The Imperial Guard. In a universe filled to the brim with monstrous threats from daemonic
armies and hordes of aliens, what can one person do? In the case of the imperial guard,
a person can grab a mostly unimpressive weapon, strap on some mostly unimpressive armor, and
stand beside their brothers and sisters against the hordes. Members of the guard don't possess
the genetic superiority of the space marines, or the fearsome technology of the mechanicus,
but what they possess in spades is courage. The guard is a large part of what keeps the
imperium of man going in the 41st millennium, assisting in defeating the imperium's enemies,
and more importantly, holding territory, something the much less numerous space marines are generally
incapable of doing. The imperial guard have a storied history, participating in many of
the imperium's greatest battles.
The Imperial guard got its start as the imperial army during the great crusade led by the emperor
of mankind. Large numbers of new planets were being conquerered, reclaimed, or rediscovered
during the crusade, and the space marine chapters were spread too thin to be able to hold them
all effectively. The imperial army was formed as a collection of volunteers, mercenaries,
and other soldiers that now belonged to the imperium. Planets now part of the imperium
would be forced to continually supply new recruits to the army, and eventually, the
imperial army became more than a defensive body, and turned into a full branch of imperial
military might. The army controlled their own warships, and became capable of conquering
entire worlds by themselves in the name of the imperium. This changed with the events
of the horus heresy, as the imperial army's autonomy allowed a large percentage of them
to turncoat and become a fully fledged threat. In possession of their own warships, armoured
units, and countless infantry, the traitor army became a significant threat to the imperium
they recently fought for. In the aftermath, the restructured imperial government took
steps to prevent a similar threat from popping up in the future. The imperial army was split
up into two seperate groups, the imperial navy that would handle all spacefaring vessels
and any conflicts in space, and the imperial guard that would handle all conflicts on planetary
surfaces. The two branches of course work together to further the goals of the imperium,
but if one of the groups should betray the imperium, they would be essentially handicapped
without the other branch. Additionally, the guard and the navy were both further compartmentalized,
broken down into smaller regiments and fleets. The unity of the imperial army was sacrificed
in the name of security, for better or worse.
The high lords of terra oversee the broad commands of the imperial guard, the lord commander
militant passes on these orders to the individuals in charge of each segmentum of imperial space,
of which there are five, and the orders are then passed down to those in command of each
section, subsection, and planet. While the sheer scale of the imperial guard is often
a benefit when it comes to firepower, it's a detriment when it comes to speed. The beauracracy
of the guard is incredibly cumbersome and slow-moving, combined with the great distances
that the guard has to cover. Orders may arrive to a regiment of the guard far after they're
relevant, and so command often falls directly on the leaders of any given theater of war.
Specific orders from the high lords of terra may crop up occasionally, but generally the
goals of the guard are pretty clear: protect all the good guys, kill all the bad guys,
and the imperial guard are certainly pretty good at killing. Any given soldier in the
guard is generally grossly outmatched by the opposition, whether it's a musclebound ork
that can fight through horrific injuries, a massive tyranid hive tyrant capable of easily
shredding a space marine, or a chaos warped space marine bolstered by the powers of the
dark gods. What allows the guardsmen to be victorious against these threats is their
courage, loyalty, and perhaps most importantly, their numbers.
The number of imperial guardsmen active at any given time stands easily in the billions,
and in fact, it's likely that the administration of the guard don't even know the number. The
sheer scale of their operations is practically unfathomable to us, as battles in which millions
of guardsmen die are everyday occurrences. It's said by some that there are as many individuals
in the administrative body of the guard as there are in the guard itself, and while that
might be hyperbole, it is true that the imperial guard requires a massive number of people
to handle all of its logistics. Training new troops, creating new regiments, provision
of equipment and supplies, working with the imperial navy for transportation and assistance,
handling the tithes paid by each imperial planet for the guard, and responding to calls
for aid are all roles handled by the administration. While it's an incredible feat that this machine
of war keeps running, it's even more impressive when you consider the sheer number of mistakes
that the administration makes. Regiments sent into inhospitable environments without proper
gear, sent into battle against overwhelming foes or even into battles with no foes at
all, missing supply shipments, calls for aid ignored for decades, and the list goes on.
This is not to say that the administration is incompetent, but rather just another side
effect of dealing with billions and billions of individuals battling across an entire galaxy.
