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608th sublime maniple of the blazing radiance and the emperor's wrath (40k IG Army background)  [RSS] Share on facebook Share on Twitter Submit to Reddit
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Made in gb
Rough Rider with Boomstick





Greater Manchester, UK

Hey folks,

Here's a short bit of fluff on the very grimdark origins of my current guard force. I'm putting together a 6mm guard army to play an escalating campaign with an ork-running buddy on the world of Chainswordia and might start a painting blog for it too.

C&C welcome!

+++++

The people of Diphalia V are dutiful servants of the emperor, fanatical by most imperial standards, and have been in the grip of an imperial death cult for a dozen generations. This governs their strict patterns of behaviour, from the nomadic horse-borne nobility to the lowliest of serfs struggling in the fields, and brings death before heresy or dishonour in the eyes of the distant emperor.
Tithes are taken regularly of this feudal world, the fanatical discipline and bloodthirst of the recruits paying dividends in the emperor's brutal wars among the stars. The 608th maniple is fanatical, bloodthirsty, and also something more, thanks to a quirk of astronomy fused with an unforgiving culture.
The 608th soldiers are already dead.

Diphalia V, , like many of the emperor's worlds, is part of a binary star system. The distance between the two stars are great enough that the effect on the planet is largely negligible; slightly more erratic tides, more volcanic activity than is the norm on inhabited imperial worlds.
This all changes when the two stars enter into a periodic alignment with the world, however; the planetary orbit wobbles, volcanoes erupt, crops fail, and the planetary population falls into a deep religious fervour.
As the time of alignment approaches, many in the population, from all walks of life, are visited by harrowing dreams of their own death or that of their loved ones. To a culture so obsessed with death and religious sacrifice, every one of these dreams is a cast-iron death sentence - for those that dream of themselves, or for those who appear in the dreams of others. In each and every case, the death certificate is signed, a funeral held, and the person’s death is given to the emperor. Those under such a death sentence no longer exist to their families and neighbours, and undertake a pilgrimage to the holy mountains behind the world's capital.
Many a settlement is left utterly denuded of life, and the vastly diminished population is better able to survive the coming famine - a happy side effect of the grim tradition.

Of those who are declared dead, many - the elderly, the weak and the young - die during the pilgrimage, as they walk the roads of the dead. Some settlements close to the roads try their best to leave offerings of food for the dead, but it is never enough; likewise they try to clear the bodies to prevent disease, but the living may not step on the roads of the dead, and inevitably corpses rot on the margins and in the defiles of the road.
Those who are strong enough, healthy enough, or simply lucky enough to live close to the capital, make their way to the mountains to fulfil their duty and give their lives to the emperor. And here they are met, with a great inevitability, by the commissars and officials of the munitorum.

Given the predictably of the stellar alignment, and the regularity of its occurrence (once every 83 years or so), the departmento munitorum has been diligent in ensuring that a greatly expanded capacity of troopships is despatched to Diphalia V in time for the march of the dead. The 608th maniple is not the largest such regiment raised in this way, mustering over 150000 troops for the founding, but neither is it the smallest.

While considerable numbers of the nobility were able to make the trip to the mustering, providing a solid mounted force, and many trained pdf who survived the pilgrimage provide a professional core of well trained infantry and vehicle crews to the maniple, the majority of the maniple is made up of thousands of former peasants, ill trained and little better than cannon fodder for the emperor's armies. These attack in fanatical human waves, charging forward with little organisation, lasguns blazing in their thousands as they drown the emperor's enemies in fire and blood.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/11/29 14:46:11


Run a whole lot of wfrp and other rpg's, play The Woods and Kill Team, gather and look mournfully at imperial guard knowing I'll never finish enough to use them on the tabletop  
   
Made in ca
Longtime Dakkanaut




That's pretty cool concept for a guardsmen regiment, but then again I do like crazy religious guardsmen and would like to hear more about your idea.

1) How are those guardsmen equipped, how do they look like.

2) Being 150 000 strong, I suppose they serve as light infantry, am I correct.

3) Have they earned in special reputation from other Imperial forces or the Administratum itself?

4) The Blood cult, does it have any special ritual or anything like that
   
Made in gb
Rough Rider with Boomstick





Greater Manchester, UK

Hey! Thanks for the reply. I'll try to answer your questions thoroughly.

1. & 2. It's really more like a brigade in modern terms than a regiment, so there's sub-regiments that form up the maniple. Within that there's light infantry, armour, super-heavy, mech, cavalry and all the other IG options. If I was creating this for Only War, they'd be line or siege infantry, with other regiments from the same world fulfilling the other specialisms from the IG codex. Since I'm using this for 40k, it's an easy way to give them a shared heritage.
I've not settled on a doctrine yet but I've played one with them being catachan, and plan on using valhallan next - the suicidal doggedness really fits.
Appearance-wise, I've been using 6mm ashigaru from baccus miniatures, all painted dark red. I'll post some pics when I get the chance. If I were to create them in 28mm, they'd be cadian bodies with samurai heads. Black and red as paint scheme (essentially the Red Baron as inspiration)
3. Reputation-wise, I haven't thought about that yet. Doggedness is the primary trait I would emphasise for them. In the campaign storyline they've been bloodied a few times in blunting an ork waaagh, and then been withdrawn for reorganisation on the nearby world of Chainswordia, which is where my friend's overenthusiastic speed freaks have ended up after overshooting the main warzone. We're doing an escalation campaign there.
I'll probably expand that when we've had some more battles.
4. It's more of a death cult than a blood cult, and it's about the manner of your death in the service of the emperor, rather than looking for death unnecessarily. Death before dishonour, and spiritual cleanliness are the key.
Their services involve incense and ritual purification, so that when their bodies are taken their souls are free to travel straight to the emperor's side :-D

Run a whole lot of wfrp and other rpg's, play The Woods and Kill Team, gather and look mournfully at imperial guard knowing I'll never finish enough to use them on the tabletop  
   
Made in gb
Rough Rider with Boomstick





Greater Manchester, UK

Ps thanks for the questions, really got me thinking again about them and fleshing things out a bit!

