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Which one is worth more. I know the lasgun is so unbelievably common that it can be used to arm a force like the IG, but is it actually more important than the trooper holding it? I know tanks are worth more, and tank shells are worth more, but are the guns themselves?

It would give me a perspective on how absolutely uncaring the IoM is about human life.

The Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer values lasgun more worthy. Then again depends on the guardsman in question, for instance, a veteran of many battles probably doesn't get the same punishment of damaging a lasgun that a new recruit gets.

Lasguns don't make more of themselves as easily.

The Guardsman.

I know it's accepted that in 40k an Imperial Guardsmans equipment is thought to be more highly valued than the man or woman it is assigned to, but without them it can't do anything. A lasgun is useless if it is sitting in a rack with others gathering dust. You need the Guardsman to fire, load, clean and look after the weapon if it is to kill the enemies of the Emperor. If you don't have the Guardsman then you can have all the equipment you could want, but it's useless without a human to use it.

You need bodies to play with all of the Emperor's fancy toys. Therefore, the Guardsman is the most important.

Well.....

The Guardsmans best weapon is his faith in the God-Emperor anything else is of lesser importance.

On the otherhand.....

All machines spirits are related to the MachineGod therefore all machines are Holy.

Theres only one why to resolve this.... religious-SCHISM!

age of guardsmen*cost of food per year>cost of lasgun

Lasguns require the efforts of the Imperium to produce. Humans multiply naturally.

Harriticus wrote:Lasguns require the efforts of the Imperium to produce. Humans multiply naturally.

Pretty much this, imo. Guardsmen and their training are practically "free" for the Munitorum as the IoM simply drops by a planet and tithes a number of regiments from the local population. Regardless of whether the tithe ends up being PDF or a bunch of farmers, the Imperium as an entity did not invest anything in them; all the resources they consumed in childhood and youth as well as any PDF equipment comes from the individual world and would have been spent anyways. IG training is then done on the transport en-route to the warzone, where again the resources (food, medicine, etc) would have been spent regardless of whether the Guardsmen would train or just sit around doing nothing.

And lastly, a dead trooper's lasgun can be picked up and used again by the next "free" Guardsman. See Soviet Russia in the early stages of WW2.

Harriticus wrote:Lasguns require the efforts of the Imperium to produce. Humans multiply naturally.

And the food and goods they consume are "free", presumably.
People on here seem to regard humans as ants rather than pretty big animals who need rather a lot of food/services for them to have a decent standard of life. Malnourished troops, as they learned during WW1, do not make good soldiers.
Also ever man in uniform is a man not ploughing the field, working the factory etc. So human life really isn't "worthless" at all.

Joey wrote:

Harriticus wrote:Lasguns require the efforts of the Imperium to produce. Humans multiply naturally.

And the food and goods they consume are "free", presumably.
People on here seem to regard humans as ants rather than pretty big animals who need rather a lot of food/services for them to have a decent standard of life. Malnourished troops, as they learned during WW1, do not make good soldiers.
Also ever man in uniform is a man not ploughing the field, working the factory etc. So human life really isn't "worthless" at all.

A reply with sense?

A reply with sense!

In the grim darkness of the 41st millennium, there is no decent standard of life.

The IoM is basically Africa when it comes to the availability and value of human life.

Dark Scipio wrote:

Joey wrote:

Harriticus wrote:Lasguns require the efforts of the Imperium to produce. Humans multiply naturally.

And the food and goods they consume are "free", presumably.
People on here seem to regard humans as ants rather than pretty big animals who need rather a lot of food/services for them to have a decent standard of life. Malnourished troops, as they learned during WW1, do not make good soldiers.
Also ever man in uniform is a man not ploughing the field, working the factory etc. So human life really isn't "worthless" at all.

A reply with sense?

A reply with sense!

Lynata wrote:In the grim darkness of the 41st millennium, there is no decent standard of life.

The IoM is basically Africa when it comes to the availability and value of human life.

Unintentional irony ftw.

I'd say the neither because if you had only 100 lasguns and get attacked your screwed as you alone can only use at most 3 lasguns -and to do that you'd need to be pretty creative.

Conversely, if you only had 100 guardsmen you'd still be screwed because every one would just get slaughtered by the better equipped enemys.

to be effective you'd need 50 lasguns or 50 guardsmen -or anything with a similar ratio.

so they are equally valuable imo.

Here's the sensible answer that everyone seems to get: The man is important because he can make more of himself (provided an environment and resources), and he can use the weapons.

HOWEVER: The Imperium will value the weapon over the man every time. This is not because the Imperium is stupid or because I (personally) am trying to be oppositional. It is because the Adeptus Mechanicus calls the shots. Plain and simple. If the remaining troops of a squad do not attempt to recover lost equipment they can and will be shot, and every attempt will be made to recover the lost equipment, provided the circumstances for retreival are acceptable (likely determined by the Techpriest stationed with the unit in question).

Now, as far as a sensible solution goes, the inidividual is the valuable part of the equation. We see over and over that equipment that is lost is just that: LOST. Nothing to be done about that. But the fact remains that official Imperial doctrine will state that the equipment of a soldier is vastly more important than the soldier.

Depends.

In say, Dead Men Walking, the weapons are clearly more valuable than the Korpsmen or the PDF recruits, but thats because they're low on equipement compared to the drafted men.

Its to the point where

That was a special case, though Bob. Special weapons, special case.

Besides, you can't really make this point when you have the Death Korps in one hand and a lasgun in the other. The Korpsman places no value on his own life at any point in time.

Hence why I said depends, in the case where they're cut off from equiping high number of troops, they have to resot to such extreme mesure to be able to have a chance to equip the soldier with a least a lasgun.

Bobthehero wrote:Hence why I said depends, in the case where they're cut off from equiping high number of troops, they have to resot to such extreme mesure to be able to have a chance to equip the soldier with a least a lasgun.

or in the case of the valhallens, 1 in 2-3 with a lasgun is good enough. Just pick up the one from someone that died. *see IG codex*

Thats how the Russian did it in WW1 and WW2, considering the Valhallans are inspired from these guys, I am suprised its not a lasgun for 5 man

This goes for larger scale, too, by the way. Entire battles have been fought with full regiments sent in just to reclaim a damaged Rhino lost on the field. At least if you go by that awesome "Rhinos" article from WD.

Bobthehero wrote:Thats how the Russian did it in WW1 and WW2, considering the Valhallans are inspired from these guys, I am suprised its not a lasgun for 5 man

That's actually just Enemy at the Gates. There's some truth to it, but it's heavily exaggerated for dramatic effect.