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as incompetent?

It seems like in every book or game not written by Dan Abnett all the IG are good for is human shields.

Don't get me started on the Dawn of Wars, dear lord NEVER would EVERY SINGLE Guard Regiment in the subsector go to chaos like that.

Because the Ultramarines are the poster boy for GW. This is the directive from GW: "no matter what, make the ultramarines look as though they walk on water, can do no wrong, and, that they always piss excellence.

Alexzandvar wrote:as incompetent?

It seems like in every book or game not written by Dan Abnett all the IG are good for is human shields.

Don't get me started on the Dawn of Wars, dear lord NEVER would EVERY SINGLE Guard Regiment in the subsector go to chaos like that.

Because they're never been about quality.

The ones who went to chaos were the only ones left. Something about killing/sacrificing the ones who didn't.

because compared to everyone else they are incompetent. They are puny weakling meatsacks thrown into battlfields against hulking monstrosities, metal killing machines, alien beasts, bio-engineered supermen and daemons.

And regards to Imperial Guard regiments turning to Chaos: It's not required that every man turns to chaos as an individual. You'll just do what your CO tells you, and by the time you figure out whats going on, it's too late.

Kaldor wrote:because compared to everyone else they are incompetent. They are puny weakling meatsacks thrown into battlfields against hulking monstrosities, metal killing machines, alien beasts, bio-engineered supermen and daemons.

And regards to Imperial Guard regiments turning to Chaos: It's not required that every man turns to chaos as an individual. You'll just do what your CO tells you, and by the time you figure out whats going on, it's too late.

No, compared to everyone else, they are less physically gifted. Incompetent implies they are not performing well enough to equal themselves to their peers. They are in peak physical condition, and are very well trained, they just simply aren't built to kill on the same level as the other factions. A guardsman could outstrip, or at least match, any modern military personnel when it comes to physicality and discipline.

moom241 wrote:Incompetent implies they are not performing well enough to equal themselves to their peers.

In this context, their peers are the warriors of enemy forces. And the humble guardsman is found wanting.

The normal guardsman usually fight chaos cultist, which he usually curbstomps.

Then demon & co make their apperance...

They're there to make the badguys look scary and the Marines look good. When they're the focus of the story (or they're written by Aaron Dembski-Bowden or Dan Abnett) they can come off as suitably badass. I made the mistake of reading Cadian Blood before my first game as IG, thought my dudes were invincible badasses, then lost a platoon on turn 1.

Kaldor wrote:

moom241 wrote:Incompetent implies they are not performing well enough to equal themselves to their peers.

In this context, their peers are the warriors of enemy forces. And the humble guardsman is found wanting.

Peers would actually be fellow guardsman. The enemy would be, just their enemy.

Heck, 9 times out of 10, they're fight other humans who are simply rebelling. Not even chaos cults, but rabble rousing mobs. Of course orks are still very numerous, but while orks have quite the dakka output, they can't match the guard when it comes to disciplined shooting.

The thing is, you can't think of the guard as individuals, but rather as an entity. They can put out about the same long range firepower as the tau, if not as flashy, and can beat them in assault. They drastically outnumber Astartes, Chaos or Loyalist, making any kind of protracted battle with them an impossibility. The IG are completely competent, and can take on a variety of enemies in a variety of ways.

They're killed so often in BL books because they need to make it look good when the Space Marines don't die.

Yep, if the guard didn't get killed, there would be no need to call in the space marines. Boring story.
Now if the story was about the last stand of an Ultramarine company and they were trying to hold out untill they were rescued by a guard regiment, that would be funny.

The Imperial Guard are the mortar that holds the Imperium of Man together. They are only displayed as incompetent because the BL writers are all Chaos sympathizers and heretics.
The Space Marines provide the needed 'special ops' role. Where bringing the cumbersome might of the Imperial Guard is not viable, the Space Marines can operate independently and get the job done on their own. Just one big happy family.

moom241 wrote: you can't think of the guard as individuals, but rather as an entity.

