Imperial Army (Hektor Heresy)

This page details people, events, and organisations from the /tg/ Heresy, a fan re-working of the Warhammer 40,000 Universe. See the /tg/ Heresy Timeline and Galaxy pages for more information on the Alternate Universe.

The Imperial Army (known in High Gothic as the Imperialis Auxilia, or Excertus Imperialis as the ground component separate from the fleet was known) was the common human soldiery in the early Imperium and contained both ground, air and space assets all within the same service. It was subordinate to the Legiones Astartes and efforts were made to ensure that the soldiers' loyalties lay first and foremost with the individual Primarch and the Space Marine Legion to which they had been attached.

The Imperial Army was founded during the early Great Crusade to fill the need for more manpower to support the Astartes Legions, initially used to garrison worlds so the Legions could press onwards. Newly conquered or liberated worlds were required to provide a tithe of Troops for service, in order both to ensure their compliance and to safeguard the ever-expanding Imperium. Eventually as the Legions became ever more scattered and diluted across the stars, the Imperial Army took up the slack, being used to perform sieges, mass invasions and planetary pacifications separate from the Astartes Legions, using numbers and raw firepower to win the day.

The Imperial Army's subordination to the Astartes Legions led to the Imperial Army tearing itself apart in the Hektor Heresy, when half of the Legions rebelled against the Emperor and took their Army regiments with them. The Army tore itself apart, with many commander refusing to join either side and carving out their own fiefdoms, thousands of pocket empires created by ambitious commanders which had to be secured with blood during the scouring.

After the Heresy the Imperial Army was broken in two, creating the Imperial Guard and the Imperial Navy.

Notable Imperial Army Units

The Ardito Highwatch

Hailing from a world of ravines and soaring peaks, the Ardito are born mountaineers and light infantrymen. The thin air of their homeworld selects only the hardiest specimens to survive to adulthood.

The Auron Infantries

The "Aurries" are a light infantry force founded in late M30 on the planet Auron. They are famous for their wisecracking and survival skills.

The Carlisian Shock Troops

Carlisar is a system on the edge of Segmentum Solar near the Eye of Terror. Its primary planet of Carlisar IV is a heavily industrialised planet just short of hive world status. Carlisar has a proud military tradition born from many centuries of bloody upheaval within the system itself and eventually from marauding orks that have constantly plagued the system since their arrival.

Eager to prove themselves in the crucible of war after accepting Imperial pacification with open arms, Carlisar raised and sent out as many regiments as it could muster for the Imperial Army. Carlisian army regiments focus on a solid core of footslogging and mechanised infantry supported by some tanks, and a very large number of aircraft. Veterans of the infantry companies are promoted to the drop companies, who specialise in airborne tactical insertion to the most dangerous battlefield areas. Carlisar drop troopers are deployed into the battlefield where they can have the most impact, reinforcing crumbling fronts and hitting vulnerable enemy positions. Due to the nature of warfare these drop companies have high attrition rates. This is seen as a point of pride among the soldiers, and promotion to the drop companies is a great honor. The regiments tend to boast an array of highly skilled pilots as well, given the difficulty of performing flybys for troop deployment and bombing runs where the fighting tends to be thickest. The result of their tactical doctrine is a solid land based fighting force that is highly adaptable due to rapid air deployment and supplemented by gunship support and bombings. Carlisar soldiers tend to be boisterous and outgoing in their relations with other Imperial Army units, and have a dogged determination and disdain for fear that make them truly fierce combatants. Many a foe has fallen to the onslaught of their shining blue battle tanks, disciplined regimented infantry, and coordinated drop strikes.

Chelob Hammerers

Following the conquest of the Core Worlds Confederation by the Imperium, sturdy heavy infantry regiments, backed up by artillery and massive vehicles, were raised from the defeated worlds.

Ciban Chasseurs

The Fifth Legion's homeworld of Ciban IV has raised many regiments for the Imperium every year since its Pacification. The patronage of the Primarch Gaspard Lumey led to these soldiers being among the best-equipped in the Imperial Army. Typically deployed as mechanized troops, Ciban Chasseurs were present for almost all of the Fifth's battles until the Legion was broken up in the Imperial Reformation.

The Dolsene Rifles

Many regiments of the Imperial Army (and its successor, the Imperial Guard) claim to be the best of the best. Inevitably such discussions involve a comparison with the Dolsene Rifles, natives of a distant world besieged by Xenos. Although they rarely depart their native soil, the Rifles have left a legacy of success across the galaxy.

Elsinor Favored Sons

Drawn from the planetary nobility, the Favored Sons are elite infantry specializing in stealth missions.

The Exiran Armored Brigades

So named for the perponderance of tanks and other armored equipment in their divisions, the Exirans are among the most widespread of Imperial Guard units, with Princes fighting on almost every side of every conflict. Hailing from the eponymous sector, Exiran units feature some of the best individual fighting forces in the Imperium. Exirus is home to countless factories spanning entire continents, and based on a tradition of ritualized warfare between local nobles Exiran units have developed a stong tradition of integrated armor/infantry/artillery operations. While the various Princes have since embraced naval and space combat as well, the wargame traditions have often time blinded them to wider strategic considerations.

