Any advice for running a mixed regiment?

By erttheking, in Only War Rules Questions

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Odds are I won't be playing Only War until my current Rogue Trader game is done, but when I do start running one I'd like to do a mixed regiment. I'm not sure which regiments I'd like to smack together at this point, so I'd just like some general information at this point.

-How should I open the game? Should I make it so that the regiments are already working together or should the first session be the forming of the mixed regiment?

- How should I merge the two regiments? Should I have one smaller battered one join a healthy one or should both of them have lost half their men and be merged together to make up the loss in numbers.

-What kinds of regiments should go together? Obviously I shouldn't mix a super heavy armored regiment with a scouting regiment but is there any suggestions for what I should do? And should I focus mainly on disaplins or should homeworlds and commanders play a role as well?

- Should I let the smaller regiment keep any of their equipment? The book says this one should be left up to me, so how much of the smaller regiment's equipment should they hang on to?

-What complications from two regiments coming together should I be sure to include in the RPing?

And anything else you think might be important.

Thank you very much!

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For mine, I assumed that they were integrated prior to the campaign start. I'm running an Armoured Regiment & a Mechanised regiment merged. It's generally better to keep similar styles of regiment together.

It varies for me on equipment, but I prefer to allow the smaller regiment to keep their equipment. Complications would depend on the regiments being melded.

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I believe the Ciaphas Cain book "For the Emperor" from Black Library, has the only combined regiment ever seen in story print form. It shows a lot of the problems and conventions, some unconventional, within such a new disorder.

Most of the other combined regiments from GW are just side notes in the Imperial Guard/Astra Militarum Codices..

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Mixed regiments only really work i find when players are in character at each others throats due to cultural , spirtial and combat doctrine differences , not that they can not work, you just need good role players to get it to work well, one player should be a Commissar or priest, if the group size if 5 or more. They tend to get mess very quickly .

But if you can get the scenes where they are at each others throats then all of a sudden its them together in a fox hole, and fighter for each other.

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Towards the end of the Gaunt's Ghosts series the Tanith 1st and only is made up of the few surviving Tanith units and new recruits from Vergast and possibly other warzones.

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> How should I open the game? Should I make it so that the regiments are already working together or should the first session be the forming of the mixed regiment?


I'd say incorporate this event into the roleplaying. It's a chance for some good character interaction, the introduction of key NPCs, IC "discovery" of a different Imperial culture, and laying the formation for first friendships or enmities.


> How should I merge the two regiments? Should I have one smaller battered one join a healthy one or should both of them have lost half their men and be merged together to make up the loss in numbers.


Personally, I would go with the latter, but this is merely because I tend to stick to GW's codex material over other interpretations of the setting. And as per these writings, the Munitorum prefers to keep an approximately equal strength between every single regiment in order to enable staff officers unfamiliar with the details of individual regiments to still make decisions based on knowing what one such regiment is supposedly "worth" (which is why infantry regiments tend to be pretty large, whereas tank regiments are small). Adding elements to a regiment which is already at ideal strength would thus mess with this overly simplified and only barely practical "formula".


> What kinds of regiments should go together? Obviously I shouldn't mix a super heavy armored regiment with a scouting regiment but is there any suggestions for what I should do? And should I focus mainly on disaplins or should homeworlds and commanders play a role as well?


As per the Guard Codex, the Munitorum prefers to merge regiments that are compatible both in terms of equipment as well as culture and tactical doctrine. However, the same book adds that this is not always possible. I'd say go with what you think would result in the more interesting and appealing outcome for your players!


Imperial Battlegroups tend to mix and match individual units from several regiments for the duration of a single campaign (example: assigning grunt squads from an infantry regiment as protectors to an artillery regiment that has no protection of its own) ... you could argue that in case of your players' regiment, this practice merely gets extended indefinitely. Who knows what interesting new tactics they might come up with? This could also be a chance for your players to get creative and teach the troops some new tricks!


> Should I let the smaller regiment keep any of their equipment? The book says this one should be left up to me, so how much of the smaller regiment's equipment should they hang on to?


I'd say yes, but this too is a matter of interpretation. In GW's codices, veteran regiments look like a ragtag mixture because everyone keeps their stuff, because no regiment actually receives any supplies from their own homeworld. Uniforms? You better hope that the bunch the regiment has received when being formed will last a while. I recall Only War may have adopted a somewhat more uncomplicated interpretation with notably more established supply lines. Up to you what you prefer!


> What complications from two regiments coming together should I be sure to include in the RPing?


First and foremost, cultural traditions that are absolutely normal for one regiment but totally weird for the other. Even language might be an issue, but this could be too much to properly bring across in an RPG ... aside from perhaps inventing some words where some of the players won't know what they mean.


"Squad Kappa, we're going to flask on the stards on your right. Provide covering fire until the svein have advanced to twenty tristep, then advance so we can nip the drekkers!"


There could be all sorts of contentious topics in the newly mixed regiment, from what food to eat, to gender roles and prejudice, to the reputation of the other regiment or their homeworld. Some episodes of Star Trek Voyager may provide minimal inspiration in regards to parts of the crew being former Maquis.


And that's before you delve into potentially different interpretations of the Imperial Creed, all of whom were tolerated by the local Ministorum on their respective homeworlds. If you have a Confessor in your group he or she is gonna have a field day!

Edited by Lynata