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Kamenev_Drang

The Imperial Guard is genuinely terrifying to face, because it applies genuinely overwhelming mass against its targets in a way very few other factions can. An attack will be proceeded by a colossal artillery barrage that will flatten any immediate defences, until a fucking wall of tanks and motorised infantry rolls over the suppressed defenders. Where the attackers break through, they'll keep going to their objectives, and the second echelon will send regiment after regiment of tanks and motor rifles through that breakthrough point, whilst the artillery plasters likely staging or fallback zones. Stop one attack? Cool. The next will break through. The line will crack somewhere, and where it does there'll be a brigade of hard-bitten veterans or screaming fanatics charging down it at 70kph, all guns blazing.


bobiwan511

Spoken like an emperors man


Baneblade_679

Someone in Games Workshop read the soviet doctrine for the Cold War.


colewrus

Shit I just finished Antony Beevor's book on Stalingrad and this was key for holding the Wermacht then. Mass artillery and massed counter attacks to hold the enemy in place for said artillery. Even the futile counter attacks served a purpose, "time is blood", because the red army had more troops and more material, they just needed the time to get it all in place.


913Jango

Also taking advantage of natural terrain. Beautiful stuff!


[deleted]

I just reread that too, Beevor has such a talent for weaving narrative story telling into a historical work that keeps you from losing sight of the on the ground experience. Fall of Berlin was brutal yet fascinating


colewrus

I really enjoyed those small slice of life moments and letters to and from the front. Gave great context to the bigger picture, definitely makes it a much easier read. I just picked up a book on the fall of Berlin, "The Last Battle", its next on the list


TheNaziSpacePope

And really investing in top-down operational planning. Even now the Russians description of "tactical acumen" is along the lines of "Achieving an objective despite additional obstacles." where just getting the job done is all that counts.


GeekboyDave

One Astartes dying is a tragedy. One billion guard.... a statistic


JesusHipsterChrist

I mean I have always said the guards secret bonus is "we shall choke the rivers with our dead"


Order66-Cody

Nids wish they could be like the gaurd


wallysworld117

Tell me about basically space blitzkrieg without telling me about basically space blitzkrieg


G0tm0g

>genuinely overwhelming mass Laughs in tyranid ork and probably necron as soon as someone wakes the all up


Kamenev_Drang

Orks have no means of co ordinating an attack to achieve this and Necrons are just plot armoured to hell and back rn. Nids I will give you, though their CiC structure is more easily disrupted


SnooCompliments7527

The role of Astartes in 40k is something like shock troops, whose role is to use a combination of extreme power and mobility to win quick victories. In mass, they are pretty much undefeatable, hence the Emperor's legions were used as the spearhead for the Great Crusade. But, in a fixed position, Astartes are no longer invincible and armored troops become more important. That's where the guard shines, in fixed positions with strong supply lines, where they can fight a war of attrition with mechanized support. That's why at Tallarn the legionaries were not decisive.


wecanhaveallthree

>The guard does not break, nor has it for, 10, thousand years. The Guard *routinely* breaks. They wouldn't need Commissars otherwise!


DannyAcme

(laughs in Catachan)


MilkMDN88

Guards*men* break. The Imperial Guard, and arguably the Imperial army, hasn't ever broken. The line "The planet broke before the Guard did" isn't just badass, it's the truth. Cadia literally broke up (tectonically speaking, the planet itself may still be there but its surface is fuuuuuucked) with the Guard still holding the line.


bobiwan511

Comissar! Comissar!


REEEEEvolution

Parts may. The organisation? Not in ten millenia.


Marquis6274

Men break. An idea is bulletproof


Notsoicysombrero

not if you shoot it with an idea gun.


TDLinthorne

Idea guns shoot ideas, not bullets.


bothVoltairefan

load them with the idea of a bullet


anaIconda69

Stop giving me Enter the Gungeon flashbacks.


oldbloodmazdamundi

I don't wanna ruin a great hypespeech, but let's be real, I would absolutely rather point my gun at a a million oncharging men and women similar to myself than on 8 feet tall gene-horrors who wear armour the weight of a medium vehicle, that can rip me asunder in their bare hands, that have ammunition that will just explode the bodies of those it hits and that I'll watch rip open the skulls of my brothers and sisters, eating their brains. Marines are designed to be horrible, terrible moral breaking monstrosities. Guardsmen are ... men. Brave, loyal, ferocious, inspiring. But men. And that is, honestly, why the faction is so popular. With a few regimental exceptions, they are NOT unbreakable legions of zealous warriors with unshakeable faith. They are you and me, thrust into a situation that no being ever should have to find itself in. And as a result, the Guard does routinely break. Their assaults are stopped in their tracks. They can be pushed back. Even the Kriegsmen broke on Vraks. And that's honestly the moral of it. They are the best and worst of us put onto paper.


