Thread 96482859

Where does the idea that the Imperial Guard are elite come from? Some of their regiments are literally recruited from Feudal Worlds where the local have never even seen a lasgun before. A good chunk of the regiments are noted for using primitive tactics including WW1 tactics, Napoleonic style warfare, and even pre-historic barbarian savagery. Their lascannons and flak armor might be good by today's standards but they're not good by the setting's standards, they're not even good by the Imperium's, and everybody else has the armor or toughness that makes the lasgun utterly inadequate. Pretty much every conflict of note ends up requiring Space Marines to pull them through, even conflicts against the fucking Tau which are like 1/1000000th the size of the Imperium.

>>96482859 (OP)
you missed your general bud

>>96482859 (OP)
The vast majority of them come from Hive worlds, and being in the imperial guard is unironically a vast, VAST upgrade to 99% of living conditions in that universe.
People *compete* to get into the guard, not only because life for normal people is soul-crushing otherwise, but because the things you think are drawbacks like being in deadly conflict are actually positives to normal imperial citizens.
It's not a question of
>"No!!! I don't want to fight orcs, I might die, I'm a pussy!!!"
It's a question of
>"You're telling me I get to slaughter orcs, and I'll get paid to do it?! Hell yeah!"
You're assuming they're normal people from normal, modern contexts. They're not.

>>96482903
That just makes it worse. Starving, illiterate, disease ridden mutants from a hive world, even volunteers, does not an elite force make. If all you need is volunteers I can get you a squad of African child soldiers who are all volunteers, but they're hardly 'elite'.

>>96482859 (OP)
Those examples aren't particularly relevant when the majority of humans (something like 90%) in the Imperium live in hive cities and guard regiments from those planets are supposed to be composed of the elite of a given planets PDF.

Obviously the problem is that the 40k galaxy is so lethal that even the elite of the Imperium's regular humans are barely enough to hold the line, but that's just a part of the grim dark of the setting.

>>96482917
They don't take just any volunteers, they actively screen people out and take the best. I literally just finished describing to you that they compete for the honor, and why. Are you actually stupid or something? I was actually getting ready to describe it to you again, but then I realized I'd just be repeating myself because the issue at hand is that you just didn't pay attention the first time.

>>96482965
>they actively screen people out and take the best
The best...of hiveworlders.

>>96483021
Yes, you fucking idiot.
Look at your own fucking post! >>96482859 (OP)
>Where does the idea that the Imperial Guard are elite come from?
I answered your retarded question.
Yeah, they're the best.
You're a buffoon.

>>96483047
Okay so they're the best of the Imperium but they're not really 'elite' by the galaxy or modern standards then

>>96483096
By modern standards the average guardsman would make our special forces guys look like pussies.
This is mostly because our special forces guys are just slightly above average gang members and drug addicts though.

>>96483176
Not really. By modern standards they'd be like...African tier. Maybe elite for Africa...but not by western standards.

>>96482859 (OP)
>Where does the idea that the Imperial Guard are elite come from?
Your head and your head alone.

>>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.

>>96483243
>Not really. By modern standards they'd be like
It's not really comparable honestly, but in terms of in-universe competency, the average Guardsman is to a US marine what a US marine is to a mall cop.

>>96483284
>but the special forces guy is probably a significantly better soldier
You significantly overestimate the level of competency of SoF.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Red_Wings

>>96483289
If you're measuring by equipment only perhaps. A Cadian might be that elite but certainly not your average hive-worlder who would be recruiting more from the desperate that from the able, and they have to fight alongside people so primitive they've never even heard of a gun before in their lives. They'll be malnourished, diseased, illiterate, they're only the most elite of the rabble.

>>96483326
>If you're measuring by equipment only perhaps
With equipment it's hard to make an adequate comparison as we just don't have anything nearly as ritzy as what Guardsmen can get outfitted with. EX do not have a comparative equivalent to say, a Plasma gun, in either rareness+quality nor effectiveness. They outclass us on a whole 'nother level there, basically.
But also I refer to base level in-universe competency. Guardsmen are selected from the top 0.1% of the top 0.1% of a given world.
> but certainly not your average hive-worlder who would be recruiting more from the desperate that from the able
Your average hive worlder isn't even going to come within a light year of the PDF. And the Guard recruits from the best of the PDF.

