I know that the Imperial Guard is reliant upon the Imperial Navy for transportation, but I'm not entirely clear how the Navy goes about ferrying troops around.

Does the Imperial Navy use dedicated troop transports or do they simply transport troops on various warships?

Other than a Barracks, what components are essential to making a 'complete' troop ship?

If a ship has multiple Barracks components, does the bonus to conducting/defending against H&R/boarding actions stack?

Perhaps extra hull armour might be important, or that church thing, just for fluff.

Here are the Forge World Battlefleet Gothic troop transports. They're clearly bespoke troop transporters, but they are probably built around fairly basic transporter hulls like the vagabond. There also used to be Galaxy Class Transport for carrying troops - there's a picture here towards the bottom of the page.

HappyDaze said:

Maybe it is one of these vessels that is depicted on the cover of the 5E Guard Codex . I also recommend checking out the "Imperial Transport", "Armed Freighter" and "Heavy Transport" ships, some info on them being accessible on GW's website here and here . Forgeworld has also produced an " Imperial Troop Transport " model for BFG, using the Heavy Transport rules mentioned before.

The best troop transports will have drop-pods and many specialist lighters for getting heavy troops and armoured companies groundside rapidly. The kind of lighter capable of transporting a Baneblade ready to roll out in battle would part of this.

Thay are still owned by the Navy.

I am not 100% sure, but I think even the Titan legions rely on Navy transports, and these must be highly specialised.

Personally, I would not expect drop pods for anything but Space Marines, Battle Sisters and elite Inquisition kill-teams who all have their own special ships anyways … but that is just what I got from GW's own fluff, which, just like any other source, is not to be treated as binding gospel. However, if you do want to look to GW for inspiration, then the Planetary Empires supplement mentioned vast gravity cone generators which are used by some Navy transports to offload troops from low atmosphere right onto the battlefield - together with a chance for lots of casualties if the ship's position is disturbed by heavy ordonance and the cone swivels away from the descending troops.

Most of the time, troops are sent down either via lander and dropship (see Valkyrie article ) or by the transport vessel itself touching down (see BFG rules ). Needless to say, the latter is most likely done only when a starport with proper facilities and resilient landing fields (so as to withstand the massive weight of the ship) has already been secured. I don't think you can land something as big as a Galaxy-class transport just "anywhere".

Drop pods are for rapid strike insertion. This is simply not a tactic employed by the Imperial Guard, and hence the Navy does not support it. Going by its Codex introduction, the Guard is the slow but hard-hitting hammer; if you want the quick scalpel you call in the Astartes.

Fresnel said:

Actually, the Titan legions are one of the few military forces that aren't reliant on the Imperial Navy for transportation: the Adeptus Mechanicus' military forces are not and have never been part of the Imperial Army, so they never lost their right to own and operate their own starships. You're right in that they are highly specialised- there are titan transports that are little more than drop pods for their massive charges (offhand, I've come across references to them being used for Warlord and Emperor class titans), used when the Legion is intending to deploy straight away, and there are others that are capable of acting as refit, repair and virtual rebuilding depots for even some of the largest titans, which are likely among the largest starships capable of landing and taking off from a planet.

There's actually a pretty good article from Inferno! mag called the Conquest of Obzidion which deals with standard imperial planetary assault tactics (and has pics of troop transports). It was available on the Black Library site for a while, but seems to be gone now, although you can get it here .

I think it's probably stretching it to say the Guard never uses drop pods, as it's a large and varied institution. In all honesty, I suspect Naval hardware support for drop pod assaults is actually more wide-spread than the Guard training and doctrine for their use.
I'm pretty sure I recall drop pods being available to IG armies in one of the old editions of Epic, at least. 'Twas a vaguely Battletech-inspired spherical design, about the size of one of the Baneblade models, iirc, and carried a platoon or so? Something like that. Definitely bigger than the new pods the Astartes get to play with (yes, even the dreadnought pods), though, although at the time I believe they both used the same model.

Well, drop pods are available as a ship component in RT… I doubt many Rogue Traders have space marines to fill them.

Drop pods would be for opening/securing a beachhead while the main force is inbound. Elite Stormtroopers squads would the ones to deploy via drop pod. Of course, insertion by Valkyrie is an option too, but drop pods can land through AA defences that would destroy normal aircraft.

Imperial Guard would have these imo. Yes, the IG is often depicted as all about meatgrinding attrition, but such a vision doesn't bear much weight if applied as dogma. They are not space marines but they are sophisticated militrary machine. If the IG dumbly flew wave after wave of landing craft at massed AA batteries, the Imperium would not have lasted 10,000 years.

Reading the Gaunt's Ghosts series I note that Blood Pact forces use drop pods. Is the Archenemy employing more sophisticated tactics than the IG?

