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So here is the start of my fluff for my Imperial Guard Army, famous battles and what not to follow. Just one thing, if you have an issue with the physics of my idea, this is a universe with a lot of weird things, just roll with it. The mantle is incredibly tough and able to hold the world together or something.

1st Talaimh Éadroim regiment, ‘The Floating Bees’

General Background

Talaimh Éadroim is a very small planet. It is characterised by incredibly tall mountains which, over the years, have formed long, thin spires. At the base of the spires sit deep forests, through which large rivers flow like veins. There are no seas on the planet, a result of a mad governor’s desire for a ‘green carpet to gaze upon’ during a dark period of the planet’s history. This governor fell to the forces of chaos, and he tried to sell his soul, and that of his planet, for eternal life and a green planet. The molten core of his planet was removed by great drilling machines, and in return the forests thrived. However, the planet’s gravity was drastically altered.

When one reaches the snow line, one would notice the gravity dramatically shifting from a near earth level to barely enough to retain a thin atmosphere. This becomes more significant the higher you climb the mountains, until there is no atmosphere to speak of, and no gravity. Smaller space-faring ships can in fact dock with the ports built onto the top of these spires.

This queer gravity has lead to the citizens of this planet developing two distinctly different lifestyles. Those who grow up below the snow line tend to remain there throughout their lives, becoming used to the forests and rivers in which they make their homes and livelihood. Those who are raised in the spires become adept at living and working in the unique gravity of their mountainous homes. They service the shipyards which have spread out from the peaks of the spires, and in doing so often develop skills in the use of void-sealed equipment and vehicles.

The Floating Bees are the second of the guard regiments to be raised from Talaimh Éadroim, and have two distinctive strengths. This is because of the dichotomous nature of their world. The men recruited from the lowlands are experts in conflicts in forested terrain, masters of stealth and tracking. They move light, tending more towards using large numbers of stealthy infantry with very limited armour support, as there are very few factories on the planet, and the forest is not the best terrain for developing and training armoured companies. The men recruited from the spire mountains approach warfare in a different way. They carry out manoeuvre warfare at an expert level, dropping from their Valkyries and Vendettas, or in void sealed ‘eggs’ which break apart in stages of re-entry before revealing a heavily armed guardsmen who makes a (hopefully) pinpoint landing with his grav chute. After engaging and destroying the enemy, they disengage from the contact, either by calling in their aerial support or, if that is unavailable, the Mark II Standard Issue Boot.

Since their participation in the cleansing of their own planet, cutting the canker of Chaos which had taken root in the governor’s office from their lives, the Floating Bees have been co-opted into Inquisitorial service many times, their faith in the Emperor as their sword and shield against the forces of darkness one of their most powerful weapons. This has lead to many units painting a gold Inquisition symbol on a black field upon their left shoulder pads.

I say this was a refreshing read, a job well done! Will be awaiting more eagerly

Famous Engagements

Battle for Talaimh Éadroim. Known inside the regiment as the brón or the doilíos.

Years before the world’s First Founding, Talaimh Éadroim was riven by internal strife. If a scribe was to ask a citizen of this world about those times they would be met with a stoney silence, a wall barring the inquisitive from all information about the shame these people carry in their hearts. The recorded histories of the world are similarly impossible to access regarding this time, having been sequestered by the Inquisition, and so it is only in the songs of the world that a version of the truth can be found. Referred to as the brón or the doilies, these songs are not sung around a foreigner who has not earnt the knowledge.

If one was to petition the Holy Ordos for access to their records of the incidents, or hear the songs of Talaimh Éadroim sung by a native, they would learn not only the truth behind this world’s shame, but would also come to understand why the world is one of the most devout in the sub-sector. The story begins with the last Imperial governor of the world.

Governor Bómánta was already an old man when the first regiment of his planet was raised in response to a Chaos incursion in another part of the subsector. The regiment specialized in armoured advances, mechanized infantry supported by lumbering tanks. His son was promoted to colonel, and led them into battle. They fought well for a time, taking part in several successful actions, during one of which they turned the tide with their heavy armoured assault.

