# Japanese Imperial Guard



## Scorpio (Feb 25, 2008)

My friend an I were throwing around random IG army ideas when we hit upon the fact that here seems to be no Asian IG theme. We have the Catachans, which resemble the stereotypical Vietnamese G.I. Joe, Mordian Iron guard with the Prussian theme, the Valhallan Ice warriors on the Soviet red army, the Death Korps of Krieg with the WWI German uniforms. Elysian drops troops as analogs to the British Paratroopers, and so on. Anyways he hit upon the ideal for a WWII Japanese themed army. He said that since the Japaneses already have the battle cry for the emperor, it could be possible for them to be in the 40k universe.So does this idea have the possibility it could be expanded upon? Feed back would be appreciated.


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## Jacobite (Jan 26, 2007)

Its a interesting concept and could defintly be expanded upon.

The reason why I don't think we have seen a army like this is because GW isn't very prevelant in that area of the world. If you look at most armies they are geared toward a western male demographic. Most of the characters in the human armies are white and male. Although that said I would love to have a eastern themed regiment. It would be interesting to sort out how to work it all.


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## Dirge Eterna (Apr 30, 2007)

Well, I would say, like Jacobite said, the stereotypical gamer nerd is a white male, so their products will be aimed at that population. Although I've seen more and more women gamers (Coincidently, my own girlfriend plays Khorne in 40k and Fantasy). So we might be seeing some more...diversified products soon.

-Dirge


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## Galahad (Dec 21, 2006)

Japanese have Tau ;-)

Seriously though, the gaiters, the extremely long guns, even the particular kneeling stance of the tau fire warrior minis resemble Japanese soldiers in WW2.

That said, Japanese imperials would be interesting.

don't really see many black IG or marines either. Granted, skin color is a matter of painter's choice, but I can't think of many GW-painted models in the books that were black, and no minis with African facial features.

Also, why no chicks in the IG? Women ARE allowed in the impy guard, but there are only two characters/models that are female, and both were last chancers. Would it be too much to ask GW to toss in a female head on a sprue of guardsmen? I'm not asking for contoured breastplates or battlefield miniskirts, but as it stands the only girls in the game are armor-clad dominatrices.


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## Jacobite (Jan 26, 2007)

Your forgetting the Female Tanith as well Gal. But yes there should be some more female Guard.

As for African skin toned races - theres the Salamanders but once again it isn't a army which gets that much attention.


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## Baby Eating Bishop (Feb 29, 2008)

samurai imperials close combat troops and infiltrators


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## Shugotenshi47 (Mar 2, 2008)

Well i've been lurking in this thread for a bit and well it's time for me to say something. The Japanese IG army was my idea and so Scorpio here has been helping me refine the different conversions i will need to make ex: getting rid of the regular power swords and replacing them w/ katanas and so on. Current scheme is based off of the modern Japanese military uniforms. SO far i looks like i'll be using gs and Catachan weapons for the katanas.


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## hawkwing (Jan 12, 2008)

sounds way cool.....Troll the net there is an unofficial Cathay army for Fantasy based warhammer. It may inspire


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## Pariah Mk.231 (Mar 2, 2008)

You'd want to pick a good set of doctrines to repressent them on the table. I'm thinking Die Hards and Iron Discipline to start with, maybe Hardened Fighters as well. Not too sure what to use for the rest, depends on how you want them to play. WW2 Japs aren't really my cup of tea, I prefer the Feudal Era of Japan, so if I was doing this project, I'd be taking Carapace Armour, giving the force a Samurai feel.


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## Shugotenshi47 (Mar 2, 2008)

My set up is similar to what the Japanese Army called Amphibious Brigades which has an element for landing thus represented by the drop troops doctrine, then the follow up waves of tanks and other vehicles forming a standard force. So pretty much I have 2 different set ups with the same models and fluff. All so I've always thought samurai made more sense as SM and not IG and I like IG better then SM


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## Shugotenshi47 (Mar 2, 2008)

Galahad said:


> Japanese have Tau ;-)
> 
> Seriously though, the gaiters, the extremely long guns, even the particular kneeling stance of the tau fire warrior minis resemble Japanese soldiers in WW2.
> 
> ...


