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That depends on the definition of "Chaos" as a faction.

Does it include chaos cultists and followers of any stripe? Cultists that do nothing besides rise in rebellion, but recieve no major help from their gods in the form of Daemons or CSMs? Or is it just the Daemonic and CSM legions that is true Chaos?

I would think that Chaos Cults that have no daemonic aid can be seen alot. Amatures in the grand scheme of chaos. not worth of their god's notice. These are what Guardsmen might see alot, just waves of desperate cultists trying to attract attention.

As for CSM and Daemons, Guardsmen certaintly won't see many of those, and those that do are most likely going to die very shortly.

If the daemons don't kill them the Gk do

Romer wrote:

If life expectancy was as low as so often claimed, the Imperial Guard would go no where. Campaigns would grind to a hault as the Imperial Navy struggled to keep up the supply of bodies. Logistics would become impossible. The Imperium of Man may have the bodies, but it's going to be an extremely well supplied campaign for a world that can say cross off 500 000 men without concern.

Page 143 of the rulebook give an example of an imperial guard battle. on the part day 25 - 40 the guard suffer "moderate" causalities with the number around 70 000.
Throughout the rest of the campaign the casualties sustained is normally sitting in the "heavy" category. If that was just 100 000 troops to count as heavy, this planet alone would have resulted in the deaths of minimum 400 000. Further, the explanation of the strategies used pretty much expressly say that the guardsmen are supposed to die slowly enough to hold the enemies at their fortifications without reinforcements. Also note that this planet was merely a human planet going rouge (so no scary zenos just other humans, with very isolated rumors of demons) and the troops sent to secure it were the elite cadians, who are arguably the very best the guard has to offer.

I am not saying that the guard are pathetic, they are the best humans the planet has to offer. Hell even the claims of planetary corruption don't hold true because if a Governor sends inferior troops his life is forfeit. Hence of the imperial tithe, the best of the best 10% is sent to serve in the guard. On page 139 of the rule book it says that for the imperium, manpower is the cheapest of all its currencies. Millions of guardsmen are sent to die and capture the smallest of objectives because as a resource their lives are meaningless.

With regards to veterans though, they are the guardsmen that survive. After a single campaign a regiment is expected to be pretty devastated, however the survivors are generally far superior and will stand a good chance of surviving long enough to go up in the ranks. The number of veterans killed will decrease with every campaign they survive, however, their second new campaign will still kill the most veterans as they are still relatively green compared to the few veterans that survived more campaigns. Fresh green recruits though are pretty much expected to die in their first campaign.

The imperial guard, despite being the best humans the imperium has to offer, is called the hammer of the emperor for a reason.

SylvanaSekNadin wrote:

I am not saying that the guard are pathetic, they are the best humans the planet has to offer. Hell even the claims of planetary corruption don't hold true because if a Governor sends inferior troops his life is forfeit. Hence of the imperial tithe, the best of the best 10% is sent to serve in the guard. On page 139 of the rule book it says that for the imperium, manpower is the cheapest of all its currencies. Millions of guardsmen are sent to die and capture the smallest of objectives because as a resource their lives are meaningless.

Politics and loopholes can insure that such things don't happen.

SylvanaSekNadin wrote:Page 143 of the rulebook give an example of an imperial guard battle. on the part day 25 - 40 the guard suffer "moderate" causalities with the number around 70 000.
Throughout the rest of the campaign the casualties sustained is normally sitting in the "heavy" category. If that was just 100 000 troops to count as heavy, this planet alone would have resulted in the deaths of minimum 400 000. Further, the explanation of the strategies used pretty much expressly say that the guardsmen are supposed to die slowly enough to hold the enemies at their fortifications without reinforcements. Also note that this planet was merely a human planet going rouge (so no scary zenos just other humans, with very isolated rumors of demons) and the troops sent to secure it were the elite cadians, who are arguably the very best the guard has to offer.

The deaths of 400000 men for the liberation of an entire planet would be pretty fantastic. The numbers of troops for a planetry invasion would be colossal when you consider the allies needed nigh on 200000 just for the Normandy landings. Casulties are likely to be huge. The claim that 70000 died in a single battle is pretty ridiculous though. Unless this battlefield was incredibly huge and the Guard decided they'd beat the oppossition by charging at them.

SylvanaSekNadin wrote:With regards to veterans though, they are the guardsmen that survive. After a single campaign a regiment is expected to be pretty devastated, however the survivors are generally far superior and will stand a good chance of surviving long enough to go up in the ranks. The number of veterans killed will decrease with every campaign they survive, however, their second new campaign will still kill the most veterans as they are still relatively green compared to the few veterans that survived more campaigns. Fresh green recruits though are pretty much expected to die in their first campaign.