No regiment can fight forever without suffering defeats, and in a blasted forest on an unnamed planet, the Talaimh Éadroim First Regiment were killed almost to a man. The survivors returned home, but unknown to the masses who cheered their return, they carried a dark passenger. They had sold their souls to escape the fates of their brothers in arms, and it was this corrupt seed that they sowed throughout society upon their return. Some joined the PDF as experienced advisors in many roles, spreading their influence around both the command structure and rank and file, as well as the Administratum and the Imperial Navy ships in permanent orbit around the planet. Finally, the governor’s son returned to his father and his role as heir and began to exert his malign influence at the highest level of governance.

As the fingers of darkness wormed their way into the governor’s mind, his sanity began to fray. Increasingly confusing and contradictory edicts were issued from his office, giving the PDF increased authority and limiting the amount of off world trade until it ceased completely. After isolating the world from traders and travel, the governor embarked upon his largest project so far. He had an urge to gaze upon a field of green when he looked out from his spire, a forest thick and lush. Thus the governor made his first bargain with the powers that his son had revealed to him. All they wanted in trade were souls. The souls of every member of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica present on the planet, and the members of the Navis Nobilite who resided on the ships in orbit around the planet.

Convening a ‘council of seers’ in his audience room, these poor men and women gathered at the behest of their governor. Upon arrival they received a benediction from the Ecclesiarchal members at the door, drawn upon their foreheads in oil. After they had all arrived in the chamber, the doors were shut and locked behind them. Murmurs of confusion turned to shouts of fear, and then screams of terror as first armed men emerged on the balconies, and then glyphs of the chaos gods were unmasked around the room, stitched from the flesh of the personal astropaths of the governor, their screaming faces still howling their eternal pain from the centre of the sigils. What the terrified astropaths had thought to be symbols of benediction were revealed to be marks of chaos, burning into their flesh and tearing their souls from their bodies to be drawn into the warp.

As soon as the pact was sealed, grass and trees immediately began to bloom, supplanting the homes of families on the plains and destroying the temples of the emperor on the planet’s surface. The heretics of the governor’s office set to defacing the shrines throughout the spires, and suppressing all opposition to this action. Finally, a warp storm erupted, separating the subsector from the rest of the Imperium. But the night is darkest before the dawn, and the spark of resistance yet burned in the hearts of much of the population.

Bereft of hope, and under the heel of an oppressive regime, some of the populace began to despair. Loved ones would disappear, healthy men were taken from their homes and put to work in far away cities, never to be seen again, and all presence of the Imperial Church was stamped out. Yet despite these measures, Chaos never controlled the wider populace, only the elements of the PDF who survived the purges and their masters, practising their insidious rituals in the tallest spire on the planet.

The rebellion began in two places almost simultaneously. Men from the forests will tell you that it began in the deep forests before spreading to the spires, while those from the mountains will vehemently deny this and claim the reverse to be true. Whatever the truth, resistance grew over the following months, striking at every symbol of the great enemy that they could, and spreading a new belief in the Emperor in its place. After months of guerrilla warfare, gathering equipment, and preparing to take back their home world, the Loyalists were presented with an opportunity to make a bold, conflict-ending strike.

Interrogation of prisoners had revealed a gathering of the foe’s leadership for a blasphemous rite, set to take place at the highest level of the tallest spire. A plan was hatched, the guerrillas of the forest would lead an assault on the base of the spire, holding the PDF forces of the enemy in a contact. This would be costly, many of the men resigned themselves to dying for their faith and their freedom, yet this sacrifice would serve a purpose. Utilising void sealed suits, men from the uppermost levels of the spires, who were used to moving and working in the low atmosphere of their homes, would carry out a manoeuvre which had never been tried before. They would jump from one spire to another, a distance of 2 kilometres. Protected from the almost complete lack of atmosphere by their thick suits, armed lightly, and with almost no control over their direction barring the low powered compressed air thrusters of the suits, they would attempt the impossible, so that they could win everything.