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The Death Korps are not equivalent to a modern army. They line up and march into battle in the style of WWI soldiers. Bit like he WWII Russian conscripts we mentioned earlier. The Death Korps are an even bigger stereotype than Chenkov.

Even the Tanith don't fight in a modern style. 30 plus platoons? No company level organisation? No Regimental level leadership? Gaunt is a crap commanding officer. He leads individual platoons into battle, leaving the other rest of the regiment to fight on it's own without any level of command and control. There's almost no coordination, no pre-battle planning. In anything, the Tanith fight more like Celts than a modern army.

[Edit: So even though they are portrayed as "elite" in the fiction, in reality the Tanith are pretty much a rabble. They do use reasonably modern tactics, but implement them in a fundamentally flawed way]

The Valhallan's from the Gaunt books fight in the way closest to modern infantry out of the three you mentioned.

And with regards to the modern American army at mcragge? Well yes, they would die. But so would any other modern army. Modern tactics, strategy and equipment procurement are all planned with an eye to fighting HUMAN opponents. NATO uses the 5.56mm round, for example, because it is more likely to wound the target than kill it. Thereby forcing the human enemy to divert manpower and resources to evacuating the casualty from the battlefield and providing medical treatment thereafter. The goal being to overload the enemy supply lines.

No modern army would be able to stand up to the like of Nids. That doesn't mean Guardsmen are better or braver than modern soldiers because they can fight (and die) against Nids. It just means that their equipment is better suited to fight against Nids and have learned from experience how best to fight them.

No modern army would have such experience, which means that no real world army would be able to stand against them. Moreover, no real world army would survive long enough to adapt their tactics against them. Whereas in 40K, the IG have eventually learned what works, albiet at the cost of billions of lives.

I know it's ludicrous that we're theorizing about what would happen if a fictional alien race from a wargame attacked earth, but that's where this conversation has led us.

Incidentally, your analogy falls flat in another way: in the fiction, the non marine defenders of Macragge were slaughtered as well.

Funny that you mention that, because Tanith was, basically, Planet Scot-Ireland. They even speak a Gaelic-like native language, and have a whole lotta Micks on the roster.

NATO uses the 5.56mm round, for example, because it is more likely to wound the target than kill

Actually, no. It is intended for maximum lethality in most situations. It is, in fact, against NATO regulations to develop weapons that maim and injure as a core concept of their deployment, rather than a potential side-effect. NATO would rather have dead soldiers than tens of thousands of maimed veterans.

What NATO says a weapon is designed to do, and what it actually does (and ultimately, what it is used for) are very, very different things.

Many NATO member states have officially banned the use of anti-personnel Land Mines by their armed forces. However, many of these same counties continue to use Claymores. These same countries are very careful to ensure that these devices are never officially described as "Land Mines" in military or political documents.

That being said, it's only fair to point out that Claymore are generally command detonated mines, rather than mines that explode when some un-suspecting civilian or animal walks on them.

[Edit: Also bear in mind that 5.56mm was adopted during the cold war, before poitical correctness and so became an issue. I'm a bit rusty on my NATO policy, but I believe the statement you quoted post-dates the argument for adopting 5.56mm in favor of the old Nato 7.62mm round.]

That doesn't change the fact that the 5.56 is an incredibly lethal round.

The whole tumbling effect, blah blah, yadda yadda enhances lethality. It's a function of its design (because, 40+ years ago, it didn't do this and had a habit of blowing right through someone and they didn't even know they'd been shot, sometimes for several minutes.)

OT, I should point out that, if you are going to compare a modern military to a 40K one, you have to update the modern military to be geared on par with the 40K army. A modern army, magically transported into 40K, would be fethed for a number of reasons, one being no defense against space craft, another being no immunity to xenobacterial infections, yet another being the fact that they just got transported through space and time, and also the fact that Low Gothic is not English. There would be serious communication barriers. Plus, you know, the US Army is not very big compared to the IG.

 Psienesis wrote:
That doesn't change the fact that the 5.56 is an incredibly lethal round.

The whole tumbling effect, blah blah, yadda yadda enhances lethality. It's a function of its design (because, 40+ years ago, it didn't do this and had a habit of blowing right through someone and they didn't even know they'd been shot, sometimes for several minutes.)

