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As the title says, you are a fresh faced guardsman, just out of basic training. You hear rumors of the various enemies you may have to face. Which one scares you the most?

For me it would have to be the Death Guard. The idea of those mutated bodies slowly advancing across the battlefield with their deamon bells tolling in the background would not be on the top of my list of fun things to do!

Chaos or Tyranids for sure. Both for varying reasons.

Dark Eldar, You can't turn to their side, they won't kill you, you won't see them coming and you won't understand anything. All there is is sudden agonising pain and death. At best.

Demons probably. As they'd be most afraid of demons, for good reason.

Dark Eldar. They are why you keep a shot for yourself.

Depends on what rumors you hear first.

getting slaughtered by chaos, dameons, dark eldar all sounds equally horrific.

Orks are orks and i bet the guardsmen joke around about them all the time.

Same with Tau as well.

but i dont think anyone can make jokes about what those first 3 will do to you if they get their grubby little hands on you.

Also maybe nids because they do cause an aura of unease.

I would say Daemons. There is a primal fear involved in that one. There's a reason some version of them exists in every world religion and culture. Daemons are a living embodiment of the things we hate and fear about ourselves.

 EnTyme wrote:
I would say Daemons. There is a primal fear involved in that one. There's a reason some version of them exists in every world religion and culture. Daemons are a living embodiment of the things we hate and fear about ourselves.

It literally scares an entire alien race gakless

that and the not only you are dead but your soul is also doomed part. which is also an added bonus to dark eldar torture fest.

A big fat smelly WAAC neck-beard.

Daemons would be the scariest. It's hard to fight something that's beyond your imagination.

dark elder... the rest will probably just off you and be done with it, the dark elder might take you prisoner and extend your life past how long you might naturally live just so they can keep tormenting and torturing you

Daemons they are your darkest emotions come to live in front of you. DE would be scarier of you knew what was in store for those caught alive.

This should be a no contest dark eldar. They don't want to kill or convert you. They literally want to torture you for the rest of your life and amplify your pain with eldar chemistry.

 Xenomancers wrote:
This should be a no contest dark eldar. They don't want to kill or convert you. They literally want to torture you for the rest of your life and amplify your pain with eldar chemistry.

If going by OPs fresh guardsman, how well know is the dark eldars whole thing. at most i bet you will hear of guardsmen being taken alive but nothing about the tourture.

 Desubot wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
This should be a no contest dark eldar. They don't want to kill or convert you. They literally want to torture you for the rest of your life and amplify your pain with eldar chemistry.

If going by OPs fresh guardsman, how well know is the dark eldars whole thing. at most i bet you will hear of guardsmen being taken alive but nothing about the tourture.

But then would the average guardsman know what any enemy faction would do to him other than kill him?

 TheLumberJack wrote:

 Desubot wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
This should be a no contest dark eldar. They don't want to kill or convert you. They literally want to torture you for the rest of your life and amplify your pain with eldar chemistry.

If going by OPs fresh guardsman, how well know is the dark eldars whole thing. at most i bet you will hear of guardsmen being taken alive but nothing about the tourture.

But then would the average guardsman know what any enemy faction would do to him other than kill him?

Thats why it ALL depends on the rumors they hear.

Slaanesh daemons. They are Dark Eldars up to 11.


As I said everytime, the only true "bad" Chaos Power is Slaanesh.

Khorne could kill you in horrible ways, but it doesn't recreates torturing you. Tzeentch and Nurgle are more in the middle, but Slaanesh? He is the most corrupt of the Chaotic powers.


But from a Imperial Guard point of view, the SCARIEST enemy to face.... Space Marines. And you know why? Because thats mean that you are a heretic and a traitor that is gonna be smashed by the ANGELS OF DEATH, THE INMORTAL GODS OF WAR tha carry the WILL of the Emperor. What can be scarier than that? Guardsmen are keep ignorant of their enemies, but they grow with the mythical storys of Space Marines victories.
Is like being killed by Captain America or Superman after a life of reading his comics and dreaming to be like him.

Imagine a wall of claws, screaming fanged maws, horrific burnign blasts of acid and choking spores filling the sky, covering the ground, and crawling up and over every defense/man/weapon you have available.

Compare that to a daemonic incursion which is equally as horrifying as it could warp and twist the world you're fighting on as much as a Tyranid invasion completely strips all life away.

Now look at the aftermath.


A Daemonworld full of pain, blood, disease, and general torture.

A Barren Rock that was once a bustling Hive-World, home to countless Imperial Citizens.


What is scarier?

 Desubot wrote:

 TheLumberJack wrote:

 Desubot wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
This should be a no contest dark eldar. They don't want to kill or convert you. They literally want to torture you for the rest of your life and amplify your pain with eldar chemistry.

If going by OPs fresh guardsman, how well know is the dark eldars whole thing. at most i bet you will hear of guardsmen being taken alive but nothing about the tourture.

But then would the average guardsman know what any enemy faction would do to him other than kill him?

Thats why it ALL depends on the rumors they hear.

Well no one will know what happens to dark eldar captives probably, and anyone who comes in contact with chaos is "cleansed". Side note why are death guard their own spot on the poll?