Run a whole lot of wfrp and other rpg's, play The Woods and Kill Team, gather and look mournfully at imperial guard knowing I'll never finish enough to use them on the tabletop  
   
Made in gb
Liberated Grot Land Raida






Northern Ireland

Very cool! I really like your story here. Have you given much thought to the officers of the 608th. Given your ashigaru styling I'd be tempted to go all Sōhei warrior monk for the officers. Some kind of religious priesthood that inspires the rest to glory. Perhaps loosely comprised of "veteran" pesants who have lived a little longer than their dreams might have implied and so are considered "chosen" for such roles.

Well anyway I'll let you mull that one over. You may have Imperial Priests done up as warrior monks already.

   
Made in gb
Rough Rider with Boomstick





Greater Manchester, UK

 theCrowe wrote:
Very cool! I really like your story here. Have you given much thought to the officers of the 608th. Given your ashigaru styling I'd be tempted to go all Sōhei warrior monk for the officers. Some kind of religious priesthood that inspires the rest to glory. Perhaps loosely comprised of "veteran" pesants who have lived a little longer than their dreams might have implied and so are considered "chosen" for such roles.

Well anyway I'll let you mull that one over. You may have Imperial Priests done up as warrior monks already.


Cheers!
No I hadn't really thought about that - the nobility is kind of off doing their own thing in the cavalry, so the infantry battalions wouldn't by default be led by them.
Elevated peasants is what I'm leaning towards, those who show an aptitude for leadership are chosen by the commissars and priests to lead their respective units. It's probably worked out in transit to the warzone.
And veteran officers and troops would indeed be treated differently, good point! I'll come up with something for them in terms of the cult :-)

Run a whole lot of wfrp and other rpg's, play The Woods and Kill Team, gather and look mournfully at imperial guard knowing I'll never finish enough to use them on the tabletop  
   
Made in gb
Rough Rider with Boomstick





Greater Manchester, UK

So, I figured it out - veterans are organised into something akin to a death company.
Those who live too long and fail to die in the emperor's service are revered and feared by their peers.
While outwardly they are treated with respect, in secret corners some whisper that the Emperor doesn't want their deaths after all, and that they will never be able to join Him.
Some of those who are so afflicted become crazed with a religious frenzy, and are formed into specialist squads of assault troops equipped with the finest equipment the maniple can offer.
Led by priests, and often supported by elite ministorum assault troops, they are hurled into the fiercest fighting for suicide assaults on key enemy leaders and installations.



So this is built on a discussion in the IG 8th edition tactics thread, that you can fill a valkyrie with catachan platoon commanders with power fists and crusaders and grav chute them in to attack the enemy warlord. They're cheap and effective and potentially quite scary!

Run a whole lot of wfrp and other rpg's, play The Woods and Kill Team, gather and look mournfully at imperial guard knowing I'll never finish enough to use them on the tabletop  
   
Made in gb
Rough Rider with Boomstick





Greater Manchester, UK

Anyone want to suggest a name for the group?

Run a whole lot of wfrp and other rpg's, play The Woods and Kill Team, gather and look mournfully at imperial guard knowing I'll never finish enough to use them on the tabletop  
   
Made in gb
Liberated Grot Land Raida






Northern Ireland

I was thinking something along the lines of Pilgrimage or missionary something or other. But then I looked up Diphalia to see if the name of your planet could give any clues...

... Dude, that's wierd. Not sure what to think now.

   
Made in gb
Rough Rider with Boomstick





Greater Manchester, UK

It's a binary system and the discovering mechanicus was a bit weird too.
Also my opponent is a biology teacher and we're both quite daft - hence fighting over the world chainswordia.

Run a whole lot of wfrp and other rpg's, play The Woods and Kill Team, gather and look mournfully at imperial guard knowing I'll never finish enough to use them on the tabletop  
   
Made in ca
Longtime Dakkanaut




 Captain Roderick wrote:
Anyone want to suggest a name for the group?


The Adrielans, named after Adriel, the angel of death and destruction in Judaism and early Christianity. This way, not only can you sound smart because you know the scientific term for penile duplication (you misspelled it though it takes two Ls, I don't know if its on purpose), but you will also sound smart in religious history.
   
Made in gb
Rough Rider with Boomstick





Greater Manchester, UK

Ace thanks! Perfect for high gothic as well as it's a good mix of judeo-christian and Latin silliness

That's what my biology buddy sent me, I'll keep the misspelling as 38 millenia gives me a little license.

Run a whole lot of wfrp and other rpg's, play The Woods and Kill Team, gather and look mournfully at imperial guard knowing I'll never finish enough to use them on the tabletop  
   
 
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