OT, I should point out that, if you are going to compare a modern military to a 40K one, you have to update the modern military to be geared on par with the 40K army. A modern army, magically transported into 40K, would be fethed for a number of reasons, one being no defense against space craft, another being no immunity to xenobacterial infections, yet another being the fact that they just got transported through space and time, and also the fact that Low Gothic is not English. There would be serious communication barriers. Plus, you know, the US Army is not very big compared to the IG.

Yes, but as recently as the 90's, 5.56 rounds were still going through guys with barely noticeable effect. Granted I think those were the teflon tipped versions designed to defeat body armour, but yeah, we're getting way off topic. Totally agree with your second paragraph.

 LeadLegion wrote:
What NATO says a weapon is designed to do, and what it actually does (and ultimately, what it is used for) are very, very different things.

NATO forces no longer use land-mines, for example. Which is why the Claymore is officially no longer designated as a "land-mine".

That whole "designed to wound" thing comes from a confusion between the M16 rifle and the M16 APERS landmine, and it's 100% confusion. The field manual section for the APERS mine says that it's designed to injure rather than kill. People read "M16" and think it's referring to the rifle.

5.56x45 is designed to be lighter and produce less recoil than 7.62x51. Lethality was not a major design consideration one way or the other, beyond both rounds' ability to penetrate steel helmets at extended ranges (hence why NATO mostly uses SS109 / M855 now).

The whole "5.56 doesn't kill people" thing is nothing new. Grandpa was saying that his M1 Carbine was bouncing rounds off of icy clothing in the Korean War. Grandpa was missing, and so are most people who complain about 5.56.

I came to talk about IG. I left when people started talking about NATO and land mines and bullets.

Lame.

And at least, here in Canada, we can only use remote triggered Claymores, not wire trips and whatnot.

 kronk wrote:
I came to talk about IG. I left when people started talking about NATO and land mines and bullets.

Lame.

And yet you stayed long enough to post that. Bless your heart.

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:

 Kain wrote:

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:

 Kain wrote:

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:

 Kain wrote:

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:

 LeadLegion wrote:
Uh Kain.

Better trained that modern infantry?

Are you serious?

I definitely espouse your POV, LeadLegion.

You've got a military organization that is only in part a volunteer military. Its discipline is modeled after the WWII Red Army, where screwups were met with beatings and executions. To say that they're "better trained than modern infantry" reflects a lack of understanding of modern infantry.

IG are completely unidimensional: they stand, often in rank and file, against bad guys and either gun them down or die trying. Even their more specialized light infantry like the Tanith use more or less meatgrinder tactics.



I don't know where people are getting this notion from, that Imperial Guard soldiers are generally trained superior to modern infantry. It isn't reflected in the rules or the actual fluff aside from vague references to an army that "trains from birth." The Spartans also trained from birth at a single unidimensional style of warfare that falls apart when you don't play by THEIR rules. There's a reason nobody is using their tactics today.

Place the American military at the battle of Maccragge and they'd have gotten slaughtered to a man without doing much of note while simultaneously pissing themselves in fear.

Usually when we make borderline insulting comments, we back them up with facts.

The kind of enemies that the Imperium faces aren't the kind of enemies that our mindset are capable of handling. Chaos and Genestealers would destroy most religiously tolerant societies. The Necrons and Chaos can shut down tech-reliant societies with ease thanks to scrap code and malignant signals. The Tyranids attack virtually every point on a planet simultaneously with a constant rain of spores while coming in far greater numbers than you have munitions to deal with and rapidly adapt to your tactics on the fly.

The American military would be facing billions upon billions of fearless opponents with total space superiority that enacts a widespread sense of dread and terror with the shadow in the warp while simultaneously attacking from the ground, from below the ground, and from above. There would be no rest, no pause, none of the quirks of human psychology that the American military is used to exploiting to play against while the enemy certainly has demonstrated knowledge of how to exploit human psychology to sow terror and discord.

The Americans all die rapidly.

You are describing situations in which Guardsmen die quickly too. We aren't talking about American society or equipment. We are talking about modern infantry, and the level of training they receive relative to Guardsmen.

My argument is that American soldiers have willingly jumped on grenades to save their friends. Guardsmen only stand and fight because if they run, they will be shot in the back by a commissar. As a military institution, they have very poor discipline.

The Imperial military fought and held at Maccragge despite the odds and died where they stood for the Imperium. The American military would have likely broken and routed had they replaced the guardsmen.

The commissars are necessary because of all the enemies who can do so much more to enact fear than anything ever historically seen on the battlefield. Some of them can break a man's will just for being observed. Others can snap apart morale with just a single thought.

