Questions about the AM Order of Battle

[Pudelhund]

In the context of how the regiments of the AM are organized as per the codex fluff, how would you describe the common ~1500-2000 point formations that most people field?  Also, how do you reconcile the description of a regiment being of a homogeneous make-up but most fielded forces are a mixture of lots of different battle elements?

 

For instance, let's take the 42nd Bolterian Infantry Regiment.

 

In a realistic - per the fluff - OOB, they would be restricted to an infantry-only setup.  If the force took any artillery, armored, or flying units, it wouldn't resemble an actual AM regiment, but rather the mixture of components from several different AM regiments on the battlefield.  If one was stringent with this fluff, their army would be a "snapshot" of a battle featuring different regiments and perhaps they would even be painted differently.

 

So you would have a company - or a partial company - representing the 42nd Bolterian Infantry and then maybe a platoon of artillery support from the 13th Chainswordian Artillery.

 

Does anyone organize their force this way?  Am I just being really anal about the fluff?

[Ulrik_Ironfist]

When I get my force painted, my Storm Troopers will be painted differently than my regular guardsmen, and my Aircraft will have different colors than my infantry. When I get armor, they'll have a different color scheme than the rest of my force.

 

They will all belong to the same parent formation, the 2nd Special Service Force, much like in the 101st Airborne Division. You had the infantry regiment, and all of the support functions organized into a Brigade combat team (self sufficient deployable force), and then you had the aviation elements from the Combat aviation brigade, all then organized under a Task Force, named after the lead elements (4th Brigade Combat Team, Currahee, had the 506th PIR, and full combat support functions, and then it had a couple of battalions of  aircraft to support the operations). That's the sort of combined arms compartmentalized and deployable force I'd imagine the guard would be.

[Inso]

I view the AM as a sci-fi version of standard modern forces. As a result, you have infantry regiments, mechanised regiments and support regiments (artillery, tank, comms etc).

 

That means that if I was to put together an army, I would have the Infantry from one regiment but have all the support elements from different regiments. There will obviously be slight variations (every regiment will have a vehicle pool for example... even maybe some lighter armoured vehicles in there as well) but that gives you an opportunity to personalise certain assets as they would be more restricted (for example, the light tank from the tank pool will have a name and battle honours because it is one of only three tanks and prized by the army).

 

It not only allows you to expand in blocks but also allows you to add a bit of variation to your armies (even if it is just the change of regiment markings).

[WarriorFish]

You can do whatever you like. The Imperium of Man is vast and wildly different and this is reflected in the Imperial Guard. It could be two regiment types that work together or are merged into a new regiment. Or you can just say they've always been a mix of companies etc. Do whatever you like, the fluff can support it easily :tu:

[Butcher Braxton]

It is whatever you decide it is ;) it's a fantasy game for a reason :P

For instance i made my own collorsceme and wrote some fluff around that, it seems to be a thing in my circle of friends who play (about 10-12 people) to do it that way.

Gives you a great excuse to pick whatever you want "as long as it is plausible for your own fluff".

 

A mate of mine for example runs spacewolves with leman russ tank support but he did have a good fluf reason as to why he did that.

My theme is "ghost division" and fluff wise its soully a pantzerdivision. But even pantzers need some infantry and air support. They ride along in valkerys and chimera's.

 

Altho i fancy the way we do it here i must say that i do have serious respect for people who indeed run (and paint) entire "pre-made" forces.

[Ulrik_Ironfist]

It's your army, have fun with it. If realism is a concern, take your concept and structure it around a real world military unit. Or imagine that  there are multiple regiments from one world (like Cadia) that make up a task force. Or whatever.

 

In the real world, just because you have an Infantry regiment, doesn't mean it has no vehicles. It's job is to supply infantrymen to close with and destroy the enemy with fire and manuever. The Naming convention derives from the unit's primary focus, The 1st Infantry Division, has 2 Armored Brigade Combat Teams, and a third Infantry  Brigade Combat Team. However the intent of the Armor is to support the infantry. The 101st Airborne (AASLT) division has 3 Brigade Combat Teams of Infantry, and is supported by 2 Combat Aviation Brigades because they are a dedicated Air Assault Division, while their sister unit the 82nd Airborne only has one CAB, because they are an Airborne Division (Air Assault is the same as the old Vietnam Airmobile/Aircav concept, where Airborne are Paratroopers). Once you get past the Regiment level, specialization starts to decline, instead the Brigade and Division level formations focus more on supporting the Subordinate units and applying the whole division concept to the fight. Hypothetically, if we were to invade country X, we could stage the entire 101st out of country Y and then the entire division could fly all of its assets across the border into the combat zone, all utilizing the assets under the Division, with no outside help(i.e. the USAF). 

 

Sure the Imperial Guard has dedicated Regiments, but its how they organize into larger formations, and task forces, to accomplish the mission. If you view the typical list as a cross section of that larger formation then I think you get a better picture of what the Imperial Guard's Order of Battle is.

 

Pudelhund, I hope that explains my view on it clearly. I don't know what level of experience you have with real world military formations, or American Military Formations for that matter, since we have folks from everywhere on these boards. Other countries might do it differently, but I have no first hand knowledge of that.  

[Pudelhund]

Pudelhund, I hope that explains my view on it clearly. I don't know what level of experience you have with real world military formations, or American Military Formations for that matter, since we have folks from everywhere on these boards. Other countries might do it differently, but I have no first hand knowledge of that.  

 

I am familiar with modern military organization.  The organization of the Astra Militarum is distinctly different - at least in the fluff - from the fungible nature of real-life armed forces.  It seems to imply that regiments are so rigidly constructed that they would be ineffective fighting forces on their own if an entire regiment because treasonous.  Also, it seems that the Astra Militarum has made the regimental level the base metric of military organization and that anything above that is circumstantial.  The regiment is the highest level of planetary uniformity, representation, and tactical composition.    

[Ulrik_Ironfist]

You could still see combined arms task force drawn from many different regiments should the imperium have need. 

[Marshal Argos]

Personnally I organized (at least the background) into a Battle Group.  Then I just assigned the Infantry, and armor regiments to the battle group, much like the 1940's and 50's organized American Divisions.  And prior to the the British and German Ideas of ad hoc Battle Groups consisting of ever changing Regiments or Battalions.  The GW Fluff "Today" puts regiments into this strict sense of only Infantry, or only Armor.  The GW Fluff from 10 Years (or even 5 I think) ago didn't do this, you can always just ignore it.  As others have said, they're our minis, it's your army, it's your fluff.  Have fun it with it and make it into something that you enjoy, live, and play with.