Does it piss anyone else off how people think the Guard is just disposable chaff? They're not the most elite forces the Imperium has but they're hardly cannon fodder, in fact I'd say they're the most elite common infantry of any faction in the setting.Now, I know what you're thinking. "How can Guardsmen be as elite as Aspect Warriors/Crisis Suits/Ork Nobs?" But that's not the average soldier of those factions. A Guardsmen isn't going to be fighting 1 to 1 versus an Aspect Warrior or a Crisis Suit or an Ork Nob, they're going to be fighting Guardians, Firewarriors, and Boyz instead, the common chaff of those factions. Likewise with all the other factions as well.
>>96834842>that's not the average soldier of those factions.Aspect Warriors literally are the average soldiers of their faction. Guardians are not soldiers, they're citizen militia raised in times of need to defend the craftworld.
>>96834923>Guardians are not soldiers, they're citizen militia raised in times of need to defend the craftworld.Which means that they're going to compose the majority of the craftworld's military any time that craftworld is attacked. And they get attacked a lot.
>>96834842Skitarii, Boyz, Kabalites, Necron Warriors, and Hearthkyn are for sure more elite than Guardsmen. Fire Warriors and Guardians are about on par.
>>96834842Nah, I think it's funny.
Everyone complains about space marines getting flanderized but guardsmen going from chaff that needed preachers and commisars to motivate them into combat, using children and suicide bombers, slowly getting turned into heckin epic tactical veterans was a total waste.
>>96835128The Commissars aren't there to motivate the troops, they're there to to keep them from being used recklessly in brave but suicidal charges.
>>96835135reddit
>>96835135no
>>96835163Lore > Tabletop rules
>>96834842Alright. Let me review T'au vs Imperial Guard lore from "Blades of Damocles" and the Farsight Enclaves codex supplement"Kauyon" and especially "Montka"The average engagement between fire warriors and guardsmen ends with fire warriors killing a tremendous number of guardsmen. I have a quote here that says that during the Damocles Crusade, the guardsmen killed so many ELITE CATACHAN Jungle Fighters that the T'au were running out of ammo.In the second Agrellan campaign, the guardsmen used 18th-century wave tactics against the T'au firing positions. By the time the war concluded, more than half of the billions-strong Imperial guard force was lost.The only reversal of this is whenever the Tempestus Scions are involved. The Scions chew through Tau fire warriors in the Kill Team material.
>>96835191The T'au killed so many*
>>96835164>something some novelist made up is more relevant than the core part of the ipok
>>96835191Yeah but they're still wimpy though, melee combat is where men go to fight.
>>96834842>>96835208Yeah, a bunch of wimpy Tau can kill guardsmen in droves. If the Tau infantry are wiping out your infantry to that extent, then guardsmen are not, as OP says>the most elite common infantry of any action in the setting.And if you don't want to count Fire Warriors for whatever arbitrary reason, then you can also count Necron Warriors, who are stronger and tougher than guardsmen in melee, have better guns, and are harder to kill.
>>96834842>whines about guard being elite>posts coomer bait of a navy voidsmenyou should start by actually reading some books.
>>96834842Not that Abnett is the only authority, but I liked the angle he went with in the first Gaunt's Ghosts novel. Where it basically portrayed guardsmen as about on par with modern human military in terms of training. But its entirely up to the commander in charge how expendable they make the guard. Some Generals will spend guardsmen like pennies and others like dollars, sort of thing. Gaunt gained a lot of loyalty from trying to spend his men as dearly as possible, but the more important Generals didn't necessarily feel the same way.
>>96835135>they're there to to keep them from being used recklessly in brave but suicidal chargesI think you've gotten fluff for Commissars in Kreig units mixed up with Commissars in general.
