So, pinning down military ranks, as an American military novice (me) would understand them, can be tricky; the Imperial Guard have near-countless regiments, from almost as many different worlds, and each might use their own ranks, and such. Cadia is the most well-known regiment, though, I suppose, and my favorite. Thing is, most popular, or not, I'm not sure which RL army they might be best said to emulate, and thus which rank ladder they might utilize. I am working on a story, and need some of these rank terms, as Cadians would use them. The main character, an enlisted-type guy, would probably be in an Infantry Platoon, fighting Orks, and eventually become a Veteran. What happens by the end of the first part, though, is that we find out that the planet's overseeing Company Command Squad, and its attaches, are all secretly worshiping Nurgle, and doing things to drag out the conflict with the Orks. Without going into too many silly details, the end of part 1 sees this Command Section wiped out, "by accient", as their corruption becomes known, and our main character, who never expected to lead much of anything, now finds himself the leader of that planet's remaining Guard forces, effectively becoming the Company Commander, as he was the highest-ranked person who lived, but was not associated with the Nurgle Cult. Part 2 involves him coming to terms with his "promotion", and trying to figure out how his forces will best the Greenskins, who have been allowed to remain a growing threat, by his predecessors, while coming to terms with how he got the promotion, as little about that as he actually knows.

So, what I'm wondering is, what rank might our brave protagonist have been, when fighting the Orks, and what rank does the Company Commander of a besieged world hold, by the way Cadians do things? Sort of a silly thing, I grant, but it can be fun to make use of the knowledge of others, who might know more 40K minutiae than I might. Thanks for your aide.

Cadians use modern-day rank analogues; Guardsman (individual), Sergeant (squad), Lieutenant (platoon), Captain (company), Colonel (regiment), General (army).

We've not seen that I recall a cadian 'Major', so they may have skipped the rank. The rank definitely still exists within the guard as a whole; the Valhallans have a Major as their Colonel's 2iC for the regiment.

Sergeant Merrick from dawn of war 2 is a sergant major so we know that's a rank so I assume major is also a rank.

Lieutenants are the lowest form of commissioned officer,and usually command platoons, or low level specialist support formations that do not fall under the Adeptus Munitorium.

Captains typically serve as executive officer of a company, but may fill in at platoon level or substitute for an absent major.

Majors normally command companies

Majors also act as execs and staff offices at regimental level, with captains as assistants and lieutenants as "gofers".

This means that if "the Major is busy" with regimental level duties, or if a lieutenant has become a casualty, you can find captains operating in both platoon and company command.

NCO ranks and positions within units depend on whether you chose to use a European or American style for organisation.

So, if I were to use the IG/AM Codex, an "Infantry Platoon Commander", the model in charge of the Platoon Command Squad, of an Infantry Platoon, would be a Lieutenant, the "Company Commander" model, of the Company Command Squad, would be a Captain, or perhaps a Major, and then otherwise, a Cadian Major might be of a regimental level beyond the typical "one segment of the battlefield", possibly safe in a Command Bunker, or some such? Special cases might call for the CC to be a General, or Creed, if you were to pay extra for a special character?

I'm sorry to beat this horse, as it were, but as often as my stuff seems silly, I do want it to appear to have some semblance of "he's got his terminology down; he just writes ludicrous stuff " Thanks much for sitting through it, and offering up the assistance. Have a great one!

Pretty much; you can get captains at platoon level, either filling in for casualties, or due to promotion but before re-assignment to another position.

If it's a multi company force, one will be commanded by its major, the others might be commanded by captains or majors.

Battlefield promotions (acting /brevet rank)can see temporary increase in rank to the minimum that would normally be associated with the post being filled eg., if both major and captain are casualties, the senior surviving lieutenant takes charge after informing higher command, and will probably be addressed as"Captain" for the duration of the situation.

Whether the promotion is later confirmed would depend on how they did and other factors such as available senior ranks to take over the company, social class etc.

Not every planet's version of the guard has every rank you expect in a NATO-style military - they often skip some (Major has, as noted, never been listed as a rank by a cadian regiment although it has by valhallans), by having an extent 'pecking order', and sometimes have a few extras (like Knight-Commander).

