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I know this is more a 'proposed rules' thing, but it's specifically 30k and was hoping to pick people's brain.

I always knew that in rogue trader era, imperial guard assault troops were a thing (they survived into the first couple of editions of Epic), but I'd never previously seen artwork of them.
Since found it:



also, found some artwork from a similar era with the Imperial Guard Land Speeder:


I was wondering how these might get put into an Imperialis Militia army list - both fit nicely in the Fast Attack slot, which at the moment has only the Thunderbolt (which is rather too 'elite' for a lot of militia armies) and the Sentinal (which is nice, but do you really want a dozen sentinals to be your only options).

Assault Troops
They've got a jump pack and a pair of pistols. In order for them to be vaguely useful, I can imagine them being issued with a brace of blast pistols - essentially "elephant gun calibre" laspistols, which only have a 6" range but pack a serious punch. That might make for an interesting unit - more or less akin to Seraphim, they can bounce forward and gunslinger the hell out of a unit at close range (within 6" they actually put out more firepower than rapid-firing legion bolters, albeit that they're gonna die to any survivors. They don't look like they're wearing carapace (which would be nice) but that would be a nice option, as might meltabombs or a demo charge. Still, a squad of 10-20 dudes bouncing forwards and waving pistols at people should make a nice mess. They won't be able to take discipline masters or medicae orderlies, as they're jump pack troops, but if they're expendable it might be nice.


Land Speeders
The land speeder is clearly the same as the first metal land speeder model - which was the marine one, and is therefore an equivalent of the 'normal' land speeder - the 2HP AV10/10/10 one, which makes it noticeably more fragile than the crusade-era Astartes one. The weapons on the model look like a Heavy Bolter and what I'd probably declare to be a Rotor Cannon. Not exactly the most awesome firepower in the world, even if it is a hell of a lot of shots. I'd suggest the addition of a rotor cannon probably balances out dropping the heavy bolter from BS4 to BS3. It should probably pick up open-topped, too - the reason the 'normal' one in 40k doesn't have it is that power armoured crew usually ignore open-topped.

Compared to the Sentinal, you lose scout, gain fast instead of walker, and pick up a rotor cannon as a secondary weapon. Maybe up it to 40 points? Option-wise, pointedly sticking with one 'heavy' and one 'special' weapon (which the rotor cannon is) helps keep the power reigned in compared to legion speeders

Those weren't sentinels, they're called Stegatanks!

But, yes, classic Assault Troopers would be a lovely little addition. Also, chuck in Imperial Militia Bikes and, not forgetting, Jetbikes!

There's a wealth of background material that Forgeworld are exploring. I've seen these mentioned referenced in the HH black books and various Imperial Armour volumes:

- Jocasta pattern grav-attack. The famous deodorant tank!
- Orgus Flyer
- Furibundus Dreadnought (they've hinted that this is being 'investigated')
- Lucifer pattern dreadnoughts

I meant that the only 'ground unit' currently in the Militia fast attack is the sentinel; the picture I assume is a stegatank as it's from the page which describes it - I always assumed (from the name) that the steg would be a four-limbed walker not two-limbed.

bikes and jetbikes would be nice. Jetbikes are possibly a bit 'high tech' for the militia (legion, fine, maybe solar auxilia).

For similar reasons, the land speeder might be a bit high end. I dunno. Speeders are a quite feasible thing to see on a world with reasonable tech as a recon unit. For that reason - and to make them tactically distinct from sentinals - giving them a nuncio-vox might be nice; spotting for artillery is a classic 'light attack craft job'. They shouldn't be charging forwards with graviton and melta weapons like their better-armoured astartes counterparts.

Some sort of combination bike/cavalry unit would be nice from a gameplay perspective and to give guard players something to use rough riders as.

The old style helmets and chest plates are cool - it'd be nice to have a head/torso set (much like the renegades) that could slot into the cadian set.

My was at the name of the unit, not directed at you by the way.

You could easily explain away access to Jetbikes and the like in a local militia - survivors of the dark age seems like a good way to unlock it (similar to Rhinos and Land Raiders).

