights is fairly rare in the grand scheme of things so things probably get handled on a case by case basis.

A superheavy regiment wouldn't be the only people involved in a campaign, though. You don't get superheavy tanks deployed to anything but a major conflict, and if it's a major conflict then one (or more likely many) infantry or armour regiment(s) will be assigned there too.

In which case the 'settlement rights' would go to one of the infantry regiments - with several thousand men.

Any of the superheavy tank crews who are too old or injured to go on elsewhere would probably be included in the deal, but there is no way in hell the Departmento Munitorium would let a frontier world keep superheavy tanks. Superheavy tank companys (especially 'proper' baneblades and baneblade variants) are an asset whose battlefront deployment is generally managed at subsector/sector level or above.

Regular tanks.... It's not impossible that leman russ tanks or equivalents might be left, if its an armoured company that's demobilized. But the Munitorium would probably make every opportunity it could to hang on to them.


And yes, bear in mind that 'regimental demob' or 'death' are the only ways a regiment ends - that doesn't necessarily apply to individual guardsmen; if a regiment has just finished a campaign on a civilised, settled world, and an individual guardsman in the regiment has been injured to the point of no longer being useful to the regiment (or is now old enough to be same and no staff position requires them), the Imperium isn't going to waste the effort shipping a geriatric cripple to another warzone; they're going to leave them there.

It'd probably be an 'honourable discharge' - which essentially means 'sod off and starve on a street corner somewhere' but it's far from impossible. The rules would essentially be the same as 'regiment disbanded to settlement' but on a personal scale - there are a few examples of 'ex guardsmen' in the novels (like the medicae in Ravenor Returned) - so there must be a mechanism for individuals to leave a regiment.

Any tank short of a Baneblade or its variants is going to stay with the Regiment when it musters out. Those are all easily replaced. Baneblades? Going to stay with the DM and get rolled out to another Regiment to replace combat losses, or, even more likely, returned to the homeworld of the Regiment that received the planet to outfit the next Guard tithe.

The only real mention of this in the Black Library books would be one of the short stories in the Gaunt's Ghosts novel, which the core regiment of the now twice mixed regiment is trying to add more. They ended up in the old farm house of a former Imperial guard veteran who settled down to raise pigs, the original heraldic symbol of their regiment.

Basically, I think that the men of the regiment would get to keep their standard kit, much like the Swedish military gets to keep their kit after they retire from compulsory military service.

Just imagine a bunch of shell shocked 40-something year olds with 3+ decades of fighting sitting down in a 40 acre parcel of land in a pre-fab hut, a lho-stick glowing as he sits on the front porch, imagining the countless comrades that he has seen die to the unimaginable terror of the 41st millennium. With each slow drag, he stares out at the small head of grox that he was alloted by the Departmento Munitorum granted him with his discharge papers.

He has known one thing since his conscription, who knows what kind of world he was born on, this back water gak-hole, some where that's barely pencilled in on star maps, that will be lost in a few decades. War has been all he has known, it's all that will haunt him when he wakes up in the middle of the night to the sound of a grox knocking over a fence, or a tithe laden truck back fires on a run through the countryside.

As he puts out the lho-stick, walks past the lasgun propped up against the wall next to the front door, the other four charge packs sit in a charger plugged into a generator, to his bed, maybe he sleeps alone, maybe he had a lady who used to be a former joy-girl, who knows. I'm sure when the regiment settles down, the camp followers will also help populate the planet. This adds a whole more heap of people who will help start up the local economy, the local population centers and allow for everything to start with what a basic society needs. Taverns, Seamstresses, cooks, the works of a frontier town can be given ten-fold in the first wave of settling. Add in a Colonist ship or ten, and you have a planetary population to start with enough genetic stock to not allow for mutations to start too soon.

that's what I see in my mind at least.

To all the people insisting that superheavies would never be left behind:- I believe Salinas had a Capitol Imperialis (or was it three?) left behind on it, as well as thousands of Chimeras, Leman Russes and more to form the core of the new city inhabited by the retired Guardsmen after they won the planet. You literally had everyone living out of tanks.

Those are all disposable. They Imperium can make new Chimeras, LRBTs, and Capitol Imperiali. I wouldn't be surprised if it was simply not worth the effort to transfer those vehicles to new regiments instead of just making new ones. It might literally have been cheaper to just leave them with the regiment than spend all the fuel and logistical resources to transport them to a new regiment.

