This mechanized regiment was raised on an Agri World as a PDF, to keep the population in control. The planet, while mostly farmland, had an enormous city in its centre. This world was subject to many political uprisings, and many groups of people began forming cults. This attracted the ire of an Inquisitor, who ordered the Landsharks to hunt down and dispose of any cult activity (normally a job for Arbiters, but the Inq wanted assurances of a swift and brutal execution of the mission).

The attacks on cult activity only resulted in further unrest, which culminated in the theft of many military vehicles across the city. Now officially a civil war, the Inquisitor directed reinforcements to the planet, including a pool of heavy tanks for the Landsharks (and a Hellhammer "The Thunder God"), and a detachment of Ultramarines. The war raged on for a while, until "Friendly Fire Incident 112" in which the Ultramarines and the Landsharks began fighting eachother outright, seemingly for no reason.
Many months later, the civil war was resolved (at great detriment to the population), and the Ultramarines and Landsharks had so much bad blood between them, they began attacking eachother on sight. Both groups refused to comment on the circumstances of their rivalry, even under threat of execution. The Ultramarines were returned to their chapter, and the 293rd Regiment was ordered to fight far away from home, in other parts of the galaxy. The 293rd would be reinforced as part of a new tithe from the planet. This was as a relatively minor punishment to the regiment, with the Inquisitor assuming the rivalry had to be their fault.

The 293rd Landsharks are now deployed across many foreign warzones as a heavy armour regiment, specializing in urban combat and wide-area patrols.

Currently, they appear to have developed a slang term for the Emperor, "Be'lakor", and will try to kill any Ultramarines they meet.

Backstory:

Once the Kestral system had been called Geohvana, it had been a peaceful system, having never experienced the horrors of war like the rest of the galaxy faced. The hive world Kestral started to increase the size of its PDF significantly. Another world in this sytem known as Tharios was the world tasked with providing tithes of Guardsmen, so when it found out about this it demanded that Kestral stop immediatly. The Kestral Planetary govenor declined and tensions only escalated from there. Eventually tensions grew to the point where there was open hostility between the two worlds. PDF ships would sometimes open fire on each other and civilians, claiming afterwards to greater Imperial authorities hat it never actually happened.

Then one day the system went dead. All outbound communications from the system ceased and for nearly a full 7 months no one outside the system knew what was going on. An Inquisitors ship was sent to investigate the system. Upon arriving in the system it recieved a messgae from the Kestral Planetary Govenor. He explained that Tharios had tried to start a chaos revolt that had spread across the systems. The Kestral PDF had been forced to wipe all the planets free of life chemical bombardment of cities and orbital bombardment. No proof was ever found to support these claims, in fact 107 years later a rogue trader claimed to have found evidence suggesting that the Kestral defence fleet had nuked the Imperial Guard bases on Tharios moments after the communications blackout. He vanished the next day.

The system was renamed the Kestral system and the planetary govenor was given complete control. He wasted no time in expanding his reach, having each planet controlled by a noble family loyal to his own. The Guardsmen tithe was to be picked uo by the Kestral PDF, the top 1% of troops being trained on Kestral-E (formally Tharios), ruled by the Wolcott family, who later came to raise regimental commanders from birth.

Arkan is a temperate world covered in forests. The planet is 25% larger than Terra and revolves around a bright blue star, named Arka. Arkan means of Arka.
The world’s forests consist of taiga, redwood, deciduous, jungle, and pine. No matter where you are on Arkan you are either surrounded by forest, above it, or on the oceans. There are no deserts, or plains, there is only forest. The lack of any kind of environment that does not include forests is due to the rapid rate at which vegetation grows. Once a tree is cut down it only takes a year for a new tree to grow and become just as big as the one that was cut down. No one knows why vegetation grows so quickly, but the ecclesiarchy officially states that it is a gift of the emperor even if reports dating back before contact with the great crusade mention the growth phenomena.

Forests and plants grow so quickly that any indent on the landscape is restored in a short time. This makes permeant settlements, and clearing land for agriculture hard. Force fields seem to have an effect on the rapid growth of vegetation so all major settlements employ their use. Agriculture gets around this problem by consolidating land, labor, and capital into plantations that have force fields on their outskirts that prevent the forest from encroaching on agricultural land, whilst still allowing for the rapid growth of produce. The most common way for agriculture to be done is a nomadic system. Forest fires rage all the time on Arkan and some have found a way to employ them to their benefit. Land that has been cleared by forest fires in quickly turned into temporary agricultural ground where it is utilized until the forest begins to encroach again.

Forest fires are very dangerous and constantly threaten the people of Arken. Walls are erected, and trees are constantly cleared from around settlements to combat the threat. An entire section of the planetary defense force is dedicated to fighting these fires. The men and women that make up this task force are the initiates of the local defense force.
Under the constant threat of fire, and hindered by thousands of miles of forest, traditional vehicles are essentially impossible to utilize for transportation between settlements. In their stead aircraft perform the same role. Without an abundance of aircraft transportation of goods and personnel would be dangerous and hindersome. Due to their importance many people and families have aircraft. These can be small gyro copters, balloons, prop planes, helicopters, jets, VTOL capable aircraft, and amphibious landers. Storage of the majority of the aircraft is in underground hangers that can house an entire settlements supply of aircraft. Airports are the center of commerce and trade on Arkan. Every town has an airport for without one it could not send or receive anything. The abundance of aircraft on Arkan and its imperative use by its citizens makes them a very good pilots and airmen.

