Hello all, this is my first post, so I will apoligize for any mistakes and so forth. I am a DM of many years and now just starting a Dark Heresy Campaing.

One of the odd things I have trouble with until recently, was The Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer. One of my players is a Guardsman and he choose the uplifter as one of his gear (sounded better than a exploding colar to him). We didn't know what it was for awhile since it didn't get mention in the core rules again. Finally found out what it was in the players handbook. Now my question, even tho it dosen't effect rules with bonuses but just a roleplaying hook, would it make sense for some bonus to a guardsman in combat with some threats describe in the book. Or would that already be figured into the characters career stats compared to a normal citizens when dealing with a threat?

http://www.blacklibrary.com/pdf/infantrymans-primer-damocles.pdf

Read a bit of it and tell me it makes you a better fighter

Well, the Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer is available from the Black Library. As with all Black Library publications, it's probably up to you if you want to accept it as 'canon' or if you want to include it in your game. However, regarding your question, the 'real' thing is full of misinformation about xenos. There is factual information about first-aid, weapon maintenance and Imperial tanks, however. So I would say that it is not helpful in combatting Xenos (in fact, it might be harmful if none of the acolytes have any real experience combatting them).

If you're the kind of GM that requires in-character explanations for the advances characters take, you could allow a guardsman with a Primer to take the medicae skill, the street-fighting talent, etc. as regular or elite-advances with no additional in-character requirements. That's probably what I would do. Aside from that, it's good for role-playing fun.

"Yeah, guys, it says here Eldar tanks are extreme fragile and can be taken down with lasguns! Let's get 'em!"

Orks are weak and can be taken down in melee by any god fearing Imperial Human. Tau can't shoot straight. Yep that helps me fight them.

Using it as the reasoning for elite advancements sounds good. Of the top of my head, that would be: Medicae, Demolitions (it explains how to create simple booby traps), awareness (scouting and stuff).

On the other hand side, several of the little inaccuracies might prove very entertaining...

I used the Uplafting Primer as a reason for my guardsman to have medicae as a bisic skill. The primer pretty much shows what a Guardsman should know after basic training. For better or for worse.

As a player I have both verisons of the Uplifting Primer in hand. So, I just show the GM what section my Guardsman is refering to and see it it helps the situation. It could be bad for encountering some Xenos, becaue my guardsman would treat dangerous aliens like they are weak. Making Forbidden Lore (Xeno) rolls based on the Primer would have funny results.

I think my favourite parts of the Uplifting Primer is the picture of a Genestealer with 'puny claws' and what to do if you find yourself thrown off a ship into hard vacuun

Well...

honestly, I assume the printed and sold uplifting primer to be more of an amusement for us, the customers and WH40K fans, then a real example for the IIUP given to the IG. It is hard to believe that misinformation that is that obivious ("genestealers are slow and sluggish") would be given as a soldiers instruction. While I think the direction is accurate ("some good information, but loads of propaganda and a lot of wrong info"), I assume that a "real" IIUP would not be that "over-the-top".

With that assumption, I would reason that a pc "armed" with a primer could get a +5 bonus to some checks, like most of the "Common Lore" and some of the more "practical" approaches. But only if

- the pc isn´t already "skilled" in this field
- the pc has the time to re-read the instructions carefully or have re-read them a number of hours ago equal to his IN bonus
- the skill in question is neither "Forbidden" nor "Scholastic".

The first rule is to reflect the fact that the information in the primer is "rather basic". A "skilled" person will already haves that knowledge (reflected in his "skill") and will not benefit from it any further.

The second rule is to reflect the fact that "acting on the primer" is like "reading the f********* manual!". You do not have clue, so you have to read. After a while, your brain is occupied with someting else (perhabs stress from being shot by mutants/heretics/xenos). If you would have "memorized" all the steps, one could assume that you are "skilled".

The third rule is to reflect the inaccuracy of the material when it comes to xenos and anything else. Perhaps an IN check allows to identify a xenos with the help of the primer, but thats it. The information is to misleading to gain any kind of benefit from it.

My two cents. I am aware that I am not the law.

I assume that a "real" IIUP would not be that "over-the-top".