I've actually got a mound of Rogue Trader guard and have plans to make a militia force out of 'em at some point...

Maybe I am wrong, but wouldn't we see three levels of soldier caliber; Imperial Militia (Irregulars, mercenaries and abhuman formations.), Imperial Army (Predecessors to the Imperial Guard, where you would see the Assault squads, speeder bikes, grav tanks, etc...) and the Solar Auxilla.

I would think the units you are discussing would fit into the ORBAT of the Imperial Army. I believe, long ago, in a far away galaxy, there was talk of the regular Imperial Army and if they would be done.

Mat

If you go through the Rogue Trader book there is much more art depicting other Imperial Militia units. A couple that spring to mind, are some small tanks like the DKoK Centaur and a number of elongated wheeled vehicles.

When it comes to those larger Walkers, I think to do them justice you'd need to approach them as Predator but as a walker... I picture it as the mundane version of a dreadnought, where unlike a dreadnought they're built in such a way that a crew can enter and exit and don't have the advantages of being hardwired in or any of the other advanced systems Marine vehicles utilize. Based on their proportions they likely have a number of crew members.

EDIT: Here some others:

 combat engineer wrote:
Maybe I am wrong, but wouldn't we see three levels of soldier caliber; Imperial Militia (Irregulars, mercenaries and abhuman formations.), Imperial Army (Predecessors to the Imperial Guard, where you would see the Assault squads, speeder bikes, grav tanks, etc...) and the Solar Auxilla.

I would think the units you are discussing would fit into the ORBAT of the Imperial Army. I believe, long ago, in a far away galaxy, there was talk of the regular Imperial Army and if they would be done.

Mat

The Imperial Army as you're talking about it is really more of something that comes into existent when the Millitias are reorganized into something more than a garrisoning force. At this point in the Heresy the term Imperial Army is used to generically and collectively refer to all the non-astartes ground forces.

Indeed. "Imperial Army" is the collective term - the entry on the Allies table - covering Militia, Solar Auxilia and anything else they chose to throw in, much like "Mechanicum" covers the regular Taghmata as well as the specialist arms of Ordo Reductor, Legio Cybernetica and Collegia Titanicus.



You could easily explain away access to Jetbikes and the like in a local militia - survivors of the dark age seems like a good way to unlock it (similar to Rhinos and Land Raiders).
Fair comment. Might be relevant for speeders too, thinking about it.

Thinking some more, and looking at aka_mythos post, I don't see why you can't have Dreadnoughts for the Imperial Army - as said, they wouldn't be hardwired directly, but some sort of MIU implant or even more basic could be imagined and would be more of a heavy walker type rather than a sentinel. I seem to recall that, in some of the original Adeptus Titanicus books, there's talk of Imperial Guard Dreadnoughts being used in some of the story snippets.

 zedmeister wrote:
Thinking some more, and looking at aka_mythos post, I don't see why you can't have Dreadnoughts for the Imperial Army - as said, they wouldn't be hardwired directly, but some sort of MIU implant or even more basic could be imagined and would be more of a heavy walker type rather than a sentinel. I seem to recall that, in some of the original Adeptus Titanicus books, there's talk of Imperial Guard Dreadnoughts being used in some of the story snippets.

In the Rogue Trader era Dreadnoughts had a variety of options, one was pretty much how they are today, one was MIU and the third was piloted conventionally like a sentinel. IG could pretty much use the latter two. IF Militia or Auxilia got the RT era dreadnoughts, they probably wouldn't be much better than the IG's Armored Sentinels. Those dreads had a lascannon and missile launcher with either arm being upgraded to a power fist with bolter or flamer. To that end it'd be easy enough to tack on as an upgrade to an Armoured Sentinel entry if we had one.

It's unfortunate but I don't think FW has much interest in supporting Imperial Militia beyond the minimal units we've gotten that barely make them viable. Just as they did with Ogryns we should have had a number of basic vehicle unit entries to represent the mismatched variety of things available to them.

