Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer

Behold! Your standard issued toilet paper.

The Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer is the standard book carried by ALL Imperial Guardsmen. The book, like the steel balls, is standard issue to all recruits. Failure to present it upon request may result in getting shot. Good luck trying to actually own a real life copy though - it is more expensive than a Leman Russ, just for a used copy. Although, you could get lucky and find The Imperial Infantryman's Handbook for almost half that price at Barnes and Noble - it includes the Imperial Munitorum Manual as well as the Uplifting Primer in a single book. It also has a nifty little section of pink pages in the back titled The Benedictions of the Emperor, Inspiration Source and Uplifting Creeds for all Infantryman.

For an experienced Guard veteran, the only comfort that the primer provides is in cleaning up after a visit to the restroom and MSTing when the Commissar isn't around. (Seriously, it's canon according to the "15 Hours" novel.) For reasons, why, see "Severly Understated" below.

The saddest irony is that with a little spindoctoring, this overpriced toilet paper could be both uplifting AND genuinely educational to the average guardsman about who he'll be facing. Orks have the aim of a blind squirrel and rarely go quieter than a moderately loud shout. Tau are super-slow to react in melee and are even more dependent on the chain of command than guardsmen themselves. Eldar really love "hit and run" and don't like battles of attrition. Tyranids are highly flammable. Etc.

Although it could be argued that is the whole purpose of the primer. Freedom of print is relatively spotty in the God-Emperor's realm but if most people knew the truth about the Imperium's enemies and just how outmatched guardsmen are, they'd never join. Few regiments of the IG are without a veteran cadre that would be quick to explain to the FNGs (Frakking New Guys) the grim reality of the situation. As such, the Primer is there to encourage people to join and boost their morale. In the Imperium's eyes, they only need to last until they get attacked by the enemy. The "weak" get culled and the "strong" survive.

There's also this one page that has a blank square and the caption "KEEP THIS SPACE CLEAR. DO NOT DEFACE ON PAIN OF DEATH." Every single book, sans misprints forgeries, has a smudge inside the square.

Severely Understated "Information"

This Book basically tells the infantryman that his weapons are the best in the universe and WILL kill most things with ONE shot (possible but unlikely). It also tells such helpful things like:

• Eldar technology is pathetically antiquated and inferior to standard-issue Imperial Guard equipment, and shuriken weapons are unable to penetrate flak armour. Eldar are decadent and physically frail and not meant for real combat. Shuriken weapons are one of the few "standard-issue" weapons in the setting that can reliably penetrate Astartes armour, and so will actually go through your flak armour like razor wire through warm cheese. That's not even getting into the more exotic stuff, like the Warp Spider Death Spinner, which is capable of liquifying a grown man with one shot; cover and armour does bugger-all to protect from it. Or the Dark Eldar Shardcarbine, which fires splinters filled with such potent poison a tiny scratch can mean agonizing death. And tell that second part to the Swordwind of Biel-tan, even the humblest of them may have literally centuries of combat experience over you. Any Wych or Howling Banshee worth her salt would kill you before you could even react the moment they got within blade's reach. Don't even get us started on Harlequins; one of them killed Custodes in personal combat and made it look easy.

• Orks are smaller and weaker than humans with brittle bones and weak muscles, and they are painfully stupid. True, the average Ork is a vegetable (in both senses), but the bigger ones like Warbosses and Kommandos are capable of an animalistic cunning that can often catch veteran Guardsmen off-guard, not to mention the built-in technical expertise that Mekboys have. But do you know what the average Ork can do? Rip a man limb from limb with his bare hands. They're also at least a head taller and twice as wide as the average human. And Orks have been known to continue fighting despite being dismembered beyond recognition - even decapitation can be fixed with surgery if it's timely enough, and undergo invasive medical procedures that make 19th Century meatgrinder surgery look comparatively advanced.

• Tau are herbivorous animals that are scared by loud noises and frightened by hairy people, and possibly incapable of mathematics and science. Erm, the Tau have a lovely thing called a Railgun, which uses electromagnetically induced force to accelerate a solid projectile at hypersonic speeds and hits with enough force to not only punch through the frontal armour of a Leman Russ tank but also actually suck the crew out through the exit hole, leaving a 30ft streak of gore trailing behind the vehicle and issues a sonic boom loud enough to be a weapon. The standard-issue gear your Fire Caste opponents take into battle is much, much more advanced than anything you will realistically acquire, and you have to ascend quite high up the regimental hierarchy to find anything that quite compares. Next to a pulse rifle, your lasgun may as well for all the world be an actual Nerf gun. Though the Tau aren't bothered by hair and have some themselves, the thing about them being herbivores is actually true.