Well, considering that the WH40K universe is ...

Gregorius21778 said:

That's possible, but tbh, my view on it is that the printed and sold book is what the Guard are supposed to have as well - given that they're only human and that the vast number of enemies of mankind could overwhelm them with fear, then a little bit of uplifting propganda and lies would be the best way to get them to fight in certain death situations

Actually I think the IIUP is exactly what the guardsmen are issued with. Yeah OK most of it is funny and/or stupid, but look at it this way:

You are average Joe and fresh out of boot camp training. Sent to fight the Tyranids. If your commander says "These are Genestealers. They can dodge bullets and are strong enough to pull a Leman Russ to pieces." I think Joe would need some new trousers rather quickly.

BUT

If your commander says "These are Genestealers. They are short, weak, slow and are sent at the enemy en-masse to make up for their lack of ability." All of a sudden Joe grabs his lasgun and rushes out to fight them.

Knowledge is Power and the common man doesn't need to know the truth because the truth is bloody scary. Guardsmen aren't known for there bravery and keeping morale up through mass ignorance is a perfectly legitimate method.

VarniusEisen said:

True, but this ignorance won't survive the first 10 seconds of actual combat and underestimating an enemy like the tyranids is a pretty sure way to die.

Also if your newbie survives, he will be pretty disenchanted by being told obvious lies.

Imperial Guardsmen are not expected to live very long. The ones that do most likely become very cynical and delight in tormenting fresh recruits. Guardsmen are given rifles and heavy weapons and are expected to point at the enemy and shoot. The soldiers in their army are not expected to function at the level that our modern day armies do. The goal with IG's is to flood the field with lasguns and overwhelm their opponents with las fire.

Most everything on the battlefield can out shoot or out fight a guardsmen one on one. This is why they need the primer and their training. It gives them a false sense of hope and superiority. If they live through their first fight with xenos or chaos, they quickly learn how good the primer actually is. Then they trust in their comrades to get them through.

Massed las fire can win the day. They just need to see it in action to understand.

Patrick said:

In all fairness, being anywhere on the same planet as a Tyranid invasion is a pretty sure way to die. Knowing the truth about how dangerous they are doesn't change the fact that even the least Termagant is a savage, relentless and utterly fearless two hundred kilo beast covered in chitinous armour and wielding a weapon that spews acid-blooded, flesh-eating beetles at you. Nor does it impinge upon the fact that there are several dozen of those things (at best; several thousand or several million at worst) bearing down on your position, their tiny feral minds filled only with thoughts of murder.

The galaxy is a really scary place, and the enemies of man are terrifyingly lethal... irrespective of whether or not you know that they're terrifyingly lethal. In some of the fiercest warzones, the life expectancy of an imperial guardsman is measured in hours, the limits of "acceptable casualties" numbering in the hundreds of thousands a day. In such cases, knowledge or lack thereof is the difference between dying on the front lines where you might make some tiny difference... or dying to a Commissar's bolt pistol for cowardice.

Ignorance is strength.

Also if your newbie survives, he will be pretty disenchanted by being told obvious lies.

That's what Commissars are for...

Beyond all that, the Primer isn't the only piece of information a new Imperial Guardsman will recieve. Different variants of the primer exist all over the galaxy, containing different information as appropriate to the regiment or regiments it's being published for (you don't give jungle survival tips to a 14-year-old guardsman from Catachan, for example - if he's passed the age of 12, he already knows more about surviving in jungles than any book could teach him), and specific information is provided in the form of pamphlets and supplementary booklets (which are often referred to in the text of the Primer).

A guardsman in a regiment being send to quell a planetary rebellion doesn't need to know that the average Ork is over 2m tall and weighs 190+ kilos, with instinctive combat prowess and a foul temper. He doesn't need to know that the Eldar have reflexes more than twice as fast as his and guns that shoot hypervelocity razorblades and are led by precognitive witches. He needs to know what is relevant to the warzone he's going to be in...

