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I mean, when you think about it, it doesn't make much sense. First of all, contrary to popular belief, guardsmen are actual probably trained more than modern day military personnel, due to the fact that they'll face nearly constant combat. While this alone wouldn't say a whole lot for their accuracy, when you consider their choice of weapon... Well, the lasgun uses actual focused light as it's weapon, which would go forward exactly straight (meaning that even a simple scope could allow a guardsman to snipe) and be only fractionally effected by gravity (meaning it would retain its travel in a strait line). In addition, it would probably only have marginal recoil, if any, and almost never jam or misfire.

So why are they so danged crappy with them?

They aren't.

Rules =/= reality/fluff.

WH40k does a rather poor job of representing even the basics of what combat would be like.

But, when you think about it, much of the shooting that happens in wars doesn't hit anything. Much of it is suppressing fire designed to keep the enemy's head down. In fact, a BS3, meaning a 50% hit ratio, is in fact infinitely better than what it would be like in reality.

But in the end, its just not worth anyone's time to compare rules to fluff/reality.

^Lol

Coolyo294 wrote:They aren't.

This + Lasgun don't have recoil of any kind so even 5 year old kid can fire at target with 100% accuracy.

Guardsmen aren't super-trained elites, never understood this claim. Some are like Cadians or what have you, but the most famous and referenced Guard Regiments are also their best and a small drop of the total manpower. Given the dire state of the Imperium's war situation, most are average conscripts whose only training was their trip to the battlezone. A battle they probably won't survive.

I prefer to buy into the more grimdark official fluff regarding the Guard then what some BL books depict.

How is hitting your target half the time bad? I think a marksmen needs what 25% of targets hit?

IG is supposed to be played where massive amounts of las beat accurate las.

Guardsmen are a well-trained, functioning human force.

But they're still merely human.

It is much more grimdark when you're by all accounts well-trained and an exceptional human specimen, yet still hopelessly outmatched man on man by everything else IMO.

But as someone said, 50% chance of hitting your mark is exceptional compared to IRL hit ratios (For lack of better term).

But yes, the tabletop is not perfect, for instance, it would be much harder to hit an Eldar than a Space Marine, due to difference in size and speed, for instance, yet you have a 50% chance for both.

I suppose you could say that the ratio is the same because the Eldar requires less punishment to actually go down than a Marine though, I guess.

a 50% hit rate with any kind of ranged weapon in actual combat is INSANELY good.

Modern military engagements can use hundreds, or even thousands, to cause a single casuality. covering fire is a bunch of bullets that will never hit a target on purpose, but are meant to restrict the enemy movement.


I wouldn't be surprised if the Revolutionary war, or any other 17th-19th century war, had a smaller ratio between rounds fired and casualities caused. despite an increase in weapon accuracy.

The rules are abstracted. A single roll of the dice doesn't necessarily mean that your guy took one shot. Even when the models aren't moved by your hand, the troops won't stand still. They will dodge incoming fire, yell stuff at their comrades and reload the magazines of their arms. They will peek around corners and try to take aim, or duck back behind the wall when they see bullets flying their way.

A single roll of the dice means that at some time within this round, the guy tried shooting at an enemy. Maybe he fired one shot and it missed. Maybe he fired three shots and they missed. Maybe he fired three shots and out of those one has hit. Or maybe in spite of trying to attack he just didn't get the opportunity.

Tl;dr - use your imagination when looking at that battlefield. There's way too many variables for either complaining about or praising the accuracy of the troops. Which is why the rules work for so many different types of troops - for freshly conscripted farmhands just as much as for experienced PDF with years of training before joining the IG, depending on the regiment in question.

Lynata wrote:A single roll of the dice means that at some time within this round, the guy tried shooting at an enemy. Maybe he fired one shot and it missed. Maybe he fired three shots and they missed. Maybe he fired three shots and out of those one has hit. Or maybe in spite of trying to attack he just didn't get the opportunity.

+ 1 to this. I mean, guys think for a moment. When a heavy bolter or any other full-auto weapon fires, is it gonna fire just one bullet because you threw one dice? The BS3 doesn't mean that guardsmen hit 50% of the times.

Concerning the issue of the quality of guardsmen, it depends on the regiment we are considering. Take Cadians, and you'll have elite soldiers that have been trained from birth, seen an insane lot of action, and are the best of the best their own planet can provide the Imperium.

Take Krieg or Valhalla, and you'll have massive (usually 200 000 strong) regiments of mass-produced conscripts, with relatively poor equipment (at least compared to cadians) that rely purely on the strength of numbers to beat their enemy.

Most planets seem to be in-between. Their IG drafts usually consist of the best professional troopers they have at their disposal. So you'll probably end up with nicely drilled soldiers with a decent gear but a very poor combat experience to W40K standards.

DoD studies found that, in Vietnam, only 10% - 15% of soldiers aimed to kill, even when under fire themselves; the overwhelming majority aimed high. It's a natural instinct.

Also consider that Space Marines, the best large-scale killers the Imperium has, are only a 4 BS, and the Guard ain't too bad by comparison.

As everyone has already said...its all about abstractions. If you want it realistically, then you are looking at more like 20% hits, and this number would actually decrease the more models there were in the unit. As well the roll to hit covers missing, target moving, obstructions, jams, malfunctions, etc.

And yes we all agree that a laser rifle would be stupidly accurate, but by the same logic no one would use armour because lascannons would never miss....its 40k, things are weird for the sake of my personal amusement...that is all.

They aren't bad. In game terms BS means you have had military training, and can shoot. 4 means you are more accurate than most, and 2 untrained, in the case of orks, usually firing in the vague direction .