Also, if you're going to cherry pick. For every ridiculous stereotype (Chenkov et al) you have the likes of the Tanith, the Death Korps of Krieg as a whole, or the Valhallan 597th who more or less are just as skilled and disciplined as any first world fighting force.

Aaaaaand no.

Death is death. Again, modern Western soldiers (not just Americans) have held in horribly desperate situations. They have run into a wall of bullets and died willingly. They have bayonet charged superior forces once they've exhausted their ammunition. It's more common in Eastern armies of course, but "modern infantry" have strapped explosives to themselves and blown themselves up for strategic reasons.

I'm not seeing this disparity of courage at all.

Modern foes shoot you.

Tyranids enjoy eating you alive and picking you apart like one disassembles a lego set while you're still alive- not to mention that they're also ten foot tall bugs that modern rounds would simply ping off harmlessly that fire organic weapons which ammo eats you alive from the inside out upon hitting you, all of which you experience. Once you see your best friend get ripped apart alive by gaunts and devoured or had thousands of tiny grubs devour their way outside of his body from a cluster of matter fired by a 30 foot tall super-bug, no modern human is going to be sticking around unless they're insane.

And of course, this isn't counting Orks, Daemons, Necrons, Dark Eldar, and Chaos Space Marines, against which the Imperium barely holds the line against with its infantry used these enemies often in danger of breaking formation and running for their lives.

A cluster of platoons from the American army would start running as fast as they could away from the Tyranids if they were dropped in the Guard's place- all they would care about is the giant reptilian bugs behind them blatantly defying the Square Cube law and murdering everything in their path. While they might hold the line against Gaunts, the big boys like Raveners, Lictors, Carnifexes, Tervigons, or even a Hive Tyrant? I'd doubt it.

 kronk wrote:
I came to talk about IG. I left when people started talking about NATO and land mines and bullets.

Lame.

Agreed. If you want to talk US troopers take it to the OT or have it as a discussion scenario. This is a thread about the greatness of Ollanius Pius and his trillion best friends.

Guard. Why do we like the guard?
They're always getting slaughtered in the fluff until they get ticked off and send 50,000 tanks in your general direction backed by artillery and missiles from miles or continents away.

To the xenos they're not pretty. They're not precise. They're Guard. Now prepare to die.

 Frazzled wrote:

 kronk wrote:
I came to talk about IG. I left when people started talking about NATO and land mines and bullets.

Lame.

Agreed. If you want to talk US troopers take it to the OT or have it as a discussion scenario. This is a thread about the greatness of Ollanius Pius and his trillion best friends.

You do know that Pius was in fact an immortal demi-god, right?

 AtoMaki wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

 kronk wrote:
I came to talk about IG. I left when people started talking about NATO and land mines and bullets.

Lame.

Agreed. If you want to talk US troopers take it to the OT or have it as a discussion scenario. This is a thread about the greatness of Ollanius Pius and his trillion best friends.

You do know that Pius was in fact an immortal demi-god, right?

No, no he was not.

I don't give a feth what some BL novel says, he was just a dude, and has been just a dude for 20-some years of the setting and, as far as I'm concerned, remains just a dude to this very day.

 AtoMaki wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

 kronk wrote:
I came to talk about IG. I left when people started talking about NATO and land mines and bullets.

Lame.

Agreed. If you want to talk US troopers take it to the OT or have it as a discussion scenario. This is a thread about the greatness of Ollanius Pius and his trillion best friends.

You do know that Pius was in fact an immortal demi-god, right?

Well we're just have to bomb your planet for 500 years for such insolence...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

I don't give a feth what some BL novel says, he was just a dude, and has been just a dude for 20-some years of the setting and, as far as I'm concerned, remains just a dude to this very day.

Exactly. I have underwear older then that writer. Underwear that remembers when Pius stood up like a man and changed history.

All Hail Ollanius Pius! All Hail the Guard! Now fire a 21 million gun salute.

To add to Wyzilla's statements.... Orks, whilst they seem funny to many of us, a brutal, savage, and cruel. They will tank shots by the dozens and even a missing limb or two won't phase them. They will blindly fire before crashing into you yanking your limbs off with their arms and smashing your skulls with a backhanded swing of their orky green biceps. Meteorites plummet from the skies, crashing to the ground flames incenerating men whilst the orks jump out hacking their way through as ramshackle vehicles drive around madly spikes ramming into humans making a delicious meaty shield to take a blast impact. Blow up the vehicle? Yay the just got flung closer to you! The warboss advances gun a blazing as he emits a loud WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH before reaching you and rending you with a giagant power claw that makes you into delicious bits.