Patrick said:

And that's why the veterans turn and find good use for the Primer as toilet paper

I like the idea of it giving PCs an option to purchase elite advances, thats pretty cool. I also think it would give Guardsmen PCs a chance to use Medicae at its most basic of uses (stop bleeding, prevent infection and so forth) with full INT instead of 1/2 INT or a flat out 0%.

While guards men are not expected to live long in real conflict, the Imperium also doesnt want them to just roll over and die. They are trained to a pretty decent standard and after a few fights are pretty sharp contenders experience wise. Unlike orks or nids or necrons, IG do learn and grow with experience. The rest just do their, which typically includes being bigger and badder then IG and tearing IG in half, but dont really learn or grow from it.

I would suggest that the IIUP would add a bonus to fear tests initially against certain critters, if the PC actually believes in the book. But after that first encounter, yeah, its gone.

Sort of like a series of one time bonuses.

LeBlanc13 said:

Right, I would have to disagree with you here. Most of the guard regiments in the 'fluff' (Tanith 1st, Cain's Valhallans et al) are portrayed as professional and capable. Taking a look at the personal equipment list in the primer also reveals that they are about as well equipped as modern infantry. There's also the old piece of fluff that says the Guard are recruited/drafted from the best of any given worlds PDF forces, and that hasn't been directly contradicted by newer material as far as I know.

The "IG win their battles by swamping the enemy with conscripts" thing seems to stem from the way they work in the 40K TTG. The background materiel paints a different picture. Hell, Epic 40K paints a different picture too. In Epic the guard rely on massed formations of mechanised infantry, armor and artillery. In short, combined arms warfare not that dissimilar from the way armies function today.

Sorry if this turned into a rant, but the whole IG-are-useless-cannon-fodder schtick is one of my pet peeves...

Demo said:

A modern day soldier would s*** a brick if he ever ran into a gene stealer, orc, or chaos marine. Doesnt matter how well trained you are. Massed las gun fire is the only way to take opponents like that down.

Of course if you are playing guardsman, they will portray them as capable and professional. All the fluff is designed to be like propoganda, to make you feel good about the army you chose.

And they arent talking about the guard as a whole. Of course with tanks to back them up, they can do well. But if you take your average trooper, hes usually been thrown in the front line with a little bit of basic training, and told to aim and shoot.

Demo said:

Hmmm.... the main protaganists (or heroes if you like) of a series of books that a company wants to sell are shown to be really good, cool and awesome, wonder why that might be?

In most 40K fluff, background and novels, hell even in the ones you've named, the majority of IG regiments appear to rely on quantity over quality. Yes the Veterans of a regiment, like almost all of the Tanith 1st, will be a step above and will most likely use the primer for wiping their bum. But the primer isn't given to veterans and the decent IG soldiers, it is given to the raw recruits as propaganda to boost their most likely fragile confidence prior to their first deployment. After the first day they will likely only use the primer for the useful parts like 1st aid, wilderness survival and so on, and laugh at the less than useful parts.

Yes some parts of the IG are professional and capable but the majority are cannon fodder and let us not forget which of the two types the High Command view the regiments as. Which is portrayed in almost all of the Tanith books.

(I would like to point out I really like the Guard, they are may fav 40K army and really looking forward to the new codex and so my post is not biased from an anti guard few point)

As for PDF recruitment, I remember seeing (can't remember where) fluff that during a founding the officers are the ones that noramlly come from the PDF the majority of the regiment will come from the normal populus of the planet.

Ah frak, where did that quote bubble come from? Looks like I'll never get used to the way this board works. Well, I digress...

Hmmm.... the main protaganists (or heroes if you like) of a series of books that a company wants to sell are shown to be really good, cool and awesome, wonder why that might be?

I see your point, but I'll politely have to disagree that the authors intent and motivation actually matter all that much when discussing the whole thing from an in universe perspective.

In most 40K fluff, background and novels, hell even in the ones you've named, the majority of IG regiments appear to rely on quantity over quality. Yes the Veterans of a regiment, like almost all of the Tanith 1st, will be a step above and will most likely use the primer for wiping their bum. But the primer isn't given to veterans and the decent IG soldiers, it is given to the raw recruits as propaganda to boost their most likely fragile confidence prior to their first deployment. After the first day they will likely only use the primer for the useful parts like 1st aid, wilderness survival and so on, and laugh at the less than useful parts.

