Could a player, such as an arch-militant, take a military unit as a piece of starting equipment? They are fairly common.

Well lets see:

Obviously it would multiple Aquisitions:

1) Men
While people are Ubiquitous men that have it in them to be soldiers are Plentiful
+30
You want an entire regiment
-10
Than you need to train them
+0 (Common Craftmanship)

So getting trained men would be an Aquisition +20 Test(Life is cheap)

Next you want to equip them

2)
1.000 Lasguns + Extra Charge Pack is a (+20-10+0-5) +5 Aquisition Test

3)
1.000 Guard Flak Armour is a (+0-10+0) -10 Aquisition Test (+0 for Flak Coats)

4)
The remaining equipment I would roll into one test,things like knives, flasks, bedrolls, etc.
1.000 Misc. Soldier Gear (+30-10+0) +30 Aquisition Test.

Recap:
4 Aquisition Tests at +20, +5, +0 & +30 and one hell of a lot of good roleplaying...

I wouldn't allow it as a starting option (probably not high enough with single +0) but there should be no problem with the party recruiting or hiring such a unit as an Acquisition in game. The bigger problem is going to be transporting it.

I houserule that a Barracks has facilities for transporting vehicles (Chimeras etc) as well as troops and a complement of dropships to transport it to the surface. This differentiates between having the proper facilities to act as a troop transport and just cramming the troops in wherever they'll fit (as with ship who launch invasions without a barracks).I'd have deployment from ships without barracks be portrayed as a very clumsy and slipshod thing not to be done under fire, with troops and vehicles being taken down seperately in lightly armoured civilian craft.

In any case, acquiring one or more regiments and taking them out to conquer is probably going to be a very common thing for PCs to do. My own players have their first session this week and are already planning to combine Creed and Military objectives by recruiting militant pilgrims in the Calixis sector and shipping them to Heathen planets in the Expanse.

No, it is not a starting option...but that is how I would do it using the Acquistion Rules...

Tantavalist said:

Im pretty sure that you have to choose a single item for your starting acquisition according to the rules, so even if you didn't oppose it the players couldn't begin with a regiment as their starting acquisition anyway.

Varnias Tybalt said:

However, your acquisition could be the Sargent of a merc group who would, with minimal convincing and negotiations, be able to bring the rest of the mercs with him... (that, of course, would be PF roles above the actual acquisitions of the Sargent and to be handled in-game).

Santiago said:

Why not just treat the soldier and his kit as a single item?

Desired Item: Guardsman

Components:

Trained Soldier : Average +10 (this availability is debatable)

Lasgun: Common +20

Soldier's Kit: Common +20 (This is most/all of the items from "Infantry Gear" on Pg 182 of the Inquisitor's Handbook. With the exception of the compass they never go above Common availability and cost about 10-20 thrones average, so I feel justified rolling them all into one item.)

Guard Flak Armor: Scarce +0

So the rarest item is the Flak Armor at Scarce, so the roll is +0 -15 for each additional component. So a Regiment of normal quality troops would be -25 PF. Seems a bit steep for a thousand soldiers... I suppose you could go for Conscripts (Poor quality) or fit them with Flak Coats instead of Flak Armor, which would up the acquisition check to -15 PF. Then again, if you're trying to raise an army, you'd probably better have a good reason and have done some wheeling and dealing to gain support for the endeavor, which'd probably end up as a bonus to your Acquisition check.

MmmMM tricky. I have to admit sweet talking the GM to having a regiment, just so I could combine games of rogue trader with 40K games of planetary assults, to provide a entertaining diversion. There is after all no reason why you cant have one. In the trappings of power section p329 it says that "other significant assets gifted to the rogue trader include ground troops. Entire Imperial guard regiments may be seconded to them, along with all the auxilliary units to maintain them and advisors to aid in their use and deployment" This kind of fits in anyway with the earliest depictions of Rogue traders in 1987, as explorer/conquistadors which kind of predates the merchant.han solo types on the late 1990's. So I guess he can have is free item and the the regiment.