But what's a camapign? A 10 year struggle for a world? A whole crusade? The idea that regiments are devastated after a single battle is an illussion. The fluff provides far more examples of regiments that don't get mauled every battle than it does Commander Chenkovs who send there 200000 men regiment to die to capture a ditch.

If casulties were so high, a world like Cadia would cease to exist.

SylvanaSekNadin wrote:The imperial guard, despite being the best humans the imperium has to offer, is called the hammer of the emperor for a reason.

s

Yes, because it grinds down the enemy with gun, tank, artillery and boot. That doesn't mean they march into battle intent on simply bleeding the enemy dry of ammunition. If they have to win by trading casulties, then that's what has to happen. But it wont be the default strategy. Just because people are a plentiful resource, it doesn't mean the Imperium throws them away unless it's the only immediate solution.

The 'grimdark' claim that the average soldier doesn't get past his first battle is slowed and without thought. GW peddle this line without thinking if it blends well with other Imperial Guard fluff, which it doesn't.

Most PDF will never see xenos or heretics, but Guard are very likely to end up fighting Orks or heretics.

Unless you're thinking of "chaos = chaos space marines and daemons only", in which case you are wrong, and should stop thinking that and be ashamed of yourself.

Well, like I said earlier, there is a difference between your everyday Chaos cult and a Cult thats getting CSM and Daemonic support or a full blown Chaos invasion.

the former I would expect to show up fairly often, enough to where Guardsmen could expect to put one down at least once in their lifetime. The latter 2 would certaintly be relativly rare.

Has anyone here watched the Star War's Clone Wars cartoons? It has a Jedi General named Krell whose idea of winning battles is to stay away from the frontlines and send his clone soldiers to their deaths in full frontal assaults while acting as much of a douche as possible to his subordinates like calling them by numbers and treating the clones as if they're not people. Why has he not been brought to justice for such acts and is instead being given medals? Its because he keeps wining battles which wins him medals.

Sounds a lot like Chenkov doesn't he?

Corporal_Reznov wrote:Why has he not been brought to justice for such acts and is instead being given medals? Its because he keeps wining battles which wins him medals.

Sounds a lot like Chenkov doesn't he?

I'm not denying those commanders don't exist. But if Guard fluff is taken as a whole, those commanders are the exceptions, rather than the rule. They give the Guard that abiliity to break a deadlock with the ruthless application of manpower if tactical innovations doesn't work.

But if most Imperial Guard units functioned like that, Imperial campaigns would fall to pieces due to logistical problems and the inabiliity to hold onto gains.

Edit: Just look at some of the special characters in the Guard 'dex. Creed, Al'reheim (spelling?), Bastonne, Pask, Harker and Kell. A tactically superb General, another tactically gifted officier, a veteran of countless battles and wars, a veteran tank commander and a veteran soldier/bodyguard. Yet there's only one Chenkov style officer.

Has anyone here watched the Star War's Clone Wars cartoons? It has a Jedi General named Krell whose idea of winning battles is to stay away from the frontlines and send his clone soldiers to their deaths in full frontal assaults while acting as much of a douche as possible to his subordinates like calling them by numbers and treating the clones as if they're not people. Why has he not been brought to justice for such acts and is instead being given medals? Its because he keeps wining battles which wins him medals.

Sounds a lot like Chenkov doesn't he?

I'm glad I wasn't the only one getting the Chenkov/IG vibe from Krell. Which reminds me, I need to get caught up on my Clone Wars watching....

Grey Templar wrote:Well, like I said earlier, there is a difference between your everyday Chaos cult and a Cult thats getting CSM and Daemonic support or a full blown Chaos invasion.

the former I would expect to show up fairly often, enough to where Guardsmen could expect to put one down at least once in their lifetime. The latter 2 would certaintly be relativly rare.

Chaos Space Marines are so rare as to essentially be nonexistent in the grand scheme of things. Most humans and marines likely never come across one. Probably 99.99% of all humans of any allegiance, and at least the majority of all loyalist marines.

Romer wrote:
I'm not denying those commanders don't exist. But if Guard fluff is taken as a whole, those commanders are the exceptions, rather than the rule. They give the Guard that abiliity to break a deadlock with the ruthless application of manpower if tactical innovations doesn't work.

But if most Imperial Guard units functioned like that, Imperial campaigns would fall to pieces due to logistical problems and the inabiliity to hold onto gains.