Hmm, perhaps. But again I beg to differ. As I see it, the real problem here is that as far as I know there's no in depth background that really covers exactly how extensive/good ( or not) training is in the IG. That leaves us with speculation and educated guesses. There are tidbits of information that supports both sides of the argument, and perhaps in the end the most reasonable answer is the old "it varies from world to world, sector to sector, period to period, etc" that's endemic to 40K.

I really have to run, but I'll get back to this later.

I'd rather assume that the problem is not the lack of training (though for many regiments drafted from somewhere and shuttled of to a nearby warzone, that might be the case), but the fact that pretty much every other force in the galaxy apart from rebelling imperial planets is either superior in technology (or what passes for it among them) or at least equal in number, meaning that pretty much every tactic used tends have to the horrendous losses associated with human waves - just because the enemy is that hard.

Also, Cadia is more "Space Marines without the implants" than "normal Guard"...

Demo said:

Demo said:

Hear, hear! (not sure if that's the right spelling for the meaning I'm after but oh well)

Some worlds, like Cadia and Catachan, are going to produce much better soldiers than others. On these worlds I imagine the Primer, if it is even used, will look very different to others, for example, a world where regiments are formed much like the civillian 'volunteers' in WW2 Russia

"Good Morning New Recruit. Here is a gun, here is how you use it, everything else is covered in this book. Now go over there and what ever comes round that corner you are going to advance and attack. If you don't, we will shoot you. Next!"

The interpretation that I make from everything Guard related I have come across and read is that when there is a founding (as I believe that this will be the most likely time the Primer is dished out*) it is on such a massive scale, where each regiment is far larger than any regiment in our modern day millitary and there is more than one regiment being "founded" (to use the Tanith example, there were originally going to be 3 initial regiments), that the beaurocratic monstrosity that is the Munitorum doesn't spend much time on training beyond the basics. The first warzone will do everything else for them. I do not get the impression that human life in the 41st millenium carries the same value that it does in real life. So I get the impression the Munitorum would invest as much time and effort on it's common soldiery as we do. After all if one regiment is wiped out you just tithe a new one. If the planet doesn't like it, send in troops to deal with the rebels/heretics.

Of course as mentioned there are exceptions, like Cadia and Catachan, where the training is better, longer and more in depth (on Catachan it starts at birth) but then these regiments have commonly been referred to as "Shock Troops" and "Deathworld Veterans" terms which I don't think anyone would associate with "cannonfodder" and "useless"

But then this is my take on the Imperial Guard an is just one of the reasons I think the army is great and so characterful

(*I imagine the Primer could well be given to freshly trained replacements, but then those already in the regiment will set tham straight rather sharply)

Demo said:

Ignayus said:

If you're a generous Gamemaster, you could always award your Guardsman PCs with an inherited copy of the Primer , complete with annotations. Perhaps a lucky and literate Guardsman jotted down notes on enemies ("41M.411.72: Move dead Necron out of base. They can GET BACK UP!"), or sketches of useful plants and animals from Tranch or another such Warworld. Useless bits could be torn out and used as toilet paper, firestarters, etc.

Keep in mind that guidebooks like the Primer are generally written by rear echelon types who never even see combat, and who don't talk to veterans (Veterans having better things to do than talk to squidgy little clerks from the Recruiting Office). They're writing something that makes sense to them, and to anyone who has never encountered a Xeno. Of course you can hold off a Gretchin by putting your hand on his head; Gretchin are 3 feet tall and stupid! Never mind that they never travel in a pack of less than six, are sneaky little bastards, and are rarely seen outside the company of Orks; they're 3 feet tall and stupid, that's all the propaganda guys know. Maybe one veteran managed to pull of that kind of trick and told someone, or was lucky enough to out maneuver a squad of Fire Warriors and passes on a humorous tale, jokingly saying that Tau are lousy shots. Somebody passes that tale on to the writers of the Primer , distorting it further, and then it gets sifted through the Censorship Department and anything that is regarded as heretical is excised and/or watered down.