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This is mainly related to the 40k fluff rather than on the table, so feel free to move this if it is in the wrong place.

I have a bone to pick with GW. It seems that the Imperium, far from being a galaxy-spanning superpower, is actually depicted as exceptionally weak and utterly inefficient when fighting the wars it is constantly besetted by. Taros and Anphelion from IA are two prime examples of the Imperium getting soundly beaten by the xenos. Likewise, practically every codex (even the Guard one!) has the Imperium suffering tremendous losses and/or getting beaten when all is said and done.

I can only make the assumption that the Imperium is GW's fluff-y punching bag in order to show off how amazing and awesome all the more exotic races are. It would be nice, however, for the Guard/Imperium to soundly beat someone without suffering 60-70% casualtes in the process. As much as I can understand the 'unlimited supply of men' that the Imperium has got going for it, there's only so many times it be used as a catch-all to offset their seemingly numerous weaknesses. It also begins to grate slightly when I see my race constantly getting one-upped in the fluff stakes by absoloutely everything else in the 41st Millenium, give us a break Black Library/GW! (not you Abnett! )

Any thoughts?

L. Wrex

Because GRIMDARK GRIMDARK GRIMDARK!

The Imperium is a theocratic hegemony which is at the best of times afraid of progress and innovation, and at the worst are outright homicidal toward any kind of new or different thinking (heresy). They are less technologically advanced then they were 10,000 years before, and they have declared every non imperial culture (human or xeno) to be "the enemy". They are effectively at war all the time without end, and nearly every war they are involved in they are the underdog in either numbers (Orks) or technology (Eldar, Tau, Necron). I think it's a miracle they've lasted 10,000 years like this, and it's that underdog against all odds feeling that makes the Imperium in general, and the Astartes in specific, so cool to play and write about.

What books have you been reading? Most Black Library books are written from the Imperial perspective and end with the Imperium winning.

If you look at the other side they are usually taking a lot of losses too.

It just isn't interesting to write about the battle where a guard regimen comes in, crushes a minor uprising nad razes a few town, or when they find a new alien species and casually bombard it from space back to the stone age and occupy a defensless planet.

Similarly, when the SM send in a single tac squad is given a mission to destroy a damn to flood a valley and it goes off without a hitch. It isn't engrossing literature when the space marines deploy 3 drop pods which crash into the rogue governors compound, slaughter everyone inside, and the populace proclaim the emperor has sent his angels of death, and they hide in their houses for three weeks while the guard casually restores order and commits mass genocide.

Or at least this is what many writers think. I'm sure that is how the majority of battles go, but when you are looking something to demonstrate the courage, power, and sacrifice of immortal super humans complete with a full page mural, you want something a bit more epic.

Look at the stories told in the US. WWII, Vietnam, etc. The numerous policing actions are largely forgotten. Already the Iraq war is rarely discussed, just the more interesting and dangerous Iraq occupation. War stories are more interesting when their epic.

I thought that the SM codex (don't have it with me) had them actually winning most of their conflicts, usually handily.

As for the IG losing so many people, part of that is to highlight the super deeds of the fluff super stars, the Space Marines.

Otherwise, their trying to keep things grim and dark. Being human, having humans constantly under threat, losing steadily, and most of your victories being rather pyrrhic tends to qualify as both grim and dark. If the aliens that are attacking you are ineffective, and only win once in a great while, then things aren't quite so grim. It's all for fluff. I wouldn't worry about it too much, as IG seems to be doing rather well on the table.

Brother SRM wrote:What books have you been reading? Most Black Library books are written from the Imperial perspective and end with the Imperium winning.

They do seem to win, but the OP is stating its at a huge cost of lives.

I can understand where the OP is coming from. Not only do the humies loose millions of lives but whole planets seem to be exterminated.

It seems to me that in another 10000 years the humies will be pushed back to Terra itself with nothing but dead or captured planets behind them.

EDIT: (Blood Angels book spoiler):

Just finished the Blood Angels Omnibus. Nearly all the Blood Angels where wiped out or considered heritics. A whole Imperial planet was exterminated and a battleship from the Emperors days was destroyed. But, they won!! Oh what a victory.

Luke_Prowler wrote:Because GRIMDARK GRIMDARK GRIMDARK!

This made me laugh. As sad as it is, not matter how fluffy an answer someone can some up with....this is the real answer...

Read Gaunts Ghosts.
i'm pretty certain they just about do everything, kill space marines. kill other guard, kill chaos space marines.
a scout kills a drednaught.

they're like chuck norris of the guard world.

Lycaeus Wrex wrote:This is mainly related to the 40k fluff rather than on the table, so feel free to move this if it is in the wrong place.

