Blood Pact

Blood Pact
Capital	Ghourra
Official Languages	Low Gothic
Power	Middle Power
Size	Disputed, Almost a 100 Systems
Head of State	Gaur
Head of Government	Gaur
Governmental Structure	Unitary Authoritarian Theocratic Stratocracy
State Religion/Ideology	Khorne Worship, Gaur Personality Cult
Demographic	Humans, Loxatl, Daemons of Khorne, Warp Beasts, various Xenos
Military Force	Blood Pact Army, Blood Pact Air Force, Loxatl Mercenaries, Khornate Daemons

This article is awesome. Do not fuck it up.

The Blood Pact is a Chaos Cult dedicated to Khorne, naturally. Whilst they look like your typical run-of-the-mill Renegades, they actually operate a lot more like an Imperial Guard regiment than blood-mad Khornates; they also behave as an actual nation rather than a rag-tag team of blood fetishists. They are agreed to be the very definition of Awesome by /tg/ without going full Supersoldier Special Snowflake Mary Sue.; then again, most of their fluff is written by Dan Abnett, so that's not really much of a surprise. The Blood Pact hail from the Sabbat Worlds Sector and have gained notoriety with the Imperium of Man for their highly disciplined and ruthlessly competent leadership brimming with Just As Planned.

A unique cultural custom of the Blood Pact is that they slice their palms on the jagged edges of the Archon's Power Armour as an oath of allegiance and loyalty to both each other and Khorne; that is where they get their name from. In rare cases, such as for snipers whose hands are essential to their trade, another part of the body may be cut to seal the pact. Also unusual is their frequent hiring of Xenos as part of their recruitment strategy; the Blood Pact are nothing but pragmatic and their frequent success over the Imperium shows that a little bit of unorthodox change can bring results.

Sounding a little strange, right? The Blood Pact uses Imperial manufacturing and orthodox command hierarchies to field Chaos armies who are not chaotic, in the sense that they're organized. They use complicated strategies, are backed up by Khornate Sorcerors (which aren't a thing but maybe are more like priests or shaman in this case) and created fucking land aircraft carriers. They are basically the most anti-Khornate group of Khorne worshipers in the entire galaxy. How do they still have Khorne's favor? Probably because unlike every other faction, Chaos is acting in-character by acting completely out-of-character at times. Perhaps Khorne looked at those Blood Pact guys getting shit done so much harder than his other forces and just gave them a big bloody thumbs-up. Or it’s simply that Khorne is the God of War, not mindless stupidity. And the competency of the Blood Pact sure results in a lot more blood and skulls than suicide charges ever will. He’s also the God of Martial Honor. In any case, Abnett managed to portray reasonable Khornates in such a refreshing way that /tg/ wishes that the majority of Chaos Warbands were this competent and awesome. Now if only Failbaddon could hire a few of these guys, then maybe he can break even and win a few more Black Crusades eh?

Turns out, it’s damn hard fighting a sane, pragmatic military with a structured industry and logistics, lead by superhumans, and favored by the God of fucking WAR.

Underwhelming, isn't it?

Unfortunately, these magnificent chaps are woefully underrepresented in the tabletop game, having only rules for the standard infrantry and Death Brigades in Chapter Approved in issue 292 of White Dwarf. No update has been given for these third edition-compatible rules, leaving players to use the awful Counts As rule. Though recently a fan made codex was released for public use for 9th edition reference here:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1d3Wq9tqt7fMzzOG9CUptRh1urcCbnHsV0KbhBKbfmE0/edit?usp=sharing

History

Nice skull you have there.

While no one knows for sure where these guys came from, what we do know is that they were first sighted some 3,000 years ago on a planet known as Ghourra, sometimes pronounced Gaurra because nobody knows the proper way to say that broken piece of Low Gothic, at the edge of the Sabbat Worlds. At that time, the tribal society of Ghourra was ruled by a feudal overlord, or Gaur (sometimes referred to as "Ghour" or "Gour", which is not to be confused with the Beastmen's Gor). The Gaur surrounded himself with an elite priesthood who conducted the ritual observances by which the Gaur made tribute to the one and only Khorne. This militant-priesthood evolved over time into a bodyguard force which practiced its martial skills as diligently as it had once conducted its bloody sacrificial rites.

As the Gaur's influence grew, he eventually started to expand his power and conquer neighboring worlds and yadda yadda yadda-- basically every Chaos origin story told to man. After that cliche, it soon became a mark of respect to be 'bloody-pacted" to the Gaur. Numbers grew, recruited from vassal worlds, and the bodyguard force eventually became an army in its own right: the current Blood Pact.

Uniquely, every single member of the Blood Pact (and Imperial tactical estimates suggest there may be as many as three quarters of a million Blood Pact warriors) is personally inducted into service by the Gaur himself to prove his allegiance in blood to both the Gaur and the Blood God. Induction is hopefully done in batches, because otherwise (assuming one induction per second 24/7/365) it would take almost a year and a half of non-stop work to process that many soldiers.

Suffice to say, as the Blood Pact grew in size and power, it was an eventuality that they will come into the noggins of the IoM. The Imperium's first encounter with the Blood Pact occurred in the aftermath of the Battle of Balhaut in 765.M41. After some personal infighting, Gaur's Blood Pact had been encountered in combat during the early years of the Crusade, but never properly identified. However, once he became Archon, the Blood Pact became a backbone element of the Chaos host. It is believed many other archenemy units and divisions, wishing to prove their loyalty to the new Archon, converted to the Blood Pact. Within just a few years, the Crusade forces came to recognize the Blood Pact as elite infantry of the archenemy after several rounds of being metaphorically pimp-slapped.

