Imperial Guard Rules

An Imperial Guard heavy weapon is served by two models: a firer, who carries and shoots it, and a loader, who carries and feeds its ammunition. The pair stay within 2" of each other, the ordinary Squad Coherency distance. The loader is armed as the rest of the squad is, usually with a Lasgun, and may shoot and fight with it like any other Guardsman while still loading the team weapon.

The loader makes no difference to how the heavy weapon shoots, which follows its own rules. Should the firer be killed while the loader is within 2", the loader takes the weapon over and uses it from then on: the loader model is removed as the casualty and the firer model stays where it is. Should the loader be further than 2" from the firer at that moment, the weapon is lost. No model other than the loader may ever take a heavy weapon over, and the weapon is never damaged or destroyed by the death of its firer.

Weapons Team Side-Arms

Both crew members ordinarily carry a Lasgun as well as the heavy weapon. Where the heavy weapon is too large for that, the firer carries a Laspistol in the Lasgun's place. Any crew member with no Lasgun is armed with a Laspistol.

The Lascannon Weapons Team

The Lascannon sits on a carriage and is a separate model from its crew rather than a weapon the firer holds. The firer must be in base contact with the carriage to move it or fire it. The loader stays within 2" of the firer and loads as normal. Where one of the two is killed the survivor may still move or fire the Lascannon alone, but may not Run with it.

The carriage's gun shield covers both crew members. Against shooting from any position in front of the weapon the crew count as being in Hard Cover, a -2 To Hit Modifier, so long as the crew stand behind it. No other cover adds to this: a Lascannon team behind vegetation is still at -2, not -3.

The Lascannon model is destroyed the moment its last crew member is killed.

Splitting Weapons Teams

A unit ordinarily fights as one body inside its 2" coherency distance. An Imperial Guard squad is the exception. As it moves it may split off its weapons team, even one that casualties have reduced to a single model, and the rest of the squad moves on while the team stays where it stands.

A weapons team that has been split off may not move towards the enemy. It may hold its position or move away from the enemy, and nothing else.

From the moment they divide, the squad and its weapons team are two units and stay so for the rest of the game. A full squad of ten therefore becomes a unit of eight and a team of two.

For Leadership Tests each part counts as at full strength with the models it had when it divided: the main body of eight is at full strength with eight, and the team with two. The main body must take a Break Test once it has lost two of its eight, a quarter of its strength. Dividing never calls for a Break Test in itself, even where the squad of ten had already taken two casualties.

While a Colonel, Captain, Lieutenant or Commissar is within 2" of a team that has split off, the team moves freely and may move towards the enemy. Once no such officer is within 2" the team is static again and may only hold its ground or move away.

Weapons Teams in Heavy Weapons Squads

A Heavy Weapons Squad is three weapons teams. It may split off any of them or all of them, and so may end up as three separate units.

A Heavy Weapons Squad may also divide before the game and set up as separate teams. A team set up this way is under the same restrictions as any split weapons team, and cannot move towards the enemy unless an officer accompanies it.

Weapons Teams in Command Squads

The weapons teams of a Command Squad or Command HQ never split off; the squad always moves as one body.

A Command Squad is a Lieutenant with four troopers, who guard the officer and form a mobile fire-base under direct command. A Command HQ and a Rough Rider Command Squad are Command Squads too, and the rules on this page hold for all three.

A character placed under a Lieutenant's command, such as a Psyker, is part of that Command Squad. The character moves and fights with the squad and never acts alone.

Command Rule

A Lieutenant's Leadership of 8 may be used for the Break Tests of every Imperial Guard unit within 12", whether or not the unit is under that Lieutenant's own command.

Command HQ

Captains and Colonels are senior to Lieutenants. Each has four troopers with them, and together they are a Command HQ. Like any other Command Squad it may include characters such as a Primaris Psyker, and a Primaris Lord may join a Command HQ and no other unit.

A Command HQ is a Command Squad in every respect, and its Captain's or Colonel's Leadership serves the Break Tests of Imperial Guard units within 12" in the same way. A Command HQ also leads the whole army as its Commander.

