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My Guard codex says that the Imperial Guard usually recruits from the elite of a planet's PDF. However, it also states that recruits are most often a significant proportion of a planet's population. I find it something of an impossibility that large parts of a planet's population could be considered elite, and given the stereotypical view of guardsmen as cannon fodder... You guys know where I'm going. What are your thoughts on the matter?

Disregard this, I misread the OP.

Well, the best 10% of a PDF will still be the "elite" of said PDF, regardless of their actual capabilities in comparison to, say, the men of the Storm Trooper Regiment.

Elite by the standards of the PDF is cannon fodder by the standards of almost anyone else in the setting.

It is dependant on situation, alot of the most well known regiments are raised from hive worlds with massive populations and even multiple regiments can be raised in one go without effecting the population.

In times of need though the IoM will raise IG regiments and these will the majority of a planet's population.

The subject is that people are seeing the Guard wrong....
They don't stand still in one perfect line facing waves of Orks and likes...
They fight like any army - using covers, tactics, armor and special equipment. And they aren't all the numerous per planet ( there were only around 2 million Guardsman during the 3'rd war for Armageddon. Hitler had around 3.5 million troops against USSR in 1941'st ).
The reason why Guard suck:
-their commanders are idiots ( Chenkov, various generals ).
-GW writers are idiots ( Taros campaign ).

The canon story is: Every planet have it's PDF troops, best of those troops form the IG Regiments that are then transferred across the galaxy. The quality of troops varry from planet to planet ( Cadian or Tallarn solder would be better than some 4'th colony one like Estaban for example ). And of course, the reason why everyone think Guard is weak is because they die pretty easy ( if you wonder why just look at their enemies, end of story ).

The Guard often do recruit from the best of the PDF, but I would assume they can also conscript untrained locals as well. Gotta keep the numbers up.

Also, I would assume when they say the Guard recruits "a significant portion of the population", it's a very relative term. Think about it in terms of a planet like present-day Earth. Around one half of one percent of a population of 6 or 7 billion people would be under arms - so even our comparatively un-militarized planet like ours would have like 20-30 million soldiers.

If you lived in a galaxy where the threat of war from within and without was constant, the planet might have a very large standing PDF, say 1-2% of the population. That's a huge percentage in terms of population demographics - something like 1 in 10 people between 18 and 35 would be under arms, probably with a lot more who are trained reservists. The Guard could easily draw from the "elite" (relatively speaking) from a force that size and still be taking millions of recruits from that planet.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
To put things further in perspective, during WWII the Soviet Union had up to 10% or more of the population in military service at any one time. Seeing as the Imperium is on a perpetual war footing, it might be possible to maintain recruitment constantly at this level in the PDF. This would give you a truly huge pool of servicemen and women to skim your "elites" from. Also as some other posters indicated, being used as "cannon fodder" has a lot more to do with training, equipment, and tactics than quality of troops.

Depends on the planet and it's leadership. Particularly loyal planets will send the best they have while others send underhive scum they wish to get rid off ( who might actually be the best fighters a planet has ).
Still, a planet whose regiments constantly seem to perform below average or are obviously of inferior quality might sooner or later attract the attention of those who can cause some serious trouble, even for a planetary govenour.

Regarding the guardsman as canonfodder trope, it once again depends on the regiment and the war in question. You will have regiments where a thousand lifes count for nothing and you will have wars
which such high rates of attrition ( hivefleets, necron attacks, black crusades... ) that even a well trained and led trooper will be little more than meat for the grinder.
Add to this the idiocy of most warhammer vehicles ( yo dawg, i heard you like high casualties among your men, so i added some rivets, almost doubled the height of your tank and made sure that it has as many huge, flat surfaces as possible, so you can die while you die while you die ), occassionaly incompetent commanders ( i am lord 08/15 on my world and that's why i am a great commander, it's in my blood! ) and the life expectancy of your average guardsmen, even if he/she is well trained, might be rather low.

Void__Dragon wrote:Elite by the standards of the PDF is cannon fodder by the standards of almost anyone else in the setting.

That's about the shape of it. They're good by the standards of untried recruits whose biggest worry is a mutant riot or some tussle in the upper crust. They aren't deathless murder machines, posthuman gene-engineered supersoldiers, world-eating bio-horrors, or literal demons out to harvest souls. Humanity in 40K is playing out of their league, and one of the only advantages they really have are overwhelming force of numbers.

They can afford to throw away lives, because warm bodies are one of the only things the Imperium are not short on.