Yes.Any being truly worthy of a God Emperor title would have transformed their entire population into their children, into primarchs, but if he had turned all of Earth into a population of primarchs, the entire cosmos would be totally conquered within 2 chapters, and you'd have nothing to moan about.As we saw in the first nail of the coffin, with the initial betrayal of the thunderwarriors, the writers aren't up to the task of imbuing the emperor with the amount of charisma needed to fully and wholly recruit every being and saving every soul, reducing the initial grand, if whimsical, scope of their story from a true messiah level portrayal of miraculous levels of science-wartime leadership and reverting it to the far easier slapstick minutiae of 'ok lets just kill everything'. It is a genre that caters to the understandably retarded monkeys of this planet, while leaving the more benevolent warmongers wishing for more.At the very, very least, the emperor would have given every human the ability to regenerate from life ending wounds, but uhh, I guess that isn't grimdank enough to sell plastic figures to manchildren.
>>96834842Ok retard
>>96835564I agree that the horus heresy books make the emperor into a huge moron, to the point where his failure is no longer tragic, but the explanation that all the various transhuman methods are too resource intensive to deploy on a wide scale and make civil wars more destructive is internally consistent.
>>96834842I get your issue with the guard, but why didn't you use a picture of the imperial guard for your post?
>>96834842no, I believe quality of guardsmen fluctuates by planet and the needs of nearby crusades. Cadia, Catachan, Krieg and where ever a guy who roles well recruits from make great guardsmen, at least of good quality. High fitness standards, high marksmen scores, technical skills good environmental awareness, aware and great morale.When times are desperate, masses get drafted from whatever stable population center they can get, drilled for a few weeks in the transport hold or makeshift training center, then thrown out with a commissar at the back in human wave attacks.
>>96835473>navy voidsmenThat's a 30k era Solar Auxiliary.
>>96834842How did your last game with the guard go? Care to show your painted minis?
>>96835750Why exactly do they no longer have these guys in 40k? is there an in-universe explanation?Because that looks like it might just as well be a 40k-era space suit. Vac suit. Void suit, whatever you want to call it.
>>96834842>how people think the Guard is just disposable chaff40k is junk fiction. They can be both, even talking about the same regiment, purely based on the writer's feelings.
>>96834842Why should I care about what a company says in their product adverts (40k lore) designed to encourage sales? Do you get upset at other made up adverts, like the colour of Ronald McDonald's hair? It's not real, get a life and spend your precious time focussed on more important things.
>>96835886I don't know the real reason but if I had to guess a lot of tech that made the Solar Auxilia such an effective force is gone.I will also blame the reintroduction of religion to the Imperium.
>>96835886No reason, solar aux was the pet project of one of the FW sculptors
>>96834842>they're going to be fighting Guardians, Firewarriors, and Boyz instead, the common chaff of those factionsSo the chaff fights the chaff. Seems pretty clear to me.
>>96834842Your special forces waifu is not representative of the average shitter with a flak jacket and a lasgun. No, they're not more elite than a guardian, or a space dwarf, or any dark eldar, or boyz, or necron warriors, or anyone really except for chaos cultists and genestealer cultists. You could argue they're similar to fire warriors but fire warriors are definitely better equipped and most likely better trained except vs elite regiments, which are already mostly outliers.
>>96834935By that logic Guard is not the common infantry of the Imperium, the various planetary defence forces and local militia are.>any time that craftworld is attackedSo basically never. And, again, they're still militia, not soldiers.
>>96835128>that needed preachers and commisars to motivate themSpace Marines got chaplains, who basically fill both of these roles.>slowly getting turned into heckin epic tactical veteransJust about all the major regiments have been masters of their craft since forever. Cadians been born and bred to be soldiers since childhood. Catachans are all hardened jungle fighters from a hostile world where you sink or swim. Tallarn masters of mobile warfare and flanking.
>>96835886>Why exactly do they no longer have these guys in 40k?Because GW wants to keep the model lines separate, which is why they had to make whole new Guard tanks for 30k and imported the old 40k drop pods into 30k, rather than having you use the new, nigh identical, 40k drop pods.>in-universeWhat say they're not still there? Reorganized into the Guard as void trooper regiments. GW just won't acknowledge them because that'd make Paul Marketing cry.>>96836440This. And FW couldn't be arsed to design proper Imperial Army, so now all of Imperial Army is Solar Auxilia and a token Legends PDF for Milita using whatever token units and rules the writers could be arsed to throw in there.
>>9683484240k as a whole has a problem with people framing the setting in a particular way. Imo when GW started pandering to this memetic view from the internet it became a bit stale and lost its bite.You're wrong about power levels, but you're right about them not being common chaff.
