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I have been slaving away while i am stuck on desk duty at work (due to an injury) working on making a TOE/Oder of Battle for an Astra Militarum Drop Infantry Regiment. If i understand correctly there is no combined arms for units smaller than the regimental level to help prevent a single regiment being to powerful in case they turn traitor.
So with that being said i was wondering if troops like stormtrooper's & Grenadier's would be apart of the regiment, and if specialized units like combat engineers, Artillery and so on would be part of the Regiment or not. (this is not asking specifically for my regiment but in general)

For example: United States Army Rangers has a Special Troops Battalion (STB) which has the Intelligence company, Reconnaissance company, communications company, and selections & training company. Then their is 3 standard ranger battalions.

Stormtroopers or Tempestus Scions would be from their own seperate unit. Either an independent company or regiment attached to an army group. Their units would either then fight together, essentially acting how one might imagine space marines. They'd be the shock troops or drop troops, the lynch pin for crucial battles/assassinations/capturing vital objectives.

Grenadiers on the other hand are simply Imperial Guardsmen with better equipment and training, but still apart of an infantry regiments order of battle. For example an infantry regiment might have their entire 1st company made up of Grenadiers, or they might have the 1st squad of every platoon made up of Grenadiers. Heavy infantry regiments might be entirely made up of Grenadiers.

Combat engineers would be a vital component of any infantry regiment. I imagine there would at least one engineering company attached to every infantry regiment. Someone has to build the bridges, or blow up the bridges. Lay the mines, or clear the minefield. Assess the trenches, dugouts, and fortifications for the GI's (I like to call them PBG's Poor Bloody Guardsmen).

Multiple regiments will typically be put together to form an army group, field army, battle group, etc. Then through cross regimental cooperation you might see combined arms warfare, just with more red tape. Regiments are also expected to fight to exhaustion, it's incredibly rare for Guard forces to see reinforcements from their home world. So you'll eventually start seeing all of the infantry regiments being shuffled together then potentially even having to shuffle the different regiment types together. The latter though would only be done in extreme desperation. Once the next wave of Guard forces arrive I'd expect a new round of reshuffling would happen and they'd be combined into the fresh regiments as hardened veterans.

I find it easier to think of IG regiments as Battalions. In 2nd ed an IG regiment was 3 Companies, which is about a Battalion. For example the 717th Cadian Regiment is actually the 717th Battalion of the Cadian regiment.

Sappers (read Combat Engineers) were part of the Royal engineers in British doctrine (at least in WW2) and attached as needed.

That's how I see it. But your head cannon can be different. In the end if it is for yourself, you only have to please yourself.

Tygre wrote:
I find it easier to think of IG regiments as Battalions. In 2nd ed an IG regiment was 3 Companies, which is about a Battalion. For example the 717th Cadian Regiment is actually the 717th Battalion of the Cadian regiment.

Sappers (read Combat Engineers) were part of the Royal engineers in British doctrine (at least in WW2) and attached as needed.

That's how I see it. But your head cannon can be different. In the end if it is for yourself, you only have to please yourself.

So, you see a single Cadian regiment from the planet Cadia and all the regiment numbers are company numbers?

TBH, it's all over the place.

The Imperial Guard has principally been written over the span of decades by dozens of different authors whose principal understanding of militaries appears to come from war movies.

Needless to say, there is little consistency or correlation to actual militaries beyond the terminology (which is often used incorrectly).

In lore, this is somewhat justified under the excuse that every regiment does it differently. So do whatever you want.
Chances are the bureaucrat that has to sign off on this stuff knows even less than the Black Library authors do so they'll just rubber stamp it anyways.

Jarms48 wrote:

Tygre wrote:
I find it easier to think of IG regiments as Battalions. In 2nd ed an IG regiment was 3 Companies, which is about a Battalion. For example the 717th Cadian Regiment is actually the 717th Battalion of the Cadian regiment.

Sappers (read Combat Engineers) were part of the Royal engineers in British doctrine (at least in WW2) and attached as needed.

That's how I see it. But your head cannon can be different. In the end if it is for yourself, you only have to please yourself.