>>96483326
>Malnourished, diseased, illiterate
Aside from malnourished this describes our soldiers to a T kek. They have the reverse problem of being malnourished, in that they're all fucking fat.
>Nearly 70% of active service members are overweight, report finds
https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2023/10/13/nearly-70-of-active-service-members-are-overweight-report-finds/

>>96482859 (OP)
Its because many guard regiments recruit from PDF militias. They're more elite than the entry level unit

Elite Guard Regiments:
>Cadians
>Catachans
>Armageddon troops
>Harkoni Warhawks
>Tanith First and Only
>Elysian Drop Troops
>Phantine Skyborne
>Lucifer Blacks
>Dieprian Mountain Men

Retarded slop Guard Regiments:
>Drookian Fen Guard
>Brontian Longknives
>Athonian Tunnel Rats
>Savlar Chem Dogs
>Royal Volpone
>Mordian Iron Guard
>Kanak Skull Takers
>Last Chancers
>Maccabian Janissaries
>Necromundan Spiders
>Attilan Rough Riders
>Death Korp of Krieg
>Mordant Acid Dogs
>Scintillan Fusiliers
>Roane Deepers
>Praetorian Guard
>Terrax Guard
>Gilead Gravediggers

>>96483369
>Your average hive worlder isn't even going to come within a light year of the PDF.
Do the Hive Worlds get a lot of their PDFs from the nobility or is there some strong middle class that never gets discussed?

>>96483369
PDF troopers are generally depicted as being "enthusiastic amateur"-tier soldiers who are basically just an extremely heavily armed police force most of the time, and scraping together the best of that bunch nets you a regiment of unexceptional professionals. There are also plenty of examples of planets completely skipping the PDF step and raising new regiments directly from volunteers or conscripts.

>>96483454
It's more accurate to describe the PDF as the middle class.

>>96483465
>PDF troopers are generally depicted as being "enthusiastic amateur"-tier soldiers who are basically just an extremely heavily armed police force most of the time
Yeah, comparable to modern militaries, though they're often much more selective since they can universally select from an entire planet's worth of people for the most competent, and force them to join.
Unless you think they do actual policing because no, they typically don't.

>There are also plenty of examples of planets completely skipping the PDF step and raising new regiments directly from volunteers
Name ten.

>>96483494
The Imperium probably expects the planets to send them their best but let's be frank, there's no way the Administratum can make sure that actually happens with any degree of remote accuracy.

>>96483520
Doesn't matter because we are directly told they're the best of the best.

>>96482859 (OP)
The Imperial Guard isn't elite, the Tempestus Scions are. And even then they're pretty lackluster compared to the infantry of the other factions.

>>96483520
40k also doesn't work on real life logic, in theory a planet with tens of billions of people on it that exists within a highly militarised empire where being attacked by all sorts of nasty things is a very real (though quite remote in most cases) possibility should produce an excellent army for its defence, but in practice the PDF are pretty much always depicted as being poor quality troops incapable of doing much more than temporarily holding the line until the real soldiers arrive because that's the common trope within the fiction.

>>96483572
>the PDF are pretty much always depicted as being poor quality troops
Compared to the guard, yeah.
Compared to real life? An average American Rifleman has to spend thousands of rounds of ammo to kill one enemy combatant.
A PDF trooper takes 9 rounds to hit and kill another human in flak armor.

>>96483596
If you're going to be using boardgame statistics then by that logic the lasgun only has a range of 25 feet.

>>96483645
>If you're going to be using boardgame statistics
It's not a boardgame, and these are objective measurements of how often they need to fire to hit and kill something.
>the lasgun only has a range of 25 feet
Also hilariously wrong even if you tried to use direct conversions. We don't need to anyways because the ranges of lasguns are provided in-lore.

>>96483719
Where in lore does it say a PDF trooper hits one in nine times?

>>96483728
Imperial Guard Codex, any edition.
Incoming cope post!

>>96483733
Can you post the quote?

>>96483733
Screenshot the page.