Daemons? Feel the whispers... the screams the anguish within your head. What you see is not there but your mind attempting to put reason to something not there. Suddenly a tear opens before you and a blade lunges out scewering you, you are lifted into the air by an incorporeal form as your flesh changes tentacles writhing out from your limbs your eyes drifting outwards. Elsewhere a sniper fires a shot hoping to kill a daemon. At the last second though.... the daemon phases in and out of reality flickering for a moment appearing suddenly even closer the bullet long missing its target. Weird, morphing, blobs of pink unleash fireworks of light. One hits your best friend turning them into statue, another screaming bone, and another into water. Flamers of Tzeentch roll up burning guardsman into multiple shapes contorting, flexing, mutating. Little gribblies run at you leaping up to hug you before exploding into disease all the while large beasts lumber at you attempting to play with you as if they were a dug but only crushing you under their rolling. Psykers scream out as their body rends apart into a portal surrounded by a door edge of bloodied flesh as a hulking monstrosity clambers out the entire world quaking tectonic rifts shaking the planet screamers swirling in the sky screaming guardsman's ears popping and bleeding. Agile beasts run quicker than the eye can keep up soon reaching to you, an alluring, tempting form, you feel a gush of blood from your waste to see claws snapping you in half like scissors the whispers calling.... oh masters I shall serve you..... you whisper aiming your gun at a fellow guardsman and setting fire to them.

Necrons walk forth in waves of emotionless, robotic horrors glowing guns that can penetrate even the best armor. They have no feelings, just robotic cold heartless drives that push them forth. You fire at them, they fall, and then they get back up slowly reassembling or simply crawling onwards.

Dark Eldar careen out skulls, heads, the scream of slaves on ships as they plummet forth tormenting machines mobile that flay, strip, chain, and stab into you filling you with drug and agony before spinning you into nothing but meat. Your shadow suddenly stands up stabbing you with a blade as you plummet to the floor.

CSM charge at you, the marines that have betrayed you. They come with many allies, renegades, mutants, gribbling hulking mutated spawn that do not fear your shots charging through them as they eternally twist roil and mutate. Artillery falls upon you whilst psychic volleys fly out blowing up tanks in horrifically large proportions whilst machines that are the form of devils charge around ripping, tearings, burning all that is in their way.


But I think honestly that's the charm in them. It doesn't mattr that they have awesome vehicles, it doesn't matter if they are better trained or worse trained than American soldiers. The charm is that in the end, they are only human. They fear, they fight, and often they want to run away but they fight onwards. They don't get all the crazy pointless and cool upgrades SM get. No, the standard guardsman gets some decent anti-grenade armor that whilst good against standard guns is worthless against most of the forces they will fight. Their lasgun? Actually a pretty great invention! One problem, every enemy they fight has better guns and or more advanced armor. They are, be them trained to a great degree or not at all, simply human and that is what makes them awesome for even in the grimdark future, the heroics of a group of men can make a difference, no matter how small or minor... even if it haults the Imperium's demise by a single millisecond.

 StarTrotter wrote:
They don't get all the crazy pointless and cool upgrades SM get....

...or at least not as standard issue. Now, take your plasma gun son and burn those Orks with the power of SCIENCE !

 AtoMaki wrote:

 StarTrotter wrote:
They don't get all the crazy pointless and cool upgrades SM get....

...or at least not as standard issue. Now, take your plasma gun son and burn those Orks with the power of SCIENCE !

And don't forget to pray to its machine spirit

 StarTrotter wrote:
To add to Wyzilla's statements.... Orks, whilst they seem funny to many of us, a brutal, savage, and cruel. They will tank shots by the dozens and even a missing limb or two won't phase them. They will blindly fire before crashing into you yanking your limbs off with their arms and smashing your skulls with a backhanded swing of their orky green biceps. Meteorites plummet from the skies, crashing to the ground flames incenerating men whilst the orks jump out hacking their way through as ramshackle vehicles drive around madly spikes ramming into humans making a delicious meaty shield to take a blast impact. Blow up the vehicle? Yay the just got flung closer to you! The warboss advances gun a blazing as he emits a loud WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH before reaching you and rending you with a giagant power claw that makes you into delicious bits.