So, you see a single Cadian regiment from the planet Cadia and all the regiment numbers are company numbers?

Battalion numbers, not company numbers.

The 2nd Grenadier Guards is not the 2nd Grenadier Guards regiment, it is the 2nd Battalion of the Grenadier Guards regiment. In the British Regimental system a Regiment is more of a recruiting area. The New Zealand regiment in WW2 contained multiple Divisions. The Grenadier Guards Regiment in WW2 had Infantry Battalions and Armoured Battalions just to add to the confusion.

The trouble with Regiments is that there is the British system and then there is everyone else. In the continental system (Europe and US) a regiment came to mean two Battalions and there were two Regiments in a Brigade. The US changed their Regimental system after WW2 to something else, which IMHO didn't work as well.

Do you see a Regiment as being 3 to 4 Companies as in a Battalion; 6 to 8 Companies as in half a Brigade; or do you see it being bigger.

In my head canon each "Regiment" is Battalion sized and populace planets generate 1000's of them. Which are sent off as needed and grouped into Brigades and Divisions as needed by the Munitorum.

I think some Black Library authors may have confused or conflated them with Divisions.

My advice is read Regiment as Battalion.

There's so many regiment architypes, such as:

- Armoured Regiment: Primarily consisting of Leman Russ tanks. May have individual companies of SPG's (Basilisk, Manticores, Wyverns, etc), SPAA's (Hydras), Hellhounds, Sentinels, Salamander Scouts, or Mechanised Infantry (Armoured Fists in Chimeras/Taurox's). More ancient or backwater systems may have Malcador tanks. Depending where the regiment is from in the universe it could also have Stygies Destroyer Tank Hunters, or Thunderers. Rarer still could have a single Super-heavy tank (Baneblade, Macharius).

Would have all manner of support vehicles. Ranging from Atlas's, Centaurs, Sentinel Powerlifters, and Trojans.

- Artillery Regiment: Primarily consisting of artillery pieces, either SPG and/or Carriage mounts. May have individual companies of SPAA's, Sentinels, Salamander Scouts, or Infantry as local security. Ancient or backwater systems might have Minotaurs. Depending where the regiment is from might have Praetors.

Their support vehicles would be Centaurs, Sentinel Powerlifters, and Trojans.

- Cavalry Regiment: Purely horse (or equivalent) mounted soldiers, may have carriage mounted heavy weapons. Such as Heavy Mortars, or Thudd guns. The cavalry troops themselves could range from Dragoons to Rough Riders.

Support units could be horse drawn wagons, mules, donkeys, etc.

- Drop Regiment: These guys are primarily infantry, which may or may not have carapace armour. They work in close co-operation with the Aeronautica Imperialis, so have primarily Valkyries, Vendettas, and Vultures. Any ground vehicles they may have would be Sentinels, Tauros buggies, Cyclops Demolition vehicles, and Tarantula Sentry Guns.

Their support vehicles would be Centaurs, and Sentinel Powerlifters.

- Heavy Infantry Regiment: A regiment of purely grenadier level infantry. They may make use of Tarantula Sentry Guns. Whilst they may also have individual companies of Sentinels (particularly Armoured Sentinels), attached Chimeras/Taurox's, and motorised transports (no specific vehicles in the rules). Finally, they could have all manner of Ab-humans as Auxilla.

Their support vehicles would be Centaurs, Sentinel Powerlifters, and Trojans.

- Hunter-Killer Regiment: A regiment consisting of purely Sentinels or Hellhounds. May have individual companies of SPG's (Basilisk, Manticores, Wyverns, etc), SPAA's (Hydras), Salamander Scouts, or Mechanised Infantry (Armoured Fists in Chimeras/Taurox's).

Their support vehicles would be Centaurs, Sentinel Powerlifters, and Trojans.

- Light Infantry Regiment: Purely an infantry focused regiment, no real heavy weapons of any kind. The heaviest weapons being things like melta guns, demolition charges, and/or missile launchers. They may even have specialist equipment such as camo-cloaks. May have an individual company of Scout Sentinels. They may also be bolstered by Ratlings.

Their support vehicles would be Centaurs or Sentinel Powerlifters.

