Letters Home: Can a Guardsmen ever get a letter delivered home?

Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you:

No adverts like this in the forums anymore.
Times and dates in your local timezone.
Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance.
Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely.
Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net.

If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

**sphynx**

w1zard wrote:
It depends on how far the regiment was operating from their homeworld. If it was relatively close and the regiment was receiving supplies from the homeworld, I could see officers and NCOs getting the privilege of sending letters back home.

However you have to take my opinion with a grain of salt. I personally believe that a lot of the grimdark fluff around the IG is completely immersion breaking. For example, the fact that Imperial guardsmen are never expected to return home ever, they just fight fight fight until they die is extremely unrealistic. Nobody would want to join the IG unless regiments came back home with stories of glory and conquest, and there would NEED to be veterans who have seen actual combat to train the PDF. Obviously SOME veterans make it back home. In what proportion is probably dependent on how far the regiment is operating from its homeworld and what they are doing.

There is also the stupid issue of recruitment into the guard being "permanent" in the lore. As veterans get older, realistically they would need to be mustered out otherwise they would lose combat effectiveness. A "term of service" is a much more realistic thing, after which the soldier gets sent back home and retires from the guard, or mustered out onto a nearby planet if his home is too far away. I just imagine a regiment full of old men with Gandalf beards and laugh. Officers too, tend to be rich noblemen looking to put a feather in their cap (with military service) and return home to take up the family business and compete with other local aristocracy.

Absolutely, excellent assessment. This is why Abnett's novels are so important, because the humanity and level headed rationality he injects makes them easy to relate to. The Ghosts take leave, have down time, get rotated from planets, and probably only don't go home because

Spoiler:

And I believe the entire premise of Richard William's Imperial Glory is about a veteran regiment earning themselves a planet to settle on?

EDIT Yikes, looks like everyone beat me to the punch here!