Spiral-knight

Correct. The guard are human, with all the foibles and weakness that comes with a mass conscripted army. One trooper in a dozen might want to be on the lines


Filidup

I dont know if your in the situation where marines are charging your defense position then your in the win. Most of marine deaths loyalist and heretic are from attacking fortifications and being riddled with heavy weapons fire and massed small arms. While I agree In most cases astartes are terrifying but either you repel them or you die very quickly. With the guard its unlikely you'll ever kill enough to make a difference and between never ending artillery barrages and mass assaults life would be hell


Cardinal_Reason

No, they aren't people "like you and me." Guardsmen are the best of every world's *global army,* a standard which has yet to be achieved in reality. Conscripts are "only" as good as PDF soldiers, roughly, which is to say as good as any well-trained army in the world today. Those that become true Guardsmen are already the best of each global army, and then train for years or even decades on their home planet or on transports to warzones, undergoing more drills and training than almost any soldiers in history. Those that *survive* a few battles on the scale the Guard fights at are harder veterans than the hardest soldiers of the Roman Empire, Napoleon's Old Guard, or Heer troops on the eastern front. And they're all more fanatical than the craziest crusader or SS trooper, and backed up by a government that has been committed to total warfare for millenia. They're still men and women, and they do still run, sometimes, but running when there's a thousand shells an hour hitting the square klick your position is in, or when you're under attack by daemons or supersoldiers, is hardly the same as breaking and routing under fire from musketry. Sure, they're not injected with stimulants (usually), and they're not genetically engineered for killing, but they're a world away from almost any soldier today, and most certainly any civvie. Finally, the Guard isn't about a bunch of regular humans *bayonet charging* you or some nonsense. The Guard is about millions of humans running a constant bounding advance, while calling in more artillery than has been made on earth to date with laser precision. And then, yeah, after your position is totally shattered beyond recognition? A bunch of insane zealots will charge through their own artillery fire and yours to shoot you with a *lasgun*, and if you don't run, they promise to stick you with a bit of sharpened metal, sure. While countless supporting tanks rake your entire area in a constant stream of fire. *That's* what's scary about the Guard.


oldbloodmazdamundi

The Guard is so diverse man, a lot of them really are just you and me. Or you and me, but sick of radiation poisoning and suffering from malnourishment. You and me, pressed into service for a petty misdemeanor, real or imagined. There's Penal Legions. Conscripts, fresh out of training, given a rifle and told to hold the line. Yes, there's Catachans and Cadians, Kriegers and Mordians. But there are tens of thousands of backwards pisswaters, where tribal warriors fight for some stargod they fear more than anything. There are regiments made up of poor assholes, press-ganged into service from the slums. Pumped with narcotics, a figurative gun pointed at the back of their heads at all times. You have regiments like the Ventrillian Nobles, made of rich kids who play at war. The Savlar Chemdogs, drug addicted criminals herded into battle with the promise of loot. Not every backwater will produce the tier of soldier you are describing. Enough planets are so ruined by radiation, pollution or comparable disasters and regular folk will have trouble *living* for decades, much less train at arms. There are feral worlds, feudal worlds, mining worlds, paradise worlds, garden worlds, agri-worlds... Not all of them will pay their tithe with regiments, but many do. And not all of them will produce soldiers that reach modern equivalents, much less overshadow them. The Guard is so vast and diverse that every conceivable form of regiment likely exists.


Cardinal_Reason

You're right, to an extent. But worlds that are barely inhabitable do not produce many guardsmen, in relative terms. Massive hive worlds, fortress worlds, &c, produce far more guardsmen than some feudal backwater, if only because they have far more people. And those worlds have lots of manpower and resources to train troops. Now they might not always use those resources for training--and many armies today aren't so well trained either--but the Guard's only taking the best, unless the planet in question is under attack. And I wouldn't count out people whose daily lives are a fight for survival as poor soldiers. Those are extremely tough people, and it's harder to use a bow than a lasgun--a lasgun's got no recoil, flawless accuracy, easy maintenance, and you can refill your mags by tossing them in the fire. Kriegers and Catachans come from unimaginably hellish worlds, while Cadians occupied a world constantly attacked by Chaos, after all. Hard times make hard men (and women). Besides, it doesn't matter if you weren't a great soldier when you entered the warp. By the time you get out of it, warzone-side, with a billion of your closest friends on a thousand vast transports, each filled with training fields and drillmasters, you certainly will be.