>>96483757
>>96483769
Chill anon, no need to samefag because you got called out. I'm busy eating din dins atm but you can just look up the ballistics skill of a guardsman and a lasgun's strength.

>>96483785
>ballistics skill of a guardsman
We were discussing lore, not the tabletop.

>>96483789
Relax anon, the codices are lore books and tabletop rules, they do both things yanno. First time hearing abt 40k?

>>96483805
Post the screenshot then.

>>96483817
Nah I'm still eating dinner. Like I said you can just look it up, infact I'm p sure they have it on wahapedia too if you're too poor to get a codex.

>>96482859 (OP)
The fact they regularly deploy to and from space means the Officio Logisticarum wants people that are at least smart enough to not kill themselves mid-transit to the battlefield, which is not as simple as it sounds.
That said people might be pidgeon-holed into bad strategies is more an issue of the officers leading them, which is NOT unique to the IG.

>>96483572
it makes perfect sense when you remember the Imperium is a totalitarian nightmare state and they would never allow a planet beyond Terra, Mars, and the fortress worlds to have any proper defenses since if they rebel then they might actually be difficult enough to defeat that you'll need a proper invasion force instead of just sending a company of space marines and like a regiment or two.

>>96482859 (OP)
>Where does the idea that the Imperial Guard are elite come from?

Discussed in the thread already but the Imperial Guard are the relative elite of the Imperium. A lot of Guard-stans take this to mean that they're very good soldiery overall, without realizing that the average Imperial is legitimately just bad at everything because of the way they're treated and raised.

It's conflated by a decent number of better Guard fiction focusing on the occasional super talented, competent soldiery punching well above their weight, often making for a decent underdog story but warping the lens of some readers to presume it's anything but the absolute most absurd cases of extreme competence in the Guard.

Fire Warriors are a good example of what happens when a military is drawn from properly, optimally trained group of roughly Human-equivalents and adequately equipped by 40k standards, matched or surpassed only by Kasrkin, Scions and other extreme exceptionals within a very, very large pool.

This is not the fault of the Guardsmen, who are legitimately good at their job for the situation they're born into, and if they were raised to proper standards of health and education would be far more competent.

>>96482859 (OP)
Your average PDF trooper is even worse than the Guard regiments their world sends out to meet their tithe. That’s why they’re comparatively elite. Note: “comparatively” does a lot of heavy lifting.
Regiments with more specialized skillsets, like Mechanized units or Drop Troops, can be considered more elite than your average line infantry unit by virtue of the training they need to perform their duties, but that’s also comparative.

>>96483382
That's it, charms are off the menu!

>>96482903
lol no, 99% of regments are filled with conscripts rather than volunteers. Look at Necromunda. Every ganger on that planet is a competent killer and they all stay well away from Imperial Guard conscriptioners because they have far, far better chances of becoming wealthy and living like kings on the homeworld than they do fighting unknown threats out in the galaxy.

>>96483176
>By modern standards the average guardsman would make our special forces guys look like pussies.
this is, and always has been, headcanon lmao.

>>96486484
Cope.

>>96483840
>he still hasn’t posted the screenshot

>>96482859 (OP)
The best I understood it was that they're elite [by comparison] to the shit our soldiers are used to dealing with. Pitted against overgrown gorilla mushroom men that look like they just left a GWAR concert while fully armed, mind-bending elf aliens that give physics the middle finger, giant bug monsters that would give H.R. Giger a boner, giant walking slabs of steroid-infused tank men both pro and anti-Imperium, actual demons from hell, and all the other horribly gribbly things in the universe, of course the Imperial Guard would look like total pansy-asses.

>>96486598
it's the kind of shit loretubers say to try and hype up Astartes by claiming that Imperial Guard regiments are clearly the best of the best of the best, ignore all the depictions of them as completely average soldiers struggling to survive, to use them as a Worf to make Astartes look good. Then they use Astartes as the next Worf to make Custodes look good. Then Custodes are Worfed for Primarchs... and the sloptubers just eat it all up like the good little piggies they are

>>96486724
>by claiming that Imperial Guard regiments are clearly the best of the best of the best
This is just what the lore says. Cope.

