Imperial Guard Regiment

The Regiment is the largest semi-permanent unit of organization of the Imperial Guard, consisting of a few hundred to a few thousand Guardsmen and their associated equipment and vehicles.

Origin

Space Marines are all well and good, but the implantation of gene-seed is a risky and expensive process. Even at the peak of the Great Crusade, there were never more than a few million Marines in the entire galaxy. The Emperor and his growing Imperium needed more soldiers to take and hold planets, and so the Imperial Army was founded to act as an auxiliary force -- while the Space Marines would smash fortresses and other hard targets, the Army would follow behind to hold the line.

To improve force cohesion, they were under the direct authority of the Space Marines with whom they served, but the Horus Heresy proved how dangerous such an arrangement could be. When Horus fell, not only did he take his fellow traitor Primarchs and their Legions with him, but also his associated ships and soldiers. Therefore, after the Heresy was put down, the surviving leaders of the Imperium divided the three military branches so that no traitor could strike such a blow at the Imperium ever again.

The forces themselves were separated into smaller pieces, also to reduce the ability of heretics to cause trouble. The Space Marines were split up into Chapters, the Imperial Navy was divided into Battlefleets, and the newly-named Imperial Guard was divided into regiments. Each regiment could only contain a few hundred to a few thousand Guardsmen, and was limited to a single specialty, so that if even an entire regiment turned traitor, they would not last long -- without the Navy, they could not travel to other planets, and without the support of other regiments, they would lack most tactical options. The Commissariat was also founded to be an independent watchdog to root out heresy wherever it grew.

Founding

The Administratum evaluates every planet in the Imperium, analyzing what its resources are and what portion of those resources it owes to the Imperium. For many planets (especially Hive Worlds), one such resource is manpower. Worlds are literally tithed to supply a certain number of a particular kind of regiment. After a regiment is founded, it is shipped off from one battlefield to another according to the designs of the Departmento Munitorum, and may periodically be resupplied with new recruits and equipment by the same (or just left hanging until they are almost totally routed, and then used to reinforce another regiment). Because the information used by the Administratum is often millennia out-of-date, a planet's requirements may be unreasonable, whole regiments can be entirely forgotten, or called to battle long after their destruction. The fact that designation numbers and equipment often get recycled after the regiment that owns them is destroyed does not help matters. On occasion, a regiment can get a lucky break from bureaucratic inertia (e.g. the Valhallan 597th, of Ciaphas Cain fame, was formed by the merger of the half-strength 296th and 301st regiments, but is still listed in official records as the 296th and 301st working together, so they get double supplies), but that's not very grimdark so it only happens very rarely.

Organization

Each planet's Regiments are different, but in general, there is a commanding officer at the top, with a rank of Colonel (or the equivalent), who is assisted by a command staff. The second-in-command may be titled the "executive officer" and often is a Major.

The Regiment is divided into several companies, the exact number of which depends on the nature of the regiment. Each Company is led by a Captain and a command squad and contains two to six Platoons (because a standard 40K army -- which is about the right size for a company -- has between two and six units of Troops), each of which is led by a Lieutenant and a command squad and has a few (normally five, but sometimes more) squads of infantry, each led by a Sergeant who is sometimes assisted by a Corporal (if this is the case, the squad can then be divided into two fireteams). Infantry squads nominally contain ten Guardsmen each, though heavy and special weapon squads only have six, and of course numbers can fluctuate as Guardsmen are recruited and killed.

The aforementioned restrictions on regiments means that they are not very useful on their own, so there is also a super-regimental command structure used for campaigns. Regiments that complement each other in a useful way can be combined into a battlegroup commanded by a General, and several battlegroups on the same front will be overseen by a Lord General, who will in turn answer to the Lord General Militant of the sector or campaign in question. Above these are the Lord Commanders for each of the five Segmentae of the galaxy, and at the very top is the Lord Commander Militant, the leader of the entire Imperial Guard and one of the High Lords of Terra.

Tabletop

Back in the third edition of Warhammer 40,000, the Imperial Guard Codex included a "doctrine" system to represent different types of regiments in the Imperium. Some options would allow certain units to be taken in larger numbers, while others would allow some units to purchase special abilities. The Catachan Jungle Fighters also received their own mini-dex in Third and Fourth Edition.

The doctrine system was removed in the fifth-edition codex, though some characters can modify the army's abilities a little.

See Also

• Imperial Guard Regiment Creation Tables, a set of rolltables for generating a regiment.
• Only War, a roleplaying game made by Fantasy Flight Games, which contains rules for generating and role-playing an IG regiment.