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Hello, I am new to this forum, and I signed up to see how people might respond to an Imperial Guard fluff I had recently conceived. Although the bigger details and army list is sketchy, I just want to hear from other people, and get some suggestions and critiques. And see if the atmosphere sounds about right.

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The Wasteland survivors of Novac

Army: Imperial Guard, inspired by wasteland fiction like Fallout, The Road, and Armored Trooper: VOTOMS

Background:
The planet of Novac was colonized relatively recently, in the 39th Millennium in Segmentum Tempestus. While the men and women of the imperium expected a lush and habitable planet, they were met with only a desolate wasteland. While not completely hostile like the death world of Catachan, it was impossible to grow large quantities of vegetation, or support a wide variety of life. The Imperial settlers were not geared towards this type of hardcore colonization, and suffered grim outlooks. To their horrors, the planet was in the course of a bitter stalemate between the Tau and the Necrons. With no tanks, Carapace armor, or any Imperial Guards to protect them from these overwhelming threats, the colonizers were entrusted with the task of surviving, and reclaiming the planet for the Empire.

As amazing as it may seem, the humans, with their strong resolution to survive, managed to somehow outlive the two mighty alien races, and decided to live amongst the ruins of the two civilizations. This, however, did not mean the end for the struggle of the surviving humans. With only a small amount of arable land, and the intense radiation the planet emitted, the humans were not able to create any large settlements that could be accepted as cities, and lived by the little they could salvage. The fact that the Tau periodically tried to retake the planet, and that the Necrons would occasionally resurrect from their shutdown did not help this tragic fate.

While a small number of men were indeed able to build small settlements and farms amongst the chaos, most decided to live a life of marauding, pillaging, and constant warfare. Others who were strong enough to trust only in their lasguns wandered across the wasteland known as Novac.

By the time the Imperium finally came to aid the colonizers, the men were changed inside out, in ways that differed significantly from humans across the Imperium, some of which both harmed and benefitted these men when they were inducted into the Imperial Guards:

-Although not outright heretics, “Novacians” are not strong believers of the God Emperor, and do not trust in authority figures in general. Even the elite few who could be considered as “commanders” are often not leaders, but sheriffs, marauder captains, bandits, or lone wanderers. Even individual soldiers are outright individualists, and do not accept the idea of dying for the God-Emperor. Because of this, even with their strong hearts, the Novacians have very low leadership values, retreat easily, and often abandon objectives for their lives. As a biproduct, Novacians are swift, and abnormally survivable.

-The civilian backgrounds of the Novacians never gave them the chance to ever have tanks or specialized gear or troops (such as stormtroopers, abhumans, techpriests, and even commissars) in their ranks. To replace the appalling lack of special weaponry, the Novacians are known to use salvaged weapons from the Tau and the Necrons into their arsenal.

-The relatively small number of Novacians make each soldiers much more expensive than the run of the mill Imperial Guard. However, the experiences accumulated from three millennia of survival has granted Novacian Imperial Guards many abilities that make them stand out from the average guardsmen. These men move through terrains with ease and proficiency, and do not suffer from accuracy penalties while firing on the move.

-Elites and heroes of the Novacian Imperial Guards are known to have gained the uncanny “power” to survive under suicidal situations. Opposing armies have often witnessed the nearly impossible toughness the elites of Novacians possess, and are unable to explain why. Inquisitors who have been investigating this matter coined the term “Abnormal Survivor’s Genes”, which theorizes that many of the lone individuals have gained the ability to somehow make certain fatal situations simply graze them, or turn non-fatal, like miracles. Although the legitimacy of this theory is hotly debated among the knowledgeable, the fact that some special individuals have astounding survival rates is not questioned.

im interested to see some pictures showing how you will make tau/necron combined technology to make something that is equal to a lasgun... :p sounds fun anyway!

This sounds cool. I think the story needs a little furnishing, but otherwise it's great!

Don't have pictures.

I am not an avid modeler (yet), and don't have a proper outlook of what my troops would look like, and what doctrines would fit my soldiers. That is probably why I am here.

The background I just provided is just my opinion on how all the Imperial Guard regiments are just expandable red shirts. I thought it would be interesting for a player to use a "relatively" small band of semi-chem addicted, hard to kill, lasgun wielding Urban-Wasteland survivors fight against high tech warriors or dangerous monstrosities.