>>96486747
The lore also says that IG regiments can be recruited from feral worlders who have to be taught how to use a lasgun in the few months of warp travel before they get dropped into a warzone. And that they tend to abandon their lasguns for clubs and swords regardless. Best of the Imperium my ass.

>>96486796
>The lore also says that IG regiments can be recruited from feral worlders
And? We're talking about generalities.

>>96486724
it's called being a jobber. That's the older and more common term.

>>96486676
The thing is they even look shit even compared to aliens that are weaker than humans like the Tau

>>96487103
Again, when they're dressed in flak armor compared to the shiny laser rifle guys with giant robots and going into battles with basic walkers and tanks, they don't look as elite.

>>96487126
Flak armor is about as tough as the Tau’s combat armor and the Imperium has bigger, better robots and tanks than the Tau. Also their lasguns are better than the pulse rifles of the Tau as well, and they’re biologically stronger and faster and smarter than the Tau are.

>>96487202
then why does the IG keep losing to the Tau in every major engagement? It's always the Astartes bailing them out

>>96482917
>Starving, illiterate, disease ridden mutants from a hive world, even volunteers, does not an elite force make
it does in a universe that runs on heavy metal rules
hard times make hard men or however the poverty is justified
that's why space marines specifically pick the worst and most deadly shitholes to recruit from. The survivors must be strong, right?

>>96487202
>Also their lasguns are better than the pulse rifles of the Tau as well
When was the last time infantry lasguns were statted stronger than pulse rifles? Or even equivalent?

>>96482859 (OP)
>Where does the idea that the Imperial Guard are elite come from?
Literally nobody outside a small minority makes this claim. Stop getting your information through memetics and read your own source material

>>96483284
>The average generic guardsman
>a well-trained, competent, professional soldier
Why would you go online just to try and enforce your headcanon as fact?

>>96482917
The point is that they're the cream of the crop as far as regular human soldiers go. Planetary defense forces are the riff-raff you're thinking of.
>>96482903
Also it's notable how for example Cadians are genetic freaks who're massively bigger and stronger than modern humans.

>>96487364
Lasguns are only slightly weaker than the pulse gun but are still more than strong enough to kill puny Tau, and in return the lasgun is able to be recharged from basically any power source, even a campfire or the sun, and you can overcharge the packs and throw them as grenades. From a logistical standpoint lasguns are way better and they still hit like a truck.

>>96482965
>>96483047
>>96483176
Hahahaha you fucking mongoloid. Jannies gotta hit that engagement quota for thwir bonuses, thank you sir.

>>96487575
Couldn't imagine being as mad as you are over a children's board game.

>>96487626
>no u
Pathetic worm.

>>96482859 (OP)
>Where does the idea that the Imperial Guard are elite come from?
They aren't, necessarily. The reason they're so effective is because they're very well-equipped, financed, and have a well-trained body of officers e.g. commissars. They operate under a tithe system that allows them to have first-dibs on battlefield equipment and personnel, as well as practically endless resources and manpower. Unlike the SM and SoB who are supported by their chapters and the Ecclesiarchy respectively, the Imperial Guard never has to worry about paying for or commandeering war materiel. It's always provided well in advance by the Departmento Munitorum.

Compare this to the PDF, which is basically whatever's left after the Administratum takes their cut of manpower. PDF forces *NEVER* have the best personnel and equipment, and are usually glorified bodyguards for planetary aristocrats. This doesn't mean they are useless or have bad equipment neccessarily, but whatever they have, a Guard regiment drawn from that planet will always have better.

>>96487571
Except they currently aren't. Against MEQ, lasguns are -1 to wound and pulse rifles are +1 (Str 3 v Str 5). You're just a nomodels, nogaems, lourist getting butthurt that Tau guns might be better than Imperium equivalents.

>>96488142
Tau don't have an MEQ statline, try again.

>>96488193
You're both illiterate and still somehow wrong since Stealth Battlesuits have the t4, 3+, 2w stat line. Fuck off already.

>>96488248
Incorrect, Tau are T3 1W 4+. Die mad about it.

>>96488279
You're actually a genuine, indisputable retard and likely South Asian. Go read these posts again and see if you can figure it out.

>>96488318
>No rebuttal
I accept your concession.

