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Me and my friend are debating on this topic, and he says that guardsmen have a pretty good life, with lots of friends and so on...
When I say that it is not true, he says that Tanith the First and Only have lots of friends, and that they would never execute their own men...

So... Do guardsmen have a good life, without the penalty of death when failing at something (like losing the munitorum book)?

It varies from regiment to regiment.

In some regiments life is hell, and you are liable to get shot for just about everything.

In some regiments it is closer to being in a modern military.

On average, life as a guardsman probably sucks.

Yeah they all live on a farm where the owners give them lots of food and rub their tummy...
It's an army of a hellish dystopian state where they are forced to fight some of the most terrifying creatures mankind has ever seen, in the name of a god-emperor that might not even be alive, under commanders that do not care whether they live or die... what do you think?
But hey laser guns!

I think it depends on which regiment you come from. Either way life is probably hard. I bet being in infantry under Chenkov would be terrible because your probably going to die in a charge. Being in a tallarn detachment might be better though because you hit and run against the enemy.

Just some ideas for ya!

of course getting shot at, butchered and shot by your own men perfect.

Well it depends really, I imagien that regiments like Tanith, Elysian, Cacthan and so on can be alrigth but not good. But Im willing to bet on that Storm Troopers have it a bit more pleasnet than the rest of the guys in any regiment. But in Penal battalions, white shield regiments and so on..... life probably suck

It really does depend on the regiment, but for the majority of the guard: Utter and Complete Suckage.

No.

A Guardsman can have an ok life but only if he doesn't see real combat. Gaurdsmen are almost always going to be the weakest and least scary soldier. The fact that you outnumber them 10 to 1 stops being comforting when you realise this fact helps your commander justify using you as moving cover. Even in the best regiments your still getting a pretty bad deal it's just not as bad as it could be. Being an Elysian or Tallarn might look ok but you still have to attack 10 foot tall superhumans wearing armour as thick as tanks or defend against aliens that want to drag you of and torture you for months.

However being a member of a PDF on a basic planet isn't a too bad job. As long as you keep average enough that you don't draw the governors attention you shouldn't be drafted into the IG. As much as GW tries to paint it as a galaxy in eternal war most planets get attacked very rarely.

4M2A wrote:No.

A Guardsman can have an ok life but only if he doesn't see real combat. Gaurdsmen are almost always going to be the weakest and least scary soldier. The fact that you outnumber them 10 to 1 stops being comforting when you realise this fact helps your commander justify using you as moving cover. Even in the best regiments your still getting a pretty bad deal it's just not as bad as it could be. Being an Elysian or Tallarn might look ok but you still have to attack 10 foot tall superhumans wearing armour as thick as tanks or defend against aliens that want to drag you of and torture you for months.

However being a member of a PDF on a basic planet isn't a too bad job. As long as you keep average enough that you don't draw the governors attention you shouldn't be drafted into the IG. As much as GW tries to paint it as a galaxy in eternal war most planets get attacked very rarely.

Fluffwise though, most guardsmen will never fight Astartes, Chaos, or xenos in their lifetime. Most of the military engagements by the Imperium is against planetary rebellions and normal, unaltered humans. Sometimes even less well trained and under equipped than the Guard.

By our standards no. By the standards of a Necromundan hive ganger it's the only chance he'll ever have to breathe fresh air, drink clean water, and eat every day. There are even stretches of time where nobody tries to kill you at all. Of course attitudes and conditions vary a lot in universe as well.

sluggaslugga wrote:Me and my friend are debating on this topic, and he says that guardsmen have a pretty good life, with lots of friends and so on...
When I say that it is not true, he says that Tanith the First and Only have lots of friends, and that they would never execute their own men...

So... Do guardsmen have a good life, without the penalty of death when failing at something (like losing the munitorum book)?

See Guardsman enemies:







Now let us see Guardsman friends:



And you are debating... then again...




Who knows...

Short answer: No.
Long answer: Nooooooooo.

When on the battlefield: Nope!

Wnen not on the battlefield: depends on the regiment. There would surely be millions of Guardsmen who would end up with a commissar who'd shoot them for not tying their laces propoerly, or be recruited from a world where members of the regiment are from rival tribes or gangs (with all the feuding and brawling that could lead to), or be led by someone like Chenkov. But on the other hand, it seems that there are some regiments where they wouldn't be just as likely to die between battles as during them.