Rough Rider Command Squad

A mounted Command Squad of five, one of them a Lieutenant, is a Rough Rider Command Squad. It works exactly as a Command Squad on foot does, its Lieutenant's Leadership serving the Break Tests of Imperial Guard units within 12".

Any Imperial Guard squad may become Veterans, and so may every squad in the army. Each squad that does takes one ability from the ten below. The ability's points are added to the squad's cost, and its rule covers the whole squad whatever its size. The limits on which units may take which ability are given with each ability.

Different squads may take the same ability or different ones, and some squads may be left as they are. No squad may take more than one.

Veteran status is not confined to ordinary infantry. Ogryns, Ratling Snipers, Rough Riders and every other Imperial Guard infantry squad may take an ability; vehicle squadrons may not.

Veteran Abilities

The ten abilities, with their prices and limits, are on the Codex Imperial Guard list:

• Crazed
• Dead Eye Shots
• Freedom Fighters
• Grizzled
• Guerrillas
• Hardened Fighters
• Slick Crew
• Stealthy
• Street Fighters
• Tank Hunters

An Imperial Guard player may hold part of the army off the table until the game is under way, and may open the battle with an artillery barrage. The two rules are set out below.

Reserves

Any vehicle, with any troops carried inside it, may be kept back as Reserves. Reserves are left off the table when the armies deploy, and the player need not tell the opponent that anything has been held back.

At the start of any Imperial Guard turn the player may bring reserves into play, declaring which vehicles are arriving and placing them on the player's own table edge. They act that turn in every way as though they had started on the table, and a vehicle may come on at whatever speed the player likes.

Preliminary Barrage

Once deployment is complete on both sides, and before the first turn is taken, the Imperial Guard player may bring down a barrage on the enemy.

The barrage has one shot for each Leman Russ Battle Tank, Basilisk and Griffon in the army. Every such vehicle on the table counts, and one held in reserve counts as well if the player chooses, though counting it reveals that it is there. Each shot uses the Barrage profile.

The shots are fired one after another until every shot has been taken. Each is directed by the officer commanding a Command Squad or the Command HQ: a 2" Blast Marker is placed in sight of that officer, over the closest target the officer could shoot at under Choosing a Target.

Roll a Scatter Dice and an Artillery Dice together for each marker as it is placed, and consult the chart.

White Dwarf 178 printed an earlier form of the Reserves rule. Citadel Journal 9, p47 holds that form to stand until Codex Imperial Guard; the rule above follows the Codex.

A Command Squad or Command HQ may include a Guardsman carrying a Comm-link. While it does, the officer commanding the squad may call in a barrage as the game is played. The officer must be alive to do so, and once either the officer or the Comm-link's bearer is killed no more fire comes through it.

Calling Down Fire

At the start of the Imperial Guard player's first turn, roll a D6, re-rolling any 1 until the score is from 2 to 6. That score is the interference level for the battle, and the higher it is the harder fire is to call down.

At the start of the second and every later Imperial Guard turn, the player may make one request for fire through each Comm-link in the army. Roll a D6 for each request. A score equal to or above the interference level gets the message through, and a barrage is worked out as below; a lower score fails, and nothing happens.

Every barrage is resolved before the rest of the turn is played.

Barrage

Each successful request is a single shot with the Barrage profile, the same shot as a Preliminary Barrage. A 2" Blast Marker is placed in sight of the officer who made the request, over the closest target that officer could shoot at under Choosing a Target. Once it is placed, roll the Scatter Dice and Artillery Dice and shift the marker to where it lands under the Barrage Scatter Chart.

Victory Points scored against an Imperial Guard army follow the ordinary tables with two adjustments: the officer leading a Command Squad or Command HQ always counts in the squad's value, and a squad that has split off a weapons team is scored as one body.

Command Victory Points

The value of the officer leading a Command Squad or Command HQ is always included in the squad's points value when its Victory Points are worked out, however high that value is. This departs from the ordinary rule, under which a leader's points join the squad's only when they come to 50 or less.