>>96834842>but they're hardly cannon fodderThat is both their function on the tabletop and their depiction in the lore. Yes, they are cannon fodder, they are what the Imperium sends and expends to hold back the tide of far, far worse threats like the Tyranids and Chaos. They aren't just sub-elite, Guardsmen are objectively worse than the basic units of other factions.>Gaunts have massive move rates and charges, better WS>Boyz have S/T4 and better WS>Guardians are literally Tempestus Scions but better Ld and wargear>Fire Warriors are better BS and far better wargearThe only faction that would be deploying basic grunt infantry on par with Guardsmen would be Chaos (traitor guard) and GSC. GSC are perhaps the only faction that Guardsmen would actually be at a strong advantage against in a direct fight due to GSC having (lorewise) worse weapons and less tanks. And of course, it's always Space Marines that save the day.
>>96835208Yeah melee combat is so manly and cool. Shame you're never getting there, though.
The Imperial Guard is so cannon fodder they have a specific unit whose purpose is to shoot soldiers when they try to run to keep the others in line. Come the fuck on man
>>96835886>Why exactly do they no longer have these guys in 40k? is there an in-universe explanation?The Solar Aux was already using difficult-to-reproduce wargear even in the Great Crusade era, it was constantly having to downgrade from standard issue volkite then to more advanced lasgun patterns. Their lore paints a grim picture that by the time of the Heresy, they were already basically a dying breed within the Imperial Army due to manpower and supply issues. It's not much of a stretch of the imagination to guess that in the post-Siege solar system, there simply was not enough of their wargear left to salvage nor enough manpower left to rebuild the Solar Auxilia. So when Guilliman reformed the Imperial Army into the Imperial Guard, he likely just deleted the Solar Auxilia as a sub-branch entirely. It would have been nearly impossible to rebuild at that point, and furthermore, the Imperial Guard had been designed to avoid becoming too powerful on a regimental basis, so the Solar Aux with their combined arms stratagems would have been gutted regardless even if they were kept along.
>>96835191Modern military sci-fi writers just kind of assume you can drop into a place and win through EPIC MANUEVER WARFARE while your dumb enemy hordes trip over each other because their commanders don't know how to fight an enemy that won't stand still.Ironically, the game itself now punishes anyone who isn't running out onto le circles in the middle of the table because that looks bad on stream.
>>96837248Even Cadians wield lasrifles and space suits shouldn't be that hard to come by in a world with vast space fleets prowling the stars. Sure, some of their fancy stuff might get downgraded more in line with the rest of the Guard, but I don't see why the troop type would go away. There's still plenty of void combat to be hand in the post-Heresy galaxy. And it's not like SA clashed too much with the Navy. For troops specialized in void combat, they're pretty light on the actual space part. Their only flyer is an up-gunned civilian light transport and they can't even use basic stuff like Dreadclaws that the Imperial Navy used as a boarding craft before ditching them. Not to forget that long rifles that limit your ability to fire on the move are not the best weapons for fighting in tight corridors of space stations and ships. Ah, but who am I to tell FW how to do their job?
>>96835191>Tau source doesn't make their enemies to be awesome and good at killing themMore news at 11.
>>96837286Warzone Taros is primarily from an Imperial perspective and is generally the most well thought-out and detailed conflict between the Imperium and Tau. Unsurprisingly, the more you think about Tau vs Imperial Guard the more obvious it is that the latter just do not have the equipment or doctrine to effectively fight Tau outside of overwhelming numbers.
>>96837276>but I don't see why the troop type would go away. Why was the Imperial Army made into the Imperial Guard, a self-crippled joke that was intentionally designed by Guilliman to be the antithesis of self-sufficiency and combined arms doctrine? Shit happened. The Heresy broke the Imperium in a literal sense, destroying massive amounts of tech and ruining half a million planets forever, but it also broke the minds of the Imperium's leaders into paranoid idiots who saw in every army and every Navy ship a potential Chaos rebellion just waiting to happen (yes I am including Gully boy in that). The Imperium's fear of Chaos ironically weakened it tremendously against that very threat by denying its own forces the doctrines needed to win.