Daemons? Feel the whispers... the screams the anguish within your head. What you see is not there but your mind attempting to put reason to something not there. Suddenly a tear opens before you and a blade lunges out scewering you, you are lifted into the air by an incorporeal form as your flesh changes tentacles writhing out from your limbs your eyes drifting outwards. Elsewhere a sniper fires a shot hoping to kill a daemon. At the last second though.... the daemon phases in and out of reality flickering for a moment appearing suddenly even closer the bullet long missing its target. Weird, morphing, blobs of pink unleash fireworks of light. One hits your best friend turning them into statue, another screaming bone, and another into water. Flamers of Tzeentch roll up burning guardsman into multiple shapes contorting, flexing, mutating. Little gribblies run at you leaping up to hug you before exploding into disease all the while large beasts lumber at you attempting to play with you as if they were a dug but only crushing you under their rolling. Psykers scream out as their body rends apart into a portal surrounded by a door edge of bloodied flesh as a hulking monstrosity clambers out the entire world quaking tectonic rifts shaking the planet screamers swirling in the sky screaming guardsman's ears popping and bleeding. Agile beasts run quicker than the eye can keep up soon reaching to you, an alluring, tempting form, you feel a gush of blood from your waste to see claws snapping you in half like scissors the whispers calling.... oh masters I shall serve you..... you whisper aiming your gun at a fellow guardsman and setting fire to them.

Necrons walk forth in waves of emotionless, robotic horrors glowing guns that can penetrate even the best armor. They have no feelings, just robotic cold heartless drives that push them forth. You fire at them, they fall, and then they get back up slowly reassembling or simply crawling onwards.

Dark Eldar careen out skulls, heads, the scream of slaves on ships as they plummet forth tormenting machines mobile that flay, strip, chain, and stab into you filling you with drug and agony before spinning you into nothing but meat. Your shadow suddenly stands up stabbing you with a blade as you plummet to the floor.

CSM charge at you, the marines that have betrayed you. They come with many allies, renegades, mutants, gribbling hulking mutated spawn that do not fear your shots charging through them as they eternally twist roil and mutate. Artillery falls upon you whilst psychic volleys fly out blowing up tanks in horrifically large proportions whilst machines that are the form of devils charge around ripping, tearings, burning all that is in their way.


But I think honestly that's the charm in them. It doesn't mattr that they have awesome vehicles, it doesn't matter if they are better trained or worse trained than American soldiers. The charm is that in the end, they are only human. They fear, they fight, and often they want to run away but they fight onwards. They don't get all the crazy pointless and cool upgrades SM get. No, the standard guardsman gets some decent anti-grenade armor that whilst good against standard guns is worthless against most of the forces they will fight. Their lasgun? Actually a pretty great invention! One problem, every enemy they fight has better guns and or more advanced armor. They are, be them trained to a great degree or not at all, simply human and that is what makes them awesome for even in the grimdark future, the heroics of a group of men can make a difference, no matter how small or minor... even if it haults the Imperium's demise by a single millisecond.

I'm still unimpressed. Compare that to...



...an enemy that willingly straps bombs to itself, and its own children, to ensure your demise. This enemy has been known to inject adrenalin and other drugs to improve its combat potential. This enemy has a reputation for executing men, women, and children on camera by sawing off their heads with knives.

They aren't stupid like Orks or single-minded like Tyranids. They are pursuing biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons and have no qualms whatsoever about using them on you because, at the end of the day, they don't fear retaliation. They WANT to die.

Again, I'm not impressed by pretty space elves or their evil cousins. At least not enough so to see a real discrepancy in bravery of the types of people it takes to fight them. The only 40k factions I could see a human finding more frightening than another human are Daemons and maybe Tyranids, both of which roflstomp normal Guardsmen anyway.

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:

 StarTrotter wrote:
To add to Wyzilla's statements.... Orks, whilst they seem funny to many of us, a brutal, savage, and cruel. They will tank shots by the dozens and even a missing limb or two won't phase them. They will blindly fire before crashing into you yanking your limbs off with their arms and smashing your skulls with a backhanded swing of their orky green biceps. Meteorites plummet from the skies, crashing to the ground flames incenerating men whilst the orks jump out hacking their way through as ramshackle vehicles drive around madly spikes ramming into humans making a delicious meaty shield to take a blast impact. Blow up the vehicle? Yay the just got flung closer to you! The warboss advances gun a blazing as he emits a loud WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH before reaching you and rending you with a giagant power claw that makes you into delicious bits.