>>96482859 (OP)
Man, it's been a while since I've responded to /tg/ bait. Almost every modern elite military unit hadn't held a gun until they were enlisted. It's outright illegal in many nations, and even in America, most people don't own a gun.
>Their lascannons and flak armor might be good by today's standards, but they're not good by the setting's standards. They're not even good by the Imperium's
It's better or equivalent to what local PDFs have, and their training outweighs what any PDF has by a lot. Half of Imperial forces are local PDF. IG are better trained and armed minority, which makes them elite.

>>96488142
A 2 strength difference isn’t enough to justify the shitty pulse gun

>>96482859 (OP)
>Where does the idea that the Imperial Guard are elite come from?
From guardfag's retarded headcanon.

Imperial Guard has always been the bunch of sorry asses ala troops caught in the Vietnam War. Some are more elite than others, but merely by the virtue of their world being more killy than others.

>>96483284
>>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
By that logic your average Viking, Aztec eagle warrior or WW2 Japanese grunt would make todays soldiers look like pussies, too. And those are just three examples.

>>96489581
>Viking, Aztec eagle warrior
Both of these were absolute pussies. Vikings avoided fair fights like the plague and predated on the defenseless and weak, when fortified settlements became the norm in Europe the viking raid died out. The Aztecs were on the same level of pussified, they went after tribes vastly inferior to their own and forced their subjects into any major conflicts before their own to avoid losses.
>Japanese grunt
These guys do in fact make modern soldiers look like pussies though yes.

>>96489581
>>96490737
Japanese Soldiers tended to be more likely to surrender when the US used Japanese translators to actually communicate with them. Fighting to the end was what they did because often each individual soldier thought that was his only choice they had.
They still subjected themselves to some utterly absurd privations, but again it's not like you have much of a choice on a tiny island in the Pacific against an enemy you can't communicate with.

>>96490826
>Japanese Soldiers tended to be more likely to surrender
Not only untrue, but utterly irrelevant because they invented self guided missiles.

>>96490845
Try reading my full post next time.

>>96490869
Try coping less next time.

>>96490897
I accept your concession.

Nope, you lose.

>>96482859 (OP)
Basically the original lore for the Imperial Guard was that any time there was a problem that needed manpower, the Imperium would start grabbing people from nearby worlds and dumping them on the problem

But no one wants to read about how the Imperium won a battle by spamming millions of soldiers from a dozen different planets they have never heard of before

So most of the time, when the Guard appear in a novel, codex fluff, etc., at least some of them are from regiments that people have heard of before, like Cadians, Catachan, etc., even if the battle is nowhere near their home worlds. Also, they show up in laughably small numbers, yet still win anyways because plot armor

So you end up with two tiers of Guardsmen, the "PC tier" who can go man-on-man with anything short of a Space Marine, and still win if the plot demands it, and the "NPC tier" who suck as much as the plot demands it

>>96490845
>discussion was about grunts
>brings up pilots
what did he mean by this

>>96482859 (OP)
>Where does the idea that the Imperial Guard are elite come from?
Ancient /tg/ fanfiction about BIG BRASS BALLS and idealism and guardsmen being the real protagonists of the setting. Fully deprecated as the character who inspired the memes was later confirmed to have lost the conflict he was involved in (to Orks).

I like to think *most* guardsmen are generally competent like soldiers are now. guard were added to the game to attract historical wargamers with sci-fi troopers that drew from the 1850s to the modern era.

the other half of the guard appeal is that they’re normal mortal men. when you start adopting ideas that certain regiments are made up of super soldiers, what’s the point when there’s a dozen other super soldier factions to play?

only groups like kaskrins and tempestus scions should be considered vastly superior to modern troops.


>>96483446
>lists all these regiments
>didn’t include vostroyans who had real models

so sad…

>>96488450
I mean, I believe it’s about a third of Americans own firearms, but many will shoot it once or even never.


your point is mostly right. you can teach someone to shoot a gun safely in a few hours, teach them to shoot okay in a few days, teach to shoot competently in a few weeks, and teach them to be warriors in a few months.

a lot of the “elite”ness is a representation of how much money an organization is willing to put into the individual. training is very expensive.