Exactly. One single entity cannot be it's own peer.

Kaldor wrote:

moom241 wrote: you can't think of the guard as individuals, but rather as an entity.

Exactly. One single entity cannot be it's own peer.

Well you've got me there. But consider this. The Imperial Guard as an entity are equal to their enemies, whilst on a soldier to soldier level it isn't quite true.

moom241 wrote:

Kaldor wrote:

moom241 wrote: you can't think of the guard as individuals, but rather as an entity.

Exactly. One single entity cannot be it's own peer.

Well you've got me there. But consider this. The Imperial Guard as an entity are equal to their enemies, whilst on a soldier to soldier level it isn't quite true.

I'd agree with that, definately.

Kaldor wrote:

moom241 wrote:

Kaldor wrote:

moom241 wrote: you can't think of the guard as individuals, but rather as an entity.

Exactly. One single entity cannot be it's own peer.

Well you've got me there. But consider this. The Imperial Guard as an entity are equal to their enemies, whilst on a soldier to soldier level it isn't quite true.

I'd agree with that, definately.

Okay then.

So we're in agreement. The Guard as an entity are only truly incompetent when it makes the space marines look good.

Pssh, don't believe the nonsense here. There is exactly one reason why the guard look so bad. In the fluff, practically every battle happens between the Imperial Guard and someone else. As such, every book ever written would be, well, the Imperial Guard vs. someone else. The space marines make up such a tiny fraction of the forces, that you could never write books about them.

Remember, the space marines are only ever called on when a battle is too big for the PDF to handle, AND all local guard regiments to be able to handle. The only way you could EVER write a piece of fluff about the space marines would be in a position where they showed up after the guard failed to bring enough local superiority to fix the problem.

Therefore every book ever written about space marines is predicated on the guard failing first. Therefore in every book ever written about space marines, the guard had failed first before they arrive. Therefore in every book ever written about space marines, guard are failures.

Simple as that. Writers want to write books about space marines, therefore the guard come across as failures. Nothing more than dollars and cents (well, pounds and pence) as far as GW is concerned.

Truth is when you compare a single guardsmen with a 7 foot tall genetically altered super soldier incased in some of the best armor available, the guard is pretty pathetic.

But if you consider that all of the stories with the two of them together the guard are the ones who give space marines the chance to go in for the kill. A great example of this is the ultramarines books by Graham McNeil. It was guard and the pdf on tarsis ultra who actually provided the bulk of the firepower required to hold back the tyranids while the marines helped shore up the line where it was needed.

The problem is that view point is important, books that have IG as the lead characters will portray them as the heroes, while books centred on space marines will have them as the heroes and every other character is either there to be saved or get in the way.

It's part of the grimdark. Go into any GW publication on the Guard and the first thing they'll describe is human wave attacks, throwing men into the meat grinder, and grueling wars of attrition with massive causalities.

The IG is supposed to basically be average men hopelessly outclassed against the terrifying enemies of mankind and the only thing that drives them is courage and if that doesn't work, the fear of a commissars bolt pistol.

Though this isn't to say they are "incompetent", the Guard can (and does) win its own campaigns independently on a regular basis, particularly against regularly encountered enemies such as Orks or planetary uprisings. The problem is when they're against more terrifying or seductive enemies, in this case Tyranids and Chaos respectively.

Let's be realistic. The Space Marines are the stars of the 40K story. The Imperial Guard are supporting cast members. Millions of faceless extras.

The appeal of the Imperial Guard is in their mediocrity. That's what makes them tragically heroic. But they're just never going to be dominant or awesome, at least in the way GW has decided to portray futuristic warfare. They live in a universe full of slavering demons, highly advanced alien species, and uncountable hordes of screaming monsters.

Though it is important to note that nothing in the Dawn of War games can really be taken seriously. It's a game designed to have even factions with a campaign for each that allows you to fight each of the other ones. It has an independent storyline for each faction, depending on which one you chose to use, and none of them are compatible. It isn't trying to create a coherent narrative. Simply provide a game for people to play. I mean, it has Marines, Imperial Guard, and Sisters of Battle wiping each other out mercilessly, when it would be more likely that either two, or all, of them, would find themselves on the same side and team up to destroy the rest of the factions.

