Devotees of the Imperial Cult, Commissars encourage bravery and devotion to the Imperial cause and ensure that cowardice is punished. If a unit with a Commissar fails a Morale check for any reason, the Commissar will summarily execute the Officer or Sergeant leading the squad thereby sparing him the shame of living with the knowledge of his failure. Don't roll any dice as this happens automatically — remove the Officer or Sergeant model from the table when the unit fails its Morale check, before they fall back. The Officer or Sergeant counts as being dead for victory points purposes.
Units whose Officer or Sergeant has been executed must immediately attempt to regroup even if not normally allowed to do so (for example, because of the proximity of the enemy). The Regroup test is made against the Commissar's Leadership value. If passed, the unit regroups using the normal rules and doesn't have to fall back; if failed, the unit and the Commissar are eliminated (the cowardly poltroons frag the Commissar and make good their escape!).
The same test is carried out if the squad's Officer or Sergeant is killed by the enemy; take a Leadership test for the squad using the Commissar's Leadership — if the test is passed the Commissar takes over as described below but if the test is failed the squad runs off and is eliminated.
Designer's Note: This rule has been included to stop players avoiding the Execution rules by killing off their Officers when the unit comes under fire! It also represents the fact that the Commissar must still establish control over the unit.
If the Officer or Sergeant is killed — either by his Commissar or the enemy — the Commissar effectively takes control of the platoon. All Leadership based tests taken by the unit from then on use the Commissar's Leadership value. If the Commissar takes command of a HQ unit, then any units that would normally have tested on the Officer's Leadership test on the Commissar's Leadership value instead.