Arturius wrote:

Void__Dragon wrote:Elite by the standards of the PDF is cannon fodder by the standards of almost anyone else in the setting.

That's about the shape of it. They're good by the standards of untried recruits whose biggest worry is a mutant riot or some tussle in the upper crust. They aren't deathless murder machines, posthuman gene-engineered supersoldiers, world-eating bio-horrors, or literal demons out to harvest souls. Humanity in 40K is playing out of their league, and one of the only advantages they really have are overwhelming force of numbers.

They can afford to throw away lives, because warm bodies are one of the only things the Imperium are not short on.

You forget courage, valor, hope no matter how small, and most important of all, brutal, ruthless, savage, and just plain bold stubbornness. It is what the Guard is made of, as well as blood, guts, sweat, and tears. Who wouldn't be moved by these brave and fanatically loyal servants of mankind? These men who stand steadfast in the face of terror, strength, and skill far greater than their own? The Astartes are the equals and betters of their enemies, whether it be by skill, or tenacity. But even they will tell you that the Guard are their brothers when it comes bravery under a common cause.

Under normal circumstances, they do recruit from the best of the PDF. A Planetary Governor is required to make a list of such individuals as part of his tithe and they're conscripted.

Under emergency circumstances, such as a nearby sector or planet coming under attack, an enormous amount of the planets population will be conscripted and the "recruit elites" aspect will be ignored. Since 40k stories often take place in these emergency situations, you'll see it happen quite a bit.

Basically, recruiting former PDF forces is the preferred method of raising a regiment.

all too often, the IG is forced to raise new regiments from scratch. 1st choice in this situation is a planet with some sort of martial tradition in its general populace and a more hostile enviroment.

FourCartridge wrote:...given the stereotypical view of guardsmen as cannon fodder...

The guardsmen are cannon fodder compared to tyranid monstrosities, orks, eldar, necrons, Chaos Space Marines, etc. They aren't poor representatives of humanity. Humanity is a relatively weak species, compared to a lot of the alien races that war with it. The guard wins war with tanks and numbers, not, in general, superior individual troopers.

LumenPraebeo wrote:You forget courage, valor, hope no matter how small, and most important of all, brutal, ruthless, savage, and just plain bold stubbornness. It is what the Guard is made of, as well as blood, guts, sweat, and tears. Who wouldn't be moved by these brave and fanatically loyal servants of mankind? These men who stand steadfast in the face of terror, strength, and skill far greater than their own? The Astartes are the equals and betters of their enemies, whether it be by skill, or tenacity. But even they will tell you that the Guard are their brothers when it comes bravery under a common cause.

Absolutely. Can't deny that the Guard are severely hardcore; staring into incomprehensible cosmic horror, holding their ground, following their orders, and going down shooting.

However, from a practical standpoint, the courage, valor, stubbornness--what it comes down to is the Guard's ability and willingness to die, horrifically, hopefully doing some damage to the enemy on the way out.

Actually what it comes down to is tanks, heavy weapons, and artillery.

Melissia wrote:Actually what it comes down to is tanks, heavy weapons, and artillery.

Quite right, if Guard would be just infantry with regular Lasguns they would be useless.

Not entirely useless, but let's face it. When you really, REALLY want it dead in tabletop, you fire on it with a manticore or some other form of arty. Or even an LR tank of the various variants.

True, again... But why lose so many people when you can have 1 tank or heavy weapon and save some lives?

Besides, as you said - when you want something dead you use Imperial tanks and artillery

Sometimes you just don't have a tank.

Other times you have incompetent people such as Chenkov.

Melissia wrote:Sometimes you just don't have a tank.

Other times you have incompetent people such as Chenkov.

And other times, you have too much enemies, so you staunch the flow of enemies by clogging bodies in the breach

Is chenkov really incompetent. Cruel as heck, but I thought he gets results with his cannon fodder army.

Chenkov gets a job done, yes, but as soon as a different commanding officer for him replaces the idiot that holds the position right now, he may be required to explain why he has the worst kill-death ratio in the whole subsector.

I mean, from the standpoint of people like Lord-General Dravere or Marshal Lugo, yes, he's competent. Nevertheless, people like Colonel-Commissar Gaunt would probably like to summarily execute that guy for hopelessly barbaric and antiquated tactics.