Tau are commies i hate commies and their battlesuits which I think is some of their coolest models are elite choices which means I can't have as many as I would like besides having an army of Tau fire warriors screaming "Banzai to the Tau empire" or something like that dose not sound as cool as "Banzai to the God-Emperor"


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## foulacy (Nov 24, 2007)

I once seen a catachan army, and like somebody said they had a few squads, but i seem to remember one squad was all black and others were all white, why not mix ?
there is nothing wrong with having an ethnic mix in your squads.
ive got a few black zombies haha. just to show that my deathguard infect everyone.


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## neilbatte (Jan 2, 2008)

the catachans especialy the old metals look good painted afro caribean but the brown skin tone is harder to do well whats weird though is in the fluff marines have a black carapace implanted over so why are they all painted flesh coloured?


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## torealis (Dec 27, 2006)

interestingly enough, japan and china are two emerging markets for GW... so you never know.


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## magnustheblue (Feb 25, 2008)

Off topic, but I have a friend that collects 40K and is Muslim, so he themed his guard army of Tallahan to be Muslim and on his tanks he painted gihad in Muslim (It's awsomeness). He has plans to start an ork 'Gihad' Army with lotz of Tankbustaz and Rookit Launchas


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## Shugotenshi47 (Mar 2, 2008)

lol that's cool I have kamikaze written on my flag and i plan to write "Banzai to the Emperor" on my tanks as well


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## LandRaiderLove (Mar 4, 2008)

this sounds like a good idea!! id agree with shugo that a samurai would suit SM better, someone's done it too!! i saw it in white dwarf ages ago (by ages i mean years!! Lol) maybe you should base them on japans' current army, base them on cadians?? and then add your own touch?


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## Alexander (Mar 4, 2008)

magnustheblue said:


> Off topic, but I have a friend that collects 40K and is Muslim, so he themed his guard army of Tallahan to be Muslim and on his tanks he painted gihad in Muslim (It's awsomeness). He has plans to start an ork 'Gihad' Army with lotz of Tankbustaz and Rookit Launchas


Would you believe me if I told you that a Syrian friend of mine does the same? Except the Jihad thing, I think. :biggrin:

Sometimes I help him with info on Tallarn from different sources, especially IA. 

Back on topic, I always thought that the Imperial Guard should have at least one African, Asian and Australian based regiment. 

PD: Someone remember the Attilan Rough Riders? :biggrin:


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## rokassan (Jan 24, 2007)

My IG and Chaos Marauders are multi racial. I think it adds flavor, personality and realism.


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## Shugotenshi47 (Mar 2, 2008)

ok i hit a snag with my Japanese IG. Not sure which doctrines to use. So far it seems that Iron Discipline, Harden Fighters, Cameleoline, Sharpshooters, Veterans, Die-Hards, Light Infantry, and Jungle Fighters are the best choices. Which do you guys think would be best.

Edit: Drop Troops is an option as well


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## The Son of Horus (Dec 30, 2006)

Doctrines depend a lot on whether you want to go for a more feudal Japanese style, or a more WWII-ish one, or if you're more interested in a more general Imperial Guard army from a rules standpoint. Pretty much irregardless, you'll want Iron Discipline and/or Close Order Drill. However, I'd leave Cameleoline at home in all cases... it's utterly worthless.


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## Shugotenshi47 (Mar 2, 2008)

It's going to be a WW2 style based off of the IJA Independent Mixed Brigades, they were a Brigade size force that had infantry, tanks, artillery, and so on in one self sufficent unit.


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## Vanchet (Feb 28, 2008)

True there is no Japanese Guard (I alway had a mad thought of guard as Mexican bandits )


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## Pandawithissues... (Dec 2, 2007)

Iron discipline, Jungle fighters, die hards, lightinfantry and hardened fighters would seem to be most appropriate


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## Shugotenshi47 (Mar 2, 2008)

Well reading my codex jungle fighter and light infantry in the same army sees redundent


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## Shugotenshi47 (Mar 2, 2008)

from input from the Imperial Guard Message Board I'm going to start testing out the following doctrines for my army:
List 1:
IJA Amphibious Brigade based:
Drop Troops
Harden Fighters
Chem-inhalers (explained by instead of getting hipped up on drugs they are just really fanatical)
Veterans
Carapace (not only allows them to better survive after they land but it is a also taking from Japanese history in general)

List 2:
IJA Mixed Brigade based
Light Infantry
Harden Fighters
Chem-Inhalers (explained above)
Veterans
Heavy Weapon Platoons


