Imperial gaurd (just starting)

[orkblasta]

So I'm taking a break from my marines and starting two new armies, tau and Imperial guard. I have already come up with the history behind my tau and the name for their commander and army.

But I can't figure a name for the imperial guard and was hoping for some ideas.

Here's the history behind the army:

This small task force of Cadian units has been cut off from the emperium. They consist of a small fleet of ships, each capable of minimal warp travel and minimal offensive capabilities. Their main purpose in war was to infiltrate enemy encampments and cripple their defenses with the limited weapons and resources available to them.

They have been moving from star cluster to star cluster destroying enemy bases and spreading the name of the emperor. They have been away from the emperium for 23 years but have managed to maintain a rather large number of soldiers. Even though, they have been away for so long that their armor and weapons are battle worn and have been forced to improvise when it comes to tank, armor and weapon repairs.

I will paint the regiment to a desert/ badlands scheme, (browns, tans, and red insignia) They will have camo green cloaks that I have made for them and their bases will most likely have a mud like feel. Weapons, armor, and tanks will be slightly rusty.

Any suggestions on a name for the regiment or army? I was thinking something about their nature to not conduct frontal attacks.

[Loplod]

23 years.. Really? That would make most of them rather old. If they start conscripting at age 18, Train then for a year or two and then you assume they have been fighting for while (To be put on that sort of mission) you are talking 40-50 year old guardsmen.

And without cloning facility's or something the probability of having a high number of troops is also unlikely, We must remember that guardsmen are just meat for the grinder.

I like the idea of the whole "Battle worn-ness" and "Improvised stuff" That can work really well and make your army look great. And the color scheme also sounds alright (from what i picture)

But if you are a player who loves their back story you may want to change it to a more realistic sort of story.

[orkblasta]

ya I know it's a long time and yes that would make them all rather old, but we don't know what the average lifespan of imperial guard officer would be and we don't know when their physical prime would have been. For all we know they lived to be 200 and they their physical prime is when their in their 40s. In any case I think I'm going to stick with the amount of years they've been missing.

As for the improbable number of guardsmen I should probably change that. When I said they had a high number of guardsmen I meant that they had about 300 soldiers (includes, officers, tank commanders, vehicle drivers) left from the fleets original 100 000. But ya I guess it sounded like I meant they had 50 000 troops, sorry.

Any way, I'm glad you like the color scheme idea, but I will go over the back story a few more times, make it better.

Still need a name. How about 'dozer company' or 'imperial raiders'.

[WestRider]

Something with "Raiders" or "Rangers" would probably work well. If they're Meched up, then "Dragoons" is just about perfect.

Just as a note, Guardsmen are generally mustered out after 10 years' Service, to form the core of the PDF/Garrison for whatever world they fought on last. Other than high ranking officials and very rich citizens, who can afford the best medical care, lifespans in 40K are typically about on par with those of the 19th century or so.

[killercroc]

Sounds like a good idea to me. I like the whole back story and color scheme idea, it gives the whole army it's own feel, rather than what most people do by just painting them to look like cadians, catachans, or any other common IG scheme. One thing is with the tanks, you may have to do rusting just around the doors, exhaust, treads, and other places like that. Just because I have seen someone with a metal painted russ that was rusty and it just looked like an old statue instead of an actuall tank.

[Psychichobo]

A mix of Catachan and Cadian could work pretty well, model wise. Swap some heads and bodies around, it should work. Toss in the odd Tallarn Desert Raider too for variety.

[orkblasta]

Psychichobo: Unfortunately, I am rather short on money and will only be purchasing cadian units and boxs, I will be customizing them with greenstuff and other materials.

killercroc: I agree that would look the best, a completely rusted tank probably won't look the best.

WestRider: I like the rangers idea, maybe a name as simple as 'Cadian Raiders'. Do you guys like that?

Thanks for your input, hopefully I'll have some pics of my progress on my first cadian squad within this next week.

Cheers.

[theregistater]

what about "The Canadian Mountain Raiders"

[orkblasta]

Jun 22, 2010 4:23:03 GMT theregistater said:

what about "The Canadian Mountain Raiders"

tempting but I'm not that patriotic.

[theregistater]

thought i would give it a shot...

[hosh]

Cadian Special Operations or Cadian Irregulars. Give them a Unit number and then the special designation afterwords as well as a nick name like Breaker Brigade or Emperor's Hidden Fist. Just an idea if I get the point of what your talking about. An army sent ahead of the crusade to soften target worlds with sabotage and subversion on a grand scale.

[allwillbeeaten]

Name your officer in command and then name the rest likewise...ie Dostyev's Dragoons,Reichman's Rifles,etc. I think the long time seperated from the Imperium is good fluff,as theyre trying to desperately fight to get home (wherever that is...). I would definately add as many veterans as possible to reflect this. As for vehicles, I would stick with Valkyries/Vendies and light tanks such as Devil Dogs and the obligatory Sentinels to reflect that theyre more of a exbiditionary force as opposed to a standing army for which large tanks wouldnt/shouldnt be attached to...just my 2 cents.

[orkblasta]

hosh: ya you pretty much got the idea of what I'm saying. I have been thinking about special designation for squads, and actually named off all the squads in my marine army, for example my vindicator, line breaker squadron I called 'hammer squad'.

allwillbeeaten: funny you should say to stay with Valkyries because that's what I was thinking. As for the rest of the army, it's pretty much going to be shock troops in chimera transports, a few in valkyries, and I wasn't sure which tank variants to go with, I like the idea of 3 leman russ tanks and then just for kicks a baneblade but I don't think they would fit well with the rest of the army.

I think I'm going with Cadian Raiders,

Any thoughts on this?

[skeletalman]

Well, if you are going with a cadian regiment then I would recomend looking at historical military units such as the french foriegn legionars(xeno legionarres anyone?), the marine raiders(WW2), tunnel units from vietnam(tunnel rats), or any of the miriad number of units who undertook specialized functions within their respective armies.

Also, if you are interested in creating a regiment from your own planet then location name generators can come in very handy, and along with a random number generator you then have the regiments homeworld and regiment number.

[Buckshot]

If you want the tanks/APCs to look different, at my local hobby lobby, I saw some 40k size tanks(I just forgot 40ks mm), Sturmtighers, Panzerwaffens, WWII stuff... maybe for a chimera, you could use a converted AmTrac or something like that... They were nice and cheap too, a really nice, super detailed Sturmtigher was like $10...