Edit: Just look at some of the special characters in the Guard 'dex. Creed, Al'reheim (spelling?), Bastonne, Pask, Harker and Kell. A tactically superb General, another tactically gifted officier, a veteran of countless battles and wars, a veteran tank commander and a veteran soldier/bodyguard. Yet there's only one Chenkov style officer.

What? I agree with you. Thats why I pointed out the example of Krell who is a Jedi from Star Wars. These type of generals and commanders are not an Imperium phenomenon, they can exist anywhere.

Psienesis wrote:
I'm glad I wasn't the only one getting the Chenkov/IG vibe from Krell. Which reminds me, I need to get caught up on my Clone Wars watching....

Chenkov doesn't represent the IG you know.

BeefCakeSoup wrote:Imperial Guard never see Tau, Pulse Rifles and Rail Guns open up on them out of human eyesight range.

humans have better eyesight than tau, so...no

Horst wrote:The life expectancy for a guardsman on Armageddon against the orks was 15 hours (they named the book 15 hours lol).

15 hours isn't bad compared to some of the life expectansies during the battle of stalingrad.

Occording to fluff most guardsmen will see some form of chaos. Usually just chaos fuelled rebellions or chaos sects causing trouble. Very few will actually see proper chaos forces though.

But yeah I would say most guardsmen on average won't see any zenos other than orks. And most of those will be feral.

Majsharan wrote:

Horst wrote:The life expectancy for a guardsman on Armageddon against the orks was 15 hours (they named the book 15 hours lol).

15 hours isn't bad compared to some of the life expectansies during the battle of stalingrad.

Occording to fluff most guardsmen will see some form of chaos. Usually just chaos fuelled rebellions or chaos sects causing trouble. Very few will actually see proper chaos forces though.

But yeah I would say most guardsmen on average won't see any zenos other than orks. And most of those will be feral.

The 15 hours thing is stupid anyway seeing as the book has Guardsmen who have survivied fighting against Orks for 10 years!

Corporal_Reznov wrote:

Majsharan wrote:

Horst wrote:The life expectancy for a guardsman on Armageddon against the orks was 15 hours (they named the book 15 hours lol).

15 hours isn't bad compared to some of the life expectansies during the battle of stalingrad.

Occording to fluff most guardsmen will see some form of chaos. Usually just chaos fuelled rebellions or chaos sects causing trouble. Very few will actually see proper chaos forces though.

But yeah I would say most guardsmen on average won't see any zenos other than orks. And most of those will be feral.

The 15 hours thing is stupid anyway seeing as the book has Guardsmen who have survivied fighting against Orks for 10 years!

The fifteen hour life expectancy wasn't for combat veterans, it was for the replacement guardsmen.

Coolyo294 wrote:The fifteen hour life expectancy wasn't for combat veterans, it was for the replacement guardsmen.

I know that, I posted the fact that the 15 hours wasn't meant for standard Guardsmen everywhere but some people do you the 15 hours thing as evidence that IG everywhere live for only 15 hours or less which is stupid. I was just stating that even the book whose name is 15 hours shows that the 15 hours idea is just nonsense.

Corporal_Reznov wrote:Has anyone here watched the Star War's Clone Wars cartoons? It has a Jedi General named Krell whose idea of winning battles is to stay away from the frontlines and send his clone soldiers to their deaths in full frontal assaults while acting as much of a douche as possible to his subordinates like calling them by numbers and treating the clones as if they're not people. Why has he not been brought to justice for such acts and is instead being given medals? Its because he keeps wining battles which wins him medals.

Sounds a lot like Chenkov doesn't he?

feth HIM that deuce!; Order 66 is now competely justified in my book if Krell was killed; I hope his Jedi Interceptor was shot down and he landed into a Sarlacc with Jar Jar Bink while being forced to watch the remastered Blu ray prequels

Talk about the worst Jedi! The Sith in the Sith Academy in KOTOR was more compassionate then this xeno scum

jordanis wrote:

BeefCakeSoup wrote:Imperial Guard never see Tau, Pulse Rifles and Rail Guns open up on them out of human eyesight range.

humans have better eyesight than tau, so...no

MEDIC!

I need icepacks stat!

Romer wrote:If there's one thing the Imperium hates apart from Xenos and Chaos, it's a waste of resources. Throwing men away needlessly is a waste of resources.

To a small or large degree, I agree with this. However, this brings up my most hated bit of the IG codex.

