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What really bugs me is that GW endorses such misconceptions in order to make Xenos, Chaos, and, by extension, Marines look better.

IG are bottom of the totem pole no matter how much you play up their training.

Romer wrote:Besides, if the Guard was that pathetic, all the Imperiums enemies must be equally as pathetic, since it is the guard and not the space marines that hold the Imperium together.

And hence the underlying theme of the IG simply clogging the enemy warmachine with bodies.

Vaktathi wrote:tithes are inspected, and if a planetary Lord is holding back, his title and life are forfeit.

Granted, but I've never heard of tithes requiring the best of the best. Only X amount of Y. If the planet is providing X amount of Y, but ALSO producing Z amount of (Y+1) for it's own use, I can't see how they'd get in trouble.

nomotog wrote:IG are bottom of the totem pole no matter how much you play up their training.

Which is why they will always be infinitely more interesting than any other army. Well to me & like-minded people. Screw the 'elite' and the 'best', I'm with the underdogs here.

Sparks_Havelock wrote:

nomotog wrote:IG are bottom of the totem pole no matter how much you play up their training.

Which is why they will always be infinitely more interesting than any other army. Well to me & like-minded people. Screw the 'elite' and the 'best', I'm with the underdogs here.

Exactly! The biggest misconception about IG is that they should be more elite, but they are so much more compelling as the underdogs.

Kaldor wrote:Granted, but I've never heard of tithes requiring the best of the best. Only X amount of Y. If the planet is providing X amount of Y, but ALSO producing Z amount of (Y+1) for it's own use, I can't see how they'd get in trouble.

Well, if we're going by what GW has printed, then according to page 8 of the 5E Codex "should a tithe be of an unacceptable quality, the Imperial Governor's life is forfeit" and that "for this reason, those soldiers selected for the Imperial Guard tend to be drawn from the elite of a planet's troops".

In a way, it's also a matter of common sense. If a planet is holding out on the Munitorum, suspicions of secession would arise. It's not exactly the same as not paying the tithe at all, but questions would arise as to why exactly this governor obviously deems his own world more important than the Imperium - and with it, Mankind as a whole. Even more sceptical individuals might construe that such a case would merely hint at deliberate treason even worse than an overdue tribute would. A planet not paying its tithe at all might just not be able to do so, but one that is purposely holding back the superior troops might try to deceive the Emperor by trying not to draw any attention whilst bolstering its own forces and preparing to secede.

Also,
"To this end, each populated planet shall raise and maintain forces for its defence, and from its ranks shall it provide the best of its troops for recruitment into the largest of the Imperium's armies - the Imperial Guard. [...] If his armies shall be found lacking or wanting in any regard, he shall no longer be fit for Lordship and shall face such censures or punishments as judged appropriate by the High Lords of Terra or their duly appointed agents."
-- Introit to the Codex Exercitus, incorporating the Amalathian Oath, 5E-C:IG p5

nomotog wrote:Exactly! The biggest misconception about IG is that they should be more elite, but they are so much more compelling as the underdogs.

Word!

They could have years of training on some worlds. Read the 6th edition fluff. Worlds are extremely different from one another. The only similarities and requirements for them are that they send taxes and forces to the rest of the Imperium, as well as follow it's general instructions.

Inquisitor Ehrenstein wrote:They could have years of training on some worlds.

To be fair, "training" =/= "Imperial Guard training". On Cadia the level is probably somewhat equal, as I remember the 3E Codex implying it. On the other hand, the government of Necromunda simply rounds up a bunch of gangers from the streets and pushes them into the troopship. So, yeah, it depends on the world.

I recall a number of novels having picked up on this depiction as well, from the PDF/IG interaction in James Swallow's "Faith & Fire" to the Navy press gangs "abducting" random citizens for immediate deployment in Andy Chambers' "Ancient History".

Mind you, personally I'm going by GW sources when I'm talking of fluff, so my perception may not match that of people who prefer other sources. On the other hand, the Guard's diversity makes almost anything feasible, somewhere. I've seen a few examples I'm just not gonna buy into.

White Ninja wrote:The execution for seeing chaos from what I have seen and read normally only applys when they encounter real deamons. Not just traitors or heretics. Look at the end of the first war of Armageddon. Every none marine was killed and all of the marines were suppose to be mind wiped. Not that the Space wolves listened.

In Dan Abnetts Gaunts Ghosts series, most specially The Armour of Contempt, Dalin Criid encounters a bloodthirster. Not only him but several other companies of gaurdsmen. The IG took Gereon and as far as i now none were killed for seeing daemons and most got shipped out to Jago. Gaunt and his stealth team that went to Gereon previously also encountered daemons but the Inquisition killed none of them for seeing this.

nomotog wrote:IG are bottom of the totem pole no matter how much you play up their training.