4M2A wrote:However being a member of a PDF on a basic planet isn't a too bad job. As long as you keep average enough that you don't draw the governors attention you shouldn't be drafted into the IG. As much as GW tries to paint it as a galaxy in eternal war most planets get attacked very rarely.

I agree that this is one of the safest ways to be a soldier in the Imperium...just being in the PDF on some obscure planet, preferably one with no strategic importance (or other reason for the big powers to fight over it).

Well, given that every aspect of life is devoted to the emperor god, and they get to serve him, I think that for them its not so bad. In today's mindset...well...noooooooooo.

Fezman wrote:

I agree that this is one of the safest ways to be a soldier in the Imperium...just being in the PDF on some obscure planet, preferably one with no strategic importance (or other reason for the big powers to fight over it).

Although almost every time a specific PDF has been mentioned, they have been wiped out to the last man. 1st rule of Fiction: never be expendable.

carbonpillow wrote:

Fezman wrote:

I agree that this is one of the safest ways to be a soldier in the Imperium...just being in the PDF on some obscure planet, preferably one with no strategic importance (or other reason for the big powers to fight over it).

Although almost every time a specific PDF has been mentioned, they have been wiped out to the last man. 1st rule of Fiction: never be expendable.

PDF is almost always the red shirt army for the Guard. You are the army of red shirts for the bigger army that is considered a redshirt army. YOU ARE DOUBLY fethed!

But not that bad. On average commissars don't execute often; doing so leaves you understaffed and who knows when the next shipment of recruits will arrive.

If you think about the characters in full metal jacket fighting 40k xenos,then jeez its horrible.

The a guardsman is a lot like a cow. One spends his time eating food made of his ground up friends well waiting for his turn to be killed and turned into low quality food... and the other is a cow.

Yay. From being killed by unspeakable horrors to being used to clear minefields (Ok odd thought here, but the IG are the only ones who use mines aren't they?) the IG do not have a easy time.

The Imperial guard are most commonly known as Cannonfodder and/or plug up the gates with their bodies.

I am an Guardsman from the 1456th Regiment. I was born on a backwater planet named Danthara, youngest of nine. My father joined the Guard himself when I was but two years old. Never seen nor heard news of him since. At the age of 16, I married a beautiful girl. My mother, overburdened by work, raising me, my five brothers and three sisters died a peaceful death knowing all of us now have a family and will provide the Imperium and the Emperor with our lives. She was always religious and spoke as if she was knows stuff about everything. My brothers and I often had the opinion that work has drove our poor mater a bit nuts. I miss her dearly. I joined the Guard at the age of 22, signing on for a fifteen year contract. I had five children of my own. Two or three of them are probably grown up by now and have families of their own. The youngest of them was two years old when I took up my Imperial duty. It was hard, I love my wife, and it was heartbreaking to leave my family like that, not ever going to see them again. But duty to my family and the Imperium forced me to join.

The pay is decent. It is only a few coins a month, but that is twice as much as my previous job as a blacksmith. The money is sent back to my wife. Rations is tasteless slosh. Every time I eat, I have to force it down my throat, because if I don't, I won't have the energy to perform the daily drills we need to do for the six hours of every day. In the many days of inactivity, our regiment resides with the Lexus Fleet of the Equitol Lex sector. The quarters are cramp, and you are only allowed to use the waste disposal twice a day. We try to force everything out of our intestines at least once every day. It's not that hard considering everything comes out as mulch, but the bad part is waiting for the confounded thing to flush, which the ships cleaning staff only does once every four hours. In the spare time I have, I don't do much but drink, walking around, read, and write letters to my wife and children. It kills me that I won't ever be able to hold them in my arms anymore. I hope I did not just jinx myself by saying that. This lousy recorder has only five minutes left of time, so I guess I must be brief.

