I've read that Guardsmen are executed or sterilized and put into camps if they see Chaos after the battle. Is that true?

I've read that Guardsmen are executed or sterilized and put into camps if they see Chaos after the battle. Is that true?

Chaos daemons specifically, lest you get regiments like the Volscani who decided they would rather sell their souls to the dark gods and ambush Imperial forces than to face the possibility of fighting chaos daemons again.

Not just chaos. Daemons specifically. The raw stuff of the warp that will seep into your mind long after you've left the battlefield. And even then, the method of post-battle clean up varies tremendously and is widely debated both in and out of setting.

No. But nosy people who repeat the story are.

They also have them all equipped with cyanide pills to take if they see warp-based weaponry kill something. Source was the imperial regiment GW website.

That's not true, the Imperium is not that mean, sometimes (very rarely but still), they just get mindwiped!

Not anymore. After a battle with Daemons they are screened to see if the experience affected them negatively.

What bullshit Disney-like 40k fanfic did you get this crap from?

Guardsmen getting purged or turned into vegetables after coming in contact with Daemons has been a thing since forever.

The only exception the IG makes is for Regiments permanently stationed at Cadia, because it just wouldn't be practical or even viable.

I thought that practice stopped after the Wolves got quite upset over this happening near them.

>Fight this battle then kill yourself for seeing a red demon laser!
Wow. Why is warhammer 40k excessively edgy in every department?

Because that's how it's been since 3rd ed? It's like asking why Dragonball Z is about fighting.

But how does it sell when literally every army commits suicide if someone throws one demon bomb in front of a squadron?

Please, that takes time. Just drink the cool aid.

No, the wolves were pissy about it and helped some would be heretics escape Armageddon thinking it was the right thing to do. The Inquisition then preceded to kill billions trying to track down the escapees and then a civil war almost broke out because the Inquisition was fed up with Wolves being so anti authoritarian and the Wolves were fed up with the Inquisition being callous dicks.

Not every army, only Guardsmen. And there's always more of them anyways.

Daemons manifesting isn't as common as it may seem. Chaos forces in general are often too busy fighting amongst themselves to fight the imperium proper. They conduct raids sure, but a full blown invasion and conquest with daemon portals opening is a momentous event.

That's why there are Inquistion orders dedicated to dealing with both Daemons and Heretics, so that the average guardsman hopefully never has to face Chaos daemons.

I would assume it's because they'd just execute the Squadron.

The only time regular guardsmen are gonna see demons is if they're already part of an Inquisitorial Task force or if shits hitting the fan so fast they didn't have the time to send in people qualified to deal with things the human brain can't fully comprehend. A chapter of just a thousand Psyker Space Marines is considered semi adequate when it comes to protecting a million worlds from daemons after all.

Think of it this way.

The Tau have faced Eldar of both varieties, Orks, Guardsmen, Tyranids, Necrons, even the supposedly rare Space Marines multiple times, yet they have encountered Chaos Daemons just twice, and only once did they actually fight Chaos Daemons. That's how rarely they leak into the Materium.

Chaos forces*

Most of the rank and file don't even know that Chaos exists. They know about heretics, but not about demons, warp fuckery and such.
Setting-wise the response to actual Chaos daemons is more a think of myth than established practice because it is so far out of the norm that only the higher-ups in the inquisition know that such horrors exist.
So, when they do rear their ugly heads, its best to leave as few witnesses as possible, not simply because of the fear of taint, but because the knowledge of such horrors would sow dissention throughout the Imperium if it became more than whispered rumours among the elite.

a) understand that actual daemons walking onto the battlefield are so rare that either a Primarch or Prince is invading or the planet is literally about to be eaten by the warp.

b) understand that a Guardsman's life is such a cheap commodity that you can chuck a couple billion to Inquisitorial purges and it would still hardly leave a dent.

Depends on who it is.

The Kriegers just get checked for taint and moved on; they're not going to go mouthing off about 10-story men made of fire and blood.

More "normal" detatchments? A handful of "casualties" don't make it back to the platoon. The ones that are too shaken to keep their mouths shut, too tainted to keep their head clear or too broken to hold a lasgun and march at the same time.

If things are bad enough, the platoon is a combat loss. Their equipment and tags were not salvageable. What platoon soldier? I don't recall ever having a 38th section...

Because we wouldn't have it any other way

Are you kidding?
The grimdarkness is the selling point.

>since 3rd ed
This fluff goes back to Rogue Trader, buddy.

Dragonball Z and everything that followed (Except maybe GT?) is about fighting because that is what sold.

Dragonball had fighting in it, but it was also very much adventure.

>a) understand that actual daemons walking onto the battlefield are so rare that either a Primarch or Prince is invading or the planet is literally about to be eaten by the warp.

This isn't entirely true, the 5th Edition rulebook showed that it can also be as simple as someone with psychic abilities being overlooked and later on being used as a literal portal.

And there are insane asylums they send them to and things like that.

I'm reading Deathwing atm, and the story I'm on is about an Insane Asylum made for that very reason.

>bullshit

The IG doesn't even go back to RT, "buddy," and the seen-some-shit meme is from one story where GK zealots executed a bunch of loyalists because SOMEONE had to invent grimderp. Headcanon trolls inflated this one overreaction to daemonic manifestation into ALL THE TIME EVERYWHERE CANON in a setting where anti-chaos regiments like Cadia exist. Calm yourself.

not always

>A NECESSARY EVIL

>The Emperor’s realm knows many threats, yet none more deadly than that of the Daemon. These malevolent beings are bent upon the downfall of the galaxy’s mortal races, and will use every means at their disposal to achieve this end. A potent weapon in a Daemon’s arsenal is the warping taint of its very presence. The essence of the Daemon is pervasive, its corrupting influence near impossible to resist. All those exposed to the merest hint of the daemonic must therefore be considered suspect. Whole regiments of the Astra Militarum, entire households of Knights, even the populations of whole worlds – all must be exterminated without mercy should the slightest hint of taint be suspected. The duty of enacting such purges falls to the ruthless Inquisitors of the Ordo Malleus.

-Sanctus Reach (Hour of the Wolf)