>>96482859 (OP)
>Where does the idea that the Imperial Guard are elite come from?

From two places.
First, it comes from the fact that generally speaking, across the entire Imperium, there are only two "professional" armies of regular humans; Planetary Defence Forces and the Imperial Guard. Generally the PDF are given only the bare minimum of equipment and training and will probably only ever see actual combat if one of two things happen; if their planet is attacked, or if they're conscripted into the Guard.
Part of most planets tithes include soldiers for the Imperial Guard, and the first place they start taking them from is the PDF.
A Guardsmen who has been in the guard for 2 years and seen combat is much more experienced, and hence "elite" then a PDF trooper who has been in the PDF for a decade and seen no combat.

Secondly, because you, like the people who say the Guard are elite, are cherry picking your examples.
When the people who say the Guard are elite, they almost always talking about particular Guard regiments, or Guardsmen from a particular world, like Cadia (who are often portrayed as being the best of the stock-standard Guard), or Catachans, or other more prominent Guard regiments/planets .
Where as you, you are talking about the Guardsmen from backwater planets that are less well know and fall more into the 'Random conscript grabbed to fill the tithe quota. Basically like this anon >>96491358 said.

>>96489581
>>96490737
>>96490826
The Pacific Island Japs were legitimately fucking crazy. Sure, you could get some of them to surrender, but you have to keep in mind that
>strip down to your underwear, take this knife, crawl on your belly through jungle/sharp coral rock for 3 miles that way, then do your best to stab at least one person before you are killed
was a completely normal order to get, and it was executed on a nightly basis. They were hardcore as fuck. US Marines regarded them as essentially demonic in nature.

>>96483296
>posts the one SoF operating famous for going wrong
Okay, now let's talk about the operations going on literally every fucking week that you never even get to hear about.

Besides, it's not that SF are special for Matt-Damoning their way into Nuke killstreaks. They're special because of their extreme endurance, will to push on, and capacity to remain composed under critical circumstances, which is what their selection and training screens them for.

>>96487202
>Flak armor is about as tough as the Tau’s combat armor
Tau combat armour is carapace and pulse rifles are better than bolters. Their standard grunts are better equipped than Imperial elites like Scions.

>and the Imperium has bigger, better robots and tanks than the Tau
Which are very rare, in terms of the average stuff the Tau make vs the average stuff the Imperium makes the Tau stuff not only blows it out of the water in every way, but is also fully understood and replaceable without any issue.

>and they’re biologically stronger and faster and smarter than the Tau are.

Stronger and faster, sure. Smarter? There's more than enough reason to believe the opposite considering virtually every Imperium vs Tau engagement is the Fire Caste explicitly outsmarting the Imperium to even the playing field.

I have a strong suspicion you're just baiting though.

>>96483369
>do not have a comparative equivalent to say, a Plasma gun, in either rareness+quality nor effectiveness.
So, a light anti tank weapon with an effective range of (based from tabletop scales) about 50 yards? Dude, the germans had panzerfausts in the 1940s better than that and they didnt kill the user 1 in 6 shots. 40k tech is retarded. And no, having your gun glow isnt cool, it's just extra capeshit retardation.

>>96494094
>(based from tabletop scales)
There are things in 40k discussion stupider than trying to use tabletop stats in lore discussions, there's a massive mismatch between game mechanics and how things are consistently described as working in-universe and everyone knows it.

>>96491370
You think they had highly trained elites flying kamikaze planes? Topkek.

>>96492165
>US Marines regarded them as essentially demonic in nature.
They did that to puff up their own rep because they were horribly incompetent. The Americans nearly got rolled over by the Volkssturm and a few panzers, and if the panzers had more than two drops of fuel between them we'd probably never have had a west germany.

>>96492470
>posts the one SoF operating famous for going wrong
The one of hundreds of SoF operations that went wrong*
*That got a movie made and funded by the DoD to try and pretend everything went right
*That had a whistle blown on it by the farmer who saved the surviving seal's life (Survivor was so scared shitless he never even fired a shot in combat btw. Composed as fuck bro!!!).

>>96494094
Plasma guns aren't AT weapons or comparable to them. They're rifle-sized yet pack power sufficient to melt straight through armor that even modern tanks couldn't scratch.