>>96837303Yet somehow 19 regiments, 5 companies of marines and a fleet built around 12 capital ships was enough to push their shit in during the original Damocles Crusade, until writers had to make the Tau more awesome and have the kill billions of guardsmen and legions of titans. Or how they had to reverse the "titans are dumb, air superiority with combined arms is better" in order to sell all the big mechs the Tau were getting. I'm sure we won't be seeing any stories of Imperial Navy fighters taking out some supremacy suits to prove stupid big walkers don't belong on a sensible battlefield.
>>96837324Sure, tit-for-tat, the authors throw random wins and losses around that are ridiculous and unearned for every faction, Warzone Damocles is a good example of the Tau getting a retarded win and I hate those books. Looking at things like Taros that are much more reasonable, thought out and gone to in-depth shows why the Imperial Guard are at a massive disadvantage against the Fire Caste even in an unbiased story though.
>>96837324>Yet somehow 19 regiments, 5 companies of marines and a fleet built around 12 capital ships was enough to push their shit in during the original Damocles CrusadeEr... no? The Tau won the Damocles Crusade decisively and the Imperium's answer was "I guess we'll waste an ancient, irreplaceable superweapon to ignite space on fire (somehow) to stop them from expanding any further into Imperial space. That sure would have been useful against the Tyranids! lol"
>>96837340That's the Second Damocles Crusade, common misconception not helped by even authors forgetting the difference sometimes, such as bringing Third Sphere Expansion equipment into First Damocles Crusade stories.
>>96837322Are modern militaries crippled by Army, Navy and Air Force being separate branches and even within the Army having different regiments working together, rather than each regiment having everything they might ever need?>fear of ChaosVast majority of rebellions are not Chaos related. And most of the time forces are not fighting anyone, so keeping them from causing more trouble is good. The Imperium has endured for 10,000 years under this system.
>>96837340>Er... no?I suggest you read the 3e codex, pg. 58 to 60. The Imperials reached the Tau core worlds until the resistance became too much and the reinforcements they were promised had not yet arrived. Then Kryptman ordered everyone back (to fight the Tyranids) and a hasty peace was negotiated.
>>96835886I'm sure some guard look like that. there's a million different IG regiments (literally) and no two are alike
>>96837352>Are modern militaries crippled by Army, Navy and Air Force being separate branches and even within the Army having different regiments working together, rather than each regiment having everything they might ever need?Modern military branches cooperate and use combined arm doctrines, attaching companies to fighting forces to mix and match into a complete detachment that is prepared for most eventualities. The Imperium's military does not. Guilliman designed it that way on purpose to make sure that if an Armored Regiment goes traitor, it won't have any infantry support because all the infantry are in the infantry regiments somewhere else. It also won't have air support, or orbital support of course. >Vast majority of rebellions are not Chaos related.Guilliman didn't give a shit about secular rebellions. Read the fucking lore nogames.
>>96837488>Modern military branches cooperate and use combined arm doctrinesAs does the Imperial Guard. Imperial Guard codex contains units from infantry, artillery and armoured regiments, abhuman regiments, Officio Prefectum, Tempestus Scions, Adeptus Mechanicus, Imperial Navy, Adeptus Astra Telepathica, etc. all operating together. Regiments from different worlds are trained using the same manual to ensure that even if regiments come from different cultures, there's a unified framework that allows them to work together as a single army. What the separation ensures is that because they all have to cooperate, rarely does one person have full command of everything necessary to wage war (on the Imperium). Instead of one lord commanding all the ships, land forces and logistics necessary, there would need to be a larger conspiracy among several members all commanding a portion of that force.>Guilliman didn't give a shit about secular rebellions.Which would be weird considering during the Heresy, on top of all the Chaos corrupted forces, there were large numbers of opportunistic individuals seizing the moment to carve a small empire of their own across the galaxy. Rogue traders and lords in command of regions of space with armies loyal to them before the Imperium.>Read the fucking lore nogames.Strong words for someone who doesn't know basic codex lore.
>>96834842I don't know. I don't think about 40k lore, ever since the primaris situation. If GW doesn't respect or care about its own setting, how could I?