Arkan society is pseudo class based. Mutants generally work in the nomadic agricultural and logging trains. Humans of low class either work in the plantations as sweat shop “employees”, as valued workers, or clear the land around settlements for protection from fire. Low class citizens also work as mechanics on the vast array of aircraft. Arkan’s middle class is comprised of cargo pilots, low ranking members of Arkans planetary government, accountants, lawyers, teachers etc. High ranking members of Arkan society are high ranking members of the Planetary Government, members of nepotistic business families, and the descendants of famous persons. Above all of them is the Planetary Governor. The Planetary Governor is elected by the people in a first past the post system. Every citizen of Arkan votes for the Governor and each citizen each has a single vote. The only people that cannot vote are mutants, and criminals. Once a Planetary Governor has been elected he serves until his death at which point a new Governor is voted upon.
The Governor heads the entire planet and is responsible for its defense, imperial tithes, and the wellbeing of the people. The people vote for the candidate that they feel benefits them the most, thus most planetary governors fulfill that purpose well in relation to other imperial worlds. Not all provide for their people though, as that ruse was only needed to get elected, and thus protected by edict of the imperium. Imperial tithes are required of Arkan like almost every other imperial world. It supplies a vast amount of lumber, and produce, so vast that Arkan is not required to give units to the imperial guard or navy.

The Planetary defense force defends the planet from possible invasions, heretics, and lawbreakers. The unique property of Arkan draws a certain kind of criminal. Drug farmers come to Arkan from all over to plant illicit vegetation in the shield of the woods. The planetary defense force employs task forces to find destroy, and execute these criminals and their drugs. It does this by deploying scouting and recon forces on the ground which are equipped with horses that can traverse the terrain for months at a time without needing to refuel. Behind them are light infantry detachments made up of heavy weapons teams, equipped with mortars, rocket launchers, lascannons, and heavy bolters, general infantrymen, and sentinels ,which can traverse the forests due to their bipedal nature. The task force is then supported by air cavalry that drops troops via grav chute, or fast rope into combat; and provides air support. The aerial element also intercepts and destroys criminal aircraft. If the situation warrants it can execute aerial boarding protocols with vtol aircraft, or even moving planes.
The lack of imperial guard and navy recruitment has left the PDF with many veterans. In response to this the First Arkan Volunteer Group was formed by a veteran of the pdf that wished to fight on other worlds for the imperium. Ever since then volunteer groups have formed on Arkan that seek to serve the Imperium. The members of the 1ST AVG are the most veteran members of the PDF. They are given leave from the PDF to join the 1st AVG by the Planetary Governor. Each member of the 1st AVG must be given leave by the Governor and then accepted by its commander.

The 1st AVG itself is not under the command of anyone but its leader. It exists outside the authority of the Governor, as he only gives leave to its members and supplies them with some of their equipment. The organization itself is pretty much free to do as it wishes and take on tasks that please it. The freedom that this unit is able to operate with is both a boon and a burden. While the governor gives his blessing and supplies them with some equipment they still possess fewer resources than other regiments. To get around this they take on jobs that pay well, and resupply them. Surprisingly they are well equipped even with these logistical nightmares. They contain a vast array of aircraft, sentinels, camo cloaks, carapace armor, and hotshot lasguns but no tanks or any tracked or wheeled vehicles. Some suspect that they are regularly hired by inquisitors to perform jobs as a way to keep inquisitorial involvement shrouded.


The Modus Operandi of the first AVG is to utilize forests and thick vegetation in order to conceal movement and allow for ambushes and unexpected offensives. Troops land and maneuver through the forests on alien worlds to attack the enemy where they are least expecting it. The members of the AVG are used to the forests of their home world, and thus they can more easily remain hidden and maneuver through forests compared to their enemies and comrades. During their maneuvering they are kept supplied via low altitude covert supply drops done by veteran pilots. One they are in position a rapid ground and aerial assault is commenced with troops assaulting from the trees, Valkyries and vendettas raining death from above and paratroopers falling from the skies. Once they have taken the position they create a hidden FOB and ambush any incursions into the now occupied zone.
The pilots of the AVG are among the best of the best. The familiarity and necessity of aircraft on Arkan allow for an environment where the best can rise up in the ranks. The 1st AVG is known for the quality of their pilots and their ferocious fighting ability. On the world of Zhou the local population described them as fighting like flying tigers. Ever since then the 1st AVG has adopted the unofficial name of the flying tigers. On every aircraft where it is possible jaws are painted onto the aircraft to represent this ferocious nature. Unique to the 1st AVG is the Lightning Hawk which was first developed as an atmospheric fighter by the Arkan Defense force. This fighter shares many similar flight characteristics with the Imperial Lightning, but due to imperial concerns it has been purposefully neutered to prevent it from void flight. Otherwise the Aircraft is cheap, easy to produce, and performs exceptionally well.
The veterans of the 1st AVG are glory seekers that wish to help the imperium and its people wherever they are need. All they ask in return are supplies and a chance at proving their metal.

The regiment originated on Gryphonne II (not the forgeworld Gryphonne IV) but after the system was consumed by the tyranids, all remnant Gryphonne regiments across the galaxy were merged into the Gryphonne 1st.

An Ordo Xenos Inquisitor took note of them and made use of the fact that they would not be missed and threw them into Forlorn defences in his local jurisdiction. After proving their worth, and taking massive casualties in the process, the Inquisitor decided to keep them and so began to reinforce them with remnants of regiments that were either unsuitable for mergers or were from worlds that no longer exist.

Over time they've become an experienced Fortress Defence Force often used by the Inquisitor to hold key Fortresses against Xenos threats.