Interesting that the Titan legions are still independently mobile - part of my brain told me that Mechanicus forces were independent…

Alasseo said:

As for Epic … phew, that's getting tricky. I know that some editions of that game are even older than 2E of 40k's main game, and a lot of stuff has changed in there. At the same time, I wouldn't want to discount the possibility.

Since this is 40k and we don't actually have a true canon anyways, I'd thus propose to go with what you think fits best to your personal interpretation of the 'verse.

Fresnel said:

IF that is how one interprets the stress of a drop, anyways.

Fresnel said:

Fresnel said:

As you say, true canon is thin on the ground.

As a Dan Abnett fan, for me his vision is as good as it gets for a well realised IG. Within this context I think it highly plausible that the Sabbat Crusader forces have a number of drop pod equipped transports for Stormtrooper deployment. Often a space marine force will not be available and the IG will have to deploy their own special forces teams - via drop pod if the mission calls for it. Ymmv.

*nods* That also touches upon the question of how many Storm Troopers we think there actually are - personally, I'm sticking to GW's numbers, but most people I talked to do prefer a larger quantity, be it because it conflicts with their idea that Space Marines should always remain the fewest Imperial troops, or because they want to see ST's in action more often.

There are also the much more numerous Imperial Guard Grenadiers in addition to the Storm Troopers, of course, but those lack the Deepstrike rule on principle, which to me implies that they are way less mobile. And, also going by GW's fluff, even the Storm Troopers seem to rely on Valkyries as the default means of transportation, at least as much as this Strike Force article would seem to imply.

For my own interpretation of the 'verse, I have adopted a "pick and choose" approach as well. My basis will always remain the studio's own material, but as you say, some novels and other licensed products can add some fairly cool details.

I believe the Blood Pact was entirely Abnett's idea, too - GW just liked it so much that they adopted most of it into their own vision, hence the WD article and accompanying TT rules. By now they even showed up as miniatures on some Codex photos, usually accompanied by CSM, so someone at GW must have done an army with them.

Alasseo said:

That was very helpful. I really like the Minotaur Tug and would like to make it for RT. I think that using a transport hull and giving it a special rule that allows it to use a Combat Bridge (since I don't see a Commerce Bridge being particularly appropriate for a troop ship) would be adequate. Another transport with a Hold Landing Bay could stand-in for the Whales.

Lynata said:

Now Lynata, we've sparred over this before. And my point of contention was that you interpret the term "Regiment" too literaly, and in terms outside of the correct cultural context.

Namely that "Regiment" in US military terminology is a direct synonym for "Division" (a military unit comprising 10,000 soldiers total).

But GW is a British company, and the British Regimental system doesn't assign any fixed size to a "Regiment". In fact, in practise a "Regiment" is only about the size of a Batallion, up to a Brigade (here in Canada, one of the countries that uses the same system, or a close derivative of it). If we were to continue to apply your very literal observations, then it would in fact mean there's even less than 10,000 of them running around the galaxy (a situation that is already stretching the bounds of disbelief, with a setting like 40K).

There's also direct connotations between the Storm Troopers, who are the special forces of the Imperial Guard, and the SAS, when they're being referred to as " The Regiment", since that is a common nickname for the SAS (who don't even total a Batallion in numbers). And it wouldn't be out of line for GW to make that kind of connection.

While Grenadiers are a seperate force that seem to pad out the numbers, they're more traditional heavy infantry, as opposed to the Guard version of special forces.

Fresnel said:

The nice thing is that Dan seems to be falling more in line with 'traditional' 40K interpretations, as he gets more and more books under his belt. It's clearest to long time readers like me, that none of his newer novels are going to feature anything so… unlikely as one of the stories in the 2nd Gaunt's Ghosts novels, where Gaunt a Platoon of his men counter-ambush 10-20 KHORNE BERZERKERS (as in the Space Marine kind) and win with hardly any losses.

While several novels later in Traitor General, the fight against 5 Chaos Terminators is rightly described as a titanic battle that they barely survive. Like it should be.

Blood Pact said:

I agree that the Storm Troopers can be all of one regiment since "the Regiment" is never fielded in its entirety and really exists only as an administrative division. Storm Troopers are really more defined by their company (the largest groupings that they are deployed in), and it's quite possible that there are thousands of ST companies all under the the single ST regiment.

Blood Pact said:

Ah, but unlike with all other Guard formations, GW has assigned a fixed number to the Storm Trooper regiment. It says it right in the old 2E Codex.

You are free to dismiss it, and indeed saying that the numbers GW provided are bollocks is just as okay an opinion to have as me stating that I'm sticking to them. Neither of us can be "wrong" on this. But at the end of the day, that's just something that we all have to decide for ourselves. Which is what I meant when I typed that sentence about it being a question (since it only is a question when you compare the conflicting material, and you have to pick a single answer).

We have sparred over this before, but whilst my understanding of this IP's supposed canonicity has changed since that time, and I have become much more liberal about "alternate" takes on the setting, my personal preferences have not.