"...guardsmen are actual probably trained more than modern day military personnel, due to the fact that they'll face nearly constant combat"


On a side note, Veterans get their BS4 from the constant combat. But, yeah, 50% chance of hitting is pretty good compared to the real world.

The coalition forces in Iraq/Afghanistan expend a quarter million rounds of ammunition for every enemy killed.

Guardsmen accuracy in the tabletop isn't a reflection of their accuracy in fluff, it's just GW having to work with stats/number ranking system for concepts that are usually too complex to do that for.

Never think the game stats and the fluff are nearly the same...if this was true...Grey Knights would be Uber-de duper Over powered

DarknessEternal wrote:The coalition forces in Iraq/Afghanistan expend a quarter million rounds of ammunition for every enemy killed.

Source?

thats actually a pretty good question. Lasrifles have practically no recoil, but they are so inaccurate because IG are fething pansies

Connor McKane wrote:

DarknessEternal wrote:The coalition forces in Iraq/Afghanistan expend a quarter million rounds of ammunition for every enemy killed.

Source?

That's actually a rather well known number, Vietnam was a much more direct conflict and even there it was 50,000 rounds expended per enemy killed. The vast majority of bullets fired are for suppression or area clearing where only the tiniest fraction will ever hope to hit anything. Even when fired with direct intent to kill a specific target, rounds are usually expended in bursts where many shots are fired and often none may hit or if they do it's usually only one or two of many.

here's one random article googled on that http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-forced-to-import-bullets-from-israel-as-troops-use-250000-for-every-rebel-killed-508299.html


As for IG, they are fine shots, but they don't have superhuman reflexes or enhanced senses or the finest crafted weapons. Their BS represents an average well trained human soldier. It just so happens that many other things that they fight are just so fantastical/highly evolved/skilled/etc that they far eclipse average human soldiers in ability.

There are gigantic transport ships ( complete with built in training facilities and wargears )
that moves from Imperial worlds to worlds.
On the time they are traveling between the destination is when the IG are trained.

On some

Sometimes the fight is right on your doorstep, like on Cadia, where you pretty much train from birth instead.

Lordraymond wrote:I mean, when you think about it, it doesn't make much sense. First of all, contrary to popular belief, guardsmen are actual probably trained more than modern day military personnel, due to the fact that they'll face nearly constant combat. While this alone wouldn't say a whole lot for their accuracy, when you consider their choice of weapon... Well, the lasgun uses actual focused light as it's weapon, which would go forward exactly straight (meaning that even a simple scope could allow a guardsman to snipe) and be only fractionally effected by gravity (meaning it would retain its travel in a strait line). In addition, it would probably only have marginal recoil, if any, and almost never jam or misfire.

So why are they so danged crappy with them?

The guard have a bs3/50% hit ratio.

In the Vietnam conflict, the US army apparently expended 30,000 rounds for each VC fighter that was KIA.

The guard are fething brilliant marksmen!

LunaHound wrote:There are gigantic transport ships ( complete with built in training facilities and wargears )
that moves from Imperial worlds to worlds.
On the time they are traveling between the destination is when the IG are trained.

They receive further training than what their home planet gave them. IG are usually the elite of their PDF and the training is usually to normalized their training.

DarknessEternal wrote:The coalition forces in Iraq/Afghanistan expend a quarter million rounds of ammunition for every enemy killed.

Which of course doesn't take into account the number of enemies shot and not killed, or those who were forced to surrender (or just threw away their gun and walked away whistling innocently). But yeah, it is a high number.

Blacksails wrote:Rules =/= reality/fluff.

WH40k does a rather poor job of representing even the basics of what combat would be like.

But, when you think about it, much of the shooting that happens in wars doesn't hit anything. Much of it is suppressing fire designed to keep the enemy's head down. In fact, a BS3, meaning a 50% hit ratio, is in fact infinitely better than what it would be like in reality.

But in the end, its just not worth anyone's time to compare rules to fluff/reality.

This times 1,000.

Also, the massive disconnect between the "war" aspect of "wargame" and the "game" aspect is one of the reasons that 40k is incredibly frustrating sometimes. 40k is, to use a graphical representation, a "warGAME": it trades the use of any actual tactics (beyond the occasional denied flank) for this odd combination of abstracted simplicity and overcomplication that results in many games boiling down to getting stuck into close combat and playing Yahtzee.

I thought they were just regular people given guns, more like a massive militia than an actual trained army.

Like a planet wide conscription.

Blood_Raven wrote:I thought they were just regular people given guns, more like a massive militia than an actual trained army.
Like a planet wide conscription.

Depends on the world the regiment is raised from, and how long that world was already involved in a conflict. Generally, the Imperial Guard is drafted from the best troops the local Defense Force has to offer - of course, this doesn't always mean drilled professional soldiers, it could just as well be a bunch of riders with horses. Then, other worlds have had so many PDF drafted for the Guard that the Governor may decide it's time to conscript civilians. He even might do so beforehand in favor of keeping his PDF, but in these cases he's in for some trouble if the Munitorum finds out he's been keeping stuff from them (also raises suspicions that he might intend to secede).

That said, regardless from where they are recruited and what they did before, all freshly recruited IG regiments receive Guard-level training as soon as they have boarded their Naval transports. The duration of this training depends on how long the troops need to reach the warzone, but on average it is about three months those people have to learn the ropes. Sometimes it's just a few weeks, but it can also extend to half a year or so. Warp travel time distortion is a funny thing. Either way, as you can imagine, there's a wide range of professionalism present in the Imperial Guard, ranging from Cadian shock troops that were trained from youth to freshly conscripted farmhands who barely know how to fire a lasgun.