Not that being the bottom is a bad thing...




Automatically Appended Next Post:

nomotog wrote:

Sparks_Havelock wrote:

nomotog wrote:IG are bottom of the totem pole no matter how much you play up their training.

Which is why they will always be infinitely more interesting than any other army. Well to me & like-minded people. Screw the 'elite' and the 'best', I'm with the underdogs here.

Exactly! The biggest misconception about IG is that they should be more elite, but they are so much more compelling as the underdogs.

Then I guess the catachans and tanith are uninteresting...

The catachan book was a lot more enjoyable then the space wolves omnibus though

GambleDwarf wrote:

White Ninja wrote:The execution for seeing chaos from what I have seen and read normally only applys when they encounter real deamons. Not just traitors or heretics. Look at the end of the first war of Armageddon. Every none marine was killed and all of the marines were suppose to be mind wiped. Not that the Space wolves listened.

In Dan Abnetts Gaunts Ghosts series, most specially The Armour of Contempt, Dalin Criid encounters a bloodthirster. Not only him but several other companies of gaurdsmen. The IG took Gereon and as far as i now none were killed for seeing daemons and most got shipped out to Jago. Gaunt and his stealth team that went to Gereon previously also encountered daemons but the Inquisition killed none of them for seeing this.

Yes. But there is again the misconception that the Imperium would be in any way coherent or logical in their application of rules and guidelines. One unit of Guardsman might go to the gallows for a run in with Heretics because the local Inquisitor big-shot says they should. Another unit might walk into the Eye of Terror and back again and noone bothers.

It is entirely conceivable that a different unit that had gone through the same encounters as Gaunts Ghosts did would have been executed. And, frankly, it has nothing to do with the training or quality of the Guardsman involved. It's just another example of the arbitrary and fickle highhandedness with which the IoM goes about muddling along in its war against Chaos.

PresidentOfAsia wrote:

nomotog wrote:

Sparks_Havelock wrote:

nomotog wrote:IG are bottom of the totem pole no matter how much you play up their training.

Which is why they will always be infinitely more interesting than any other army. Well to me & like-minded people. Screw the 'elite' and the 'best', I'm with the underdogs here.

Exactly! The biggest misconception about IG is that they should be more elite, but they are so much more compelling as the underdogs.

Then I guess the catachans and tanith are uninteresting...

To some people, yes. They've always bored me, I must say. For me, the interesting Guard regiments aren't the super trained elite forces, they're the ones made of regular guys with basic military training. Much more human, much more poignant and dramatic. A testiment to the human spirit as they hold the line against the monstrous hordes of the galaxy, or a tragedy as they are overwhelmed by a far superior foe.

I'm sure a lot of folks prefer the all Delta force armies, highly trained military spec ops stuff. The great thing is, the regiments are so diverse that there's room for both of them in the army. I would say that the lesser trained regiments are by far the majority, but that's just my take on it.

PresidentOfAsia wrote:Then I guess the catachans and tanith are uninteresting...

The catachan book was a lot more enjoyable then the space wolves omnibus though

It's not so much that as compared to the Space Marines, Grey Knights, Eldar etc etc every other race is individually more powerful than the individual Guardsman no matter how 'elite' that Guardsman is compared to his peers. That is why the Guard are more interesting, because they have the full range of human emotions that the other races lack (in general, ignoring elements like Krieg), they're equipped with the weaker weapons in the universe (although the lasgun is still damned powerful by human standards) and they often have to face off against forces which are among their worst nightmares.

nomotog wrote:Exactly! The biggest misconception about IG is that they should be more elite, but they are so much more compelling as the underdogs.

Of course they're the underdogs. But that doesn't make them incompetent useless soldiers where the default strategy is simply to zerg at the enemy to drown him in numbers.

I'm not trying to argue that against the biggest threats in the galaxy that the Imperial Guard stand as equals. But they stand against them as competent soldiers. Most guard units win because of tactics, strategy and the spirit to get the job done no matter the cost. Not because their commanders march them at the enemy until they run out of bullets.

If the guard wasn't achieving positive K ratios in victories over renegade/other humans, Orks, Tau and Tryanids, they wouldn't be winning many wars.

Romer wrote:But that doesn't make them incompetent useless soldiers where the default strategy is simply to zerg at the enemy to drown him in numbers.

You haven't heard much of Chenkov, did you?

And this has little to do with "incompetent". It's called "grimdark". Human lives are the one resource the Imperium has enough of, which is why unlike in (most) contemporary military forces, a random conscript's equipment is indeed more valuable than the conscript himself.

But some people prefer to see the IG as Delta Forces in Space, I guess. Nothing wrong with that - just pick one of them more fancy regiments that cater to this sort of preference. Just don't tell others they're "wrong" or have "misconceptions".