• Genestealers are slow, sluggish, and having blunt-tipped claws (sic). To which every Terminator Marine in the galaxy either promptly laughed his ass off or suffered a rage aneurysm from the sheer stupidity of that statement. They routinely get surprised and ripped to shreds by Genestealers inside space hulks. Terminator armour offers no protection against their claws at all, and they can cut through reinforced ship bulkheads with alarming ease. They also outpace Space Marines and rival Eldar for speed. A Genestealer would lunge and rip an ordinary human soldier to shreds, flak armor and all, before he could even blink.

Damocles Gulf Edition

The Blueberry limited edition toilet paper.

A special edition made to commemorate the Damocles Crusade against the Tau. This blue hard cover book of the standard edition obviously includes the Tau. As expected, the information is as good as toilet paper.

Overall, this edition is basically the same as the standard; with the book containing 112 pages of various information pertinent to an Imperial Guardsman's life. The Tau addendum contains general information about the Tau race, inaccurate propaganda and other various bits of information.

The book is hard cover, denim-bound with silver leaf lettering on the cover. The pages containing prayers and litanies at the back of the book are printed on turquoise paper rather than the standard neon-pink while the majority of the book is printed in black and white.

Table of Contents

1. Principles and Regulations. The rules are very stacked against the lowly trooper. "WRONGS TO SOLDIER, REDRESS OF: Any soldier who thinks himself wronged by an officer and who tries to incite proceedings against them will be punished by a flogging from the officer in question, in front of the rest of the platoon. Officers are to be obeyed at all times, without question or reservation." (While this sounds stupendously harsh, remember the scale of the IG as a whole. Enforcing mindless obedience and severely limiting individual initiative to superiors is the only way to keep a modicum of control for said superiors.) Emperor, you can even be punished after death- "USING DEPARTMENTO MUNITORUM EQUIPMENT TO COMMIT, OR ATTEMPT TO COMMIT, SUICIDE: Any soldier who uses the arms given to them by the Departmento Munitorum to commit, or attempt to commit, suicide will be shot and cremated. Then his ashes will be vaporised, his name stricken from the regimental roll of honour, and his next of kin invoiced for his kit.
2. Issued Arms, Attire, Apparatus and Equipment. The instructions on how to use this stuff is useful.
3. Imperial Guard Organization, Structure, Basic Battlefield Policy. This section is actually quite useful for understanding the logistics behind any IG operation.
4. Imperial Guard Armour and Tank Recognition, Affiliated and Enemy Variants. It's good to be able to recognize friendly tanks from enemies, but the abilities of enemy vehicles are severely understated.
5. Know Your Foe. This section is where almost all the memetic stuff comes from. See the "severely understated" line above, then multiply by about 27.
6. Elementary Battlefield Medical Instruction. The writer really did their research here. There is also a gratuitous section reminding the trooper that any sign of cowardice (in a medical context it's likely referring to PTSD or Shell Shock) is to be reported to a Commissar at once so the usual treatment can be administered.

Actual Contents of Value

Despite much of the above (and a lot of what the above lists is not exaggeration), the Primer actually has a great deal of genuinely useful information in it. Included useful segments include:

• How to take care of your weapon and equipment. Sure, it's only a lasgun, but it still beats trying to go at basically anything that can Come up in front (or behind) the Guard hand-to-hand with a knife.
• The "First Aid" section. Sure, a direct hit from most weapons in 40k will kill a Guardsman outright or make him wish he was dead. Nevertheless, ensuring every grunt knows the basics of how to bind a wound or move a casualty without harming him further gives those that are still alive better chances to survive die gloriously for the God-Emperor of Mankind in another engagement.
• Numerous prayers and hymnals to the God-Emperor of Mankind, and how to placate your gear's Machine Spirit.
  • Not Included: The Litany of Stealth (which is an inside joke.)
• Numerous bits of insight on tactics, weapon analysis, and how to keep oneself sane in a given war. Included are segments from the Tactica Imperium, information on how to set frag grenades as booby-traps, how to operate, maintain, and modify lasguns, and numerous bits of information explaining why it's so important that the Imperium of Man send millions to die all across the Segmentum Solar (tactical importance of the current campaign in terms that the grunts can understand, so they fight with more clarity of purpose).
  • Believe it or not, the Primer does give a nifty example about positioning like taking cover and planning an ambush; granted while the thought of ambushing a group of Eldar and using a a pile of masonry/scenery to protect yourself from anything heavier than Autogun fire is both dubious and questionable at best, it does poke holes in the rather retarded notion that the Guard are a bunch of brainless lemmings who run into death without a second thought.
• Why the Commissar is there to help you and not simply execute your ass to be a dick (mileage may vary).
• Helpful suggestions on how to impress the aforementioned Commissar with suicidally-brave acts of heroism.
• Crazy as some of the punishments sound, others are pretty valid and about what you'd see in a real-world military out on the field.
  • Guardsmen are explicitly forbidden, on penalty of death, to do any looting, murdering, arsoning, or general dickery when dealing with human insurrections. Like speed limits it's probably not always followed, but it gives a nice debunking to the idea of the Guard gunning down the whole population of a planet the second a few of them get angry and leave the Imperium.
• How to procure food and water in a survival situation.
• Why the ruinous powers are bad, how to recognize when someone is under their sway... FOR OFFICERS EYES ONLY. ARE YOU AN OFFICER? NO!? *BLAM!* and why you should put your faith in the Emprah.
• Correct ways to conduct fieldcraft and trench warfare.
• The proper use on how to take cover and use said cover in a fight. (*GASP* THEY USE COVER!?)
• Information on demolition and sabotage tactics.
• Why the dreaded space communists are bad and eat babies, even though the eating babies is a lie HERESY!*BLAM*
• Why the Eldar are untrustworthy fucks, though the Imperium is no better HERETICS LIKE YOURSELF ARE NOT WORTHY OF THE TRUTH! *BLAM!*.
• Why you should focus and shoot the big ones whenever you are fighting Tyranids. This is the one and only piece of information on a xenos race in the whole book that is accurate and helpful.
• Why leading by example is important (I.E. how to grow the Guardsman standard-issue stainless steel balls. It's a lot like a Chia-pet.)
• Jokes and mocking of the enemy. (The infamous "Litany of Stealth".)
• Why humanity is the rightful heir to the universe, and thus how purging xenos and heretics is doing the Emperor's work.
• A death notice to be filled out by the trooper's commander and/or Commissar, to speed up informing the next of kin to the trooper's inevitable and almost certainly horrible demise.
• Grimdark as the whole thing is, once you get past the rules and numerous punishable-by-death infractions, it's a surprisingly hopeful book, with reminders that soldier can attain glory, respect, and above all, the Emperor's favor. When up to your knees in cockney roid-raging Shreks, swarms of lizard-bug aliens eating your friends or self-repairing skele-bots with disintegration guns, it's nice to be reminded that you're fighting for your family, your Emperor, and your people, and that you can weather the storm. You probably won't, but you can.

See Also

• Imperial Munitorum Manual - The more competent brother of the Primer.
• The Field Ordnance Battery & You - The Uplifting Primer's version of heavy artillery and the Munitorum Manual's dumber brother.
• The Regimental Standard. A spiritual successor of sorts to the Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer from Games-Workshop that's updated weekly and free-to-read (because it's also product placement for Warhammer 40k products), that presents itself as an in-universe weekly magazine for the front trooper, not unlike military newspapers like the US-American The Stars and Stripes. Still funny enough on its own merits to be worth reading anyway. (Like, for example, an entire unit of artillery crew getting drugged up, strapping bayonets to their Basilisks and charging some Orks.) The main comedic value stems from the holes it indirectly pokes into the whole ludicrous grimdarkness of the 40k universe, a lot of dark humour and how GW pokes fun at itself, thanks to the new management.
  • Quite wonderful. Absolute first thing I saw was "How to Eat Your Boots!"

Gallery

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  The Primer contains all sorts of information, from the very helpful...

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  ... to the parts that are of better use as bog roll. That being said, should you ever find yourself in bayonet-range of fungal aliens built like angry barrels who just won't die, this is actually fairly good advice.