I'd say Chenkov's attitude is a good representation of the "grimdark" factor, though. Human lives quite simply are cheap, and just because several popular novel characters get promoted as the buddy-type (okay, that was exaggerated, though there are those cases...) doesn't mean that the standards of the background have changed. That said, there is lots of personal interpretation and preferences involved for all of us, I guess.

Same as with the Space Marines, by the way. From what I've read in the studio material (GW's Inquisitor RPG in particular offered an entire page dedicated to Astartes psychology), their genetical superiority and a lifestyle somewhere between self-reverence and eternal war commonly breeds a healthy amount of arrogance that lets them disregard the IG as "lesser men" and treat them accordingly. If you want to read how a GW writer treats the subject in a novel, I'd recommend the short story "Know Thine Enemy" from Gav Thorpe, which has a couple Salamanders fight next to an IG platoon. Poor Lieutenant almost gets punched in the face in that one for daring to suggest the Marines take some rest whilst his men guard the perimeter.

Of course you also have exceptions to that rule, though - such as the Space Wolves, as usual.

In rules terms, what makes an Imperial Guard trooper seem quite so useless is that the profile of an "ordinary" human has remained static since Rogue Trader (or in fact since Fantasy Battle 2nd Edition), while those of other infantry models have crept ever higher.

Space Marines, for instance had a toughness of only 3, power armour which gave only a 4+ save, and none of the plethora of additional special rules they do now.

It's a shame, in a way, that Warhammer 40,000's system is insufficiently granular to allow a distinction between professional regulars like the Guard and reservists like the PDF - it would of course be possible (indeed pretty easy) to draw up for friendly games a fairly balanced PDF list with conscripts/whiteshields/generic levvies (WS2, BS2, Ld 5, half points cost) as the only troops choices, fewer tanks etc. Then the Guard players would finally have the chance to feel elite...

The general infantry squads of the Imperial guard are made of the elite (shall we say highly trained). For a reference point check the stat-line for conscripts; these are the guys straight out of boot camp.

LumenPraebeo wrote:

Melissia wrote:Sometimes you just don't have a tank.

Other times you have incompetent people such as Chenkov.

And other times, you have too much enemies, so you staunch the flow of enemies by clogging bodies in the breach

While that may be true, even the Imperium has a limit as to the number of guardsmen they will throw at a breech.

Chenkov is seriously testing that limit, if not over Guardsmens lives but over their equipment thats getting broken/lost in his suicidal charges. A commander who wastes equipment without good cause may find himself replaced.

Grey Templar wrote:
Chenkov is seriously testing that limit, if not over Guardsmens lives but over their equipment thats getting broken/lost in his suicidal charges. A commander who wastes equipment without good cause may find himself replaced.

Chenkov gets the job done and he gets it done fast. If the planet is liberated that much faster while you lose a few million poorly trained men (I assme that he does indeed use a large number of conscripts and the like), the losses don't matter so much because you can replace the losses and get the planet into productivity that much more quickly.

That said, his background is absurd. Executing a million men (I think) to form a bridge? What sort of army would carry out those orders and not just shoot him?

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:

Grey Templar wrote:
Chenkov is seriously testing that limit, if not over Guardsmens lives but over their equipment thats getting broken/lost in his suicidal charges. A commander who wastes equipment without good cause may find himself replaced.

Chenkov gets the job done and he gets it done fast. If the planet is liberated that much faster while you lose a few million poorly trained men (I assme that he does indeed use a large number of conscripts and the like), the losses don't matter so much because you can replace the losses and get the planet into productivity that much more quickly.

That said, his background is absurd. Executing a million men (I think) to form a bridge? What sort of army would carry out those orders and not just shoot him?

Like I said, He will get called to heel over equipment, not men.


All those Lasguns, power packs, and flak jackets those dudes were carrying cost money. Guardsmen are free, the Kit is not.

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:That said, his background is absurd. Executing a million men (I think) to form a bridge?

What, really? Where's that from?

I've "only" heard of him sending people over a minefield to clear it for the precious tanks. The bridge thing sounds a tad absurd even for my taste.

Brother Coa wrote:

Melissia wrote:Actually what it comes down to is tanks, heavy weapons, and artillery.

Quite right, if Guard would be just infantry with regular Lasguns they would be useless.

No they wouldn't.
You ever try fighting off a million-strong horde of children armed with air rifles and knives with, say, two hundred professional boxers? The kids still win.
Even at a troop level, the Guard can generally hold it's own - if nothing else, they outnumber the enemy, and in the cases where they don't (such as when fighting Orks or Tyranids) their training gives them an advantage over the less disciplined troops.