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## julio d (Apr 20, 2008)

neilbatte said:


> the catachans especialy the old metals look good painted afro caribean but the brown skin tone is harder to do well whats weird though is in the fluff marines have a black carapace implanted over so why are they all painted flesh coloured?[/QUOTE
> 
> The 'Dex says its implanted under the skin + marines have a zygote that changes their skin pigmentation to deal with solar radiation (built in sunscreen :O)
> 
> Japan isn't my area of expertise, but you could use vets or last chancers as ninjas :O


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## vindur (Apr 1, 2008)

If you are going for WW2 make sure each sergeant has a katana, power of otherwise


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## julio d (Apr 20, 2008)

come on people there can be WW2 Ninjas! Theres 40k dudes that ride horses and have spears!


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## Druchii in Space (Apr 7, 2008)

Aye this could look really good, I've seen some Guard tanks painted using the camo patterns employed by the Imperial army at the time, and they can look pretty sweet.

As to racial tones and female figs, aye 100% I agree, in my old guard army before I sold it I'd say 1/3 of my army was white, 1/4 Black and the rest a mixture of Indian, Asian and Native American. Looked pretty nice to me. Oh and don't forget the female Catachan grenade Launcher fig, I had 4 of those.


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## Shugotenshi47 (Mar 2, 2008)

I decided to go with list #2 and so far my camo scheme is lookign really good and I made some conversions to all my officers and sergeants to make their weapons more katana like. Everything is still wip but progressing nicly


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## julio d (Apr 20, 2008)

man come on 1 ninja squad


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## Lord Commander Erus (May 1, 2008)

I'd love to see pics, and like the idea of this army. It may well cause me to start an SM force based off Samurai. Only guy I ever sparred against I couldn't be used armor and katana of a samurai. Scrawny guy was FAST.

do we have a definitive army list to critique yet? 

Oh... Pics... Please?


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## Vanchet (Feb 28, 2008)

They have made everything into the 40k universe (Tau-Japanese, Steel legion-german, Mordian Iron Gurad-British, Thousand Sons-Egypt"ish", etc)
But I would love to see someone create guardsmen as Mexican Bandits XDD(sombreros and Tequila ^____^)


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## julio d (Apr 20, 2008)

stealth suits are pretty lame ninjas


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## Leaf (Feb 8, 2008)

Japanese Imperial Guard would be awesome. To the post that mentioned that tau is kind of japanese with there kneeling trooper It does remind me abit of the Kneeling japanese toy soldiers but that is early war The Japanese started to phase out the long rifle type 38 in favor of the shorter type 99. There were long version of the type 99 but production was short. 








Carapace armour 








note the putties similar to the Tallarn


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## Cole Deschain (Jun 14, 2008)

They'd be easy to do, actauly.

And before we kiss the doctrines goodbye-

Iron Discipline
Die-Hards
Storm Trooper Squads (mostly because the other Elite choices don't really "fit" at a cursory glance
Independent Commissars (to reflect the fact the the Officer Corps wasn't the part of the army they saw as needing a bit of supervision. Go Kempetai!)
Grenadiers


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## Shugotenshi47 (Mar 2, 2008)

O-o wow my net goes down for like a month and somehow this thread gets resurected. I'll get pics of my Japanese IG up sometime in the near future. 

The idea of using Kempetai as independent commisars acctually shoulds really cool. Maybe I'll subsitute Veterans for it.

Note: The color scheme is based off of the modern JGSDF


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## Malagate (Jul 28, 2008)

Yes bring those pictures soon, it's always nice to see more different themed armies.

I'd personally like to see an army themed around ancient Chinese Warlord Lu Bu, as I have seen a Feudal Japanese themed space marine army before (including samurai styled armour and one of them committing seppuku) but I've never seen anything based around Imperial China. The closest was those Attilian Roughriders, and they were clearly Mongolian influenced.


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## asianavatar (Aug 20, 2007)

Would you be willing to toss in an Inquisitor Lord and take death cult assassins as ninjas :grin:


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## imm0rtal reaper (Jul 15, 2008)

Sounds like a really good idea. Pics would be very nice thought


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## Critta (Aug 6, 2008)

Galahad - on the theme of female models, there is also a female catachan grenade launcher model that I've seen whilst browsing in my local store.

I do however agree that there could be some more female IG models.


