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KamikazeCanuck wrote:I don't think they do actually. I think individual planets use them but The IG itself has the 18 year age limit.

As far as we know, there is no piece of fluff that states any age limit for induction in the Guard.

As deplorable as it is in todays terms, in a universe where complete planetary genocide is considered 'acceptable losses', child labour and child soldiers are really not that surprising.

However, since the IG only take the best of the PDF, I think we can agree that it's unlikely that many soldiers are still children by the time they make it to the PDF.

I would be VERY surprised to find that the Departmento Munitorum cared in the slightest how old a soldier was - as long as they can fight it's irrelevant.

ArbitorIan wrote:

KamikazeCanuck wrote:I don't think they do actually. I think individual planets use them but The IG itself has the 18 year age limit.

As far as we know, there is no piece of fluff that states any age limit for induction in the Guard.

As deplorable as it is in todays terms, in a universe where complete planetary genocide is considered 'acceptable losses', child labour and child soldiers are really not that surprising.

However, since the IG only take the best of the PDF, I think we can agree that it's unlikely that many soldiers are still children by the time they make it to the PDF.

I would be VERY surprised to find that the Departmento Munitorum cared in the slightest how old a soldier was - as long as they can fight it's irrelevant.

The Tanith 1st has an 18 year age limit. Now one could argue that's just Warmaster Macaroth's decree but I don't get that impression. I believe is a munitorium regulation.

In the IG Codex some worlds were inducted into the Imperial Guard on a monumental scale, more than 2/3 of the population. That has to include children.

In most situations using training time and giving a lasgun, flak armour and rations to a child soldier would be a fiscal liability. Child soldiers are employed by militias in Africa largely for the negative impact they have on morale, and most of the Imperium's foes would have no such qualms.

Owain wrote:In most situations using training time and giving a lasgun, flak armour and rations to a child soldier would be a fiscal liability.

It'd just be like training any other guardsman, just younger, and the Administratum certainly doesn't exhibit a great deal of empathy. If the situation calls for more bodies then rest assured children will be concripted along with the rest.

Child soldiers are employed by militias in Africa largely for the negative impact they have on morale, and most of the Imperium's foes would have no such qualms.

Not so, the indoctrination is key to secuing a healthy supply of fresh footsoldiers. And that's the males.

Although Whiteshields are deployed at 16 Cadian children can prep a gun and use it from when they can walk, as read in the eye of terror codex.

While IG armies probably wouldn't use children, a world that is invaded would use and one that can fire a gun to help defend it.

I dont think that children would be recruited, but I could picture the children of planets going to PT meetings and mock training's to prepare for their inevitable enlistment into the guard. They might do it for fun to, work in a factory forever or go to pre-guard training to get off the assembly line once in a while.

chyron wrote:Actually there's one clarification needed - what is child-soldier?
As current western legal (and draft/recruitment) age of 18 is also contradictory - for ex. 19 y.o. US soldier have full right to die in Afghanistan but not to buy strong alcohol at home.

I dont the West is contradictory, just the USA.

I mean, is there any other first world nation that barrs a fighting man from having a pint?! Certainly not here in Blighty..

Frankly i think its a disgrace!

mattyrm wrote:

chyron wrote:Actually there's one clarification needed - what is child-soldier?
As current western legal (and draft/recruitment) age of 18 is also contradictory - for ex. 19 y.o. US soldier have full right to die in Afghanistan but not to buy strong alcohol at home.

I dont the West is contradictory, just the USA.

I mean, is there any other first world nation that barrs a fighting man from having a pint?! Certainly not here in Blighty..

Frankly i think its a disgrace!

Actually base commanders have the right to lower the drinking age on base.

However, yes the fact that I can fight and die for my country but cant drink in it since im only 19 is quite wrong. Im joining the (USAF)

Though honestly in the imperium I doubt there is very much red tape on lowering the age of recruitment if need be.

Guardsman Gary: "Sir! The enemy is advancing for an all-out assault!"
Commander Carl: "Send in... THE KINDERGUARD!"

bonerjamz wrote:Guardsman Gary: "Sir! The enemy is advancing for an all-out assault!"
Commander Carl: "Send in... THE KINDERGUARD!"

NO! WHO WILL DRAW THE PROPAGANDA POSTERS!?!?!?!?!

What about death worlds?

You'd think that anyone who survived to 10 on Catachan would be more than capable of fulfilling the role of a IG grunt on any other world.

Its the Imperium, they chuck a few thousand men a day at the enemy pointlessly, generals can get desperate-or a little insane-, it may be that the number of men of conscriptable age has rapidly decreased with the whole grindfest thing and thus the consciption age is lowered-and increased if it hasn't already been- so as to still have people to man the trenches when the enemy come. Hey if your worlds going to die I don't think people much care about the morality of the situation. Oh and there's always Brin Milo... ^^'

I'm pretty sure the Cadians have child corps.

bonerjamz wrote:
Guardsman Gary: "Sir! The enemy is advancing for an all-out assault!"
Commander Carl: "Send in... THE KINDERGUARD!"


NO! WHO WILL DRAW THE PROPAGANDA POSTERS!?!?!?!?!

All right... I know 40k is fantasy... unfortunately child-soldiers are not so I'd avoid this kind of humour here...

Btw... It seems that IoM is a mesh-up of every felony mankind has done in history ( Nazi-style hatred for xenos, Soviet political control and propaganda, spanish inquisition oprressive religion etc...) so I think It's totally possible to see 13 yo whiteshields...

mattyrm wrote:
I dont the West is contradictory, just the USA.

I mean, is there any other first world nation that barrs a fighting man from having a pint?! Certainly not here in Blighty..

