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They almost never seem to be capable in dealing with some what small scale problems on their own with out the help of the Imperial Guard, and like why is it their always trying rebell against their governors, just my thought.

*Edit* Wez gotz a new meme!

Because fluff writers don't want to write about them, they want to write about something represented in the miniatures range, like the Imperial Guard. But ignoring the PDF would make the story unrealistic. So the writer takes a moment to drop the obligatory "the PDF tried to respond and were killed to a man" so he can move on to the Grey Knights.

It would stink if the Occupy Movement existed in the 40kverse.
"Protestors occupied the Imperial cathedral. The PDF tried to respond and were killed to a man."

Escaped kittens, the PDF tried to respond and were killed to a man. lol
But yes they do seem very ineffective.

Imperial Guardsmen die to make the Space Marines look cooler. PDF troops die to make the Imperial Guard look cooler.

Coolyo294 wrote:Imperial Guardsmen die to make the Space Marines look cooler. PDF troops die to make the Imperial Guard look cooler.

That seems very true, and you know what it scares me.

PDF are the redshirts of 40k books, they show you how the monster works.

xxmatt85 wrote:They almost never seem to be capable in dealing with some what small scale problems on their own with out the help of the Imperial Guard, and like why is it their always trying rebell against their governors, just my thought.

Because that is what "The Plot,tm" demanded in the story at the time? Never let a little thing like facts, established fluff or suspension of disbelief get in the way of "The Plot,tm".

Practical reason: What Coolyo said

Fluff reason: They get worse training, equipment, and leadership then the Guard. There are some good PDF's though (the Cadian Interior Guard and Ultramar Auxillia could beat most Guard Regiments, imo).

Because if they could do their job properly the space marines or whoever wouldn't get the chance to save the day and It'd be a really boring book.

Skarwael wrote:Because if they could do their job properly the space marines or whoever wouldn't get the chance to save the day and It'd be a really boring book.

This. I'm not so sure it's that the PDF are incompetent, it's more like the stuff they can handle isn't interesting enough to write about. The really exciting stuff is the stuff that only the Imperial Guard or Space marines can handle. Besides, the PDF isn't a playable army, so they're not going to be awesome. They're either gonna get saved by a playable army, or destroyed by a playable army.

Since the stories tend to revolve around the arms of the Imperial War Machine that actually take part in the game, you just don't tend to hear about the battles where they are successful.

Otherwise, the next Black Library novel release would be:

'The Ork Waaagh! Groglots attacked Bottleshop Prime, but was successfully beaten off by the Bottleshop Prime Planetary Defense Force, so the Imperial Fists stayed at home and caught up on their scrimshaw. The end.'

Just wondering, are there any books about the Adeptus Arbites? They too seem to die for the sake of the IG/SM. I know they are mentioned frequently, usually dying in some awesome, though unsuccessful, last stand.

The PDF is usuallly based on the guard regiment from their planet and its where the guard gets a lot of its recuits. And as stated above the ultramar and cadian home guard are very good. The rynn's world pdf is fairly competent and plays a big part in the defense of rynns world when the crimson fists are blown up by their own missle.

You have to also take into account that the PDF forces aren't very large and are spread out over a planet. And a lot of the time they get attacked so quickly that they don't have time to organise. And like said before it wouldn't be worth mentioning in fluff the time that a pdf force actually beat an invasion.

acekevin8412 wrote:Just wondering, are there any books about the Adeptus Arbites? They too seem to die for the sake of the IG/SM. I know they are mentioned frequently, usually dying in some awesome, though unsuccessful, last stand.

Enforcer seems like the book your asking for.

or the story would be "The PDF waited patiently for enemies to attack, since the ultramarines defeated the Ork Waagh on a different planet they had a pizza party instead, and were killed to a man"

Skarwael wrote:Because if they could do their job properly the space marines or whoever wouldn't get the chance to save the day and It'd be a really boring book.

Because it would begin with them being killed to a man

dreadfury101 wrote:or the story would be "The PDF waited patiently for enemies to attack, since the ultramarines defeated the Ork Waagh on a different planet they had a pizza party instead, and were killed to a man"

okay, this made me laugh

acekevin8412 wrote:Just wondering, are there any books about the Adeptus Arbites? They too seem to die for the sake of the IG/SM. I know they are mentioned frequently, usually dying in some awesome, though unsuccessful, last stand.

Check out the Enforcer omnibus, It has the shira calpurnia triligy in it. It's got Crossfire, Legacy and Blind that comprise the thre books, it's also got dossier's in it that give some background for the going on's in the books. I highly recomend it as it was a facinating read...except for Legacy, it is defiently the weakest of the three but still good...kinda.. >.> <.<

Execution Hour also have a cammeo by the arbites in it and one even commadeers a Imperial Battle ship, kinda cool imho. The arbites also have 'battle barge' class ships that are designed for planetary bombardment. They have their own fleets and fighters.