This recognition was aptly demonstrated at the Battle of the Akkorite Peninsula on Belshiir Binary in 771. A vital and much-contested world due to its promethium wells, refineries and processing depots, Belshiir Binary was the site of a notable Blood Pact victory. A force of two hundred Blood Pact troopers, supported by just four stalk-tanks and two Loxatl brood groups, cut off and annihilated a force of three thousand Imperial Guardsmen. The outnumbered Blood Pact force was commanded by an officer called Vesh Etogaur (the second word indicative of rank, as in 'demi-gaur' or General) whose strict command led to the Pact force lying in baking heat for three days without breaking cover until the Imperial forces had moved into the cone of their ambush. The resulting combat lasted twenty-two minutes. No members of the Guard unit survived the slaughter, and the Akkorite Peninsula refinery remained under Chaotic control for a further fifteen months. Pimp-slapped indeed.

Organization

Khornholio's less retarded cousin.

As a military organization the Blood Pact is quite diverse, being made up of accumulation of various lesser warbands absorbed into its ranks. The leaders of the Pact encourage the integration of other Chaos warbands, especially traitor Imperial Guard regiments and soldiers. The Blood Pact is also allied with alien races and mercenaries, such as the Loxatl (which are like giant quadrupedal lizard salamanders). That any species is evil enough to ally, as a species, with Chaos is enough to prove the Imperium right about some, if not most xenos.

The Blood Pact is a highly organized army, consisting of effective soldiers rather than pants-on-head retards. They often have support in the forms of plundered tanks, which are looted from defeated Imperial armies or manufactured in captured Forge Worlds. They are drilled and trained in warfare techniques to a standard of competence at least equivalent to the Imperial Guard but probably greater as they don’t have to waste training on indoctrination and such and must maximize their skill to make up for a lack of numbers. They have excellent (often captured) communication systems and a firm chain of command, meaning that they can be confidently deployed with tactical precision. A Blood Pact General is called an Etogaur. The Blood Pact can hit specific targets or accomplish specific missions, and individual warriors have the intelligence and field training to operate independently, if necessary, for the Pact's interests. This is what makes them so dangerous. They are not mindless fanatics; they are excellent battlefield soldiers in the sworn service of Chaos.

One of the most concerning parts of the Blood Pact's organisation is that they make an effort to gather intelligence and data as well as sociological and psychological profiles of their enemies, namely the Guard. They will employ specialists to comprehend every minutia of what makes regular human soldiers tick, to the extent of heavily scrutinising why men find fried eggs tasty (I mean, yeah, they're good, but they're probably not from a fucking chicken) or why non-command authority officers (read commissars) inspire fear/loyalty/greater effort in their troops (large weapons pressed hard against skulls). The Pact - and the worlds they hold - represent some of the deepest fears of the Imperium: a stellar cluster of Chaotic cultural worlds locked in realspace and unassailable by crusading forces. The fact that they need to find out what makes regular humans tick is far more worrying than reassuring - while most traitors are converts, these evil sphincters are born seeing the Imperium as heretics rather than the other way round.

The Blood Pact even have their own elite or veteran sections called the Death Brigades, representing the finest and most ruthless storm squads in the Blood Pact. Though few in number, the Death Brigades are often encountered at the spearhead of assaults, as the private company of senior Chaos leaders, or deployed on specialist missions, and are the most dreaded of all Blood Pact units.

Because they are not a bunch of Mindless Morons that like to charge head long into a wall of guns, a Blood Pact trooper will be armed with a lasgun or autogun as his primary weapon. In close-quarter environments such as trenches, or when storming techniques are required, they favor plate or chainmail tunics and arm themselves with billhooks, trench clubs and grenades. Some are able combat specialists in the field of demolition or sniping.

Furthermore, thanks to these captured Forge Worlds, the Blood Pact have numerous armor and artillery formations. Blood Pact armor is generally slightly inferior to standard Imperial issue, most of it being Urdeshi-pattern variants such as the STeG 4 and the AT70 Reaver Battle Tanks, though they do also have more limited numbers of the larger and more powerful AT83 Brigand Super Tank as well as a few of the rare Baneblade super-heavy tanks. The Blood Pact also field a lighter-armored variation of the Defiler known as the Stalk Tank. All Blood Pact armored vehicles are painted red, inscribed with numerous obscene Khornate slogans, and are often decorated with the skulls and hides of their enemies.

Oh, and did we mention that they have Khornate Sorcerers? But unlike certain failures, these guys are actually awesome and somehow actually manage to make the Blood Pact more Khornate than ever despite using filthy sorcerous magic and avoiding too much Fluff breaking. These are called Gore Mages. These dark wizards can possess Blood Pact warriors with Daemonic spirits, turning them into ferocious, almost unstoppable creatures that they call Blood Wolves. Also, Gore Mages radiate a sense of irrational fear and have access to many other powers involving blood.

Perhaps the biggest threat the Blood Pact represents is that their success is starting to catch on amongst other Chaos factions, leading other warlords and magi to forge trained, disciplined armies in the Blood Pact's likeness-- even improving on the Pact's doctrine by capturing and converting Imperial officers to train them.