- Line Infantry Regiment: Your typical infantry regiment. They may have individual companies of Sentinels, attached Chimeras/Taurox's, and motorised transports (no specific vehicles in the rules). Finally, they could have all manner of Ab-humans as Auxilla.

Their support vehicles would be Centaurs, Sentinel Powerlifters, and Trojans.

- Mechanised Infantry Regiment: An entire force of Armoured Fist units, all mounted in Chimeras or Taurox's. May have individual companies of SPG's (Basilisk, Manticores, Wyverns, etc), SPAA's (Hydras), Hellhounds, Sentinels, or Salamander Scouts.

Their support vehicles would be Centaurs, Sentinel Powerlifters, and Trojans.

- Reconnaissance Regiment: Can range from anything from a light infantry regiment. A vehicle bound recon regiment would consist of Sentinels, Salamander Scouts, supported by an individual company of Armoured Fist units.

Their support vehicles would be Centaurs, Sentinel Powerlifters, and Trojans.

- Siege Infantry Regiment: A very diverse regiment type, unique to the DKOK. Effectively a line infantry regiment supported by all manner of vehicles. May have individual companies of SPG's (Basilisk, Manticores, Wyverns, etc), SPAA's (Hydras), Leman Russes, Hellhounds, Sentinels, Salamander Scouts, or Mechanised Infantry (Armoured Fists in Chimeras/Taurox's), Super-heavy tanks, Super-heavy transports, etc. Truly perhaps the only true combined armed regiment.

Their support vehicles would be Atlas's, Centaurs, Sentinel Powerlifters, and Trojans.

- Super-heavy Regiment: Purely Baneblade or Macharius Heavy tanks, sometimes a mixture if vehicles as Macharius tanks are typically easier and more commonly produced as such may replace Baneblade losses.

Their support vehicles would be Atlas's. They'd never be asked to fight alone, and would be attached to army groups.

- Abhuman Regiment: Very rarely seen fighting by themselves. Typically they're broken up into companies and dispersed across the galaxy.

Damn, that's a pretty solid breakdown.

The Astra Militarum/Imperial Guard lore (just within the Codexes) is loose enough to allow someone to come up with pretty much anything for a head-cannon TO&E.

The 5th Edition Codex tells us that Regiments raised for the IG take their name from their homeworld and a number. The 144th Cadian is the 144th Regiment raised from Cadia. The book also says that Regimental numbers can be recycled. So your number can be anything, but each Regiment is a Regiment.

The 5th Edition Codex also tells us that while forces that serve to defend the homeworld may be split into battalions, divisions, cohorts but for the IG there is only the Regiment. So there! There is only the Regiment in the IG/AM and each one is a distinct organizational entity. They do work in Battle Groups and Army Groups on operations.

That codex also says that "an Imperial Guard regiment is largely uniform in its composition. Infantry regiments, for example, are unlikely to contain much or any heavy artillery, whilst tank regiments contain little or no infantry." he 8th Edition codex uses similar language. So "largely" and "unlikely" give you some of wiggle room when designing a fan-fic regiment. The lore does indicate, though, that Regiments are meant to be homogenous in terms of arms to mitigate against rebellion/subversion.

TangoTwoBravo wrote:

That codex also says that "an Imperial Guard regiment is largely uniform in its composition. Infantry regiments, for example, are unlikely to contain much or any heavy artillery, whilst tank regiments contain little or no infantry." he 8th Edition codex uses similar language. So "largely" and "unlikely" give you some of wiggle room when designing a fan-fic regiment. The lore does indicate, though, that Regiments are meant to be homogenous in terms of arms to mitigate against rebellion/subversion.

You would be surprised how many people disagree with me when I say that.

Two cast iron methods to allow a guard regiment to deviate from the normal single-role organisation.

Ancient battle honour - in the year blah blah blah, this regiment did something super awesome, possibly in concert with some other regiments, and in return they were permitted by the high lords, some warmaster or other, or even the Emperor himself, to stay as a combined arms regiment.

Munitorum Bureaucratic error - some poor scribe some here mistyped something and therefore two dissimilar regiments were amalgamated into a single formation, like the two infantry regiments from the Cain books.