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## godzy (Jun 5, 2008)

I dont know the IG codex very well, but I'm sure that as julio d wrote- NINJAs!
ratling or something that infiltrates?


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## KellysGrenadier (Jul 13, 2008)

Veterans can infiltrate. Ninjas are veterans, right?


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## Cole Deschain (Jun 14, 2008)

...

Ninjas fit the Imperial Japanese Army about as well as gaiters fit the current US Marines.

But 40K DOES thrive on gleeful anachronism....


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## KellysGrenadier (Jul 13, 2008)

Perhaps, but the aim isn't to model the contemporary Japanese armed force, is it?


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## Cole Deschain (Jun 14, 2008)

KellysGrenadier said:


> Perhaps, but the aim isn't to model the contemporary Japanese armed force, is it?


The IJA is NOT contemporary.

If he wanted to make the JSDF, the Cadian range works fine....


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## KellysGrenadier (Jul 13, 2008)

Ah, the WWII Japanese army. Veteran Jungle Fighters/Light Infantry soldiers could quite easily take on the Ninja'esque role. Their outfit would add character -- perhaps the British SAS squadrons could be used as inspiration.


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## Farseer Beltiac (Jul 11, 2008)

YEHA!!! SPACE NINJAS!!!!! Great idea!


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## godzy (Jun 5, 2008)

Death Cult Assassins?


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## gwmaniac (Sep 1, 2008)

Posting in languages other than English is against the rules. If the mods can't read it, we'll delete it.

You can edit this message and replace it with an English translation if you like. -G


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## Shugotenshi47 (Mar 2, 2008)

I just found the old Catachan codex and a lot of the special rules in it sound very similar to the Japanese Army's tactics in Jungle conditions. Any comments or thoughts?


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## gwmaniac (Sep 1, 2008)

don't forget the kamikaze rule! that is a must for a japanese imperial guard army:biggrin:


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## wombat_tree (Nov 30, 2008)

I went to GW and there were hundreds of people ond only 1 of them was a girl and im pretty sure she was just there to drop her brother off.


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## Shugotenshi47 (Mar 2, 2008)

and this is here why?

With the new IG codex coming out withing the next 6 months I'm probably going to have to rework the army. Too bad all the rumors are all over the place with little coherency except for a few unit rumors


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## Cadian81st (Dec 24, 2006)

Well, we're pretty sure doctrines will be gone, so don't plan on having those around for too long.


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## gwmaniac (Sep 1, 2008)

wombat_tree said:


> I went to GW and there were hundreds of people ond only 1 of them was a girl and im pretty sure she was just there to drop her brother off.


that was random, why don't you suggest some Japanese IG ideas instead?


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## ACoz (Oct 23, 2007)

Every IG army i've ever made (I'm on No.3) has had multi-ethnic paintjobs.

In my military career, there was only one brief period of time when i was in a unit that was all the same ethnicity (my technical training: there were five of us. and even then, two of the 8 instructors we had were different ethnicities), so... none of my IG units are all the same skin tone.

that said, and back on topic, I'm making a DIY SM chapter that I'm basing the homeworld culture sort of on an indochina kinda thing... anyway, Reaper Master Series paint does a set of skin tones called "Golden Flesh": I think it'd be perfect for your Japanese IG.


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## Shugotenshi47 (Mar 2, 2008)

Sweet, thanks I'll look into it.

For some reason this thread just will not die someone finds it and starts it up again for a bit


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## Lord of Rebirth (Jun 7, 2008)

When I think a near future Jaoanese army I think of things like the JSDF from Evangelion (They are pretty wicked and the storm troopers from EoE are awesome.) and the SDA from Ghost in the Shell: SAC.

I'm actually gonna do a Tau Human Auxilia codex based on some ideas of more advanced units from Ghost since things like term-optic camo and AI dron choppers are awesome but way beyond Imperial technology though they fit Tau as the lower tech they would give to their human Auxilia units.


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## willem the beterthan (Dec 28, 2008)

there is also a feamale comasar dosent look very good 

the tanith feamals look prety good 

i painted mine befor i got a unaforme flesh paint so i had to mix evrey persons skin tone difrentley and it turnd out exalint i have some verey pail troopers and some that look like they live in miamy florda

one of my tanith has a plasma gun and looks like he could be painted a very dark skin tone


and dosent eny one sea it the storm tropers should be the ones that loke like ninjas or samories


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