'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 organisation the moniker 'The Hammer of the Emperor'. Unlike the Space Marines, 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 nearly endless waves of infantry and armour to achieve victory. The Imperial Guard (previously the Imperial Army, now the Astra Militarum) is a fictional colossal military organisation, consisting of many hundreds of thousands of armies throughout the Imperium, and forming the vast bulk of the Imperium's military machine.

2.1 History of the Imperial Guard as an army.

1.1 Famous and specialised Imperial Guard regiments.

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. A plastic kit of the Hydra (previously a Forge World model) also became available. Such models included plastic versions of Ogryns and Militarum Tempestus Scions (previously named Stormtroopers) which had been metal. In April 2014 a new codex was released for the 6th Edition of the game, along with a number of new plastic kits. The Imperial Guard was first introduced to the game in White Dwarf 109, January 1989. In the game universe, the Imperial Guard is a colossal military organisation consisting of roughly 500 trillion men and women supported by at least a few hundred billion Armoured vehicles each from thousands of different systems within the Imperium of Man. 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. 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.

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.

Fictional army in the Warhammer 40,000 and Epic tabletop games and universe

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