Another method is to have a multi-regiment force in some kind of combined arms division. You can have them all wear the same colours and have the same kind of markings, with just slight variations to show the core regimental speciality.

One note on the superheavy tank regiments (since I own one)

3-5 vehicles is a single company, meaning most regiments have several companies.

I've organized my Super Heavy Tank Regiment the following way:

Regimental HQ and H&S Company:
1x Super Heavy Tank (command vehicle)
- Regimental Commander & Staff
- Mechanicus Delegation (for care and feeding of the tanks)
- Regimental attachments

7 Companies of 3 Superheavy tanks, for 21 total (each company is a single type, but the type can vary between companies).

1 Maintenance and Ordnance Company
- Company Commander
- Engineers (Company command squad with flamers/melta)
- 3x Trojan
- 3x Atlas

I have a google drive document that goes into much greater detail if anyone is curious.

While everything is all over the place in the fluff, you can do a campaign one so assume army group command has outfitted them for whatever independent level of operations your fluff has.

Then start with the transport (multiple regiments) or cruiser (1 regiment traditionally though in theory they are build to be able to transport 10,000 men with equipment taking up more space than men etc.), navy wings necessary to get them to the surface and work down from there with the attachments in keeping with their mission.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

1 Maintenance and Ordnance Company
- Company Commander
- Engineers (Company command squad with flamers/melta)
- 3x Trojan
- 3x Atlas

I have a google drive document that goes into much greater detail if anyone is curious.

No replacement crews? Could stick a company of infantry in and say crew replacements, base security etc.

 XenoHands wrote:
I have been slaving away while i am stuck on desk duty at work (due to an injury) working on making a TOE/Oder of Battle for an Astra Militarum Drop Infantry Regiment. If i understand correctly there is no combined arms for units smaller than the regimental level to help prevent a single regiment being to powerful in case they turn traitor.
So with that being said i was wondering if troops like stormtrooper's & Grenadier's would be apart of the regiment, and if specialized units like combat engineers, Artillery and so on would be part of the Regiment or not. (this is not asking specifically for my regiment but in general)

For example: United States Army Rangers has a Special Troops Battalion (STB) which has the Intelligence company, Reconnaissance company, communications company, and selections & training company. Then their is 3 standard ranger battalions.

Hope you get off desk duty shortly and back to Drop Trooping!

I think you have a lot of freedom when creating the backstory for a Regiment. The various Codexes give flexibility in terms of size, with anywhere from 3 to 20 Companies in a Regiment before attachments and detachments. So if you are creating a Drop Troop Regiment you could have several Infantry Companies backed up with a couple of Support Companies with Heavy Weapons Platoons, Scouts, Sappers, you name it. So you could have Mortar Platoons (Heavy Weapon platoons with Mortars), Anti-Tank Platoons (Heavy Weapons Platoons with Missile Launchers) and Heavy Guns Platoons (Heavy Weapons Platoons with Autocannons). I see no reason why you couldn't have Regimental Sapper Platoons. You could splice Veteran Squads throughout your force (Grenadiers?). What would be weird would be integral tanks, APCs, heavy artillery etc. Sentinels might make some sense?

The current Codex lacks the customization of the 2003 Codex, but in terms of Head-Cannon you have freedom. Rules-wise the Tempestus Scions fit the Drop Trooper thing, but they are also quite limited.

The_Real_Chris wrote:
No replacement crews? Could stick a company of infantry in and say crew replacements, base security etc.

I could do, but I try to stick to the old fluff about Guard units not having any of a different arm (e.g. infantry or artillery) from what their regiment is. Superheavy tanks are (at least in my headcanon) typically not deployed in austere basing arrangements where they'd need their own security. Usually, they'd be at a larger battlegroup-base/FOB.

Crew replacements are plausible, but such highly trained crewmen and their neural augmetics would never be used as infantry - at least, again, in my headcanon. I'm sure someone would throw expensively-trained and cybernetically-equipped-for-tanks crewmen into battle as line troopers in an emergency, but in the Guard, some lives do in fact matter.

