I am wondering if 40k RPG has aging effects. Do characters get built in bonuses/penalties due to aging? I know that between Space Marines being dragons and Sayains, and not aging (if you are the best a human can be, and expected to live for most of a millennium, and die in glorious battle, why age?), important people having access to several means of rejuvenation/life extension, and most anyone not having a high probability of having to worry about living to be old, it might not matter, but I still wonder. This pointless question is sparked, from all possible things, by a pointless little quandary the DW book dropped in my lap. Please go look at p. 375, where the Guardsmen start? Now, my first thought was wondering why, when these books and the codices were doing a pretty nice job of appearing to lend each other text and facts, neither Guard officer has a refractor field, though the top officers (CCS Senior Officer, Creed, Straken, L. Commissars, Primaris Psykers, and Priests [Rosarius]) in the IG Codex do, but I overlooked that when I saw that, of the two officers given, the Senior Officer was inferior in a number of ways to his Field Officer counterpart, even if he should've done all the same kinds of stuff, a couple of decades prior. Senior is slower, has worse stats across the board, minus Per and Int (and for Per, he might not even be on field, so why be better there?), and is missing Talents, such as Air of Authority. Now, I could chalk some of this up to the easy answer; Senior lives in a Proteus-class command bunker, playing Eisenhower far away from any frontlines (maybe even still on a ship in high, geosynchronous orbit), while the Field Officer has "field" in his name because he's more of a Patton, leading his men with orders gathered from distant Senior. Spending hours and years at a time bent leaning over a table, pouring over old maps, endless data-slates, planning distant offensives could reduce some characteristics, or maybe Senior was never a ground-pounder to begin with (Star Wars is good for those officers), but I didn't know if, maybe, it was also a reflection of Senior's likely more advanced age, as his/her mind begins to fade, and their body aches for another rejuvenant, if they are deemed important enough to deserve one.

Is Senior just older, or is there a better reason his build is worse than his Junior counterpart, out in the field? Is Senior better in some way, beyond Wounds (he's not likely using), justifying his perceived (by me) higher rank?

As a second, how hard would it be for a Guard Officer of their ranks to acquire a refractor field? Could they use a variant of Dark Heresy's "pay out your bum prior to getting Influence", or Deathwatch's Requisition system (they are also a military organization)? Would they be able to justify the requisition? I came to appreciate that the most recent codex for IG made it so that their high-end HQ's had a bit more survivability, in order to keep order-barkers around, even as their Inquisitors (Codex GK) seemed to put down all means of Invul saves beyond Termie suits, which only Malleus has the pull for) and request summary execution from the enemy, but refractors are rather rare/expensive, and I don't know if the officers could justify it, when Munitorum would say "no, if you don't have this priceless relic, you'll be all the more likely to pay attention for threats, and when you die, because you are IG, so you will, we don't have to retrieve it", coupled with "what, the Proteus bunker/ship's bridge in orbit isn't good enough protection for you, Senior", and deny the acquisition. Makes one wish the Guard could be a bit like Rogue Trader, where their efforts garnered them real benefit, and they could turn that in for better stuff, sort of like their pension (you can never retire, but we'll give you better stuff, so that you can continue to better serve Him on Terra).