The Imperial Guard: backbone of the imperium

I dig the idea of a regular teenager fighting gods with shovels and rifles.

The Guard in a nutshell is, we have more bodies than you have bullets.

"The planet broke before the guard did" Winston Churchill

"Against creatures like you, teeming and numberless, powered by the wills of thirsting Gods, he holds the line. He has held the line for ten thousand years. So what is your excuse, Monster?"

In 3-4 years I can definitely see you being one of the biggest Warhammer YouTubers pls don’t quit

The Imperial Guard novels tend to paint them as highly trained for normal humans. Often looking down on planetary defense forces for their lack of military skill and expertise.

One thing I always thought was goofy and darkly absurd with the Guard was you can sometime be literally born into military service. While there are several male and female-only regiments there's also quite a few that are co-ed, and whenever a baby inevitably results from this they're pretty much immediately inducted either into the Guard the moment they're born and raised to be a Guardsman or given to the Schola Progenium (the same place where they train Sisters of Battle and commissars) if their parents die in battle.

I heard a story about how during a set of matches for a store run tournament that were supposed to be being played on the same world, a guy used a Deathstrike missile launcher to hit an chaos army fighting against marines on another table lmao

shout out to the one fanfiction where Abbadon almost made it past the Eternity gate, but even as his marines are butchering the last few guards standing between him and the Throne, it's described something like "99.9% of the lasbolts fired in desperation by these terrified soldiers, bounce harmlessly off his armour. One. ONE. finds a crack in his helmet and is able to fry the bastards brain. even the soldier who fired the one in a million has no idea it was him. it's just sheer swell of numbers that pulls it off."

To be fair, the legions did a lot of the conquring during the great crusade. The guard have mostly been what held the Imperium's territory since.

My favorite regiment has got to be the Mordian Iron Guard. Strict discipline, flashy uniforms, companies of tanks, and gun lines that held out against Tyranid invasions. The only thing that sucks is that they no longer have models.

Deathstrike Missile, AKA, the Killy Everythingy 9000

“I have three det packs left, okay? Three more tanks must, die, then I get that caffeine the Captain promised.” - Andrej Valatok, 703rd Steel Legion Stormtrooper Division Best character in the best book.

"What is your duty?" "To serve the Emperor's Will." "What is the Emperor's Will?" "That we fight and die." "What is death?" "It is our duty." "What is your duty?"

I love how in most battles the guardsmen basicly break the enemies legs and arms and the space marines just put em out of their misery

My favorite guard regiment is the preatorian guard, their flashy uniforms and posh british attitudes are amusing to me in the 40k setting. On top of all of that they are incredibly stubborn to the point where they will not retreat despite being surrounded and outgunned, yet they somehow come up on top. What people forgot about the fall of cadia is there was more then just cadians, there were several regiments there, however knowing the preatorian were there means they were probably some of the last to evacuate if they ever did at all.

Orks, Eldar, Tyranids, Daemons, they’re all super dangerous. And fun targets for artillery and mortars with airburst shells full of mono-molecular wire and tens of thousands of sabot spikes or explosive sub-munitions.

Call me a casual if you like, but my favourite regiment are the Tanith First-and-Only. They tick all of my checkboxes: tragic history, elite light infantry, complex characters, Celtic stylings... I could go on. Colonel-Commissar Gaunt himself is literally just a nice bonus to me.

The Death Korps of Krieg take most of the principles of the Guard to their logical conclusions. Whether it be attrition warfare, artillery usage, or dying for the Emperor, the Kriegers do nothing by half. They are my favorite regiment. Mainly because of the WW1 aesthetic, but they are so…. RESPECTABLE… in the lore.

For the Emperor! Cadia Stands!