 XenoHands wrote:
I have been slaving away while i am stuck on desk duty at work (due to an injury) working on making a TOE/Oder of Battle for an Astra Militarum Drop Infantry Regiment. If i understand correctly there is no combined arms for units smaller than the regimental level to help prevent a single regiment being to powerful in case they turn traitor.

Generally not, but there are exceptions, because of course there always are. It will depend on the planet and military operation in question, and often the individual author.

So with that being said i was wondering if troops like stormtrooper's & Grenadier's would be apart of the regiment, and if specialized units like combat engineers, Artillery and so on would be part of the Regiment or not. (this is not asking specifically for my regiment but in general)

They can be. DKoK regiments clearly have combat engineers, Grenadiers, and line infantry as part of the same regiment for example, artillery however is generally attached separately. Scions specifically however would be their own regiments.

 Vaktathi wrote:
They can be. DKoK regiments clearly have combat engineers, Grenadiers, and line infantry as part of the same regiment for example, artillery however is generally attached separately. Scions specifically however would be their own regiments.

IIRC one of the past IG Codices like 3rd edition mentioned how the regiment was a unit of administrative organization as a roughly starship's transport capacity during the Great Crusade. Then in the warzones, the regiments could be reorganized into larger formations like divisions for the duration of a planet's campaign.

We know many regiments already exist more on paper than in actual battle such as Abhuman regiments, and superheavy regiments (with the superheavy tanks often being assigned as individual companies to support others).

It's the same in the latest codex. Armour/Arty/Abhumans are often broken into smaller forces and attached to Infantry regiments to provide battlefield support, i.e. the Cadian 121st (Infantry) is supported by the Cadian 4th Armoured and Cadian 65th Artillery. There are mixed regiment taskforces, in fact, they are probably more common, but for in-game purposes, it's assumed they're all the same base regiment unless you are taking multiple detachments.

The_Real_Chris wrote:

Then start with the transport (multiple regiments) or cruiser (1 regiment traditionally though in theory they are build to be able to transport 10,000 men with equipment taking up more space than men etc.), navy wings necessary to get them to the surface and work down from there with the attachments in keeping with their mission.

10,000 men is ungodly small. That's why I always say GW has issues with scale, here's an example:

A civilized world has a population of 10 billion people. They have a PDF size of 1% of the total population. That's 100 millions PDF soldiers across the entire planet. The tithe comes along and takes the typical 10% of the PDF number into the Guard. That's 10 million Guardsmen.

So if a regiment is roughly 10,000 thousand soldiers. You've just raised 1,000 regiments. Which could be repeated, yearly. Without severely impacting the planetary population.

The_Real_Chris wrote:

No replacement crews? Could stick a company of infantry in and say crew replacements, base security etc.

If they're piloting Baneblades, I wouldn't be keeping them as infantry. They'd be taken in chimeras for protection, or replacements would simply be drawn from any accompanying armoured regiments. Just like in the novel Baneblade.

The way I sees it, when they say "regiment" they mean battalions as we know them, specifically in the British sense. As Tygre says above. I feel this confuses a lot of Americans because of the unfamiliarity of the county regiments which the guard use on a much grander scale. Battalions incorporate support units from other units as well as the majority of the unit (if they are droptroopers or a line infantry regiment or whatever). The actual regiment part is named after the planet. So Cadia, Valhalla, Tallarn etc. Each numbered IG "regiment" is the same as a numbered battalion. So the 8th Cadians and the 51st Cadians are battalions of the Cadian regiment. They might be backed up from a squadron from the 7th armoured Cadians as well.

I guess maybe they chose regiment because it sounds better, or that it is easier for people long term. Or maybe because there's meant to be so many bodies in a Guard regiment, calling them battalions simply didn't suffice.

I'd suggest looking at British army troop placement during the first and second world war for the best idea of it and how you can incorporate your own stuff into it as you like.

As with all of these questions, I always say, it doesn't really matter in the end. You can always say sod that and do what you like!