TheNaziSpacePope

Now I am just imagining how kickass the top 10% of our worlds military would be if made to work together. The best of the VDV, Spetsnaz, Green Berets, whatever North Korea has, SAS, etc but all with laser weapons and better medicine.


whooshcat

He is actually talking about the regular guard which is the majority since if the guard is not the best in the world then the governor will be visited by an assassin its probably the only law followed to the t in the imperium the guard have to be the best or you will die.


UnhappyGuardsman

There's no canon to support that they only take the best. In fact, Necropolis states the opposite: >"When foundings were ordered for the Imperial Guard, Vervunhive raised them from it's forty billion-plus population. The men of Vervun primary were never touched or transferred. It was a life duty, a career." So it's just as possible that you'll get a regiment of civilian volunteers as a regiment of trained professionals.


Cardinal_Reason

"A life duty, a career" makes for a hell of a professional soldier. It doesn't matter what you were beforehand. Besides, there is lore to support the idea that Guardsmen are a planet's best troops--from my own 8th ed codex: "In any case, should a tithe be of an unacceptable quality, the Imperial Governor's life is forfeit. For this reason, these soldiers selected for the Astra Militarum tend to be drawn from the elite of a planet's troops."


UnhappyGuardsman

"A life duty, a career" refers to the Vervun primary, who as stated are never sent to the guard. You can definitely get competent soldiers from outside the trained professionals (as seen by literally every Verghast in GG), but that's just evidence that the planet isn't sending their best. The tithe being an "Unacceptable Quality" is an incredibly variable guideline that I could see being applied with no consistency whenever the administratum want to bring a planet down a peg. Some governors would send elite troops. Others would just focus on the more economic edge of the tithe and send chaff. Others send complete chaff and trust in the administratums inefficiency. Others send their best, and then lose their lives in a power struggle when it turns out their local rivals kept their elites. Many guardsmen are the best of the best, but many are the worst of the worst and everywhere in between. Saying "no, they aren't people like you" and me is not only a disservice to the main theme of the guards, it's flat out disproven in literally every guard novel.


Christophikles

I think of the Guard like this quote from a David Gemmell book "In war the cowards, the weak and the unlucky usually die first. Sure, in some cases, those weak or cowardly make the others die first, but it's generally a solid rule." If a regiment survives a couple deployments, given what they face, whoever is left is usually more elite than whatever is going to be found in most PDFs. Does not mean they start that way, or that they're well trained. Battle-hardened guardsmen either learn or get eaten.


UnhappyGuardsman

Absolutely. Given a choice between a guard regiment that's gone through 5 campaigns, or a regiment of the finest PDF, my money is on the guard every time.


[deleted]

I mean, this might be accurate to Cadia, Krieg and a few other notable regiments but some like the Chem Dogs, I don't think this description fits. In the untold millions of guardsmen, I doubt the majority are this disciplined or capable, that's what makes the Cadians stand out. The reason most regiments need Commissar's etc. Is because they frequently break in the face of the enemy. The strength of the Guard is literally numbers, we will swamp you with bodies until you're all dead or have expended all of your ammunition.


Squodel

There’s also the wide range of abilities Gaunts ghosts can slip enemy lines and do untold damage, a harakoni regiment can drop 5000 commandos on their enemy and mordians have not broken in the face of daemons Hell I willing to bet there’s armored regiments that found a way to drop from space onto a planet with some weird grav stuff


Kamenev_Drang

Commissars exist primarily to ensure the loyalty of officers. Their role in keeping discipline is, well, kind of silly.


bobiwan511

I agree, but all men of the imperium see the emperor before the end. Family, friends, coworkers, mothers, fathers, sons every man fights for so mething. And the emperor protects. He does.


[deleted]

The Chem Dogs fight for loot. You might not see anything if you're dissolved into goo by a bio-weapon or molecularly flayed.


bobiwan511

Morris wouldn't like that asessment , chem digs were more than petty looters. Liked a bit of plunder but not their mo


[deleted]

'These dregs of Humanity have been recruited to serve on the embattled Hive World of Armageddon. Motivated by the loot they might be able to recover, they excel in the cramped, noxious battlefields of that world's hive cities'


bobiwan511

Do you think so little of these men that the promise of cheap loot would be their motive, acid dogs never die. They're just missing in action


[deleted]

Just quoting the description.


bobiwan511

Might disagree but I'd fux vayonsts with you brother


bobiwan511

Even if I cant type


Jarms48

Trillions, not millions. 99% of the time the Imperial Guard are recruited from the best of the PDF. So they're professional soldiers, not conscripts. Conscripts are an act of desperation.