Romer wrote:If the guard wasn't achieving positive K / D ratios in victories over renegade/other humans, Orks, Tau and Tryanids, they wouldn't be winning many wars.

Of course they could, as long as they have more troops. Did you see how large the IoM is?

Romer wrote:

If the guard wasn't achieving positive K ratios in victories over renegade/other humans, Orks, Tau and Tryanids, they wouldn't be winning many wars.

It's a misconception that there is anything approaching K2D ratios in 40K. Even Space Marine Chapters of barely 1000 Marines (if they're lucky) die "by the hundreds" every other Tuesday despite saving the day each and every time and no apparent harm done to their fighting strenght despite the decade long process of recruiting new Marines. Same goes for the IG, with a vengance.

There are only ever two numbers in 40K. A) the [implausibly large number] and B) the [implausibly small number].

That leaves three options:

1: If IG happen to be the "good" guys in any given narration, than, like all 40K-prose-protagonists, an [implausibly small number] of Guardsman will fight and win against an [implausibly large number] of enemies.

2: If IG are the "bad" guys in any given narration (say a novel from CSM-Perspective), than an [implausibly small number] of the protagonist faction will fight and win against an [implausibly large number] of IG.

3. If IG are secondary and provide context to a given narration (say a novel from Loyalist-SM-Perspective), than an [implausibly large number] of IG will die to an [implausibly large number] of enemies, so that ultimately the [implausibly small number] of Protagonists can bail them out by fighting and defeating the [implausibly large number] of enemies.

Occasionally the Guard breaks with this cliché and has an "implausibly large number" of Guardsmen die against an undefined number of the enemy and wins the day by zerging them.

Personally, I think it makes the setting more dark and even more heroic, considering that these troops must have above-average dedication and conviction to pull off something like that. It's the WW2 Red Army factor, if you will. Mostly limited to the "Xtra-Grimdark Regiments" like Valhallans and Krieg, though, where their entire description is basically dripping with nihilism. And yet they still manage to come through and save the day. That is what I like about them. With the Space Marines, it's just nothing special, but with the Guard, they've got to have, as they say, "balls of steel". The more difficult it seems for them to achieve victory, the more impressive it is, imo.

i think its amazing how the two fluffs of Imperial guard contradict themselves.

it says that imperial guards throw their life down withot question in battle to advance on the enemy and thousdands, thens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, die every battle...

yet a imperial guard regiment is made up of somthing between 4000-8000 soilders...there is i think 431 cadian regiments so that is 2.8 million soilders on average. that seems pathetic considering there are countries today with bigger armies..

spaceXjam wrote:yet a imperial guard regiment is made up of somthing between 4000-8000 soilders...

The number of troops in a regiment is highly variable and depends on the condition of the soldiers in it. For example, there are Valhallan regiments with over a hundred thousand troops in them. The Munitorum merely demands that each regiment's fighting strength is somewhat equal to another, so obviously Cadian regiments with their superior training and equipment would be somewhat smaller.

At least that's what it says in the IG Codex.

I liked how the IG appeared in Storm of Iron.

They were out in huge numbers, Armoured Regiment, Infantry Regiments, Drop Regiment, Superheavy det, etc. But their Lord General was subordinated to the Iron Hands Clan Commander.
They did their jobs, they tried their best, but their commander was never in on the big picture, and so they died in droves.

Romer wrote:

nomotog wrote:Exactly! The biggest misconception about IG is that they should be more elite, but they are so much more compelling as the underdogs.

Of course they're the underdogs. But that doesn't make them incompetent useless soldiers where the default strategy is simply to zerg at the enemy to drown him in numbers.

I'm not trying to argue that against the biggest threats in the galaxy that the Imperial Guard stand as equals. But they stand against them as competent soldiers. Most guard units win because of tactics, strategy and the spirit to get the job done no matter the cost. Not because their commanders march them at the enemy until they run out of bullets.

If the guard wasn't achieving positive K ratios in victories over renegade/other humans, Orks, Tau and Tryanids, they wouldn't be winning many wars.

You don't need a positive K to win. IG do win most of their battles by outnumbering the enemy. If their was a core IG battle plan, it would be zerg rush. Then they put different spins on it. Artillery shell rush and Tank rush are good examples. IG can and do use different tactics, but they always use large numbers no matter what they do. Even the different elite guard units still work in regiments 10,000 strong.

It would be hard for IG to have a overall positive K ratio when fighting the tau.

nomotog wrote:

You don't need a positive K to win. IG do win most of their battles by outnumbering the enemy. If their was a core IG battle plan, it would be zerg rush. Then they put different spins on it. Artillery shell rush and Tank rush are good examples. IG can and do use different tactics, but they always use large numbers no matter what they do. Even the different elite guard units still work in regiments 10,000 strong.

It would be hard for IG to have a overall positive K ratio when fighting the tau.