I realize it might be inconsistent... But does anyone else think the old "lawn chair" land speeders should be sorta reinvented as something like a jet bike attack bike? It'd be a 2W, 2 different heavy weapon jet bike.

I think the greatest thing about looking at all these old RT era drawings for inspiration is how well they fill out the Fast Attack sections of Auxilia and Militia, which are both pretty lacking.

Also does anyone else here wish FW had resculpted the old RT era Imperial Army miniatures as Militia?

I think when it comes to some of these units some are more appropriately Solar Auxilia than Imperial Militia. I think jump pack infantry with twin pistols, RT era conventional dreadnoughts, and jetbikes and lawn chair speeders... would fit into Solar Auxilia while the Militia would more appropriately have rough riders and the larger sentinels while Survivors of the Dark Age open up the speeder and jetbikes.


Here are some more RT era art pieces:

It's unfortunate but I don't think FW has much interest in supporting Imperial Militia beyond the minimal units we've gotten that barely make them viable. Just as they did with Ogryns we should have had a number of basic vehicle unit entries to represent the mismatched variety of things available to them.

I realize it might be inconsistent... But does anyone else think the old "lawn chair" land speeders should be sorta reinvented as something like a jet bike attack bike? It'd be a 2W, 2 different heavy weapon jet bike.

I think the greatest thing about looking at all these old RT era drawings for inspiration is how well they fill out the Fast Attack sections of Auxilia and Militia, which are both pretty lacking.

Also does anyone else here wish FW had resculpted the old RT era Imperial Army miniatures as Militia?

The 'Paranoia Vulture Squad Trooper' helmets is something I want to have a try at sculpting myself, to be honest. But yeah, I'd love to see them (plus old-style spindly lasguns) as additional resin head/torsos (just like the renegade militia).


To be honest, this guy looks a lot like a Veletarii.

The 'lawn chair' would be nice - as noted as auxilia/militia units.

Well, we've got sky slayer Jetbikes coming up. Perhaps they've been reinvented as a two seater flying chair jetbike?

 zedmeister wrote:
Well, we've got sky slayer Jetbikes coming up. Perhaps they've been reinvented as a two seater flying chair jetbike?

i'm still 70% certain it's gonna be like the quad mortar support battery (no new models, but I different way to run current ones. I.e. maybe skyfire or more special weapons in the squad)

The more I look at these walkers the more I wish FW would give us something interesting in the form of a heavier armed multi-seat sentinel.

 Brennonjw wrote:

 zedmeister wrote:
Well, we've got sky slayer Jetbikes coming up. Perhaps they've been reinvented as a two seater flying chair jetbike?

i'm still 70% certain it's gonna be like the quad mortar support battery (no new models, but I different way to run current ones. I.e. maybe skyfire or more special weapons in the squad)

The word is that its the same Jetbike models, but that every model in the squad can upgrade heavy weapons.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

locarno24 wrote:

It's unfortunate but I don't think FW has much interest in supporting Imperial Militia beyond the minimal units we've gotten that barely make them viable. Just as they did with Ogryns we should have had a number of basic vehicle unit entries to represent the mismatched variety of things available to them.

I realize it might be inconsistent... But does anyone else think the old "lawn chair" land speeders should be sorta reinvented as something like a jet bike attack bike? It'd be a 2W, 2 different heavy weapon jet bike.

I think the greatest thing about looking at all these old RT era drawings for inspiration is how well they fill out the Fast Attack sections of Auxilia and Militia, which are both pretty lacking.

Also does anyone else here wish FW had resculpted the old RT era Imperial Army miniatures as Militia?

The 'Paranoia Vulture Squad Trooper' helmets is something I want to have a try at sculpting myself, to be honest. But yeah, I'd love to see them (plus old-style spindly lasguns) as additional resin head/torsos (just like the renegade militia).


To be honest, this guy looks a lot like a Veletarii.

The 'lawn chair' would be nice - as noted as auxilia/militia units.

I agree he does look similar, but I'd say this guy is wearing power armor. He's very much a Survivor of the Dark Age with power armor and enhanced lasgun.