Err, Capitol Imperialis...es are bigger, rarer and more important than mere baneblades (for one thing, certain representations of them have been able to carry superheavy tanks).

I agree that in most cases the superheavies will be reclaimed, but it's a big galaxy; there'll be a few that get forgotten or lost (like Maximilian Weissman's one).

It's not usually a case of three dozen tank drivers trying to populate a virgin world like American pioneers. These guys will be coming in like conquistadors, ruling whatever population was already on the planet (be that previous colonists that have now been rescued from the Orks, or a newly-conquered planet which now finds itself lacking any form of higher government).

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
Err, Capitol Imperialis...es are bigger, rarer and more important than mere baneblades.

I agree that in most cases the superheavies will be reclaimed, but it's a big galaxy; there'll be a few that get forgotten or lost (like Maximilian Weissman's one).

It's not usually a case of three dozen tank drivers trying to populate a virgin world like American pioneers. These guys will be coming in like conquistadors, ruling whatever population was already on the planet (be that previous colonists that have now been rescued from the Orks, or a newly-conquered planet which now finds itself lacking any form of higher government).

I think this is easy to predict.

The idea is that you have to have a this very comprehensive understanding of what in the end are very simple truths about the nature of the background that allows you to say conclusively that something will never happen, anywhere in the Imperium. Oh wait, not never happen, but if you are smart, I mean really smart about warhammer, and have a perfect grasp of grimdark, then you'll know that they should not happen, usually, and that means no, it categorically can't happen. I know these things, I've read that life is cheap. so the baneblades thing, that's impossible.

There is, however, if you are going to rely on grimdark as an argument, a very uneven distribution of resources in the Imperium. Individuals are often granted enormous resources or very scanty resources, entirely dependent on the happenstance of how they came to govern a world, and how important that world was to fight for in the first place. It's actually very usual for very elaborate technology to be governed by feudal laws, and seems to happen all the time.

So, you could say that if there is a moderator valuable world that has resources worth fighting over, and if conquest if these worlds seems sometimes to be a question of extended pacification, where 40% of a planet is centrally governed by imperial commander and the rest of the planet is either uninhabited or exists in a tributary relationship with the planetary governor, and if it is the type of planet that is a good deal physically larger than a baneblade, then it should be pretty common to have a few baneblades appear in a PDF. Baneblades happen to be somewhat disparaged when compared to other resources like God-machines, and yet since God-machines happen to be military resources, they are often stationed at decently sized numbers as garrisons for planets, because they actually have to cover a certain amount of ground and be used in tactically relevant numbers.

I just don't think that the grimdark experts colloquium of the Northwest is really on point of this issue.

pelicaniforce wrote:

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
Err, Capitol Imperialis...es are bigger, rarer and more important than mere baneblades.

I agree that in most cases the superheavies will be reclaimed, but it's a big galaxy; there'll be a few that get forgotten or lost (like Maximilian Weissman's one).

It's not usually a case of three dozen tank drivers trying to populate a virgin world like American pioneers. These guys will be coming in like conquistadors, ruling whatever population was already on the planet (be that previous colonists that have now been rescued from the Orks, or a newly-conquered planet which now finds itself lacking any form of higher government).

I think this is easy to predict.

The idea is that you have to have a this very comprehensive understanding of what in the end are very simple truths about the nature of the background that allows you to say conclusively that something will never happen, anywhere in the Imperium. Oh wait, not never happen, but if you are smart, I mean really smart about warhammer, and have a perfect grasp of grimdark, then you'll know that they should not happen, usually, and that means no, it categorically can't happen. I know these things, I've read that life is cheap. so the baneblades thing, that's impossible.

There is, however, if you are going to rely on grimdark as an argument, a very uneven distribution of resources in the Imperium. Individuals are often granted enormous resources or very scanty resources, entirely dependent on the happenstance of how they came to govern a world, and how important that world was to fight for in the first place. It's actually very usual for very elaborate technology to be governed by feudal laws, and seems to happen all the time.