I know it is ridiculous, but what do you think about all of the Elite soldiers having two wounds, 7 toughness, "It will not Die", "Outflank", and "Hit and Run" as their characteristics, at the cost of having crappy weapons (compared to Elites in other armies).

Although pictures will not be coming any time soon, I will soon come up with a HQ list.

Honest criticism is appreciated.

The changes you are suggesting (no offense) are ridiculous.... stormies are as elite as you are going to get..... two wounds on special characters is ok but on elite choices.. im sorry but ogryns only acceptable multiwound model that could be there.... and all those rules in combination would make a good elite choice, just not for guard... it would be too expensive and Should/would die relatively easily..... "it will not die" does not belong anywhere in a guard codex IMHO

Thank you for your opinion, and I think you probably are right in that regard. I am not 100% familiar with the rules, after all.

I can see that you have already read all of my posts. So, how about taking the two wound and It will not die out of the elites, and reserving it for only the "hero" characters?

Lore wise, what would be good characteristics for guards, without making them too bloody expensive, while keeping them surviveable?

Lorewise and table wise the traits of guard that make them good are their expendability, their numbers, and their damage output.... im guessing that the one you will most be happy with is the third with lots of damage output and the ability to put them where you want them... unfortunately for you that job is already done satisfactorily by both stormies and Vendetta/Chimera vets... Survivability for guard is how fast you can take out your opponent vs how fast they can take you out..... they can do the second fast (in equal numbers), therefore the obvious answer is to upgrade your ability to do the first. How you want to do that i dont know.. think of something cool... then post those rules in the proposed rules thread..

While I like the idea of a Fallout style gaurd army you really need to read the fluff behind some of this armies. The Nercons for example it sounds like the world is one of their Tomb worlds or there is something of value to them there and believe me when I say that those colonists didn't have a paryer. The Tau would have been killed off completely and would have avoided the planet from then on. That war wouldn't have lasted long. As for using xenos tech that would have had them killed by the Empire for that is a big no in the Empire. Now I don't mean to offened you or say no to your idea, but you need to go on to 40k wiki at least and read up on the fluff of 40k.

The idea of guard having survival skills in a Fallout style is a really good idea. So here is my thoughts on the matter instead of mixed xeno teach give them autoguns that would keep with the whole working with what you got and would give them a different look than your standard guard units. Keeping with the no tanks idea which is a huge change in working with guard make heavy weapons teams more of common thing with them. You could also give them a special rule for getting cover saves and better ones if they are already in cover. Just some ideas game wise. To work with it more I would advice getting the IG codex if you don't have it yet and work from there.

As for the fluff not bad as a whole just need to get your fluff right. My advice here would be the planet after years of hard fighting with the orks had all but destoryed all of the great cities of Novac and for years still the fighting raged with the people of Novac having to fight without modern weapons (aka the lasgun also known as the flashlight gun) and heavy armor finaly defeated the orks. Though the cost was great the Empire still demanded its tithes and while the people of Novac couldn't send whole armies they could send small units of elite guardsmen. As for not strong believers of the God-Emperor you need to watch how you do this one, but it can be done. As far as being independent and having low leadership instead of that how about they can't take orders from CCS or PCS and give them a higher leadership value to support the idea of being independent.

The fluff is ok, but no salvaging Necron weaponry or vehicles. Not even the Ad Mech has been able to successfully master Necron weaponry(they can't replicate the power sources) so it would be silly for a backwards group of settlers to manage it. Tau stuff is fair game though.

However, doing such a thing is heresy of the highest order. So this only works if you have them be independent of the Imperium, or simply have the Imperium continue to ignore them and leave them to their own devices.

Got the Imperial Guard Codex, and am reading on the doctrines.

I really do appreciate your comments.

What do you think about giving Cameleoline, Light Infantry, and Rangers?

I should probably remove the Necrons. With what I am reading both in and out of thread, they are ovepowered SOBs which untrained settlers will never hope to defeat. Maybe it should be chaos Cultist, perhaps.

