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Were still doing this?

Fido asked a question, the PDF tried to respond but were killed to a man.

POSTS CONSISTING OF JUST (or predominently) AN IMAGE MACRO IN LIEU OF ACTUAL CONTENT ARE CONSIDERED SPAM ON THIS FORUM. -Mannahnin

POSTS CONSISTING OF JUST (or predominently) AN IMAGE MACRO IN LIEU OF ACTUAL CONTENT ARE CONSIDERED SPAM ON THIS FORUM. -Mannahnin

POSTS CONSISTING OF JUST (or predominently) AN IMAGE MACRO IN LIEU OF ACTUAL CONTENT ARE CONSIDERED SPAM ON THIS FORUM. -Mannahnin

POSTS CONSISTING OF JUST (or predominently) AN IMAGE MACRO IN LIEU OF ACTUAL CONTENT ARE CONSIDERED SPAM ON THIS FORUM. -Mannahnin

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.

Crossfire was pretty good IMO...and the PDF were killed to a man IIRC...

POSTS CONSISTING OF JUST (or predominently) AN IMAGE MACRO IN LIEU OF ACTUAL CONTENT ARE CONSIDERED SPAM ON THIS FORUM. -Mannahnin

I was trying to figure out how to get this meme to work in other threads, and I think this would be a good "bump" one.

Well...as far as books and plot go, I just got done reading Dead Men Walking and the PDF in that book weren't that incompetent. I think they held up rather well considering their world turned out to be a Necron tomb world.

That wasnt PDF. Those were militia. Hell, when the necron flayers came the PDF tried to respond but were killed to a man.

Space Crusader wrote:That wasnt PDF. Those were militia. Hell, when the necron flayers came the PDF tried to respond but were killed to a man.

PDFs everywhere contain militia...when the time is right. In "Dead Men Walking" the PDF was supplemented by militias raised after the Death Korps arrived in theater and took command.

The PDF of most worlds does fine against small-scale insurgencies, rebellions, and revolts. They also fare okay against isolated instances of Xenos incursions. It's only when we see things like Tyranid invasions, full-scale Chaos fueled insurgencies or Ork Waaghs that they're very seriously outclassed. When that happens, the PDF's sole purpose is to keep things tied up until the Imperial Guard and Astartes arrive. In the case of Chaos insurgencies, we'll also see any survivors of the PDF go "underground" as part of their requirements is the same as the Arbites: organize and maintain a pro-Throne resistance until the world is liberated and returned to the fold of the Imperium.

Yes, Kanluwen is right.

It's not an exact comparison, but think about it this way-- the PDF is like a state national guard in the US prior to 9/01/2001. A militia raised by the state, which can be called to act by the state's governor, or called up to serve in active duty as part of the national military force (in the case of the US, the US Army).

A PDF called upon to serve in the Imperial Guard is probably closer to the national guard after 9/01/2001 though.

The PDF were successful.

They killed a man.

Wanna-be funnymen think they created a meme.

They were killed to a man, for posting nothing useful to a thread.

Personally though, I like PDFs. I'm trying to figure out a 'best fit' for a PDF "Pathfinder" unit in the Imperial Guard. So far, it's the Hardened Veterans of all things.

Kanluwen wrote:Wanna-be funnymen think they created a meme.

They were killed to a man, for posting nothing useful to a thread.

Good one.

Personally though, I like PDFs. I'm trying to figure out a 'best fit' for a PDF "Pathfinder" unit in the Imperial Guard. So far, it's the Hardened Veterans of all things.

From FFG:

This PDF guy's don't seem incompetent:





These guys are PDF special forces.

PDF quality greatly depends on the world they are originated from.

They are excellent against rebellion and minor incursions ( like raids or random Ork attacks ).

They are not fit to deal with HUEG invasions like Ork WARGHHH or Chaos Black Crusade.

And of course they are worst then the Guard, Guard have better support form Munitorium and better gear to wield. Not to mention that the best of PDF troopers are diverted to the Imperial Guard.

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.

*Edit* Wez gotz a new meme!

The PDF is like a cop
Walking the beat; he pretty good most days, writes the packing tickets, maybe chances down some hooligan kids. But when the terrorist from "Die Hard" show up, Barney Fife and his no-bullet gun policy just isn't up to the task.

There have been instances where the PDF give one hell of a fight.

Mordian PDF held the planet against a chaos invasion.
Krieg PDF (or a regiment of) held a city during the five hundred years of atomic revolution.
Tallarn natives fought against Horus-aligned badasses during the heresy.