Any other character in the squad, a Psyker for one, is counted in the squad's cost when worth 50 points or less, and otherwise scores separately as a Character, exactly as the ordinary rule has it.

Commanders

Where the officer leading a Command Squad or Command HQ is killed, or is Broken when the game ends, the whole squad counts as destroyed and the enemy is awarded full Victory Points for it.

Splitting Units and Victory Points

A squad that has divided under Splitting Weapons Teams is scored as one body. A squad of ten that has split two models off must still lose five models in all before it counts as having taken 50% casualties.

Where the main body of the squad is wiped out, or is Broken when the game ends, the whole squad is treated as wiped out or Broken and scores in full, whatever became of the weapons team.

A Heavy Weapons Squad is scored the same way. It is at half strength once three of its six models have been killed, split or not, and it counts as destroyed once two whole teams have been killed.

A Command Squad or Command HQ never splits off a weapons team, so none of this applies to it.

A shooting hit on his commander may be resolved against Nork instead, provided Nork stands within 2"; the Guard player chooses which of the two takes it.

Carried by Nork Deddog.

See Commanders in General Rules.

The Command rule applies to him at Leadership 10.

Carried by Lord Commander Solar Macharius.

Before the first turn roll a D6. The score is a pool of re-rolls the Imperial Guard player may spend on any Leadership-based test while Chenkov lives. One re-roll joins the pool each time the enemy scores Victory Points by breaking a Guard unit or destroying it; half-strength losses add nothing.

Carried by Captain Chenkov.

On a turn in which he charges, Macharius adds +D6 to his combat score in place of the normal +1, rolled when the fight begins.

Carried by Lord Commander Solar Macharius.

A unit with Yarrick in view also passes its Leadership tests automatically, provided he stands nearer to the enemy than that unit.

Carried by Commissar Yarrick.

When a hit takes Yarrick to 0 Wounds, roll a D6 instead of removing him. On a 5+ he is removed as a casualty; on any lower score his Wounds return to 1 and he fights on.

Carried by Commissar Yarrick.

In place of his D3 shots Stumper may fire once, aimed at a weak point. Resolve the shot as normal; if it hits, the target's Armour Save is worsened by a further D3.

Carried by Stumper Muckstart.

While Shaefer lives the whole squad, a split Weapons Team included, passes every Leadership-based test automatically, and any member may re-roll a missed shot or a close-combat fumble. The second result stands even if it is worse.

Carried by Colonel Shaefer.

A Commissar, alone among Imperial Guard characters, may leave one squad and join another. A squad that includes a Commissar may always test against the Commissar's Leadership of 10.

Carried by Commissar, Commissar.

Yarrick, unlike other Guard characters, may leave one squad and join another. Whichever squad he is with passes every Leadership-based test automatically.

Carried by Commissar Yarrick.

Macharius passes any Leadership test taken on his own behalf, has Immunity to Psychology, as a Commissar does, and can never be broken; he takes no Break Tests.

Carried by Lord Commander Solar Macharius.

Shaefer leads a Penal Squad, an Imperial Guard Squad bought from the Battle Line band with its normal options. Colonel and squad are a single unit and keep Squad Coherency; a Weapons Team from it may still split off as usual.

Carried by Colonel Shaefer.

The army's own rating of 2 decides who deploys first. Once both sides are set up and Reserves have been declared, but before the Preliminary Barrage, roll a D6 for Macharius. That is his Strategy Rating for deciding who takes the first turn. On a 4+ there is no pre-battle barrage; on any lower score reserves and barrage follow the normal rules. On a 6 every reserve must also deploy on the table before the game begins.

Carried by Lord Commander Solar Macharius.

As each shooting phase opens, roll a D3: that is how many shots Stumper fires that turn. He may aim them at any enemy in sight, nearest or not, naming his targets before rolling to hit.

Carried by Stumper Muckstart.

While his commander lives, Nork stays within 2" of that commander wherever he can.

Carried by Nork Deddog.