>>96483176
>By modern standards the average guardsman would make our special forces guys look like pussies.
Probably true in terms of bravery and willingness to march into all sorts of horrific bullshit with his bayonet ready and a prayer on his lips, but the special forces guy is probably a significantly better soldier. The average generic guardsman is typically depicted as a well-trained, competent, professional soldier but not really any more than a soldier from a competent real world army.

>>96483243
Somewhat ironically the most common place to find that kind of depiction of the Guard is in their own codex, most other media where they play an important role makes them much less retarded.