I have a bone to pick with GW. It seems that the Imperium, far from being a galaxy-spanning superpower, is actually depicted as exceptionally weak and utterly inefficient when fighting the wars it is constantly besetted by. Taros and Anphelion from IA are two prime examples of the Imperium getting soundly beaten by the xenos. Likewise, practically every codex (even the Guard one!) has the Imperium suffering tremendous losses and/or getting beaten when all is said and done.

I can only make the assumption that the Imperium is GW's fluff-y punching bag in order to show off how amazing and awesome all the more exotic races are. It would be nice, however, for the Guard/Imperium to soundly beat someone without suffering 60-70% casualtes in the process. As much as I can understand the 'unlimited supply of men' that the Imperium has got going for it, there's only so many times it be used as a catch-all to offset their seemingly numerous weaknesses. It also begins to grate slightly when I see my race constantly getting one-upped in the fluff stakes by absoloutely everything else in the 41st Millenium, give us a break Black Library/GW! (not you Abnett! )

Any thoughts?

L. Wrex

It's because humanity is, largely speaking, on the way out. Like the Eldar before us, we've had our chance and we've blown it. Ten thousand (plus) years of being a 'galaxy spanning super-power' and we've reduced ourselves to superstitious zealots who know less about the universe each day. It is a time of impending doom, and though against that backdrop the heroes we see shine all the brighter... it is not enough.

Chaos walks amongst us, the Necrons stir beneath us and the Tyranids swarm above us. Humanity is out-matched by those who would consume it.

Because if they won, other armies would not exist anymore.
Plus, who wants to play dandy space elves if they were taking a beating all the time and almost extinct.

Because, as it was said, who would want to play dandy space elves, if it wasn't for the fact that they cheat contantly, are bastards and beat up on everybody ever without even trying. IG and SM, on the otherhand, have so much inherent coolness and so many reasons to play them that they can let the spehss elfs borrow some. There's plenty to go around!

I would have said the same about Chaos, but failbaddon hasn't got alot left to give!

Drama is found in change. When the biggest guy around is teetering on the edge, there's a lot of drama to be found in his imminent collapse. It also means you write stories where the heroes win by maintaining the status quo, which is important because you need to end with a win and the status quo allows you to keep writing stories.

OP does make a good point - most of the IA books have the imperials getting whipped.

They do win on Vraks eventually but it takes about double the amount of time, equipment and manpower that was allowed (and that allowance was pretty extravagent). It also leaves Vraks totally worthless for the foreseeable future making the whole thing pointless anyway.

A lot of the answers are already spot on. All the protagonists/heroes in the books you're talking about are humans. For them to have a dramatic ride they need to overcome obstacles and face challenges. Since all the books are about war, this means lots of people get hurt. Would you watch an action film where the main character just strolls around killing bad guys? Even Arnold Schwarzenegger gets superficially beaten up in his films, his buddies get shot, his family gets endangered, etc.

And that dramatic tension is for scenarios where the imperium wins! When they lose, it's (as said above) for atmosphere. We keep getting told the 41st millenium is a bad time, and we're shown this by people, armies and planets getting wiped out. If the imperium just went around kicking the crap out of aliens constantlly, the look and feel of the game would be a bit different, after all.

Have you ever read the first Imperial Guard Omnibus? Three different Guard novels in one, each one enormously intense, gripping, and feels like your watching a WWII sci-fi action movie in your mind. Why?

because they're human, they die, they make courageous sacrifices for the team, and they push on against all the Orks charging at them. If they just sent like 30 regiments of Guard to these planets following a planet-wide orbital bombardment, it would be boring trash not worth the time of day.

And because, as Luke_Prowler so eloquently put it: "GRIMDARK GRIMDARK GRIMDARK"

GRIMDARK GRIMDARK GRIMDARK, indeed.

Surprised no one realises the answer yet. In order to have the game function the humans have to lose quite a bit. A game about an extremely powerful Imperium of man against some orks that are almost wiped out and occasional incursions by tyranids that are promptly destroyed doesn't make for a good game. The game is based in a human empire. Therefore the enemy needs to be within that empire or a significant threat to it. That means that the humans have to lose enough to make it plausible that there would be places where orks and tyranids and other races would be lodged so strongly in the empire that they couldn't be kicked out. The books would just be an extension of that plot arc.

Ringarin wrote:Surprised no one realises the answer yet. In order to have the game function the humans have to lose quite a bit. A game about an extremely powerful Imperium of man against some orks that are almost wiped out and occasional incursions by tyranids that are promptly destroyed doesn't make for a good game. The game is based in a human empire. Therefore the enemy needs to be within that empire or a significant threat to it. That means that the humans have to lose enough to make it plausible that there would be places where orks and tyranids and other races would be lodged so strongly in the empire that they couldn't be kicked out. The books would just be an extension of that plot arc.