 Galas wrote:
Slaanesh daemons. They are Dark Eldars up to 11.


As I said everytime, the only true "bad" Chaos Power is Slaanesh.

Khorne could kill you in horrible ways, but it doesn't recreates torturing you. Tzeentch and Nurgle are more in the middle, but Slaanesh? He is the most corrupt of the Chaotic powers.

Papa Nurgle aint bad. He's the most wholesome of the lot. The big guy almost cares about his followers.

I think that there would have been something really terrifying about the old Necrons (prior to 5th).

- They appear without warning and move in absolute silence.
- They resemble skeletal humans, yet lack even a shred of humanity.
- Even when you manage to kill them, they reassemble themselves.
- You have no idea what they want. You know tyranids want to feed, DE want to inflict pain and take prisoners. You have no idea what Necrons want and will never know.

 vipoid wrote:
I think that there would have been something really terrifying about the old Necrons (prior to 5th).

- They appear without warning and move in absolute silence.
- They resemble skeletal humans, yet lack even a shred of humanity.
- Even when you manage to kill them, they reassemble themselves.
- You have no idea what they want. You know tyranids want to feed, DE want to inflict pain and take prisoners. You have no idea what Necrons want and will never know.

The first three still apply, and in most cases, the fourth does as well. In the rare event the Overlord did deem you worthy of speaking to, it was just to inform you that A) you are trespassing on the Dynasty's lands and B) you will now be summarily flayed alive for this transgression (if you're lucky. If not, you'll just be captured and used for experimentation into the reversal of biotransference).

Not sure about enemy but Sisters would be the scariest ALLY. From what I understand SoB tend to be...less concerned with friend/foe recognition than they should be.

 EnTyme wrote:

The first three still apply, and in most cases, the fourth does as well. In the rare event the Overlord did deem you worthy of speaking to, it was just to inform you that A) you are trespassing on the Dynasty's lands and B) you will now be summarily flayed alive for this transgression (if you're lucky. If not, you'll just be captured and used for experimentation into the reversal of biotransference).

Somewhat, though I think it's a bit different when you know that they talk and can even make bargains and such.

The thing about the old Necrons was that they never spoke and couldn't be reasoned with in any shape or form.

I'm not saying the new ones aren't scary, just that they lack some of the horror of the old ones.

Dark eldar everyone else just wants to kill you. Dark eldar wants slaves to torture and cause pain too and keep alive as long as possible to continue torturing you. Slannesh just wants to force you to wear some nipple rings and not use a clean needle to do it with!!!! There might be some forced intercourse w slannesh if your into that...you don't know w slannesh it's whatever overindulgence desire the enemy has at the time.

Dark Eldar for sure.

Pray they don't take you alive.

I voted chaos space marines, I nearly voted deamons but I figured there is something extra bad about seeing an dark reflection of your greatest heros

I have to go with deamons, though it was a tough choice between them, nids, and dark eldar.

The way I see it a guardsmen really doesn't need to worry to much about dark eldar as, if you are part of the guard you will 98% of the time be in an active war zone, in a fortified position, or in transit. Non of which are placed dark eldar usually show up as they go after soft targets for easy slave acquisition. So then it comes down to nids or deamons, and I think deamons would be worse, because while nids might have the shadow in the warp to mess with everyone's heads, or worse depending on the size of the hive fleet, at least when it comes to combat they are still living things and shooting them to death will work, where as with deamons they are not bound by the laws of the universe in the slightest and any affect your weapon should have may not have anything to do with what actually happens when you shoot them, and the fact that they can just kind of happen anywhere anytime.

Daemons are pretty scary, as others have mentioned.
Dark Eldar too, but guardsmen might not now a lot about them. Also, they usually just pop out of nowhere, do a raid attack, and leave as they came.
Fast surgical attacks are not as scary as full-on invasions. Hearing about a hive fleet slowly coming closer to your planet, then seeing the sky darken as countless spores drop on the ground, releasing ferocious beast, is pretty damn scary. The tension builds up slowly as you anticipate the upcoming fight, that's overall more traumatizing than getting stabbed in the back by someone you never saw coming.

 EnTyme wrote:

 vipoid wrote:
I think that there would have been something really terrifying about the old Necrons (prior to 5th).

- They appear without warning and move in absolute silence.
- They resemble skeletal humans, yet lack even a shred of humanity.
- Even when you manage to kill them, they reassemble themselves.
- You have no idea what they want. You know tyranids want to feed, DE want to inflict pain and take prisoners. You have no idea what Necrons want and will never know.

The first three still apply, and in most cases, the fourth does as well. In the rare event the Overlord did deem you worthy of speaking to, it was just to inform you that A) you are trespassing on the Dynasty's lands and B) you will now be summarily flayed alive for this transgression (if you're lucky. If not, you'll just be captured and used for experimentation into the reversal of biotransference).

Unless it's Zandrekh, in which case you will be taken prisoner and treated with the finest hospitality as he attempts to convince you to come back into the fold of the necrontyr.

This goes on for about a week until Zandrekh turns his back, then Obyron flays you alive.