Army of Thieves and Whores: Difference between revisions

* Unsurprisingly, common in the ''[[Warhammer 40000]]'' universe.

** The Lost and the Damned are a villainous (well, [[Black and Grey Morality|more villainous than usual]]) version - they make up various Chaos armies, and are composed of mutants, murderers, heretics, and assorted scum of the Empire.

** The Imperial penal legions follow this trope straight, being armies primarily conscripted from the inmates of Imperial prisons. When the Planetary Defense Force contributions to the Imperial Guard from worlds that serve as incarceration centers, the line between "penal legion" and "Guardsmen" become indistinct.

*** Most Penal Legions are formed of people that are desperately trying to clear their records by volunteering instead of accepting execution; given that the PL are sent to some of the worst parts of the fighting and are considered expendable (even more so), this often ends in [[Redemption Equals Death]].

*** Ostensibly non-Penal units may turn out to be no better. Most of the Imperial Guard is recruited from the Hive Worlds, simply because the [[Mega City|hive cities]] have by far the greatest population (and population pressure). There, it's a fairly common practice to [[Boxed Crook|round up some underhive gangs]] and make them an offer they cannot refuse, to kill two bird with one stone (meet the quota and cull the criminals). Which is not discouraged, because such recruits at least already can fight, use cover and understand teamwork - which is more than can be said about e.g. random scribes and janitors picked by the lottery. They only have to be whipped into shape and taught some discipline. Which may have more implications than looting or the thriving army black market: did you read about the Commissars who get inadequately brutal with decent troops or find themselves out of their depth with crack troops? Their training was mostly intended to deal with the lowest common denominator - exactly because it's quite common.