14 Introduction

hundreds or thousands of light years separate conflicts from

reinforcements, and the fickle nature of Warp travel, where ships
may be lost or arrive years after setting out, the Imperial Guard
will sequester whatever it can, whenever it can, to fight its wars.
This means all the worlds within range of a warzone are often
called upon to fight, offering up additional men and materials
or whatever they can, lest their own worlds suffer the fate of
their beleaguered neighbours. It also means the quality and type
of Imperial Guard regiments and equipment will vary hugely
even within a single theatre of operation. Guardsmen may find
themselves fighting shoulder to shoulder with comrades bearing
wildly different uniforms, whose officers have unfamiliar titles
or who don’t even share a common language. Despite these
sweeping differences, however, one piece of gear remains
almost universally consistent across all regiments—the lasgun.
Straightforward to manufacture en masse, incredibly reliable,
and easy to maintain, the lasgun has remained the mainstay
of Imperial Guard regiments from all across the galaxy as they
constantly wage the Emperor’s wars across the stars.
This is the nature of the Imperial Guard, that it will make
war for the God-Emperor, however it can, wherever it must.
In a galaxy of over a million inhabited worlds, the Imperial
Guard must contend with all kinds of environments and
battlefield conditions. It must adapt, overcome, and triumph
no matter the cost; with only the cold vacuum of the void
at its backs when its regiments land on a world, they know
they must fight and win or die in the attempt. The great war
the Imperial Guard fights cannot be fought in any other
way, for to give an inch or surrender a sector is to invite
destruction from mankind’s foes. Only through constant
pressure, unceasing resistance, and the continued action of
countless millions of Guardsmen can the Imperium continue
to exist, its foes kept in check, and its borders protected. This
is the duty of the Imperial Guard, which will end only when
humanity stands as master over every world in the galaxy or
the Imperium of Man lies in ashes.
BORN IN BATTLE
The Imperial Guard has existed for the better part of ten
thousand years, since the time of the great Horus Heresy and
the rebellion against the Emperor. During that time of civil
war, the Imperium was split asunder and humanity turned in
upon itself in a bloody war which almost saw its complete
destruction. Horus, once one of the Emperor’s most trusted
sons, led fully half of the legendary Space Marine Legions
in open revolt against the Imperium which had created them
and the master which they were sworn to protect. Alongside
these legions of genetically engineered warriors marched
millions of Imperial soldiers, men and women drawn from
across the colonies of man and gathered under the banner of
the Emperor. At this time, these mortal troops were known
simply as the Imperial Army and were comprised of vast
fleets of warships and thousands of regiments mixing armour,
infantry, and support weapons all into single powerful
formations. When Horus turned, he took countless soldiers
and ships of the Imperial Army with him. Those men which
had once fought for humanity during the Emperor’s Great
Crusade reuniting the Imperium were instead pitted against

Hammer of the
Emperor
“Men, we are the first, last, and often only line of defence the Imperium
has against what is out there. You and that fine piece of Imperial
weaponry you hold in your hands is all that is keeping humanity
alive. Most of you will probably not live to see your second year in the
Imperial Guard and most of you will probably never see your home
worlds again, but I can guarantee you that when you do fall, with a
prayer to the most high and mighty God-Emperor on your lips, you
will have earned the right to call yourself a man!”
–Staff Sergeant Vermak, 12th Cadian Shock Regiment

I magine an army so vast that at any one time there is no exact

record of its size, an army of such size that the resources

of millions of worlds must constantly feed it with fresh
recruits and new weapons, and an army which must defend
an empire that spans the entire galaxy. This is the Imperial
Guard, the human armies of the God-Emperor and the
primary military institution of the Imperium, through which
it exerts its power upon the stars. It is difficult to comprehend
the size of the Imperial Guard and scope of its operations,
as nothing in all of recorded human history has ever come
close to replicating it, but then no war has ever matched the
scale of the conflict which it must fight. For generations, entire
worlds have sent their young men and women off to the stars
to fight in the Imperial Guard, seldom, if ever, seeing them
again, and rarely even hearing of their exploits, knowing only
that they fight for the God-Emperor against the foes of all
mankind. Whole planets are also given over to the constant
production of weapons and material for the Imperial Guard;
forge worlds endlessly pumping out tanks and guns, while
agri-worlds grow continent wide orchards to feed its troops.
Such is the scale of the Imperial Guard that every world of the
Imperium contributes to it in some way or another, no matter
how remote or small, be they lonely penal worlds offering up
condemned criminals, asteroid mining colonies tithing ore to
make shells, or primitive feral worlds where savage tribesmen
fight for the chance to join the sky-men.
Given the ponderous size of the Imperial Guard and the
nature of its perpetual state of war, it is constantly straining
under the weight of logistical problems. Even for relatively
close engagements, where a cluster of worlds are threatened and
the Imperial Guard has regiments on hand to respond to the
threat, moving the millions of men and the materiel needed to
wage war from one world to another is a massive undertaking.
While the Imperial Navy provides ships for the Imperial Guard
regiments to reach their destination, the Imperium cannot
always provide them with everything they need or with the
manpower required to complete the often daunting task they
are assigned, such as the liberating of entire worlds which have
fallen to rebellion or alien invasion. In these cases, the true
ingenuity of the Imperial Guard comes to the fore and the
nature of its military make up is tested as resources must
be gathered from local worlds and systems. Because
of the vast distances within the Imperium, often