So, you could say that if there is a moderator valuable world that has resources worth fighting over, and if conquest if these worlds seems sometimes to be a question of extended pacification, where 40% of a planet is centrally governed by imperial commander and the rest of the planet is either uninhabited or exists in a tributary relationship with the planetary governor, and if it is the type of planet that is a good deal physically larger than a baneblade, then it should be pretty common to have a few baneblades appear in a PDF. Baneblades happen to be somewhat disparaged when compared to other resources like God-machines, and yet since God-machines happen to be military resources, they are often stationed at decently sized numbers as garrisons for planets, because they actually have to cover a certain amount of ground and be used in tactically relevant numbers.

I just don't think that the grimdark experts colloquium of the Northwest is really on point of this issue.

What did I just read? Are you a lawyer cause that's confusing or I'm stupid. Or maybe like four giant run on sentences. Or maybe you found a thesaurus. But I think you said "yea it can happen."

pelicaniforce wrote:

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
Err, Capitol Imperialis...es are bigger, rarer and more important than mere baneblades.

I agree that in most cases the superheavies will be reclaimed, but it's a big galaxy; there'll be a few that get forgotten or lost (like Maximilian Weissman's one).

It's not usually a case of three dozen tank drivers trying to populate a virgin world like American pioneers. These guys will be coming in like conquistadors, ruling whatever population was already on the planet (be that previous colonists that have now been rescued from the Orks, or a newly-conquered planet which now finds itself lacking any form of higher government).

I think this is easy to predict.

The idea is that you have to have a this very comprehensive understanding of what in the end are very simple truths about the nature of the background that allows you to say conclusively that something will never happen, anywhere in the Imperium. Oh wait, not never happen, but if you are smart, I mean really smart about warhammer, and have a perfect grasp of grimdark, then you'll know that they should not happen, usually, and that means no, it categorically can't happen. I know these things, I've read that life is cheap. so the baneblades thing, that's impossible.

There is, however, if you are going to rely on grimdark as an argument, a very uneven distribution of resources in the Imperium. Individuals are often granted enormous resources or very scanty resources, entirely dependent on the happenstance of how they came to govern a world, and how important that world was to fight for in the first place. It's actually very usual for very elaborate technology to be governed by feudal laws, and seems to happen all the time.

So, you could say that if there is a moderator valuable world that has resources worth fighting over, and if conquest if these worlds seems sometimes to be a question of extended pacification, where 40% of a planet is centrally governed by imperial commander and the rest of the planet is either uninhabited or exists in a tributary relationship with the planetary governor, and if it is the type of planet that is a good deal physically larger than a baneblade, then it should be pretty common to have a few baneblades appear in a PDF. Baneblades happen to be somewhat disparaged when compared to other resources like God-machines, and yet since God-machines happen to be military resources, they are often stationed at decently sized numbers as garrisons for planets, because they actually have to cover a certain amount of ground and be used in tactically relevant numbers.

I just don't think that the grimdark experts colloquium of the Northwest is really on point of this issue.

You're not wrong. If you look closely at PDFs armouries you'll find many strange things, most commonly non standard issue wargear and out of date tanks. IIRC it was stated in Imperial armour apocalypse that the Malcador tank often showed up in PDFs arsenal despite it being out of date and rarely used. I wouldn't be surprised if an adetpus mechanicus contingency plan involved keeping either damadged or fully functional super Heavy veichles somewhere in their manofactorums or armouries.

As far as I'm aware imperial law is a bit dodgy on the subject of ruling. Mostly it's "pay tithes and mind your own buisness" on a planetary basis. On a sector basis it's usually a question of long standing traditions or descendants of a particularly important individual. Sometimes the Inquisition, one of the adeptus or even the high lords of Terra that grants the ruling rights. I can definetly see one off these organizations granting "so and so" many super Heavy veichles or even titans to be included in a planets military resources. I wouldn't be surprised either if one such organization missed out on a few regiments when calculating wins and losses thus just simply have them remain. It also makes perfect sense for a sector governor to step in and demand a Super Heavy regiment be left on a world should they have won settling rights as well as the world being likely to become another military conflicts in the comming 100 years or so, or if he just wants an army of really big tanks to show off to his rivals. Imperial politics everybody

The source for the above is the dark heresy first edition sets of rule-and supplement books. I could look for specifics if people bother enugh to ask.

So to echo the words of Righteousrob: "Yeah it can happen"