BUT....AND ITS A BIG BUT,

you have to be willing to balance the game. For example the munitorium isnt going to let a rogue trader or one of his minions run off with over a thousand of the emperors warriors just so he can galivaunt with xenos beyond the imperiums border, because he thinks it might be a jolly laugh and have a swell time. My warrant of trade for example states that Tenax dynasty has to return every 500 hundred years to the Hive world of Beorma (with constant warp travel its not that long) where they have to oversee the collection of the imperial tithe and upon the fufilment of this they get in return a replenishment of the 200th Beorman Frontier rifles (Known as the Crazy Cudbears ...CC... 200th.. geddit?)call thats is permenantly attached to the dynasty They have to fufill escort duties the the Beorman governing house's trading ships and help out whatever crazed scheme the Mechanicum have got going to recover archeotech, and that these conditions are binding. Dont fufill the conditions, you get no regiment, no ship and no warrant. Also when in service.... thats it for troops. Any futher troops have to be recruited from other sources to replenish the dynastys losses and from their own coffers. This has however allowed me now to start to build a really fun 40k IG army with haphazard troops from a variety of different fronts. Ive even greated a company of herediary guardsmen, the sons of dubious liasons on a hundred different worlds who lovingly tender the military vehicles that the dynsaty has bought/aquirred/stolen over the years and who stay with the dynasty from birth to death.

In gaming terms it probably means the barracks are a must. Yore going to get involved in military scraps so you might as well get the bonus. It also means that your troops get decent facilities to train and deploy while they are on service and I concur with Vanias Tybalt on his ideas. Without a barraks youre asking for trouble and should suffer penatly on oooo say discipline and efficiency and deployment.

Also you have to make a special effort to not call the cavalry to save your ass every time you think you should have broght something better than a stub gun to a fight. You say you want the arch militant to be in command of the troops rather than say the trader. Well you either have him heroically lead from the front with four trusted veterans ( a IG command squad) to complete missions he cant trust the grunts to do, leaving the actual deployment to the regiments second in command. All you have him sit on the ship issuing orders and planning stuff to make sure the whole military action without a hitch. What you cant do is just park a thousand men in front of the explorators, just because you want to intimidate some narco trader and youve failed a percentile test. Or maybe you can, but if youre gonna be like that then the GM has every right to have them fall for a genestealer ambush planned by the narco trader who turns out to be a nid hybrid.

Personally, I'd just assume that if your ship has a Barracks, you get soldiers along with it, with their quality depending on the Crew Quality of the ship. Skill 30 crew gives you Hired Guns, Skill 40 crew gives you Oathsworn Bodyguards, Skill 50 probably gives you Sisters of Battle or Imperial Guard Stormtroopers or something.

nick012000 said:

MILLANDSON said:

Yeah, but you're pretty much assumed to have whatever crew you need for the ship. If you've got a Barracks component, you've probably got soldiers to fill it with at a level of competence determined by your crew competence.

nick012000 said:

I would be inclined to agree with this. Even before the purchased a barracks its likely that some of the crew were Security and Armsmen- who now have a proper barracks to function properly in.

alexkilcoyne said:

MILLANDSON said:

Huh? Not really. The Teleportarium and Murder-Servitors both give +20, and they're both 1 Power/1 Space items, rather than the 2 Power/4 Space component the Barracks is.

However, when the component specifically states that it only applies when troops are being transported, plus the bonus for military objectives, it does suggest that troops are not included. Also, Murder Servitors don't give bonuses to Endevours, and neither do Teleportariums.

Of course, there is nothing stopping you from hiring soldiers with an acquisition, but the way the description of the Barracks, as well as the wording of the bonuses, suggest that troops do not come with the Barracks.

Might be something to ask FFG about.

Here's what I came up with-

www.darkreign40k.com/miscellaneous-equipment/rt-i-want-my-own-imperial-guard-regiment-2.html

You could treat every item the Guard carry as a component I suppose, but thats massively tedious. Far easier to make a judgement about the rarity of fully equipped Regiments in the Sector and go from there.

SJE

It was because of the Barracks that I was most curious about. Having a dedicated arms/security force within the crew component is a given, but if you buy a Barracks shouldnt you either be able to buy the troops you can?

Grand Inquisitor Fulminarex said:

Its tricky. I went through the barracks section yesterday. The implication is that it gives you the ability to transport troops and gives you a bonus in military endevours and boarding. But with something like 15000+ souls on board, its not really difficult to outfit 1000 of them for war. Theres probably lasguns in the ships armoury in any case.