The "Pecking Order" is a Roman Legion style thing; whilst nominally centurion was a rank, you were always 1st centurion, 2nd centurion, 3rd centurion, and so on up the number of centuries in a cohort and cohorts in a legion; theoretically they had only two actual NCO ranks (centurion and optio - essentially corporal) between the poor bloody infantry and the man in charge of the legion and his staff.

You see this in 40k a bit - all the time with marines, but occasionally with guard as well (specifically Mordians, if I remember right), where 'first captain' is almost treated as a seperate rank.

One thing I will note is that whilst in practice a NATO company is a Major's command, in 40k, it's almost invariably a captain. In fact, the last time the Imperial Guard codex actually had ranks attached to statlines (rather than junior officer and senior officer), your options were 'Captain' or 'Colonel'; 'Major' was skipped clean over.

That's cool. I just didn't want to come off as an idiot, were anyone to ever read it. I already write ridiculous stuff; the least it can do is try to be factually accurate. Sadly, I haven't found any great opportunities to read my few 40k novels, and of them, I don't expect my Grey Knight Omnibus, or Eisenhorn, to touch much on the Guard, except as the poor souls dying in droves, while some heroes do their thing, and my IG Omnibus has Catachan on it, so I'm a bit worried it would cover them, and not the preferred Cadians. My forays on the Internet didn't feel like being more helpful, and each regiment can follow weirdly different set-ups, so long as they can fight. Also, since my greatest experience with it is the codex, I'm not always sure, compared to say, Space Marines, where some of the chunks of a Guard army fall, rank-wise, on a planetary scale. Astartes are few enough that they might be the only Space Marines on the world, and their ranks are specific, but the Guard? Like I said, I wasn't sure if the Company Commander would lead an army, or all the armies on that world, or if unlike Space Marines fielding Chapter Masters, if that echelon of Guard are always off the field, safe in a bunker, and thus not reflected in models.

Depends on the commander - Lord Solar Macharius, for instance, was infamous for leading from the front.

A company commander is unlikely to command a planetary force - generally there will be at least a colonel (because the guard and tempestus generally move in regimental 'blobs') or possibly a general.

There was a 'high command' HQ choice for a guard army in chapter approved a while back (same era as the 'Chosen of Ahriman'), which was somewhere between a company command squad and an inquisitor's retinue. But generally an army or planetary commander would be safe in a bunker or command leviathan, or even up in orbit.

Not every planet's version of the guard has every rank you expect in a NATO-style military - they often skip some (Major has, as noted, never been listed as a rank by a cadian regiment although it has by valhallans), by having an extent 'pecking order', and sometimes have a few extras (like Knight-Commander).

The "Pecking Order" is a Roman Legion style thing; whilst nominally centurion was a rank, you were always 1st centurion, 2nd centurion, 3rd centurion, and so on up the number of centuries in a cohort and cohorts in a legion; theoretically they had only two actual NCO ranks (centurion and optio - essentially corporal) between the poor bloody infantry and the man in charge of the legion and his staff.

You see this in 40k a bit - all the time with marines, but occasionally with guard as well (specifically Mordians, if I remember right), where 'first captain' is almost treated as a seperate rank.

And of course, moving officers from company to company as their respective seniority* changes would have comensurate effects on unit efficiency and moral .

Unique ranks from planetary background are typically limited to certain social strata/classes/castes, with the higher ones reserved for the "cream of society"**.

*Typically, receiving a commendation or decoration for valour will, in setting, increase seniority, as does time in rank.

** The thick, rich scum that ends up on top

Yeah, this is the sort of reason I don't complain more about Creed, in TT; he's way overpriced, coupled with way fragile, and there can be little to do to mitigate these things, but then he should also rarely, if ever, see the battlefield, so the build almost covers that, making it very unlikely you'll field him

I'll have to do a bit more picking through stuff, to see how our hero can rise from part of a field group, up to starting to approach the Command Section, where the General, for lack of a better term, and his coterie, function, before he gets field-promoted, on account of the Calli...um, Ork explosion that kills the command staff.