But I will add for clarification that FFG's material seems to use a much higher number of Storm Troopers as well; at least I recall one of the freelance writers posting here that he likes to use Storm Troopers more often, which is why they pop up more regularly than Codex fluff might imply. So for anyone who operates on a preference for FFG's interpretation of the 'verse, I suppose this overrides the numbers we were given so far .. just like the Storm Troopers here can "now" be detached as individuals to a normal IG squad, Vostroyan regiments "now" include female Guardsmen, the Deathwatch is "now" not a part of the Ordo Xenos, and so on.

Peace!

Lynata said:

GW has rewritten the universe so many times since then that nothing 2E could possibly be cannon. That being said I use whatever version of the universe I prefer too.

Cryhavok said:

They actually just reposted a lot of 2E fluff in the 6E rulebook, and the 3E Sisters 'dex even went all the way back to 1st edition Rogue Trader fluff. There are a lot of retcons, but I would say the material is more consistent than people generally give them credit for, and as long as they do not contradict something with a newer book I generally do not care how old a source is..

But yeah - individual interpretation. In theory, it'd even be possible to pick and choose from all across the board, ignoring some GW fluff yet not other, ignoring one thing out of a FFG book yet not another …

As Gav Thorpe once wrote on his blog, the 40k setting is a personal thing, hence the "tens of thousands of overlapping realities" and "the notion of canon [being] a fallacy". It took me a long time, but I see that now.

Cryhavok said:

As it happens, I recall the bit of fluff in question, and it's been reprinted as current canon as recently as 4th edition (possibly even more recently, but I ran out of funds to keep up with the tabletop rulebooks and codices just before 5E).

I wrote up the stats for the Galaxy-class Heavy Troop Transport awhile ago. Here they are. Just thought you might be interested.

GALAXY-CLASS HEAVY TROOP TRANSPORT

The Galaxy-class transport has been in use since the days of
the Great Crusade, ferrying billion of Imperial soldiers through
the stars. Well armed and armored for a transport, the Galaxy
is a rugged, well built ship and is well known through out Battle-
fleet Calixis as a dependable ship. Although Battlefleet Calixis
possesses few of these ships (they stopped building them
thousands of years ago), they are currently kept busy carrying soldiers
and supplies to and from the Margin Crusade.

The Galaxy-class in an invaluable addition to any Trader-Millitant's
fleet. With it's Bombardment Cannon and large number of troops,
the Galaxy is fully capable of waging wars of conquest completely
on it's own, and the last thing many an Imperial foe has seen is a
Galaxy ship sliding into orbit overhead.

Notable Ships: The Grand General Heracles has carried soldiers into
battle for over 2,000 years and bears many proud scars of past
victories. Currently carrying the 13th Genswick Armored Regiment
and the elite 2nd Genswick Rifles, the Heracles is currently under contract
to Calligos Winterscale and was last seen departing Port Wander for
Winterscale's Realm.

Dimensions:5.0km long, 0.9 abeam at fins approx.
Mass: 18 megatonnes approx.
Crew: 40,000 crew, approx., 100,000 troops
Accel: 2.9 gravities max sustainable acceleration.
Speed:5 Manoevvrability:-10
Detection+10 Hull Integrity:50
Armor:15 Turret Rating:1
Hull Space:54 Ship Points:50
Weapons Capacity: 1 Prow, 1 Port, 1 Starboard, 1 Ventral
Troop Transport: This vessel was designed for transporting troops
and no amount of retrofitting can fully change this. This hull comes
pre-equipped with two Barracks Components. The hull's space has
already been reduced to account for this, however, when the ship is
constructed it must be able to provide 4 power to these components.
Naval Auxillery: This ship may use both Transport and Cruiser
Components.

Essential Components: Jovian Pattern Class-3 Drive 60/12/0
Strelov 1 Warp Engine 10/10/0, Gellar Field 1/0/0
Mrk-1.r Life Sustainer 3/2/0, Voidsmen Quarters 1/3/0
BG-15 Assult Scanner 5/0/0, Invasion Bridge 4/3/0
Single Void Shield Array 5/1/0
29/31/0

Supplemental Components
2 Barracks 4/8/4, Munitorum 2/3/2
Drop Pod Launch Bay 1/3/2
2 Thunderstrike Macrobatteries (Port&Starboard) 4/4/2
Bombardment Cannon (Prow) 5/5/3
Jovian-Pattern Escort Bay (Ventral) 1/4/1
Medicae Deck 2/1/1
19/20/14

Notes: This ship gives gives an additional 275 Achievment Points when

working towards a Military Objective.

Thanks for this. I'll be using it in a mini-campaign I am planning. Btw, which book are the Drop Pod launch bays in?

Fresnel said:

Your welcome.

Rogue Trader Into the Storm , pg 159.