I have been in thirty engagements before. My first few were in the Campaign of Eqeuis VII against the greenskins. Those days will haunt my thoughts and dreams for the rest of my life. Every firefight, every encounter, and every battle felt like forever. Each and every second, I was certain I was going to be grinded to a pulp or blasted to bits. I saw up close, friends that I made not too long after joining, blow up or get mowed down within seconds. Now of course when I meet someone, and when they die, I can't bring myself to care anymore. It's too much pointless work. After that ordeal, I found that nothing in the universe can make me cry again, literally that is. My tear glands have all but died from overuse. Over the last ten years, I have fought alongside the Mechanicus, the Inquisition, the Adeptus Astartes, the Grey Knights, the Deathwatch, the Sororitas, and was even privileged enough to see a Custodes from a distance while in camp. But more memorable are the enemies I have faced and survived. Chaos, xenos, and heretics. All terrible foes that no mortal man should ever have to lay eyes upon, all of which I have seen with my own. The Imperial Guard is a horrible way of life, it is a life of punishment, of horrors that no words can describe. It is a life of bad pay, considering the things you must endure, disgusting rations, unceasing screaming in your ears by your superiors, bad stench next to your quarters, and boring past times, which are a godsend compared to combat. In return, I get to bring the fight to my enemy, instead of allowing them to attack my sector and my homeworld, where my family lives. And that is all that I am ever going to be grateful for. God Bless the Imperial Guard.

carbonpillow wrote:

Fezman wrote:

I agree that this is one of the safest ways to be a soldier in the Imperium...just being in the PDF on some obscure planet, preferably one with no strategic importance (or other reason for the big powers to fight over it).

Although almost every time a specific PDF has been mentioned, they have been wiped out to the last man. 1st rule of Fiction: never be expendable.

Then allow me to amend that to "some plant so obscure even the Black Library authors haven't heard of it"

purplefood wrote:It's an army of a hellish dystopian state where they are forced to fight some of the most terrifying creatures mankind has ever seen, in the name of a god-emperor that might not even be alive, under commanders that do not care whether they live or die... what do you think? But hey laser guns!

Signatured.

Guardsmen can have a good life when their dead!

on a side note the power hug is probably the funniest thing ive ever seen lol But I also agree that it might vary from regiment to regiment, kinda like serving in say WW! or WW2. No its not fun, and its not all the glamor of being a space marine. But it also dosnt have to be as hard, if your lucky. I think luck is the most important thing here, you could end up serving on a planet your entire life and never having to fight a tough battle. Or you could get rapped in the face by xenos or your own commissioner. I wonder what percentage of them die per unit, i mean I know A LOT of guardsmen die, but there's so many of them!

If they survive and retire somewhere nice...Oh wait, there is no retirement. Just shooting, dying, torture, dying, other people dying, dying, oh and dying.

darkcloud92 wrote:Guardsmen can have a good life when their dead!

on a side note the power hug is probably the funniest thing ive ever seen lol But I also agree that it might vary from regiment to regiment, kinda like serving in say WW! or WW2. No its not fun, and its not all the glamor of being a space marine. But it also dosnt have to be as hard, if your lucky. I think luck is the most important thing here, you could end up serving on a planet your entire life and never having to fight a tough battle. Or you could get rapped in the face by xenos or your own commissioner. I wonder what percentage of them die per unit, i mean I know A LOT of guardsmen die, but there's so many of them!

I've never heard of WW! it must have been intense to get that name

Sorry I just LOLed when I read that for some reason

Raxmei wrote:By our standards no. By the standards of a Necromundan hive ganger it's the only chance he'll ever have to breathe fresh air, drink clean water, and eat every day. There are even stretches of time where nobody tries to kill you at all. Of course attitudes and conditions vary a lot in universe as well.

Pretty much this.

Life in the Guard is crap by today's standards. But for them it sounds a heck of a lot better than anything else. Provided they don't die.

LumenPraebeo wrote:I am an Guardsman from the 1456th Regiment. ...I have fought alongside the.. Grey Knights,

If you did this and are still alive then you must be either a deserter or in a penal legion as the Grey Knights don't let guard know they exist, they execute them after the battle or the lucky ones get sent to die in a war as part of a penal legion to preserve their secrets and the existence of chaos.

LumenPraebeo:

Seriously awesome story. But I agree, the dude would be lucky to even see an Astartes from afar, and would never fight alongside Grey Knights or Custodes. Anyway I'm totally saving your post!

I think it is all subjective. By my cushy, American, unemployed-while-my-wife-works-full-time-air-conditioned-playing-with-toy-soldiers standards, Guardsman life would be a nightmare. By the standards of the majority of the Imperium, probably a pretty good set up. You don't have to worry about food, shelter, a job, and unlike the rest of folks, you have a pretty good idea of what's most likely to kill you at any given time, which is oddly comforting to most folks.

Having been in the RL military for several years...

Even when military life is OK, it's still pretty crappy.