Chenkov

Why he's anything special is beyond me. Enemies approaching? Send soldiers at them. Mine fields? Send soldier at them. His entire strategy for every problem seems to be just "send soldiers at it. If that fails, send more". If anything I suspect he's a stunted ogryn with that kind of tactic. It also brings up how appearantly scary he is, and how no soldier will risk his wrath. This practically puts him on the same scale as commissars which is also ridiculous.

So basically he's reached the rank of Colonel by trying to shove the square in the circle hole and throwing tantrums when people don't agree with him.

Corporal_Reznov wrote:

Coolyo294 wrote:The fifteen hour life expectancy wasn't for combat veterans, it was for the replacement guardsmen.

I know that, I posted the fact that the 15 hours wasn't meant for standard Guardsmen everywhere but some people do you the 15 hours thing as evidence that IG everywhere live for only 15 hours or less which is stupid. I was just stating that even the book whose name is 15 hours shows that the 15 hours idea is just nonsense.

The thing is in any military the new fresh green troop has a very low life expectancy. Normally because they are brave and stupid and don't really know how war works. Unfortunately in a universe where killing humans is almost a national sport for the alien races, life expectancy drops significantly lower. The 15 hour rule is kind of silly, but if you think about it, it represents the average. Taking into consideration that so many troopers survived the conflict, and that so many troopers died pretty much instantly when the chimera doors opened.

The Guard exist to win wars of attrition. The idea behind wars of attrition is that each of your losses mean less than the losses of the enemy. Think of it this way, imagine an entire chapter of space marines goes rouge. Spending the lives of 10 000 guard to kill 1 space marine is a net win for the guard. Furthermore, in most cases they wont even loose that many guardsmen killing that 1 marine.

The Imperial Guard's most abundant resource is humans. I wouldn't say Chenkov-style leadership is all that rare - the DKoK practice it as well, just to name one example, and not everybody's the Tanith First or Cadian.

Why are Chapters of Space Marines going red? Are they trying out new fall colors?

Or are you meaning that they go rogue?
In that case, the Guard will not be fighting alone. A rogue Astartes Chapter will usually get the Inquisition and its "pet" Chapters like the Red Hunters on its bum so fast they'll be wondering what that noise is behind them.

I should also add that "Fifteen Hours" is by no means representative of the Guard at large. It was "Fifteen Hours" for a 'new fish' dropped into the combat at Bucheroc, which was on a planet overrun entirely by an Ork Waagh! where the Imperium had no actual knowledge of the situation at hand and was not resupplying said troops.

Now yeah. Chenkov style leadership is not necessarily that rare--but neither is it likely that common. The Guard's most abundant resource is humans, but it's also experienced humans and your troops do not become experienced by dying.

The Guard can't out attrition everyone. That tends not to work againts Orks and Tyranids, who arguably are both more numerous than humans (although I'm not sure baout Nids since we don't have any clear ideas on their numbers) but tend to be more easily replaced than the humans. Humanity may be quite prolific in 40K, but until they find some way to speed up human growth (or pull a Grand Army of the REpublic) there are going to be situations and enemies that attrition won't beat no matter how many men General Brannigan throws at them. Attrition warfare tends to work against only certain kinds of enemies: Heretics and Chaos would seem to be the most common examples (although even there it can be of mixed results), and some aliens (like Eldar, although the Eldar are advanced/powerful enough that they can make this quite painful if the Imperium tries.) You can have (And probably do have) officers who will spend their troops like water to achieve an objective, but unless it gains success he is probably going to be shot for wasting valuable resources. Prolific as it is, a soldier is still a resource and must not be squandered needlessly (what qualifies as "needless" is open to debate, of course.)

The problems inherent in warp travel and astrotelepathy that make direct administration of the Imperium difficult would also apply to their military forces. I always figured the fifteen hours thing was just a sector-specific issue. Things in one region of the Imperium won't neccesarily correspond to another region. If there was to be a "standard example" for the Guard, I'd say it would be one of the named, high profile regiments like the Cadians. (The Cadians in particular have been named as an oft-emulated regiment at least in equipment if not ability, I think.)

SylvanaSekNadin wrote:Unfortunately in a universe where killing humans is almost a national sport for the alien races, life expectancy drops significantly lower.

Actually 40k's national sport is Xenocide/Genocide and slavery. But othern than that, you make good points.

Seaward wrote:The Imperial Guard's most abundant resource is humans. I wouldn't say Chenkov-style leadership is all that rare - the DKoK practice it as well, just to name one example, and not everybody's the Tanith First or Cadian.

I really don't think one can use the DKoK as a bad thing seeing as the Kreig don't actually mind dieing.

Corporal_Reznov wrote:I really don't think one can use the DKoK as a bad thing seeing as the Kreig don't actually mind dieing.