We all know PDF get a bad rap because the setting focuses on the big battles that happen way after the local PDF have all died
But are they actually good for anything at all? Or are they the equivalent of mall cops?

The fact that commissars exist immediately dispels the notion the AM are "elite". Not to mention smoothbrain shit like the IG Primer chock full of disinformation.

>>96494473
The primer is from 7 editions ago retard.

>>96482859 (OP)
You're getting "Elite guard units" (Cadians, Catachans, Elysians, ect) confused with the concept of the guard itself being an elite armed force. Which it is not.
There are certainly guard units which are a cut above in terms of equipment, training, and morale, and ones that can be described as being 'elite,' but the average guardsman from a regiment raised from some irrelevant backwater planet is basically a warm body to occupy a trench and point a flashlight and get slagged so the actually valuable units don't.
The very first chapter of the All Guardsman Party storytime paints a fairly good picture of how the statistically average regiment's deployment history goes.

>>96494296
What does that have to do with anything said in that post? Grunts simply aren't pilots.

>>96494948
>He's still coping and thinks kamikazes were uber elite pilots

>>96487555
>Cadians are genetic freaks who're massively bigger and stronger than modern humans.
when was this ever a thing?

>>96494323
You should read some of the accounts of the soldiers who were in the Pacific theater. With the Old Breed is my personal favorite.

>>96496247
You should read some accounts from American soldiers who fought in recent wars and got fact checked. They often make shit up and exaggerate hundreds of times over just to seem cool.

>>96496327
I get that you have an agenda here, and I don't really disagree with you, but the book I recommended was written by a mortarman who never really even experienced direct combat. It's very much not a glorification of the US Marines. You should read it because it's interesting and will allow you to live vicariously through a sort of hellscape that no one will ever experience again.

>>96482859 (OP)
They don't recruit civilians, they tithe the top percent of the local pdf where one exists. The tax collectors expect the Planetary governors to give them quality, if they give them shitty run off recruits that reflects poorly on the governor and then a callidus stabs him in his sleep so his cousin can take the job.

The local pdfs are recruited and generally just keep their existing organisation structure as they are converted to an IG regiment and their command structure is translated to the munitorum's language standards (a general in the pdf would instead be a regimental colonel in the IG). They are then either outfitted on the fleet to IG standards or are transported to a munitorum world for that purpose and in transit they are constantly running war games and drills because the ships are that big they can do that

>>96482859 (OP)
>Where does the idea that the Imperial Guard are elite come from
they are elite in regards to the PDF
the system is designed specifically to skim the cream of the PDF crop for imperial guard units, ensuring that the imperial guard remain on top
basically covered by >>96496670

they are elite by the standards of 90% of the galaxy
but the tabletop is dominated by the top 1% of space marines, daemons, and space robot skeletons and the fiction explicitly takes place in stories where the guard cant hold and need the super super soldiers to save them (unless its guard centric)

>>96496739
There is also the political element that by taking the best troops and having larger access to better equipment, the IG, who fight directly for the imperium, will always be superior to Planetary governors pdf forces in the case of secession unless that world happens to have an exceptional manufacturing base or be sitting on an armoury. The IG loyal to the administratum will be coming with lasguns and heavier assets versus pdf using autoguns that can be defeated by flak armour

>>96496670
>They don't recruit civilians
Except for all the times that they do exactly that. Conscription is a very ordinary thing in 40k, and the Departmento Munitorum is authorized to literally drag random civvies that look vaguely fighting fit off the streets of hives, handed a lasgun and uniform, and then shipped off to a battlezone on the other end of the galaxy. They usually do their basic training aboard the voidships on the way to their theatre of conflict.

>>96497322
"Conscripts represent hastily conscripted men, raised from surrounding planets in dire situations. In times of great emergency, the Departmento Munitorum will demand local Governors raise vast quantities of troops for immediate action."

>>96497335
Conscription drives can be so brutally extreme that planets are rendered unable to perform their normal tithe duties. Then the governor gets blamed for it and executed when the tithe comes due.

>>96497345
Yeah, just like real life.

