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So, I'm an IG player, and I'm greatly interested with the universe. I was wondering, how does the Imperial Guard actually get onto planets? Cargo ships are nothing but big slow moving targets, hardly defended in their own rights, Valkyries aren't void capable last I checked so a fleet of them descending from orbit is about as useful as las gun against Necrons. Let alone all of the supplies and armor that would need transporting as well. I gave the wikis a cursory glance, but thought it easier to get other people to do it for me. Any help is appreciated, but until I know how I will assume that Guardsmen are shot out of a cannon and it's the survivors that fight.

You know how the space marines have thunderhawks, stormbirds, drop pods etc... for surgical insertion

The guard have landing ships the size of cruisers to drop entire armies in a go. take a look at the cover of the 5th ed codex and you can see them in the background. that big thing in the upper left corner.

 aphyon wrote:
You know how the space marines have thunderhawks, stormbirds, drop pods etc... for surgical insertion

The guard have landing ships the size of cruisers to drop entire armies in a go. take a look at the cover of the 5th ed codex and you can see them in the background. that big thing in the upper left corner.

I will look into this, thank you great sage, who is so wise in the ways of actually knowing things.

that said yeah those big ships are indeed big targets. but when you're bringing in a few dozen of em at a time what's a regiment of 3 killed on insertion?

Presumably, they pummel all anti-air placements from orbit first, or land in areas where resistance is light, and have the regiments slog it to the fight.

The Guard have loads of ways. The mass drops, like the ones on the 5th edition codex, are pretty crazy:



They also have various sizes of drop craft:

The Arvus Ligher is a small cargo shuttle that can transport troops to a planet, although it isn't really suitable for combat drops.

There are some craft mentioned in older publications, like the Tetrarch and the Devourer. I would use these as more of an indication that the Navy has access to various sizes of dropship, and use whatever they happen to have available.

That reminds me of an important point: the Guard itself has no dropships. They are completely dependant on the Navy for transport. The roles of ground and space forces were completely separated by order of The Emperor Himself, following the Heresy. The idea was that no one person should be able to command both the ability to wage war on the ground, and also move those forces to other planet. So the Navy and Guard have to work together.

In almost all descriptions where the IG are part of the planetfall, they send Marines, Scions, Elysians or other drop troops in to clear a beachhead before bringing in equipment.

Don't forget that planets are also big things and that its very hard to secure a whole world in one go. The guard might drop down from space a long way from the front lines and then have to slog the whole way there using air or ground transports. With them building large transportation networks as they go so for a long engagement troops might have a fairly well build road network after landing planetside before they get to the front lines and the mud and mess.

Their main weakness is, indeed, as they come down. For that they have to rely on the Navy to clear the skies for them and to also clear space around the world. Big deployments would be the kind of ting that they'd want to keep on the quiet so that the enemy doesn't surgically strike right at the moment they are lifting off or landing.

 Overread wrote:
The guard might drop down from space a long way from the front lines and then have to slog the whole way there using air or ground transports. With them building large transportation networks as they go so for a long engagement troops might have a fairly well build road network after landing planetside before they get to the front lines and the mud and mess.

This exact situation was detailed in the Siege of Vraks. The Guard made planetfall well away from the main enemy fortification, due to heavy anti-ship lasers. They then built a space port and rail network to keep their units supplied and reinforced, as they spent the next few years grinding through layers of defences.

Guants Ghosts describes two different Guard planetfalls. In one they do seem to be being deployed straight from drop ships into the fighting but it was essentially an archipelago with a promethium refinery or something so not a hardened defensive situation with lots of AA or anti-Orbital Weapons. Second, they have a massive like D-day times 1000 type insertion essentially against an entire continents hardened beach/fortress city. Everything from bulk landers, to drop ships, to even drop pods capable of carrying unaugmented humans.

BrianDavion wrote:
that said yeah those big ships are indeed big targets. but when you're bringing in a few dozen of em at a time what's a regiment of 3 killed on insertion?

That's basically the story of Fifteen Hours, no? I think it's fun when some Black Library authors try and solve the same kinds of problems that fans of the fluff also try to solve (as long as the answers they come up are interesting and believable, of course!).