LuciusT said:

Yeah, but the fighting environment makes a huge difference. In WW1, it was normal humans vs. normal humans. Nothing extraordinary. In 40k, even if you face humans, they are usually chaos-infected fanatics or super-desperate rebels. And facing humans is the best case scenario. How could you possibly retain your humanity here? How could you act accoridng to positive moral standards? The WW1 soldiers had an easy job to do this, but personally, I can't see the guardsmen doing the same…

AtoMaki said:

You ask some interesting questions. To the first, how cold you possibly retain your humanity, I would answer: you can't. I expect an average Imperial Guard veteran is, by any reasonable measure, simply insane. I intend to make extensive use of the Fear and Insanity rules when I get my Only War campaign going. As for acting according to positive moral standards, I think that depends on the moral standards being impressed upon the line guardsman… which do not need to be reflected by the moral standards of their command officiers. There is a practical military advanatge to training "support your squad mates" as a value. In fact, my admitted civilian understanding is that this is one of the big things they strive to drive home in modern military training. I can definately see the Imperial Guard preachers and commisars driving home, violently even, ideals of squad unity, espirt de corp and such in their troopers. After all, you're facing against insane heretics, unspeakable alien horrors and worst… all you have is your squad mates and the rightious cause to defend Humanity against these monsters. 

Meanwhile, the command staff who almost all have enough Insanity Points to suffer the Delusion "Rightiousness" (page 307) - which I feel is standard for high ranking members of the Imperium- believe in doing anything including sacrificing the lives of millions for that rightous couse… and are hated by the rank and file troopers for it.

LuciusT said:

Doh, this sounds pretty cool :D!

Oh, and I think you brought up a very good point with the WW1 parallel. But hell, it is quite hard to actually compare the two, or to compare any IRL thing to something from the 40k as i don't think that any of us ever fought against a walking fungus killing machine ;).  

LuciusT said:

That's a great way of seeing things. I think I'll go with something like that for most of my "normal" regiments.

AtoMaki said:

No, but I think charging headlong into the fire of weapons against which you have no realistic defense, watching your friends die by the thousands around you, all for the sake of a shell pocked, blood soaked plot of land unthinkably far from home which means nothing to you, simply because some distance, faceless authority figure demands you do so "for God and Country" is about as a close as modern human experience can get. 

LuciusT said:

Yes, but it will be still a human thing. Both sides will possess roughly the same understanding of morality and values. Now, for a guardsmen, you should feel yourself lucky if your actual opponent even have a distant comprehension of the morality and values you have. It's not like a guardsman can just have christmas with the Iron Warrior CSM in the opposite trench. IfyouknowwhatImean ;). 

AtoMaki said:

Yes but that's why the Imperium has such a xenophobic attitude to keep humans away from filthy xeno immorality.  In fact I would imagine that facing down enemies that where not human in nature would make you bond even closer to the fellow guardsmen around you, this fits in with the Imperium's belief that humans are in all ways superior to xenos and the chaos corrupted. 

Edit: People did lose their humanity at times even in WW1 but it was always directed at the enemy, not your brother on your left and right.  And I think GW must have drawn some inspiration from WW1 I mean side sponsons on a tank! 

No offense to AtoMaki, but I'd consider that kind of behavior to be what some people call "Grim Derp". Something pointlessly or absurdly grrimdark for the sake of grimdark. I know some brutal GMs who would actually use that tactic against you IC--the Commissar suspects your party since all the new people keep dying far above the average casualty rate in the local area.

I do get Comrades are meant to be red-shrits,  but I'd rather have pseudo-NPCs than talking buffs to your statlines. Say, they attack if you have at least [X] DoS, and if it's an automatic attack, merely add damage/pen up to the RoF, where the attack does an average amount of damatge by default.

No offense to AtoMaki, but I'd consider that kind of behavior to be what some people call "Grim Derp". Something pointlessly or absurdly grrimdark for the sake of grimdark. I know some brutal GMs who would actually use that tactic against you IC--the Commissar suspects your party since all the new people keep dying far above the average casualty rate in the local area.

I do get Comrades are meant to be red-shrits,  but I'd rather have pseudo-NPCs than talking buffs to your statlines. Say, they attack if you have at least [X] DoS, and if it's an automatic attack, merely add damage/pen up to the RoF, where the attack does an average amount of damatge by default.

Frankie said:

Welcome in the Warhammer 40k universe :D! Where the shiny knights slays some young nuns and cover themselves with the girls' blood for no other reason just because it is grim dark… But seriously, this is a canon story!

AtoMaki said:

It's also one of those canon stories that most people I know agree to that it is grim derp at it's strongest.

Musclewizard said:

And the universe is full with these stories…. 

AtoMaki said:

There are also stories that are about hope and humanity.  Depends on the author I suppose.

AtoMaki said:

Yeah, and I'm not alone in thinking it's also one of the most awful Grimderp stories.  Matt Ward is a serious blight on 40k canon so I tend to ignore any fluff he writes (his rabid hate of SoB and love of Ultramarines isn't a well kept secret either). Grimderp is just bad, though. Grimdark for the sake of grimdark while keeping a straight face is just silly and forced. It doesn't make the setting more "cool" or interesting, just dumber.

Stole a rule from Rogue Trader for our Comrades, the rating rating.  If you give a Comrade an order he has a % chance of getting it right.  So a Incompentent Comrade only has 20% chance but an Elite has 60%.  Gives them some autonomy, and the unit can make a logistics test to try and get better comrades at penalties (or even a bonus to get an incompentent in the field if they need warm bodies).  Still trying it out but seems to be working.