Imperial Army regimental commanding officers held command over both their regiment and the warship assigned to them, making a single warship a tactically flexible combined arms unit and minimizing the damage to the Imperium in the event of the loss of a starship, its crew and its assigned troops in the Warp.ĭuring the Horus Heresy, however, it appeared that some Traitor Army regiments used the power of the starships at their disposal in order to forge interstellar empires for themselves in the fires of anarchy that swept the galaxy during the seven bloody standard years of the Heresy. Under this form of organisation, each Imperial Cruiser would have a single Imperial Army regiment assigned to it. Collectively, these massive war fleets would come to be referred to as the Armada Imperialis. Imperial Navy vessels during the Great Crusadeĭuring the Great Crusade to reunite all the scattered colony worlds of Mankind beneath the rule of the Imperium of Man, both the Astra Militarum and the Imperial Navy were originally a single service: the Excertus Imperialis ( Imperial Army). 8 The Imperial Navy and the Inquisition.2.6 Reserve Fleets of the Segmenum Obscurus.This was done to weaken the Imperial armed forces in case of the outbreak of a future rebellion against the Emperor's rule. This was opposed to the fleets of warships assigned to the service of the Legiones Astartes, who were used for the planetary assaults that occupied the bulk of the Great Crusade.Īfter the horrors of the Horus Heresy, during the Imperial reformation overseen at the start of the Time of Rebirth by the Primarch Roboute Guilliman, the Imperial Army's fleet component was reestablished as a separate and rival service. Its vessels were dedicated to the defence of Imperial space and strategic Warp routes. In ancient times, during the Great Crusade and Horus Heresy eras, the Imperial Navy was not an independent armed force of its own but was considered a part of the greater Imperial Army and was known as the Armada Imperialis. The battlefleets of the Imperial Navy are constantly engaging threats both inside and outside the Imperium's borders. While the Astra Militarum ( Imperial Guard) represents the Imperium's ground forces, the Imperial Navy is responsible for the fleets of starships that maintain order between the stars and planets in the Imperium, for all space and air support provided to the infantry of the Astra Militarum through its Aeronautica Imperialis branch, and for transporting those Guardsmen across the galaxy to the Imperium's myriad warzones. The Imperial Navy, known as the Navis Imperialis in High Gothic, is one of the primary armed forces of the Imperium of Man.

Empire total war imperial destroyer