The amount of paperwork and logistical efforts involved in this war machine is mind boggling,
and even an extremely small error can result in an entire regiment of soldiers dying. To
both the soldiers' credit, as well as the administration, the imperial guard perseveres,
an operational feat unrivaled by any other group in the galaxy.
The standard issue weapon for a member of the imperial guard infantry is known as a
lasgun, a reliable, easy to maintain and produce laser rifle that is quite deadly by our standards,
but mostly unimpressive by 40k standards. Lasguns utilize rechargeable power packs for
ammunition, and are capable of severing human limbs or even piercing power armour if hit
in a vulnerable spot. Unfortunately, most alien threats to the imperium are capable
of shrugging off a few lasgun blasts, but we can again point to the sheer number of
soldiers the guard throws at an enemy which allows them to eventually succeed. Similarly,
most guardsmen are equipped with a cheap and easy to manufacture body armor called flak
armor. Much like the lasguns, this armor would be very, very nice to have in our time, and
it's certainly serviceable in 40k, but still won't do much to stop a raging tyranid or
chaos space marine. The guard are bolstered by armoured transports, battle tanks, siege
artillery, and plenty of other military vehicles you'd expect to find in a futuristic army.
These are the standard members of the imperial guard however, and like any organization,
there are going to be those that excel over their peers. The best of the best of the imperial
guard are known as storm troopers, elite shock troops trained to carry out covert missions
behind enemy lines or to spearhead assaults into heavily fortified positions. They receive
better training, better equipment, and are instilled with a brutal sense of duty and
obedience to their missions. They're generally equipped with carapace armor, a much more
substantial form of protection over flak armor, and an enhanced form of lasgun commonly called
a hellgun, powered by a backpack power supply and capable of punching straight through power
armor. The storm troopers are among the most capable of normal humans in battle, and have
been responsible for some incredible tasks.
Another non-standard group of the guard are the commissars, military officers placed among
regiments to maintain morale and discipline. These are generally uncompromising individuals
that keep a regiment in line through fear and power, and possess the authority to execute
any guardsmen for showing cowardice or incompetence. As you can imagine, commissars are not generally
well-loved figures, but they are unflinching in their duties, and ultimately they are responsible
for making sure the guardsmen continue to fight, even against overwhelming odds.
Most of the imperial guard is just one massive, faceless organization of countless identical
soldiers, but there are a handful of regiments that have made a name for themselves through
their deeds. The Death Korps of Krieg come from an atomic-blasted world and undergo brutal
training from shortly after birth designed to harden their bodies and their minds, as
well as instilling absolute faith in the emperor. They routinely request to fight in the deadliest
warzones, and excel in long battles of attrition. The Catachan Jungle fighters hail from the
death world of Catachan, said to be the most lethal planet in the entire galaxy. The planet
is covered in a dense jungle, and every element of the local flora and fauna is deadly to
human life, to the point of even most space marines tend to avoid visiting. This makes
the planet fairly safe from any invading force, and also creates some of the most deadly men
in the imperium. The Jungle fighters are extremely capable of fighting in jungle terrain, and
also excel at adapting to other warzones. It's said that only 25% of those born on Catachan
make it past the age of 10, and the jungle fighters claim that even the most suicidal
military engagement is nothing compared to a day on Catachan. Perhaps the regiment with
the greatest reputation however, are the cadian shock troopers, originally hailing from the
fortress world of Cadia. Cadia certainly deserves its own video, but in short, it was a planet
located near the eye of terror, a massive warp rift, making it a frequent target of
chaos assualts. The people of cadia were practically constantly under attack, and were trained
from childhood to defend their planet for the sake of the imperium and the emperor.
Cadia was eventually destroyed after a massive battle during a crusade by the forces of chaos,
but the members of the imperial guard went down fighting, and it's commonly said that
the planet broke before the guard did.
Soldiers throughout history have stared death in the face and stood their ground, but it's
a different thing entirely to face off against such threats as seen in warhammer 40k. While
no one doubts the courage of a space marine, they are clad in power armour, and are genetically
modified super soliders that are incapable of actually feeling fear, which diminishes
their heroism somewhat. In comparison, the average guardsmen is strictly human, through
and through, and yet still stands his ground out of loyalty to the imperium and to their
emperor, or perhaps because they just don't want to be shot by their commissar. Either
way, the imperial guard is one of the most impressive aspects of warhammer 40k, partly
due to their capability of bloodshed, partly due to the courage and loyalty of its soldiers,
and partly due to the fact that an army of that size hasn't collapsed in on itself yet.