Actually, I'm pretty sure that in England you can join the military at 16 and serve overseas at 17, while only being allowed to vote and purchase alcohol at 18. Not to mention you can pay taxes before you can vote.

Frankly i think its a disgrace!

True.


As to the actual topic, I agree with the opinion that adults would be the preferred soldiers, but children be used if necessary. Not that you can really argue against that - if they're going to be murdered by a horde of xenos or daemons anyway, there's nothing really wrong with allowing them to defend their families, surely?

I'm pretty sure if the planet earth had the possibility of getting attacked and wiped out to the last man from a alien race, that recruitment age would drop pretty low.

C:IG wrote:

925.M41
Waaagh! Grax descends upon the Ryza system. Regiments are raised from all planets within ten light years, including the worlds of Barac, Ulani, Dulma'lin and Catachan. To meet the additional tithe requirements, the world of Dulma'lin drafts four-fifths of its total populace.

Assuming the world of Dulma'lin has a somewhat "regular" or "normal" age distribution, like maybe Grant County, North Dakota...


...yeah. If they had to enlist 80% of their populace, they must have conscripted EVERYONE from 80-year-old grandpas and grandmas to 10-year-old boys and girls, maybe younger. I actually whipped out a calculator and typed this in.

The only part of the population that was probably left were toddlers, small children and a skeleton crew of women to care for them...and maybe some men to ensure that the population grows again. If you assume that you need SOME grown men and women to actually keep the planet working - agriculture, police, infrastructure - recruitment age probably dropped even lower, maybe to around 8 years old.

So, yeah, it needs just an Ork Waaagh! a few system away and you'll have child soldiers all over the place. Seems to be a regular Munitorum strategy.

Postscriptum:

C:IG, p.14
Before induction, all Cadians must first serve in the Youth Army, joining one of the so-called Whiteshield platoons who are distinguished by a white stripe running from the front to the back of their helmets. [...] "Any Cadian who can't field-strip his own lasgun by age ten was born on the wrong planet" - Anon

So, the best-known regiment in the Imperium also uses child soldiers by today's definition on a continuous, traditional basis. This might be, of course, because Cadia is the Gate to the Eye of Terror.

mattyrm wrote:

I dont the West is contradictory, just the USA.

I mean, is there any other first world nation that barrs a fighting man from having a pint?! Certainly not here in Blighty..

Frankly i think its a disgrace!

Offtopic, first-world =/= western, as division to West and East is centuries older than 1st-2nd-3rd world (which is actually just about half a century old). For ex. Vladivostok is considered culturally western city compared to Teheran or even Stambul as geography has no voice on this. And USSR and Russian Federation (dunno 'bout pre-Revolution Empire) also have legal age for strong drinks set to 21. And so "i 'm not too old to die in Afghan but too young to drink at hometown" was part of anti-war propaganda for quite a while.

On topic - but we all agree that mentioned facts of conscription is conscription to PDF fighting on native soil, not to IG regiment sent off as planetary tithe. And i think every current earth nation has stories of child soldiers from some desperate times.

punkow wrote:

bonerjamz wrote:
Guardsman Gary: "Sir! The enemy is advancing for an all-out assault!"
Commander Carl: "Send in... THE KINDERGUARD!"


NO! WHO WILL DRAW THE PROPAGANDA POSTERS!?!?!?!?!

All right... I know 40k is fantasy... unfortunately child-soldiers are not so I'd avoid this kind of humour here...

Btw... It seems that IoM is a mesh-up of every felony mankind has done in history ( Nazi-style hatred for xenos, Soviet political control and propaganda, spanish inquisition oprressive religion etc...) so I think It's totally possible to see 13 yo whiteshields...

lol it is fantasy you said it yourself. However is it not the same as making fun of thousands of soldiers a day being thrown at Tyranids, Chaos, necrons, etc.? This is the thread "Does The Imperium use Child-Soldiers?" right? Not "Why do African militia use child soldiers?"

Its a game there is no reason not to poke fun, especially at imaginary controversial issues. im sorry if you took offense but these 40K children dot exist.

As far as I know, Whiteshields are usually the children of Guard members on active duty. This would make them attuned to the rigors and horrors of war the minute they can see. Injured parents etc. Hence they would probably mature much faster than normal and cannot be considered children but for thier age. These child soldiers also do not see actual combat until thier official induction into the Guard unless necessary.

Wasn't there a piece of fluff that said "If a cadian didnt know how to dismantle and assemble his lasgun buy age 10, he was born on the wrong planet" or something to that effect?

Posted above Mecha...
4 posts above you.

Expected as much, but I really didnt want to read all that blurp (did read the first page though).

Also, has anyone mentioned Cherubs yet?

MechaEmperor7000 wrote:Also, has anyone mentioned Cherubs yet?

Like the majority of servitors these are grown. Still creepy, but not really children.

Plus, they're not really "soldiers".

They are the closest things to actual children depicted in 40k, but I digress.

We must also considered what age is considered a child in 40K. With all of these threats to man and all of the death and disease of 40k it would be pretty hard to have a "childhood" as we know it.

xXSir MontyXx wrote:We must also considered what age is considered a child in 40K. With all of these threats to man and all of the death and disease of 40k it would be pretty hard to have a "childhood" as we know it.

Apparently the notion of 'childhood' was non-existent until the 17-18th century. It, like many notions of human rights and equality, is a relatively recent concept.

Just a random guess, but I would assume that all these chitlins would be of more use to the Imperial war efforts serving Him On Earth within a manufactorium. I could see the utility of drafting up a load of 8 year olds for a decade log journey to the far side of the Imperium, training the whole way.