Imperial Guard (Warhammer 40,000)

In the fictional universe of Warhammer 40,000, the Imperial Guard is the army of the Imperium in the Warhammer 40,000 tabletop miniature wargame.

The Imperial Guard, now known as the "Astra Militarum", are a specific army or faction in the Warhammer 40,000 and Epic tabletop games and universe. The army itself is characterised by being capable of fielding a multitude of lightly armoured infantry in combination with some of the toughest and most powerful tanks in the game. In the game universe, the Imperial Guard is a colossal military organisation consisting of trillions of men and women supported by millions of tanks each from thousands of different worlds and systems within the Imperium of Man.

The Imperial Guard was first introduced to the game in White Dwarf 109, January 1989. In April 2014 a new codex was released for the 6th Edition of the game, along with a number of new plastic kits. Such models included plastic versions of Ogryns and Scions (previously named Stormtroopers) which had been metal. A plastic kit of the Hydra (previously a Forge World model) also became available. In addition to the new kits and models, the Imperial Guard had a name change to the Astra Militarum in line with Games Workshop's shift away from generic naming of their intellectual property.

The Imperial Guard (previously the Imperial Army, now the Astra Militarum) is a fictional colossal military organization, consisting of many hundreds of thousands of armies throughout the Imperium, and forming the vast bulk of the Imperium's military machine. Unlike the Space Marines, who are an elite unit that rely upon precision strikes against the enemy's critical assets to carry the day, the Imperial Guard has the reputation of relying on massed assaults made up of endless waves of infantry and armor to achieve victory, however most imperial commanders are highly trained and skilled career soldiers who know how to use the variety of the Imperium to full effect. "If a Space Marine assault is likened to a surgeon`s scalpel, the Imperial Guard assault is likened to a sledgehammer blow" It is this battlefield strategy that has earned the organization the moniker "The Sledgehammer of the Emperor". It also earns the Guard the reputation as a meatgrinder, whose most infamous or desperate commanders are more than willing to spend their soldiers' lives for the smallest of gains or in the most suicidal defensive actions.

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