>>96497335
Of course they can do that depending on the nature of the conflict but while things are manageable they prefer not to. Remember whiteshield conscripts use to be a seperate statblock that relied on shit stats but ridiculous amounts of models as opposed to the actual professional infantry squad. The camera might be on the zones like Armageddon where it's an apocalyptic battle but the bread and butter of the guard isn't even fighting the named Xenos, it's usually human v human conflict putting down uprisings, secessionist movements, uppity ecclesiarchy officials who feel like wiping out a civilised world fkr perceived heresy and other renegades of which they usually are quite competant at and don't need to resort to press gangs of quastionable quality. It's when you start fighting giant green apes that things get desperate and now you need to put a gun In little Timmy's hands real quick because it isn't two human opponants of military age fighting but an existential conflict

>>96497388
Nice headcanon.

>>96497351
real life WW2 conscription in the US was actually meant to provide a trickle of manpower by having X men in the draft pool called up to service every month
in order to prevent volunteers from swamping training infrastructure in massive droves after news from the front hits home

conscription let them tightly control intake so that it would match training capacity while commanders at the front could more easily deal with replacement, a steady stream of well-trained troops, instead of sudden bursts of troops who may or may not be up to standard

>>96491436
>like soldiers are now
lol, lmao

>>96497512
Real life drafts in the US weren't much different from how it works in 40k (In emergencies when manpower is scarce), the only difference is that we've never been in a position where manpower requirements hampered the economy. For that you'd need to look at the major European powers in WW2, or Japan, China, and both Koreas.

>>96497817
>For that you'd need to look at the major European powers in WW2
british conscription worked similarly as it did in the US
intended to provide a regular output of able bodied men every month in order to prevent draining their men dry all at once

Compared to the local militias and Planetary defence forces they usually just are the elite version.

I'm currently reading through warhammer crime novels and whenever something or someone is (ex-)guard it's immediately a big deal because concerning gear and training they're always at least one step above everything else, locally.


Of course that's a matter of perspective. In the grand scheme of 40K (which is pretty grand given the setting) guardsmen are nothing special but from a human perspective on any given world they're usually the best rank and file soldiers around.


Even in your example: the ones that get trained to be gaurdsmen and get lasguns are immediately the most elite soldiers on a feudal world

>>96482859 (OP)
krieg and cadians are better than probably 90% of fighting fit humans

>>96497882
>british
>major European power

>>96497388
Crazy how all the guard cocksuckery relies on lore from 20 years ago that's been outdated by GW.

>>96482859 (OP)
>Some of their regiments are literally recruited from Feudal Worlds where the local have never even seen a lasgun before
So are Imperial Knight pilots and so are a ton of to be Space Marines
Medieval worlds are prime candidates for soldiers in 40k because they're often populated by animals that make (individual) tyranids look puny and they hunt those animals

>>96490737
>The Aztecs were on the same level of pussified, they went after tribes vastly inferior to their own
Not really, they were just THE power of the region so most people were inferior, even the ones that weren't "tribes"
A better argument is that their ideal of warfare was completely different, and more about taking captives than killing

>>96502617
>Not really, they were just THE power of the region
They were the largest state because they were a loose conglomeration set upon the best arable land in the region, and banded together to enslave and sacrifice the smaller tribes. They got utterly trounced the moment they received any significant pushback.

>>96482859 (OP)
The entire imperium is at war 24/7 and this means they'd realistcally be actually good at fighting and have well trained militaries and going off of literally everything you see in the codexes and lore they do except you know they're in 40k so they're pretty fucked when it comes to combat because every enemy either comes in endless hordes IE Orks and Tyranids or is much better equipped IE Chaos Marines, Eldar, Tau, Necrons.

FYI Theres never actually really been any logic to the retarded human waves shit people like to claim is how the guard are "supposed to act" besides 1 or 2 authors circle jerking it hard in a book or two back in 3rd 6th or 7th when they went full retard grimderp and even in 3rd edition lore most guard regiments got fucking paid for their service.

>>96483382
>Aside from malnourished this describes our soldiers to a T kek. They have the reverse problem of being malnourished, in that they're all fucking fat.
Ii mean, the infantry on deployment always shed weight quick from the constant everything so the inverse is still true as well

>>96494379
It depends planet to planet