The Imperial Guard do almost all of the Imperiums fighting. The Imperial Guard is the hammer the Imperium. they smash the enemy with thousands of soldiers and tanks. They are very competent and i think a Guardsman is the bravest warrior in 40k!

Gaunts Ghosts usually do very well against almost all the forces they fight. As did Redemption Corps.

As Septimus puts it so bluntly in Blood Reaver-

"It's hard to think of the Imperial Guard as hero's when your masters decorate their armour with their skulls for months after each engagement."

Guard are either there to make killcount in most books, or to last long enough to let the marines come take all the glory.

Although the Imperial Guard trilogy makes me wanna grab a flashlight and attempt to kill/ annoy Orkz.

Because, when you send people who by modern standards are hitech elite forces into battle against monsters, and they die in the thousands, then send in space marines who beat the snot out of said monsters, it makes the space marines look really powerful in comparison. It's called the Worf effect.

Squidmanlolz wrote:Because, when you send people who by modern standards are hitech elite forces into battle against monsters, and they die in the thousands, then send in space marines who beat the snot out of said monsters, it makes the space marines look really powerful in comparison. It's called the Worf effect.

Not quite. You're misunderstanding how the Worf Effect works.

The Worf Effect would be if everyone in the book talked about how impossible it is to beat, for example, the Orks and that the Orks are the toughest, strongest, best force ever but you NEVER SEE IT HAPPEN as an actual example and then the Marines arrived and beat them without even trying just to show how awesome the Marines are.

That's how the Worf Effect works.

Why couldn't the Worf effect include an example of the enemy's ability?

For example: The Orks kill the IGs, proving their might. Then 100 SMs show up and kill the Orks, proving their might.

It's just the Worf EffectX2

The Worf effect doesn't limit the ability for characters to prove how powerful they are.

Here's another example I found elsewhere: "In Dawn of War II - Retribution, during the Exterminatus of Typhon Prime, a Carnifex tries to flee from the planet. This completely pisses off a Chaos Champion who's offended that all these escapees aren't accepting the "honor of such a glorious death" and so he single-handedly kills the Carni with a synch-kill. While the Chaos Champion is a minor-boss, he's certainly no match for a Carnifex in-game or table-top. Your heroes will only take seconds to finish the guy off and hopefully collect a shiny from him too."

I remember reading someone on these forums say they read a passage in a book about a SM Sgt inspecting an IG major. This seems all kinds of wrong to me. In modern terms that'd be like a Delta Force SGT inspecting the quarters of a full bird col. It just shouldn't happen.

Is there any fluff backing this up? Anything that says the SM's outrank everyone in the IG no matter what rank the IG member is?

moom241 wrote: but while orks have quite the dakka output, they can't match the guard when it comes to disciplined shooting.

Dats cuz disiplin'd shootin' is for pansies too scared to get stuck in!

Read "Fall of Damnos". Ordinary humans don't look so bad in it and even save a squad of Ultramarines from Necrons.

For the record though, the IG pretty much lose the whole planet to the Necrons in the first two chapters. Blame it on surprise and lack of intelligence about the enemy. Or you can simply chalk it up to the storytelling aspect which requires the generation of a world threatening crisis to set the stage for the arrival of the space marines.

Titan84 wrote:I remember reading someone on these forums say they read a passage in a book about a SM Sgt inspecting an IG major. This seems all kinds of wrong to me. In modern terms that'd be like a Delta Force SGT inspecting the quarters of a full bird col. It just shouldn't happen.

Is there any fluff backing this up? Anything that says the SM's outrank everyone in the IG no matter what rank the IG member is?

Navy, Guard and SM have no jurisdiction over one another. Guard often look up to SMs due to their relation to the Emperor, and the Navy often works in conjunction with the IG but there are limits on how often they can order each other around.