Daemons? Feel the whispers... the screams the anguish within your head. What you see is not there but your mind attempting to put reason to something not there. Suddenly a tear opens before you and a blade lunges out scewering you, you are lifted into the air by an incorporeal form as your flesh changes tentacles writhing out from your limbs your eyes drifting outwards. Elsewhere a sniper fires a shot hoping to kill a daemon. At the last second though.... the daemon phases in and out of reality flickering for a moment appearing suddenly even closer the bullet long missing its target. Weird, morphing, blobs of pink unleash fireworks of light. One hits your best friend turning them into statue, another screaming bone, and another into water. Flamers of Tzeentch roll up burning guardsman into multiple shapes contorting, flexing, mutating. Little gribblies run at you leaping up to hug you before exploding into disease all the while large beasts lumber at you attempting to play with you as if they were a dug but only crushing you under their rolling. Psykers scream out as their body rends apart into a portal surrounded by a door edge of bloodied flesh as a hulking monstrosity clambers out the entire world quaking tectonic rifts shaking the planet screamers swirling in the sky screaming guardsman's ears popping and bleeding. Agile beasts run quicker than the eye can keep up soon reaching to you, an alluring, tempting form, you feel a gush of blood from your waste to see claws snapping you in half like scissors the whispers calling.... oh masters I shall serve you..... you whisper aiming your gun at a fellow guardsman and setting fire to them.

Necrons walk forth in waves of emotionless, robotic horrors glowing guns that can penetrate even the best armor. They have no feelings, just robotic cold heartless drives that push them forth. You fire at them, they fall, and then they get back up slowly reassembling or simply crawling onwards.

Dark Eldar careen out skulls, heads, the scream of slaves on ships as they plummet forth tormenting machines mobile that flay, strip, chain, and stab into you filling you with drug and agony before spinning you into nothing but meat. Your shadow suddenly stands up stabbing you with a blade as you plummet to the floor.

CSM charge at you, the marines that have betrayed you. They come with many allies, renegades, mutants, gribbling hulking mutated spawn that do not fear your shots charging through them as they eternally twist roil and mutate. Artillery falls upon you whilst psychic volleys fly out blowing up tanks in horrifically large proportions whilst machines that are the form of devils charge around ripping, tearings, burning all that is in their way.


But I think honestly that's the charm in them. It doesn't mattr that they have awesome vehicles, it doesn't matter if they are better trained or worse trained than American soldiers. The charm is that in the end, they are only human. They fear, they fight, and often they want to run away but they fight onwards. They don't get all the crazy pointless and cool upgrades SM get. No, the standard guardsman gets some decent anti-grenade armor that whilst good against standard guns is worthless against most of the forces they will fight. Their lasgun? Actually a pretty great invention! One problem, every enemy they fight has better guns and or more advanced armor. They are, be them trained to a great degree or not at all, simply human and that is what makes them awesome for even in the grimdark future, the heroics of a group of men can make a difference, no matter how small or minor... even if it haults the Imperium's demise by a single millisecond.

I'm still unimpressed. Compare that to...



...an enemy that willingly straps bombs to itself, and its own children, to ensure your demise. This enemy has been known to inject adrenalin and other drugs to improve its combat potential. This enemy has a reputation for executing men, women, and children on camera by sawing off their heads with knives.

They aren't stupid like Orks or single-minded like Tyranids. They are pursuing biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons and have no qualms whatsoever about using them on you because, at the end of the day, they don't fear retaliation. They WANT to die.

Again, I'm not impressed by pretty space elves or their evil cousins. At least not enough so to see a real discrepancy in bravery of the types of people it takes to fight them. The only 40k factions I could see a human finding more frightening than another human are Daemons and maybe Tyranids, both of which roflstomp normal Guardsmen anyway.

Oh honestly I grabbed it to really bring the notion of the sights they fight are terrifying and to praise them for fighting onwards despite their inferior technology and high rates of attrition. Honestly DE are really more scary for what they do AFTER they drag you away and I really didn't even mention Eldar or Tau (although I suppose cannibal Kroots could be scary and carniverous mmmmm human flesh). Also an enemy strapping bombs to itself and children sounds very much like something chaos would love to do . Then again, also keep in mind the Imperium uses children soldiers sometimes apparently, likely has martyr bombers, and there are many regiments that inject adrenalin and other drugs to improve themself. Which is why I bring back to chaos being a terrifying force. Also keep in mind, in 40k, there will sometimes be rebellions that start because the lord doesn't want to watch his civilians suffer and die and the guardsman will be brought forth to slaughter all inhabatants the rest either being executed or shipped off as slaves of some sort. GRIMDARK!