About the heresy issue. I was thinking that the Ordo Hereticus would despise them, and try to kill them off at every opportunity (the fact that the Novacians possess nowhere near the required fanaticism for the God Emperor also makes them absolutely despise Novacian battle groups who refuse to use alien weapons), while the Ordo Xenos is "protecting" the Novacians, trying to experiment with how the inclusion of Alien weapons in the Imperial doctrine might affect their abilities to fight against the Xenos threat.

That could work they don't have to chaos cultists though in fact it would be nice to see somebody from the IOM who didn't fall to chaos or joined some xeno, but did their own thing. The idea of the different Ordos fighting each other over them is a fun one . Also bring in the Ad Mechs in to because they would want to get some of that Tau tech and it would bring more to the story.

Leety wrote:
Got the Imperial Guard Codex, and am reading on the doctrines.

I really do appreciate your comments.

What do you think about giving Cameleoline, Light Infantry, and Rangers?

I should probably remove the Necrons. With what I am reading both in and out of thread, they are ovepowered SOBs which untrained settlers will never hope to defeat. Maybe it should be chaos Cultist, perhaps.

About the heresy issue. I was thinking that the Ordo Hereticus would despise them, and try to kill them off at every opportunity (the fact that the Novacians possess nowhere near the required fanaticism for the God Emperor also makes them absolutely despise Novacian battle groups who refuse to use alien weapons), while the Ordo Xenos is "protecting" the Novacians, trying to experiment with how the inclusion of Alien weapons in the Imperial doctrine might affect their abilities to fight against the Xenos threat.

Do you have the 5th ed codex? Because I've read that thing backwards and forwards, and we don't have doctrines on anything but our vets anymore.

So, doctrines are gone from 5ed Imperial Guard Codex?

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

That changes a lot of things. Will keep me thinking for a long time...

Anyways, I wrote my first entry for a specific character/ HQ choice for the Novacian Imperial Guard, Anselm Venables.
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Special Characters
Anselm Venables - Special Infantry model with the choice of either strengthened Mortar or Autogun with grenades.

Background
From a family of the now powerless Imperial Aristocracy, Anselm Venables is one of the few men in Novac who has been properly educated. In the nothingness known as Novac, Anselm Venables opted to leave his home, in search of adventure, and a wider world. Armed with only an antique Autogun and Mortars, he traveled around the planet, doing odd jobs, and killing hundreds (if not thousands) of bandits along the way. Although many mercenary bands requested him to join their forces, Anselm constantly refused such offers, as he detested pillagers, chem addicts, and supposed cannibals.

As time passed, the empty planet was too small for the former aristocrat, so he voluntarily left the planet and joined up with the Imperial Guards.

It was in the unceasing war against the Tau that Anselm was proven to be one of the blessed “Abnormal Survivors” by surviving countless assassination attempts from Tau fire warriors and sniper drones, seemingly dodging the bullets by mere inches at the last minute. While he is still not experienced (nor willing) to take the mantle of the commander of the Novacian Imperial Guards, Anselm is highly respected by his fellow guardsmen, and has positive connections with key members of the Ordo Xenos. This has proved essential for Anselm, as his men are well known to use weapons salvaged from dead fire warriors, and only the Intrigued members of the Ordo Xenos have proven to be effective shields against the hatred of Ordo Hereticus. In the hopes that Anselm’s regiment could continue to survive, and give more results for their experiment, the Ordo Xenos has provided Anselm’s guardsmen improved weapons.

In the battlefield, Anselm has been seen either holding an autogun and grenades, or his grenade launcher, which has claimed the destruction of countless number of tanks.

Characteristics:
Tank Hunter
Hit and Run
Jink

Special:
All weapons used by Anselm Venables’ guardsmen are master crafted.

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Note: I know that Jink is for the most part NOT associated with humans, and mostly with eldar warriors, but it seemed to be a much more valid choice than "It just won't die", since "Jink" is at least based on Humanoid infantry, with the description of its abilities more similar to the concept of "Abnormal Survivors".
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Hit and Run will be a unified trait among all members of the Novacian Imperial Guards, who are known to run away more than stand their ground.

Proper, balanced stat suggestion for Anselm Venables is greatly appreciated. I feel like the standard mortar is far too weak for a special character, but I think careless stat increase will make my first Individual unit OP.