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Hey Dakka, I'm about to start playing again and this time I want an army that's full of flavour and I'll actually want to play as. I'd like your help pointing me in the right direction and making sure I keep to the fluff as much as I can. Here goes nothing...

I want my army to be primarily focused around my leader Kuno Kruta and his band of mercenaries who seeker glory and wealth. Kuno comes from the Agri-world of Dungran, a planet covered in swamp, where people live in slums akin to modern day fevelas. The son of a farmer Kuno was destined to live a life of agriculture and swamp fish trawling, however Kuno knew he was capable of much more. Each settlement was run by a Tithe Lord, an underling of the Planetary Governor, that would be in charge of each settlement's harvest and stock take. These Tithe Lords not only had the power to take, but also the power to redistribute the harvest allowance that wasn't heading for Imperial Tithe ships. Owing to this many of the Tithe Lords where corrupt, selling their settlement's rations to other Lords or even to passing trade ships. After finding out about Kuno's ability with a hunting shotgun and swamp knife the local Tithe Lord of his settlement recruited Kuno to become a gun for hire. Kuno spent the next five years working for various Lords, often scheming plans that would put his employer and other Lords in tricky situations that would lead to the destruction of their syndicates and more coin in Kuno's pocket.

It wasn't long before Kuno saw that in order to make more money he would have to have his own men, he would need to branch out and covertly plant spies around the swamp, he would seize control of the planet's Tithe allocation powers. His motives where pure, he would redistribute the food fairly but luxuries such as quality swamp amasec would be sold at a steeper price to the local hive world. Kuno saw a wealthy Dungran and, despite his cold opportunistic personality, loved his homeworld.

I want Kuno to take over local PDF forces after impressing the Planetary Governor with his tact and ability to be in the right place at the right time. A common threat to the swamps of Dungran is the undead of the swamp that roam in large groups around the planet devouring whole villages as they go. I plan to have Dungran completely taken over by these plague zombies causing Kuno and his PDF to fight for years in constant guerrilla warfare with the zombies and those who have come to idolize them whilst waiting for help, they have become masters at slaying the undead and Nurgle cults.

I'm trying to figure out how, but I'm thinking that once the rescue ships come Kuno finds out about the Ordo Sepulturum and their lack of Chamber Militant. I think Kuno will want to fill that role with his men at some point, but first he's got a whole lot of shooting to do!

How would a displaced PDF force navigate the galaxy? This is one of my concerns. Obviously I haven't fleshed out Kuno's men yet but that'll happen soon. I just want a bog dwelling nobody from the arse end of the galaxy to become an assist to the Imperium.

It's entirely possible that Kuno could have timed his revolt such that there's a Warp-capable freighter in system to pick up their grain so he pulls a starship heist, converts it into a troop ship, and goes gallivanting off on a grand galactic adventure. Also tone-wise I'd suggest he's a PDF officer or administrator of some sort who had a conflict of personalty with his immediate superiors rather than a happy shiny universally-beloved hero with ambitions of being a Communist dictator. Possibly the governor's an incompetent and/or coward who's happy to sit on his hands lamenting getting assigned to such a backwater while the Nurgle cultists grow stronger and Kuno's not happy with the administration refusing to act more strongly against the hordes of nasty people slaughtering his troops.

Yeah that does sound better than being the Governor's best pal. The Governor recruits Kuno after his time fighting for the Tithe Lords to put down insurrectionist cults in the swamp, however Kuno finds out that the Governor himself has been keeping the population starved to allow the Nurgle plague to take hold. What would be the backlash from stealing a warp capable ship? And is it possible to be on the edges Imperial law without falling to chaos?

It's possible to be a criminal without being Chaotic. Plenty of Rogue Traders do it.

The main problem you are going to run into is the Navigator of the Warp-capable vessel. This person decides when and where you go through the Warp, and threatening to kill them doesn't work, because, if you do you're *fethed*. And they know this.

So maybe your wanna-be Rogue Trader here can charm the pants off (literally) the Navigator, and convince her/him to fly the ship around the galaxy... but this army is going to have a whole lotta problems once the Planetary Governor cooks the books to make it look like your space-dog here stole the tithe. That brings the Arbites into play, and the entire Imperium is their jurisdiction.

Hmmm, you've made a good point. I do want the crew to work for the Imperium sometimes though, for example delivering cargo or taking part as mercenaries in battle; having them branded as heretics isn't exactly gonna help that cause! I'm currently reading The Black Company books and I love the feel of them, I want to 40kify that sense of rag-tag brotherhood in the face of Empires and unknown evil.

The Eastern Fringe looks like my best bet, saves Kuno a hell of a lot of Inquisitorial grief! How about they steal the Planetary Governor's personal ship? I don't think it would have warp capabilities, but travelling from planet to planet picking up contracts and making a whole lotta cash sounds fine by me. Saving outposts, fighting over space junk, recovering gang territory and selling their services to Imperial Commanders whilst having a mad (falling to Nurgle) Planetary Governor on your tail sounds more interesting to me then taking on a Black Crusade or a Tyranid Hive Fleet.

If it doesn't have Warp capability, then they aren't going to be able to leave the solar system... in which case the Planetary Governor (if he is also the System Govenor) is going to have the ability to call in the Arbites or the Imperial Navy to retrieve his property.

Of course, if the Planetary Governor knows he's mutating or otherwise cannot be seen by Imperial Authorities, then that does make life much simpler. Then, he only has whatever system resources/personal lackeys he can come up with, maybe some Bloodaxe Ork mercs, DEldar Mercs, that sort of thing.

Maybe combine both approaches, it's the governor's personal starship but it's also Warp-capable, and the Navigator is getting increasingly uneasy at the unrest in the Warp caused by the Governor's cult activities so when this rebel comes from the planet and says "Hey, mister Navigator person sir, want to help me get the hell out of here?" he says "Let's do this!" and then he's a criminal so he's in the same boat (literally and figuratively) as Kuno so he's going to stick with him.

As far as being a criminal who sometimes helps out the Imperium if he sticks to isolated systems where the governors don't have a lot of central oversight or support they're going to need mercenaries to help out in emergencies, that makes plenty of sense to me.

It should also be noted that the idea of Imperium-wide communications is fictional... even within the setting. If he hops just a few sub-sectors over, it will take a long time for word to go from one system to another, and if the system he ends up in is sufficiently backwater, the local officials might never know he's a wanted man.

I've decided that Kuno and his band of raq-tag guerrillas steal the Governor's ship after years of fighting the plague zombies. Travelling from planet to planet they fight for whichever backwater cartel or governor that'll pay the highest, the combat skills gained during the infestation on Dungran means they are often paid to fight Chaos cults of Nurgle.

The newly founded Ordo Sepulturum is looking to increase it's power within the Imperium and are scouring the galaxy for forces that meet there expectations, several inquisitors have set out to find said forces and hopefully absorb them into a Chamber Militant. Inquisitor Jakob Cook has been on the trail of Kuno's men and has offered them to prove their worth.

In game I'm gonna have Jakob Cook as my Company Commander (even though he isn't) and Kuno as Marbo. It just feels right to have Kuno in the center of the action opposed to standing back and shouting orders.