So... Penal Legionnaires, then?

 Psienesis wrote:
So... Penal Legionnaires, then?

An entire planet of penal legionnaries! That fight alongside you

 AtoMaki wrote:


You do know that Pius was in fact an immortal demi-god, right?

AH!! HERESY *BLAM*.



In all fairness though, I believe the decision to make him immortal was down to the series editor, not any of the authors themselves

[edit to add spoiler window].

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:

 StarTrotter wrote:
To add to Wyzilla's statements.... Orks, whilst they seem funny to many of us, a brutal, savage, and cruel. They will tank shots by the dozens and even a missing limb or two won't phase them. They will blindly fire before crashing into you yanking your limbs off with their arms and smashing your skulls with a backhanded swing of their orky green biceps. Meteorites plummet from the skies, crashing to the ground flames incenerating men whilst the orks jump out hacking their way through as ramshackle vehicles drive around madly spikes ramming into humans making a delicious meaty shield to take a blast impact. Blow up the vehicle? Yay the just got flung closer to you! The warboss advances gun a blazing as he emits a loud WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH before reaching you and rending you with a giagant power claw that makes you into delicious bits.

Daemons? Feel the whispers... the screams the anguish within your head. What you see is not there but your mind attempting to put reason to something not there. Suddenly a tear opens before you and a blade lunges out scewering you, you are lifted into the air by an incorporeal form as your flesh changes tentacles writhing out from your limbs your eyes drifting outwards. Elsewhere a sniper fires a shot hoping to kill a daemon. At the last second though.... the daemon phases in and out of reality flickering for a moment appearing suddenly even closer the bullet long missing its target. Weird, morphing, blobs of pink unleash fireworks of light. One hits your best friend turning them into statue, another screaming bone, and another into water. Flamers of Tzeentch roll up burning guardsman into multiple shapes contorting, flexing, mutating. Little gribblies run at you leaping up to hug you before exploding into disease all the while large beasts lumber at you attempting to play with you as if they were a dug but only crushing you under their rolling. Psykers scream out as their body rends apart into a portal surrounded by a door edge of bloodied flesh as a hulking monstrosity clambers out the entire world quaking tectonic rifts shaking the planet screamers swirling in the sky screaming guardsman's ears popping and bleeding. Agile beasts run quicker than the eye can keep up soon reaching to you, an alluring, tempting form, you feel a gush of blood from your waste to see claws snapping you in half like scissors the whispers calling.... oh masters I shall serve you..... you whisper aiming your gun at a fellow guardsman and setting fire to them.

Necrons walk forth in waves of emotionless, robotic horrors glowing guns that can penetrate even the best armor. They have no feelings, just robotic cold heartless drives that push them forth. You fire at them, they fall, and then they get back up slowly reassembling or simply crawling onwards.

Dark Eldar careen out skulls, heads, the scream of slaves on ships as they plummet forth tormenting machines mobile that flay, strip, chain, and stab into you filling you with drug and agony before spinning you into nothing but meat. Your shadow suddenly stands up stabbing you with a blade as you plummet to the floor.

CSM charge at you, the marines that have betrayed you. They come with many allies, renegades, mutants, gribbling hulking mutated spawn that do not fear your shots charging through them as they eternally twist roil and mutate. Artillery falls upon you whilst psychic volleys fly out blowing up tanks in horrifically large proportions whilst machines that are the form of devils charge around ripping, tearings, burning all that is in their way.


But I think honestly that's the charm in them. It doesn't mattr that they have awesome vehicles, it doesn't matter if they are better trained or worse trained than American soldiers. The charm is that in the end, they are only human. They fear, they fight, and often they want to run away but they fight onwards. They don't get all the crazy pointless and cool upgrades SM get. No, the standard guardsman gets some decent anti-grenade armor that whilst good against standard guns is worthless against most of the forces they will fight. Their lasgun? Actually a pretty great invention! One problem, every enemy they fight has better guns and or more advanced armor. They are, be them trained to a great degree or not at all, simply human and that is what makes them awesome for even in the grimdark future, the heroics of a group of men can make a difference, no matter how small or minor... even if it haults the Imperium's demise by a single millisecond.