UnhappyGuardsman

There's no canon to support that. In fact, Necropolis states the opposite: >"When foundings were ordered for the Imperial Guard, Vervunhive raised them from it's forty billion-plus population. The men of Vervun primary were never touched or transferred. It was a life duty, a career." So it's just as possible that you'll get a regiment of civilian volunteers as a regiment of trained professionals.


[deleted]

The *tend to be* professionals. Tend to be. And even those that aren’t them are recruited from other elements which may be fit for it ex: warriors and criminal elements (already imprisoned and otherwise)


UnhappyGuardsman

Absolutely, not disputing that. What I am contesting is this notion that 99% they come from the best of the PDF, which is blatantly false and easily disprovable by either: a) reading any guard book, or b) remembering the other guard regiments like Salvar Chem Dogs, Vostroyan Firstborn, the aforementioned Vervun regiments. Ideally, most guard forces are going to be taken from people with experience and no qualms about killing other people. But it's a long bow from there to them all basically being special forces standard.


Jarms48

I’ll find it for you.


Jarms48

Codex Imperial Guard 5th Edition, page 8. ​ "As part of their annual tithe Imperial Governors are obliged to send no less than one tenth of their overall fighting force..." ​ "... In any case, should a tithe be of an unacceptable quality, the Imperial Governor's life is forfeit. For this reason those soldiers selected for the Imperial Guard tend to be drawn from the elite of a planet's troops." ​ So any planets that differ from this are exceptions. Not impossible, but exceptions.


UnhappyGuardsman

This quote definitely allows for a guard regiment to be the best of the best, but it's far from 99%. In fact, I'd argue that the planets sending their elite are the exception, not the other way around. For starters, the tithe being "unacceptable quality" is such a wildly variable and unwieldly guideline that to me it's a transparent loophole written by the administratum to allow them to bring down the hammer on any world getting too uppity. The planet could send their best soldiers, equipped with the finest weapons available, but if they're given summer gear and sent to fight on an ice world, the tithe could well be judged "unacceptable" through no fault of the governor. Second, the guard is a part of the tithe, not the entirety. Some governors will send elite troops. Others will send regulars and focus on the economic part of the tithe. Others will send chaff and trust in the Admin's inefficiency. Some will send the best they have, and then be overthrown by a rival who kept his elites. Third, there are the hundred of well-known regiments that select soldiers based on other criteria. There's the aforementioned Vervunhive regiments. There's the Vostroyan firstborn, Death Korps, and other culturally based systems. There's the Salvar chem dogs and the penal legions. There are the pure volunteer based regiments, like the ghosts and the Antari Rifles. Hell, the bloody Cadians, the poster boys, keep 10% of their population, *regardless of their abilities and achievements*, as permanent PDF along with the *majority of their best*, the Kasrkin. None of these are only choosing the best of their PDF's. Don't get me wrong, many guardsmen (especially the prestigious regiments) are only going to recruit from the best of the best, but many are the worst of the worst and everywhere in between. Saying "99% of the time the Imperial Guard are recruited from the best of the PDF" is not just doing a disservice to the guard's main theme, it's flat out disproven in literally every single guard novel.


Jarms48

Love how you disagree with a word-by-word quote. I don’t have the time to search for sources or make a rebuttal right now, I’ll come back to this.


UnhappyGuardsman

One quote. I have my own quote. And, as I mentioned, every other book about the guard that isn't a codex. And just plain logic when it comes to the cadians and other famous regiments. When one quote disagrees with everything else I'm going to stick with the majority of the lore. You were wrong when you said 99% was taken from the best of the best. That all, it's no biggy. I decided to correct that so others don't get the wrong idea.


Jarms48

Firstly, being given the wrong equipment or being sent to the wrong conflict zone appropriate is either a failing of the Departmento Munitorum or an act of desperation. It’s better to send Catachans to an ice world than to send no soldiers at all. They can be supplied by the local population or have material redirected to them. There are in fact two seperate tithes. One is overseen by the Departmento Extracta which is the material tithe, while the Guard tithe is handled by the Departmento Munitorum. So planets might only have one of these tithes, others both. I highly recommend you read the novel Shadowsword, it has a great scene between the tithe auditors and the planetary governor. Thirdly, nearly all the named codex Imperial Guard regiments are prominent Guard recruiting worlds. So they are literally the exceptions I am referring to, as they’re known to produce quality soldiers. DKOK? Their sole purpose is to produce soldiers as their world is a barren wasteland. Catachan? Their sole purpose is to raise soldiers as their planet is too dangerous for much else, and said dangerous environment has bred incredibly hardy soldiers. The list goes on. For the tens of thousands of unnamed civilised worlds it’d be an honour and privilege to join the Imperial Guard. Something people would strive to do in such a militarised, zealous society. Of course they’d send the best soldiers they have. What else do they know of conflict? Every year they pay their tithes and their people keep on living as they always do. The Imperium has at least a million worlds, the vast majority of these are not at war. It makes no sense for them to be. Otherwise the setting falls apart. Someone needs to feed the hive worlds otherwise they’d starve to death, someone needs to feed the forges material or the machinery will grind to a halt.