Indeed. The Commissar's attached to DKoK Regiments often have to hold the DKoK in check so they don't throw away their lives pointlessly. Mind you the Krieg way of waging war is to challenge the enemy to a contest of trenchworks, siegeworks and prolonged attrition. They do it rather well, all things considered.

Seaward wrote:The Imperial Guard's most abundant resource is humans. I wouldn't say Chenkov-style leadership is all that rare - the DKoK practice it as well, just to name one example, and not everybody's the Tanith First or Cadian.

The Death Korps are basically cloned soldiers, indoctrinated to feel like nothing but a number. The whole planets idea of warfare is based around attrition I agree. But the Death Korps get sent where other methods of war wont work. They are a specialised regiment.

Sure, not everybodys the Tanith First or Cadian. But let's look at the other examples of models we're given. Elysians, Catachans, Tallarns, Valhallans, Steel Legion and Mordians.

The Elysians are a well trained, skilled and often veteran drop troopers. Sure, in high profile missions they die in droves. But that's the lot of paratroopers. I've still yet to here of an inexperienced Elysian regiment.

Catachans are probably a bad example because of the world they come from. They are born survivors. So it's no suprise they're tough soldiers.

Tallarns are generally described as skilled soldiers, winning battles and wars with tactics, marksmanship and the abilities in the desert they learnt at home.

Valhallans are a mixed bunch. We've got Chenkov. But we've also go Cains Valhallans. There was also this run of articles in an oldish WD about all the different Guard regiments. They described a Valhallan mountain Rangers units that seemed pretty skillful. They didn't simply march into the enemies guns.

And so on. The Imperial Guard is constantly at war. It makes sense that most commanders would want to hone their tactics into something other than trading numbers because they'd stand a better chance at winning with veteran troopers.

Romer wrote:
And so on. The Imperial Guard is constantly at war. It makes sense that most commanders would want to hone their tactics into something other than trading numbers because they'd stand a better chance at winning with veteran troopers.

No one is claiming that the generals of the imperial guard don't bother with strategy. Keeping their troops alive is beneficial to the whole of the imperium and so they would prefer to use them wisely. Survivors, and veterans make for easier campaigns, not to mention less casualties mean less work for the commissars to keep moral up. That said though, manpower is the cheapest currency in the guard, and if they had to choose between loosing a lemun russ tank or a couple of hundred guardsmen, they will choose to sacrifice the troopers.

with regards to being unable to out attrition orks and tyranids, you are partially correct. If the orks ever united into a large enough Waaagh then yes the guard cannot replenish its troops on the battlefield to keep the orks at bay, a useful example is Armageddon. In general though, most ork war-bands are relatively small. Unfortunately, the reason why they cant out attrition to orks is more because of the delays and logistics of mobilizing that many guardsmen and getting them to the war before its too late. With Tyranids, unfortunately they really do bring more to the field than the humans do. Although there imperium effectively turns towards a scorched earth strategy. The attrition thing might work if the tyrinids didn't replenish their numbers for every piece of biomass they recover from a battle.

BeefCakeSoup wrote:Imperial Guard never see Tau, Pulse Rifles and Rail Guns open up on them out of human eyesight range.

For now, Tau doesn't have access to any efficient spacefaring technology that Imperium, Eldars, Orks, Chaos, and Necrons have. their dominion is closely packed in the eastern fringe. and it seems Tau aren't willing to take a risk using Warp travel, the Medusa IV campaign concluded that.
unless that an Ethereal learned how to navigate the webway or Tau navy captured any Necron tomb ships.

SylvanaSekNadin wrote: That said though, manpower is the cheapest currency in the guard, and if they had to choose between loosing a lemun russ tank or a couple of hundred guardsmen, they will choose to sacrifice the troopers.

That's where I disagree. The logical choice there is to sacrifice the tank.

There far fewer examples of commanders falling in line with GWs hyperbole than there are the other way around. Would Creed throw 200 men at an objective to save a Russ? No. He'd throw his armour at it. Lose that single tank and use his infantry to follow in behind and secure the objective.

Leman Russ tanks are an STC produced vehicle. Any civillised world could churn them out. There hardly going to be in short supply, which gives the well supplied Guard commander the ability to choose the tool that produces the fewest losses in manpower and material.

If tanks are in short supply due to logistical issues, certainly, they'd just use the soldiers and take the losses without blinking. But I can't think of many guard commanders I've read about who would choose a tank over 200 men.

Manpower is the guards greatest resource because it allows them to prevail on a galactic stage where others couldn't, not because other equipment is so valuable.