 Olthannon wrote:
The way I sees it, when they say "regiment" they mean battalions as we know them, specifically in the British sense. As Tygre says above. I feel this confuses a lot of Americans because of the unfamiliarity of the county regiments which the guard use on a much grander scale. Battalions incorporate support units from other units as well as the majority of the unit (if they are droptroopers or a line infantry regiment or whatever). The actual regiment part is named after the planet. So Cadia, Valhalla, Tallarn etc. Each numbered IG "regiment" is the same as a numbered battalion. So the 8th Cadians and the 51st Cadians are battalions of the Cadian regiment. They might be backed up from a squadron from the 7th armoured Cadians as well.

I guess maybe they chose regiment because it sounds better, or that it is easier for people long term. Or maybe because there's meant to be so many bodies in a Guard regiment, calling them battalions simply didn't suffice.

I'd suggest looking at British army troop placement during the first and second world war for the best idea of it and how you can incorporate your own stuff into it as you like.

As with all of these questions, I always say, it doesn't really matter in the end. You can always say sod that and do what you like!

I see where you are going (I'm a serving Canadian soldier with a Regimental system), but the 4th Ed Codex tells us: "On their home worlds, the forces who serve to defend the planet may have split into battalions, divisions....but, in the Imperial Guard there is only the Regiment." My read is that each Regiment is a self-contained organizational entity regardless of how many Regiments have been raised by their home world. So the 8th Cadians are a Regiment and the 51st Cadians are a Regiment.

just to add to the confusion, their was a long standing, unspoken convention in place that a battalion of a named regiment was normally referred to as the named regiment, unless their was a need to distinguish it form a sister battalion. So, for example, 2/duke of lancs and 3/duke of lancs would both have been referred to "the Duke of Lancasters regiment" in common speech and in quite a lot of semi-formal reporting, unless they were both serving in the same geographical area, or in formal documents that might be read without the context of which battalion was being referred to. A quick after action report for a brigade commander would just say the "the duke of lancs", becuase the brigade staff would know which battalion of the duke of lancs was in their brigade, but medal citation for the same action would specify that it was the 2nd battalion, the Duke of Lancaster's regiment, for clarity.



and to add more confusion into the 40k side of things, I recall reading lore form the old imperial guard codexs (i dont think its been overruled) that while the manuals refer to "regiments" formed of "companies", formed of "platoons", the unit titles varied wildly as many planets had different naming conventions for those echelons of command (ie, one planet might have "legions" formed of "cohorts" formed of "centuries", and another might have "Myriads", formed of "battlegroups", formed of "combat teams", etc, etc), so having a formation that is "regiment sized" but called a "battalion" is perfectly OK.


that said, the 40K regiments are much bigger than a real world battalion, but about right for a IRL regiment/brigade in terms of fighting troops at ~3,000 (units of that size have been called both "regiment" and "brigade" by various historical armies, depending on the exact hierarchy of that army, its doctrine, etc). The fact they dont have organic combat support troops (ie armour, arty, etc integrated into the unit as a permeant fixture) would be a problem IRL, but the in lore reason is well established, and as far as i can tell service support troops (signals, medical, logistics, etc) are still integrated into the unit and as ignored by 40k writers as they are by real life writers

Each world having its own potential names for unit designation is one of those bits that makes you remember that 40k is still a bit silly in a good way.

 Gert wrote:
Each world having its own potential names for unit designation is one of those bits that makes you remember that 40k is still a bit silly in a good way.

oh, it gets better. the same piece of lore mentioned it wasnt just unit titles, but ranks as well that were subject to this planetary variation. so a "lieutenant" might be a headman, group leader, Centurion, etc. the Administratum has something similar to the NATO rank scale to allow for meaningful interactions between all this divergent rank and unit structures and to establish a workable chain of command.

I know the Ghost's series is just the Bible for Guard stories but even so, it shows the way different regiments co-operate or don't in so many ways. Like how despite General Grizimund technically outranking (Colonel-Commissar) Gaunt, Grizimund can't take command because he is an armour officer but doesn't mind anyway.

I always felt that was weird actually. The armor officer / infantry dichotomy. If the only infantry officer surviving was a 2nd Lieutenant, and General Grizmund was present, would the 2nd Lt. be in command?

I think in that instance no, since seniority on the generals part would override the Infantry/Armour command split. However, the General would more likely give general orders and leave the Infantry officer to carry them out however they say fit.