I think the PDF being wiped out is solely based on their training. Granted they might get tanks, carapace armor, and hellguns. But if they don't know proper firing drills, how to follow orders, or are just plain neglected, they can't fight off anything. In fact, most of the times that the PDF DO have their gak together they beat the snot out of whomever their fighting. The instances where the PDF are commanded by some Trade-Lord and stand more on looking pretty than actually policing their planet is when they 'die to a man'.

Now, I don't know about you, but dying to a man in the defense of my world, my family, and everything I know and love? I'd be hard pressed to see that as anything short of bravery, pointless and short-lived, but bravery nonetheless.

darn mods, deleting all our funnies.....

not fair i tells ye!

CuddlySquig wrote:

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.

I disagree. PDF are certainly not the elite fighting forces of the IoM, but they aren't entirely useless. Look at what we know:
1. The IoM is beset on all sides by enemies, and span a million worlds
2. There are not enough space marines to garrison all these worlds, so instead they act as crisis management teams, responding to the most desperate of the fighting.
3. Often, the guard are called in before or in lieu of the space marines, either because the fighting doesn't seem to warrant the deployment of the super elite, or because they are more readily available.
4. However, in spite of all the billions of guardsmen there are, there aren't enough to garrison all the planets either. What's more, there are massive logistical delays in getting them to respond to a breaking crisis, from interstellar transportation time to communication delays in directing the various regiments, to having to raise entirely new regiments in special tithes to respond to a conflict.
5. Based on this, the pdf, who hold the responsibility of maintaining order and a first line of defense, have to hold off the horrors of the galaxy or planetary revolutions without outside help for years at a time. If memory serves me right, the IG codex lists one incident where help arrived a century after it was requested.
6. All of this seems to reinforce the idea that the pdf are useless. The point thats missing is that the IoM still exists. In spite of the fact that the elite and super elite forces of the imperium are unable to be everywhere at once to respond to the variety of threats that face the imperium and the logistical nightmares in managing an empire of its size, the IoM has not been hemorrhaging worlds until reduced to a more manageable size. Logically, then, the pdf must be effective in the vast majority of cases at not only delaying the enemy but actually achieving victory.

I think the reason we are constantly blasted by examples of their impotence is, as others have hinted at, that we are only reading about extreme cases. We are looking at an empire that is almost inconceivably large, over a millennium, so its not surprising that there are so many stories where the crisis is so dire that the pdf are overwhelmed and the elites or superelites are called upon.

This being said, I think this "killed to a man" gag is hilarious and wish so many of the images hadnt been censored. Ah well, rules are rules.

PDF aren't "useless" but they can't handle anything above a minor raid or revolt. Really they're only full-scale thing they could deal with is a rebellion, in which case they'd probably all defect anyway as the soldiers are drawn from the disgruntled planetary population. Also I imagine the sight of any kind of Xenos will send them screaming.

The PDF's of "famous" Imperial worlds known for their quality guard regiments: Cadia, Catachan, Vostroya, Mordia, Elysia, Valhalla, Tallarn, Armageddon; are quite good and probably on the level of most guard regiments. This is certainly the case at least with the Cadian Interior Guard. Howwever these are just a small handful of worlds and indeed for one reason or another these worlds are the fighting elite of the Imperium. Most PDF's aren't like the one on Mordia, not even close.

PDF aren't that well equipped to deal with xenos attacks. I think the main difference is experience. Imperial Guard have fought across countless worlds. Same for space marines. They have faced all sorts of xenos and aren't surprised by what they see anymore. They also are more familiar with the capabilities of the various xenos races.

PDF is always on the same planet. The last xenos attack could have been centuries ago. Likely the current generation of PDF have never faced a Xenos attack, much less a chaos attack. So, the first time they see a Carnafex tear up a battle tank, or a Chaos Defiler , they will go all to pieces. Heck, even a gene stealer would probably scare the living daylights out of them. And they won't know how to fight those xenos either. They would probably aim everything they have on the said Carnefix (if they didn't run), and then get killed up the gene stealers that burrowed up behind them.

I don't understand how this argument has spanned out so long...

The PDF are not a centrally-organised/trained body, they aren't a 'force of the Imperium' in this respect; you can't tar them all with the same brush.

Quality is going to vary massively because the PDF rely on their homeworlds to equip/train them. So it all falls to the wealth of the world, its own capabilities and just how 'bothered' its leadership is. It's like trying to say 'the human military sucks in the 21st century' because the Kenyan Army is nowhere near as 'good' as that of the US.

Thus the PDF can be just as good as Guard regiments (Cadian, Ultramar, these have already been mentioned...) or abysmally poor.