I think what we are talking about here is proffessional/decent troops along with all the organic military vehicles, heavy weapons training facilities, gymnasia, pods/ships - anything in short that allows you to maintain a force that can do at the very least a minor planetary assault. I dont think it refers to spacers who have been taught which side is the dangerous end of a lasgun, or shotgun armed armsmen that keep order on the ship.

As for the types of troops heres the rub.

Are we talking about mercenarys? because rolling for that kind of aquisition can be tiresome, to arm and equip them etc. and then keep track of every chainsword you have supplied to the throne loving grunts.

The section on trappings of power says that entire regiments are seconded to Rogue Traders. I would just do a difficult aquisition roll to persuade the munitorium if you can 'borrow' a regiment of men. Then you can assume that the regiment has all the kit it needs to fufill the task at hand, and you have the barracks to run an outfit.

Or like me you can just write it in the conditions of the rogue trader's warrant of trade. You get a ship and a thousand of the emperors Imperial Guard seconded to you on whatever time basis, and your ship its outfitted with barracks to reflect this contract. But if you do this youre going to have to write some fluff on what basis Terra has provided a regiment. There probably is clause like: must exterminate (xenos name), conquer a world in the emperors name or board and scuttle X amount of space hulks. Of course this will bring intresting predicaments if the trader fufillment of his warrants conditions clashes with his own personal ambitions...

SJE said:

There are rules for this in Rogue Trader. For instance, you can buy a pistol with a red dot laser sight with one acquisition roll instead of two. The way to do that is looking at the two items and using the higher rarity modifier of the two, then add -5 for each additional part to whatever it is you want to buy. So check for the rarity of the guardsmen and their equipment. Use the highest rarity modifier and add as many -5's as the GM deems necessary due to the equipment you'd have to buy for them.

This might result in a much harder acquisition roll of course, rather than just doing several where you buy all the equipment for the guardsmen in bulk numbers.

Right, and your DM also decide to simply make one man's worth of "Imperial Guard kit" a single item with a cost based on its components. Heck, with self-equipped mercs, you could even decide on a cost for the man and his gear as a unit, then adjust for quantity. Tracking individual canteens and charge packs is neither neccessary nor desireable.

Like I said- figuring out the individual rarities of Chimeras, Heavy bolters, Krak Missiles and the Commissars power fist - way too tedious. The Components rules break down when you get beyond one or two items. But then your rogue trader isnt using each item himself - if you need a gate blown up, then he tells the Heavy Weapons team to do it- he doesnt man the guns himself. So if the individual components of the regiment dont really matter, far better and its far more usuable in game to treat the regiment as a single, very large item, rather than a collection of individual components.

SJE

I asked a question alot like this here:

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?efid=159&efcid=3&efidt=230308

and no one seemed to be able to give me a textbook answer. Apparently there currently are no rules on what advanced crew or things like that actually do for you. In the meantime, we pretty much have to make up rules for what they do for you.

My games ship also has a barracks, currently unoccupied since they killed the last occupants.

How many men does a barracks hold, assuming that all their kit is present too? Thousands seems to be the default answer and i understand why its been left this way but i'm interested in working out whether thats 2000 or 10,000.

Next question becomes how many grunts are in an imperial guard regiment? Once again i realise that this is going to vary by a lot depending on background.

Finally, are imperial guard regiments mixed arms? I know that navy supplies the fliers, but do you have armoured elements in every regiment or are regiments purely infantry, armour, mechanised infantry, etc...?

Any imperial guard 40k players able to advise on guard regiment make ups?

Gribble_the_Munchkin said:

According to the fluff sources I've read a "standard" regiment in 40K is made up of roughly 24 companies. Each company in turn is made up of between 2 to 6 infantry platoons. Each platoon is made up of between 2 to 5 Infantry squads, where one is a designated command squad for that platoon. A standard squad is made up of one sergeant and nine troopers (or most often one sergeant, one corporal and neight troopers). A command squad on the other hand is usually made up of one officer and four members of his personal staff (junior officers, advisors, comms specialists etc.)

So of course the numbers vary quite a bit depending on earlier losse and decimations, but I'd say that it would be safe to assume that a "standard" regiment that has been freshly replenished from earlier casualties would number in between 8000 to 10.000 men. But a regiment could be much smaller, partly depending on casualties and if the regiment is specialized for certain battlefield conditions or roles (like forward scout regiments being in smaller numbers due to the natural disadvantages of trying to "sneak" with 10.000 men at once).