Many PDF actually do quite well, most of the time they can hold off rebellions and some invasions, but the reason you hear the PDF slaughtered is due to massive incursions or they are ill-equipped to fight the enemy, or etc. The other reason they die is just for plot, although the PDF are unsung heroes because they have to keep the planet in check and running like the workers at a factory, a maintinece(sp?) crew, or a supply ship because it is "more interesting" to hear about the Guard, the Navy, and the Astartes who fight in glorious crusades and stopping threats to the Imperium as a whole instead of the PDF infantry making sure his home and loved ones are safe but (mostly) stays on the same planet for his entire life.

Phantom wrote: Many PDF actually do quite poorly, most of the time they get slaughtered so completely that the SPESS MEHRENS need to bail them out, but the reason you hear the PDF slaughtered is due their stupid ineptitude

Fixed

The point is, the PDF have only ever been seen dying and there is little evidence of them winning often, so a lot of their successes are conjecture.

Not really. Obviously, worlds aren't just defended by Uncle Jed with his shotgun. The world's PDF is its first line of defense. If they last long enough for reinforcements to arrive, they've done their job. Besides...There are what...One million Space Marines (Loyalist) in the entire galaxy? Plenty of planets rebel and plenty of planets are invaded, it's just we only hear about the major or special incidents in the fluff where huge wars took place. Most of the time, the humble PDF takes care of it. That's the assumption of 40k fluff and it's not really unreasonable at all.

The pdf are the first line of defense. Its there job to either defeat the enemy, which they do most of the time. The other is to hold until releaved.

Due to plot the pdf is usually killed to the man to make the enemy tougher. Even though the pdfs might as well be ig lite.

The only battles we hear about are the ones where the PDF was insufficient to defeat the threat.


Its the same reason we never have stories about how Arbites Bob broke up a smuggling operation when he was conducting a murder investigation. Now if the smuggling operation happened to be smuggling chaos artifacts and inadvertantly released a greater deamon into Arkam hive and the daemon gave Bob his prostate exam orally then we would hear about it. But lucky for Bob he's never encountered anything beyond the odd mugging and murder in the underhive.

The PDF get slaughtered because they are a plot device. In most books, if they were competent it wouldn't give the protagonists anything to do. In reality, they're essentialy IGuard light. Probably not quite as good, and not quite as well equipped, but they're going to have a fair amount of discipline and a fair amount of tanks and heavy weapons still. After all, the Imperial Guard just consists of requisitioned PDF units. The books say they get the best, but really, who is determining what units are the best, and how much actual oversight are these planetary governors under? Most of the command structures demanding these tithes are doing so from light years away and with little to no firsthand knowledge of the unit dispositions. With all of the {Gs we read about being converted to Chaos, or wooed away by the Tau, surely them tithing only their 3rd or 4th best Divisions is relatively commonplace. I mean, nobody is going to send their scrubs for fear of repercussions when they under-perform, but at the same time, who is going to notice the difference between marginal guardsmen and better than average ones? It took the DKoK 18 years or something to achieve "victory" on Vraks. And they are supposed to be amongst the best.

xxmatt85 wrote:They almost never seem to be capable in dealing with some what small scale problems on their own with out the help of the Imperial Guard, and like why is it their always trying rebell against their governors, just my thought.

Because they are fighting unstoppable robots with guns that completely rips their skin off [ Necrons ], huge monstrous aliens who wants to OM NOM NOM everything [ Tyranids ], chaotic super humans who wants to kill everyone in a number of painful ways [ Chaos ], barbaric aliens who are made for FIGHTEN AND WINNIN' [ Orks ], mysterious spehss elves who don't give a gak about anyone else [ Eldar ], spehss elves who wants to torture them with the worst form of BDSM [ Dark Eldar ], and anime fan space communists with guns that can blow them away before they can even see them [ Tau ] with little more than a flashlight, reinforced t-shirt, standard-issue chesthair, and steel balls.

Or to be serious, because they are the normal Human fighting things that are big like Elephant and with a strength of 1km Asteroid hitting Earth. They are not capable to fight? I mean, how are you NOT supposed to suck against things that will slice through meter thick steel armor like so much cheese?

And they rebel agaisnt their Governours because great number of them are rich brats who don't give 2 for their people.

I think one of the reasons PDF do so badly, besides worse training and equipnent, is that anyone who is halfway decent probably got shipped out to the Guard.

This PDF guy's don't seem incompetent:





These guys are PDF special forces.

In the end it all depends on the world in qustion.

For example: some totally random colony that is attacked once every 4 - 4000 years would have decently equiped and minimal trained PDF, on the other hand Ultramar planet would have hardcore PDF troopers.

yeah im trying to make a PDF force atm and i think the main goal for me is to keep in with the fluff is lose every match and then declare that the astartes have arive and finnish them off with minimal casualties