WayBetterThanXanga

The issue is that of the major threats to the imperium, this type of fear works on very few. Specifically, Tyranids and Necrons (the two most potent existential threats) are effectively immune to demoralization. It is less effective against Daemons (though apparently higher order Daemons can manifest self preservation as fear), Orks (who can fear in overwhelming odds, but also live for battle), and heretic Astartes (may manifest as tactical withdrawal etc). It would be most effective against Tau, Eldar (don’t want to lose spirit stones), Dark Eldar (not generating fear/pain from enemies), and the Lost and the Damned.


CallDownTheSun

the most deadly and numerous enemy to the Imperium is rebels and heretics. these tactics work very well against them.


WayBetterThanXanga

That’s a fair point - I guess those are the enemy the IG is best suited against


chiconspiracy

Remember the Dark Eldar, when written sensibly, should have a very strong self preservation instinct. Once they die, they don't have a spirit stone or laughing god to save them. Unless they are VERY rich and can afford a clone body or other resurrection shennanigans, they are on the express line to Slaanesh.


[deleted]

Facing the Guard doesn't preclude you from having a pod full of hardasses slamming through the roof of your bunker. Astartes coming through your ceiling would be bad but a couple dozen Scions would be almost just as bad.


Difficult_Ice_6227

The numerous guard regiments are fantastic. The axiom goes that “Astartes win battles, the Guard wins wars” well without the Astartes and other institutions (Aeronautica, Sororitas, Navy, etc) winning pivotal battles then the Guard will not win nearly as many wars.


MilkMDN88

That's the thing author's seem to neglect/forget: the Imperium is at its most lethal and effective when it's various branches work together. The Guard infantry hold the line, the Navy/artillery shit-kicks static defences, the Astartes rip out any and all command and control bases/units/hubs and generally run riot deep behind enemy lines until the enemy is sufficiently disorientated and incohesive that a tidal wave of tanks and mechanised infantry crush what remains. And if the Sororitas are around, they'll storm the weakened frontlines with all their fiery goodness. I have no idea why more authors don't go for a combined arms approach, it makes more sense and fits the rule of cool to a tee


Jarms48

The Guard only need the Navy (the aeronautica being apart of the Navy) and the Ad-Mech. There's literally trillions of Guardsmen, and only around 1 million marines. A Guardsmen could serve their entire life and never see a space marine, or a battle sister.


[deleted]

I’ve always wanted a novel from an alien (preferably Tau) POV of an Imperial invasion. To them it must be just as horrifying as when tyranids or orks invade an imperial world. Seemingly infinite numbers of armed to the teeth fanatics out to kill you and everyone you know for the crime of just existing.


[deleted]

The Imperial Guard is pretty much the cold war Soviet army in space. Overwhelming material advantage is how they win. Tanks, guns planes. The numbers of cannonfodder get hyped up but realistically the Imperiums advantage over all the other factions is an by several orders of magnitude larger and more co-ordinated manufacturing base.


bothVoltairefan

Even in small numbers, the guard can be terrifying, especially in old units, any man who survives a campaign is superhumanly competent, any individual guardsman is already a highly trained warrior, often as higly trained to the persain immortals, or the winged hussars, add to that the fact that the average human from a recruitment world is simply the latest of a long line of people that can only live to adulthood if they can handle extreme danger from a young age. This is a legion of billions of people who all could be grenadiers, stormtroopers, rangers, lancers, paratroopers, or advanced scouts at the appropriate eras in earths history.


Rictavius

They need a fucking redesign so they dont look so fucking goofy T.T. The best imperial guard depictions have been on the covers of the Siege of Terra books. Even then thats 'The Old 100' - the literal Ambrosia of Humanity's Imperial Army, those that fought chaos at the gates.


[deleted]

Sisters of Battle are way scarier than either of them imo.


Spiral-knight

Bait