...Which is pretty much summed up in every other post in this thread, the Invincible Imperium=BORING, dying empire of humanity where "in the GRIMDARK of the 41st millenium, there is only WAR"=MADE OF WIN

And, thus in order to achieve the optimal concentration of GRIMDARKium©, thousands upon thousands of members of the Imperium need to die each day/book/clump of fluff to create a successful game.

Ah. That's what they meant by grimdark. Thought it might have been a character in one of the books that I don't read.

I want to read the book that has a character named 'Grimdark'.

If you want my opinion, the humans win too much. Humanity is supposed to be teetering on the edge of the abyss, and there's this big deal made out of the fact that everything is absolutely, irrevocably hopeless. The only indication that this is happening is a few paragraphs in the rulebook though, it isn't really represented in any of the BL books or codex that I've read...

Because Warhammer 40000 is better than Relative-peace-and-quiet-for-mankind-hammer 40000.

Zed wrote:Because Warhammer 40000 is better than Relative-peace-and-quiet-for-mankind-hammer 40000.

Two reasons.
1. See above.
2. Because they're not Orks.

I hope you aren't all refering to IG as the Imperium. And fluff has nothing to do with it, and as an example, Macragge. Tyranid fluff says once they attack a planet, it is doomed. The planet's history says the Tyranids were beaten. And in this instance, a single planet's fluff ruined an entire race's fluff, so fluff is irrelavent.

Sorry about the rant, I just felt the need. But, Space Marines are part of the Imperium, and they win the same amount of games as other armies.

Tyranid fluff says once they attack a planet, it is doomed. The planet's history says the Tyranids were beaten. And in this instance, a single planet's fluff ruined an entire race's fluff, so fluff is irrelavent.

That happens to be my HUGE pet peeve with tyranid fluff. A couple hundred space marine, and the planetary defense force broke the back of an entire hive fleet attacks, but Gryphonne IV with millions of skittarii and thousands of titans, one of the most powerful military forces in the galaxy are wiped out in less than a day, and don't even make a dent

The trick seems to be that you have to wipe them out in orbit or you don't stand a chance. Probably more painful to the nids since getting the biomass back would be harder, and since they haven't already committed resources in the same way the better option might be to go find easier targets.

And that hauling in help from lots of other chapters that then don't really get any credit helps the Ultramarines a lot.

At this point I would like to remind Dakka Dakka that the Imperium has managed to keep Failabbadon in the Eye of Terror 13 times. Admittedly the last time was fething close, but we managed it!

Not to mention the Imperial clean sweep during the Medusa V campaign

In ancient times, humans had the Roman empire. The Romans were strong, elite fighting units, numerous conscripts, seemingly unstoppable. Mass exterminations of heretics. The empire grew and prospered for centuries until barbarian invasions, and internal strife tore it apart.

Flash forward hundreds of years; Nazi Germany rose from desolation to the most powerful power of mid 20th century Europe. Mass genocide and killings of political enimies(sound familiar). Hitler demanded unending loyalty from his subjects, and some could consider it similar to worship. It took an assault on all front from other major powers to end the Nazi tyranny.

Jump ahead thousands of years. Terra had just suffered major wars, but finally united under the Emperor(who was/is worshiped as a God). He set out to conquer all those around him and bring them under his rule. Then heresy begins to plague the Imperium, accompanied by attacks from other powers(sound familiar?) The Imperium is modeled after the Roman's, the Nazi's, and many other human superpowers from today and the past. And like past empires, it will fall from a combination of internal strife, and external attacks.

Man is weak of spirit, and mind. The only strength we have is our high birth rate, and as such, our high population to conscript into the army. As everyone knows conscripted soldiers never fight as strongly as those who have enlisted.
The majority of the IG are conscripts, and that is represented in game by their poor stat blocks, and high numbers compared to other factions, such as the SM or Eldar.

Conscripted soldiers and failure to learn from past empires will cause the Imperium to fall, just like the Roman's, Nazi's and all other failed empires.

Aside from the thematic reasons everyone else has covered keep in mind two "in universe" facts:

1. Casualties are irrelevant to the Imperium.

Consider: if we assume the Imperium has a million worlds with an average population of 6.6 billions (US numbering) and a similar birthrate to the Earth in 2007 (when 6.6B was the population roughly), then ~ 134,000,000,000,000 new potential soldiers are born every year (that, more then 254 million a minute). Even if only 1 percent of those folks are in the various armed forces (which seems silly in such a preponderously militarized nation) any battle's losses are replaced in a few minutes.

I'd wager my numbers are low in all cases though (for average population, birthrate, and number of worlds). So a few million soldiers is nothing.

2. Worlds matter, people don't. If the world can eventually be resettled ( in a few centuries) it will be, and the cycle of growth continues.

Jack