Someone is a bit obsessed with these rushes, played too many RTS games maybe?

Generally the Guard has tactics and strategy and tends to win as the IG is to stubborn to give up, ever.
If one pays attention to the background and also the most recent in 6th ed, IG can afford casualties that would annihilate small empires and the cousins of said empire and spome neighboring empires too.

So "rushes" aren't the common modus operandi of the IG and K ratios are irrelevant as the IG can happily run with ratio any species except orks and nids cannot survive.

This is one of the more glaring areas where studio vs expansion material differs with regards to 40k.

GW makes it clear that the Guard are hordes of terrified conscripts who fight courageously or are shot by their brutal commissars, sent by their uncaring commanders to die in human wave attacks. Firepower is prevalent but inaccurate and inefficient. Entire systems are conscripted to fight desperate wars against horrific enemies who outmatch the individual Guardsmen in every sense.

Meanwhile, BL fiction (particularly the Cain series) and by and large much of the fanbase portrays the Guard as an elite, professional, and highly competent force. They are a match for Space Marines, Lasguns can penetrate Power Armor, they are better marksmen than the Tau. Guardsmen are highly motivated, intelligent, and many dismiss the fanatical instructions and dogma of their commanders. Operations are conducted by caring and sympathetic commanders in a highly professional and efficient combined-arms fashion. The enemy is well known, quite defeatable, and respected.

A certain reason for this differentiation probably has to do with what Regiments are most often portrayed. Cadians, Catachans, Krieg, Elysians, and so on are the cream of the crop and most famed forces of the Guard. By and large, most Regiments will be far less spectacular and far more desperately assembled.

In any regard, personally I find the GW depiction of the Guard fits the universe far better (grimdark), but to each their own.

Never saw a mention of lasgun going through PA, only hotshots.

Its in there. They are on full power(All lasguns in Abnettsville have variable power settings) which has always been stated as capable of burning through PA.

Most lasguns do not have a variable power setting(or are limited in the setting options) so guardsmen conserve their ammo.

Grey Templar wrote:Its in there. They are on full power(All lasguns in Abnettsville have variable power settings) which has always been stated as capable of burning through PA.

Most lasguns do not have a variable power setting(or are limited in the setting options) so guardsmen conserve their ammo.

Yes. But Abnett, even more so than most BL writers, has always been outspoken about using "creative license" with writing BL novels and not being bound to "canon". He's been into more than one fight with GW studio over this. He's stated many times that he sees his work as "a different interpretation."

Example starts below at about 17:40 to about 18:50 (or possibly to the very end).

Zweischneid wrote:He's stated many times that he sees his work as "a different interpretation."

So pretty much what Gav Thorpe said about any 40k novel being written, ever.

That said, it may be of note that lasguns with variable power settings (the apparently rare "Triplex-pattern") have been mentioned in studio material as well - even way back to GW's Inquisitor RPG, though it has been mentioned in the 5E Guard Codex again, and was recently referenced by FFG in the (rather awesome) Guard RPG "Only War" too (in spite of their earlier claim that variable power settings would be heretical modifications, and as such only available in the Black Crusade RPG).

Harriticus wrote:Meanwhile, BL fiction (particularly the Cain series) and by and large much of the fanbase portrays the Guard as an elite, professional, and highly competent force. They are a match for Space Marines, Lasguns can penetrate Power Armor, they are better marksmen than the Tau. Guardsmen are highly motivated, intelligent, and many dismiss the fanatical instructions and dogma of their commanders. Operations are conducted by caring and sympathetic commanders in a highly professional and efficient combined-arms fashion. The enemy is well known, quite defeatable, and respected.

Had to think of this immediately.

Lynata wrote:

Zweischneid wrote:He's stated many times that he sees his work as "a different interpretation."

So pretty much what Gav Thorpe said about any 40k novel being written, ever.

Sure. But there seems to be an unspoken bias in a lot of posts here of viewing BL products as "true" canon and bashing the studio for deviating from it (or embracing common misconceptions, as one guy above put it.).

And that is sorta putting the cart before the horse. The GW-studio version is the "canon" one, if any version could conceivable claim to canon at all. BL authors knowingly and purposefully deviate from this "canon" because that is what they do and what is needed to "make it work" for a novel or story.

Zweischneid wrote:Sure. But there seems to be an unspoken bias in a lot of posts here of viewing BL products as "true" canon and bashing the studio for deviating from it (or embracing common misconceptions, as one guy above put it.).

What, really?
I mean, I'm aware that this occasionally happens the other way around - hell, I've been a fervent believer in "GW = canon, everything else = not" for years until having collected enough author quotes to see the actual message, but there's really people complaining about GW not sticking to what some freelance BL author or an outsourced licensee comes up with?

Huh.

Licensed works are often better than BL stuff, but maybe that's just my own biases.