4thdanika

The 4th Danika is the short name for the 4th Danikan Imperial Guard Regiment – a unit of the Imperium’s ‘Astra Militarum’.

Okay – so what is this website about?

This website is the ‘narrative’ for my Warhammer 40,000 (40k for short) Imperial Guard/Astra Militarum army. Over the last 25ish years I’ve been creating stories with these models, inventing characters with backgrounds and the like and, in many cases, writing fiction about them and their experiences. This site is to collate all that material, the fiction, the unit background, Table of Organization and Equipment etc. all into one place for the public to enjoy. So that’s what this is all about. The menu above will take you to the various locations and more will be added as I get the chance. There are tons of stories to read, and more content including images and the like, will be added as I get the time.

A person who had a look at this site found that – as is common with fanfic, much of the World of Warhammer 40,000 was a bit tough to understand. As such, I’ve added a bit of a pre-amble of what kind of universe the 4th Danika exists in. In many ways it is not a universe of ‘good guys and bad guys’ but ‘bad guys and worse guys’. Despite this – the Danikans still do their best to be the ‘good guys’ in a very very nasty universe… (Thanks for the Feedback Shane!)

So – without further ado…

The Universe of the Imperium of Man is not a nice place. It is the universe in which the Imperial Guard, or Astra Militarum, exists of which the 4th Danika is a very tiny part. It’s entrance onto the scene was heralded by a large book I bought in my youth and inside its earliest pages was the following grim text which sets the tone for the world in which the characters in the stories on this website live:

It is the 41st Millennium. For more than a hundred centuries the Emperor has sat immobile on the Golden Throne of Earth. He is the Master of mankind by the will of the gods, and master of a million worlds by the might of his inexhaustible armies. He is a rotting carcass writhing invisibly with power from the Dark Age of Technology. He is the Carrion Lord of the Imperium for whom a thousand souls are sacrificed every day, so that he may never truly die.

Yet even in his deathless state, the Emperor continues his eternal vigilance. Mighty battlefleets cross the daemon-infested miasma of the warp, the only route between distant stars, their way lit by the Astronomican, the psychic manifestation of the Emperor’s will. Vast armies give battle in his name on uncounted worlds. Greatest amongst his soldiers are the Adeptus Astartes, the Space Marines, bio-engineered super-warriors. Their comrades in arms are legion: the Imperial Guard and countless planetary defence forces, the ever vigilant Inquisition and the tech-priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus to name only a few. But for all their multitudes, they are barely enough to hold off the ever-present threat from aliens, heretics, mutants – and worse.

To be a man in such times is to be one amongst untold billions. It is to live in the cruellest and most bloody regime imaginable. These are the tales of those times. Forget the power of technology and science, for so much has been forgotten, never to be re-learned. Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for in the grim dark future there is only war. There is no peace amongst the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter, and the laughter of thirsting gods.

So – there you have it. Not a very nice place indeed. You can read about in in more detail at the 40k wiki here: The Imperium of Man.

As to the Imperial guard, it is a vast military machine, in existence for thousands of years. More about it below…

Once called the ‘Imperial Army’ in the days of the Great Crusade, the Imperial Guard or Astra Militarum is a force of ordinary human soldiers that once supported the great Crusader Fleets of the Legiones Astartes – also called the Space Marines. Like the Legions they served with, roughly half turned traitor during the Horus Heresy and many units were destroyed during that conflict costing untold millions of lives of loyalist and traitor alike.

In the aftermath of the Heresy – the Imperial Army underwent a number of changes (as did the Astartes Legions). While the Legions were made smaller and broken up into battalion sized elements called ‘Chapters’, the Imperial Army was renamed the Imperial Guard and much later the ‘Astra Militarum’. The Army was also divorced entirely from the Navy in order to curtail treason. Where formerly the army was directly and closely tied to individual Fleet elements, there was now a significant gulf between the two. If a Naval unit went bad, it could no longer bring with it sufficient ground forces to take and hold bases and the like. If an army unit were to prove disloyal, it would be restricted to the atmosphere of a single world, contained until it could be dealt with. Unit sizes were also reduced, much as with the Legions Astartes. Where before Armies and Divisions were the order of the day, now elements of the former army would be grouped into Regiments of between a thousand and about four thousand warriors and support troops.

With this reorganization, most Imperial Guard Regiments also became focused on one form of battle specialty. One would find Armored Regiments of tanks, Artillery Regiments, Infantry Regiments – probably the most numerous and more. Some of these Regiments had further specializations, Light Infantry regiments might specialize in scouting or reconnaissance, for example, while a Heavy Infantry regiment would be used for hard fighting at difficult points where greater casualties would be expected, their heavier armor and guns allowing them to handle this duty better. Some regiments would be mechanized while others would have to rely on local transport, or just march in the time honored tradition of soldiers everywhere.

Danikan regiments are a bit of an exception to this rule. Many, although not all, are much more like the Army Divisions of old with their own organic armor and artillery elements. Units such as this are ideal for independent operations away from the main battle lines. Rather than having to assemble an ad hoc group of mechanized infantry with armored support and anti aircraft support from several regiments, a general might send a single Danikan Regiment to handle the task knowing that he was sending a group which already had worked out their abilities to mutually support one another – a particular problem with infantry and tanks in many battlezones that can take months or years to develop and then be destroyed by the loss or transfer of a unit.

A Danikan support team helps defend a building in an urban conflict

The 4th Danika is not merely the fourth regiment to be raised from that world. The number has been re-used many times over the millennia. It is, instead, the 12th iteration of that fourth raising. Danika has over a hundred regiments in battle at any one time in various parts of the Imperium. When one is destroyed or is retired, that number re-enters the ‘pool’ of available regimental numbers and is then assigned to the next regiment raised. Many numbers have been used dozens of times, but the 4th has a long and ancient history of surviving, sometimes for generations out amongst the stars, before finally dwindling or being destroyed and then needing to be re-constituted.

Like many Danikan regiments, the Fourth, sometimes called ‘The Black Devils’ is a ‘mixed composition’ regiment. Its make up has changed during the decades since its original raising, but generally includes several armor companies, several artillery companies, a large base of infantry and armored infantry as well as various supporting elements.

4th Danika – Structure and Doctrine

The Men of the 4th Danika

The World of the Morning Star