since you can play one and I don't know too much about them, anyone that know something about their role in the army? What do they do, besides some kind of moral support and cleansing heretics? I mean, compared to commissars and sergeants and so on, what's their rank, and can they do something similar to the commissars summary executions?

thanks in advance

no one knows anything? :(

perhaps they are simply meant as a regular fighter with the addition of moral support and so on. On another note I think it would be awesome if they could lower corruption for the group by being there, since it seems to not normally be removable. Perhaps by spending a certain amount of experience, let's say 50xp/point, they could lower other members corruption gain when they receive it (not the points already there). Also since insanity removal is described among other things as praying perhaps it should be lowered if you have a priest in the group?

Also it's possible there's a better explanation on their role in the coming book so it might be dealt with already, but still curious as to what the current fluff is regarding these, from my point of view, more or less unheard of people :)

Hey .113,

The priest's 'job' in the IG is to inspire the troops to greater feats of heroism and devotion to the Emperor. If the Commisar is a political officer who leads through intimidation, the priest is a front line fighter who inspires the troops as much through his actions as with his fiery sermons. He wades into battle with his chain sword and flamer, chanting litanies and prayers. Through inspired rhetoric he awakens the inherent hatred within the common IG soldier for the Xeno, the Heretic and the Deamon.

For that reason, he shouldn't be able to reduce Corruption (in my humble opinion, of course). That seems to be something which would require some high-ranking Ecclesiarchs, with ancient and secret techniques, weeks of preparation, etc.

It's just easier to kill a corrupted guardsman than invest all that enegy in purifying him. Guardsmen are plentiful and replaceable. Generals might be a different story.

(FYI: there's not too much activity in this particular forum given that the game's not available yet which may explain why it takes a few days to get responses. I'm sure it will pick up when the game launches in all markets.)

Thanks, it's just we are playing the beta at the moment and my main character got incapacitaded for some time, waiting for mayor cybernetic implants (mainly a lung and most of the rest of his internal organs, no one is quite sure how he survived, it's almost like it's fate.. :p )

So had to play something else and since we are a group of 5 people and already have a dead techpriest, and a psyker in the group, plus one of each of the main guardsmen types ( i was the second weapon expert), i felt like doing something different but we don't allow commissars yet (doesn't make much sense to us to have one in a low rank group when his focus should be on the whole regiment at least) and ratlings are dead in our part of the universe… there was either ogryn or priest. Oh and the storm trooper. Too close to weapons expert but with better gear for my liking.

I originally don't like ogryns, but I think it would be quite fun to play one still so they're not out of the question, but I figured I wanted to know more about the priest before I could decide to play one.

I'm also generally impatient :p Thanks for the reply! I think I've got a cool idea how to play one. I rolled the obsessive demeanor as well so I'll be going with close inspections on the squad to make sure their collars are straightened and so on. Also will go through my armor and weapons more than necessary and be doing a lot of other details like that. Besides that I'll go with the inspire hatred talent or something like that, it seemed fitting (share hatred) so should be fun.

Or I'll go with an ogryn, but with the stats I rolled it would seem a bit too good kinda :/ (we roll stats for more random fun)

Ah well, got a bit off topic there I guess but thanks again, I got a good enough idea of what they are like now. All we need now is the proper game :)

Yeah, Ogryns are hit and miss for me. It depends on the regiment. When we played as some Catachan Infantry, we had an Ogryn around. And it was awesome.

We're in the process of rolling up a Vostroyan First-Born Armoured unit… an Ogryn would be a bad idea.

And I'm not a hiuge fan of Ratlings either though we haven't bombed them out of existence yet.

In DH, i think blood of martyrs book, there is an option for Clerics of a certain rank (high rank if i remember correctly) which makes them able to bless the group. This comes in 3 choices i think, reduce insanity gain on next encounter, reduce corruption on next encounter and sanctify weapons to better battle daemons.

This is pretty expensive in the game as the materials costs quite a lot, and i think it is resolved with an Imperial creed test.

Hope this may help you.

Macharias the Mendicant said:

I wouldn't be so quick to generalize. There's room enough for a quiet and stoic example of faith under fire to appear. Pacifist priests don't have much place among the Imperial Guard, but that doesn't make every one of them into a frothing firebrand.

HappyDaze said:

No, they won't all be the same of course. But my description wasn't intended to account for all priests, just provide the stereotype.

seems i'll be either a genious ogryn (21 starting value :p ) or a obsessive priest. both should be fun.

They do both sound fun. Looking forward to playing a tech-priest fior the first time since I started playing FFG games about 3 years ago! :)