I'm still unimpressed. Compare that to...



...an enemy that willingly straps bombs to itself, and its own children, to ensure your demise. This enemy has been known to inject adrenalin and other drugs to improve its combat potential. This enemy has a reputation for executing men, women, and children on camera by sawing off their heads with knives.

They aren't stupid like Orks or single-minded like Tyranids. They are pursuing biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons and have no qualms whatsoever about using them on you because, at the end of the day, they don't fear retaliation. They WANT to die.

Again, I'm not impressed by pretty space elves or their evil cousins. At least not enough so to see a real discrepancy in bravery of the types of people it takes to fight them. The only 40k factions I could see a human finding more frightening than another human are Daemons and maybe Tyranids, both of which roflstomp normal Guardsmen anyway.

There's a difference between fighting a human enemy and suddenly being dropped into a situation where humans are no longer the top predator and your instincts are kicking in to run like hell from the gigantic endless swarms of bugs.

And there's Orks, who butcher men, women, and children with their endless hordes not because of ideology or beliefs, but because it's fun.

Laughing! Laughing whilst ripping you apart maybe even using your limbs' bones to pick their teeth!

an enemy that willingly straps bombs to itself, and its own children, to ensure your demise. This enemy has been known to inject adrenalin and other drugs to improve its combat potential This enemy has a reputation for executing men, women, and children on camera by sawing off their heads with knives.

That is hardly anything new or special considering any form of conflict outside of spec ops hit and run type of missions.

And there's Orks, who butcher men, women, and children with their endless hordes not because of ideology or beliefs, but because it's fun.

Actualy killing civilians is not much fun for orks , at least not till they start to fight. They kill civilians , because they are omnivores , they burn ton of calories and durning the waagghh when they have their huge growth spikes they need lot of biomass to accomplish that . w40k walmarts seem to be too small to feed them .

...an enemy that willingly straps bombs to itself, and its own children, to ensure your demise. This enemy has been known to inject adrenalin and other drugs to improve its combat potential. This enemy has a reputation for executing men, women, and children on camera by sawing off their heads with knives.

They aren't stupid like Orks or single-minded like Tyranids. They are pursuing biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons and have no qualms whatsoever about using them on you because, at the end of the day, they don't fear retaliation. They WANT to die.

Again, I'm not impressed by pretty space elves or their evil cousins. At least not enough so to see a real discrepancy in bravery of the types of people it takes to fight them. The only 40k factions I could see a human finding more frightening than another human are Daemons and maybe Tyranids, both of which roflstomp normal Guardsmen anyway.

Apart from the rampant Islamophobia presented here, nothing in this list holds a candle to what people in 40K will do.

Honestly, whatever atrocity the orks or whatever can do, the humanity has done worse on itself at one point or the other in the course of our brief history. I think it's the aliens who should be afraid of humans. I mean, dark eldar torture people because if they don't a demon god will eat them. Humans would gladly torture dark eldar for a 1% revenue increase.

I don't play IG but I like them because you can make them what you want them to be.

A marine will always be a marine, but a guardsman can be a feral tribesman, an elite drop trooper, a grizzled city fighter, a blueblood aristocrat in his dress uniform or anything else that catches your imagination.

I personally had the idea of making an army of the Hyperion Corporation from Borderlands 2. Although with their ultra hi tech weaponry and loader walkers, they might be better suited to Tau.

For the debate between whether or not modern infantry would run away in terror in 40k:

Has anyone realised that much of what happens in warfare is a result of the human brain getting pumped so full of naturally produced chemicals that it just shuts off rational thought, resulting in unnaturally violent or altruistic tendencies in even the most stable person?

Somebody look up "Battle Trance" pls.

 Selym wrote:
For the debate between whether or not modern infantry would run away in terror in 40k:

Has anyone realised that much of what happens in warfare is a result of the human brain getting pumped so full of naturally produced chemicals that it just shuts off rational thought, resulting in unnaturally violent or altruistic tendencies in even the most stable person?

Somebody look up "Battle Trance" pls.

For the debate between whether or not modern infantry would run away in terror in 40k:

Has anyone realised that much of that discussion is entirely off topic and might lead to rage in some overly patriotic individuals which is completely hilarous, but not very useful for the topic at hand?

Somebody look up "OT forum" pls.