If left to their own devices an Exiran brigade may quickly run out of fuel, run out of food, run out of ammo in protracted battles. This is not indicative of any sort of wastefulness on the part of Exirus soldiers but a testament to the Kriegspiel traditions of their commanding officers, when a single battle might have dictated the fate of an entire nation. Exiran infantry may require greater resupply but they are well trained professional soldiers rather than the mass conscripts of other parts of the Imperium. Squads train with nearly every weapon available to them. A commanding officer couldn't ask for a better fighting force, but Imperial Commissars often butt heads with them. As such, one will often find Princes of Exirus leading a brigade from the front in the Commissar's stead.

The Glasgan Fatalis

The Glasgan Fatalis Regiment is a very fatalistic army, with death regarded as common and superfluous. Their rate of maturity is artificially accelerated, so that they live, get married, have children, etc. all before the age of 15. From then on until death they fight in the regiment, with a minimal fear of death as their life is largely over. The few survivors that do make it return as elders, and teach the next few generations before dying of old age.

Haeltoth Starguard

The Starguard are few but better-known than many more numerous formations. If their doctrine and tactical prowess does not astound, their sleek powered armour and advanced energy weaponry always leaves an impression.

Horde of the Hated

A special branch of the Imperial Army, created due to the large amount of Abhuman species that had been assimilated into the Imperium. Since many high ranking Imperial Army officials could not stomach the creatures, they were pushed together into a single army, the Horde of the Hated. They pay for their crime of mutation by spilling the blood of the Emperors enemies.

The different abhuman species tend to be secluded to whatever role that their mutation would best suit them to. The Commanders are almost all humans that keep a watchful eye over them, making sure that they stay loyal to the Emperor and the Imperium at all times, though, a few Abhumans have been granted the illusion of power, by being given high titles, such as Discipline Master. A few, that have shown true valor, have been granted cybornetic implants.

The Horde specialize in large numbers and large bodies. The Horde is known for rushing enemies, regardless of its tactical intelligence. Partly because a large number of the Hordes forces come from primative worlds, but, mostly because Horde commanders do not care for their men. It is not unheard of, for an army to be swept away as a group of Bullgryns abandon a heavily fortified bunker, to charge. Many Horde weapons are semi-automatic, or burst fire, so that the more primatives do not simply waste all of their ammo by firing wildly into the air, enjoying the explosive sounds.

In contrast, some of the elites of the Horde are known for their tactical effectiveness, primarily because most commanders underestimate the strength, determination and intelligence of the average Abhuman. The Storm Callers are known for efficiency on the battlefield.

The Kondrus Aeroguard

The Kondrus Aeroguard are a nimble airmobile force, known as much for their masks and gypsy ways as their tactical prowess.

The Markian Corps

Bound in servitude to the Fifth Legion is the Markian Corps, the united military forces of the Markian Pact. The regiments of Karmia, Atashia, Kouralia, Lemartia, and Thenar are insignificant individually; what the Markian regiments derive their power from is combined arms, unit cohesion, and specialist equipment, utilizing versatility to attain victory.

The Motroit Enforcers

Motroit, one of the Imperium's great centres of cybernetics, put forward a unique solution to the Emperor's demand for tithed troops. Rather than conscript or ask for volunteers, the Enforcers take those whose bodies have been badly damaged in accidents or by disease and rebuild them into cyber-soldiers.

The Emperor's Own Narakan Corps - "Scumdogs"

Reviled as savages and blackguards throughout the Imperial Army the Narakan Corps, or "Scumdogs" as they are known informally, are nevertheless a brutally effective fighting force. The Narakans are defined by their homeworld of Naraka, a brutal deathworld hiding under the decaying façade of a hiveworld, and their claim of subjugation by the Emperor himself. Naraka was once a glittering global metropolis, but an unknown accident or attack left the world completely inhospitable. The worlds of the empire sent hundreds of thousands of convicted criminals to the world in attempts to repair the damage. Generations would pass and the hive-ganger culture they inherited from their forebearers would never fade among the Narakan peoples, leading to a great deal of friction with more "civilized" segments of the Imperial Army.

Due to their brutal and toxic homeworld, the Narakans possess unnatural physiques. The use of combat stimulants and biological/mechanical physical augmentation is rampant and even ritualized, the decrepit automated factories of Naraka still produce enough to supply the Corps. A few Narakan individuals have become so grotesquely large and powerful they even rival Space Marines in brute strength and hardiness.

The Corps specialize in urban warfare, guerilla warfare, and routing dug in resistance, every soldier having recieved basic training since birth. The Emperor's Own are often called in when other regiments have difficulty removing dug in threats or overcoming toxic environments. They prefer to draw out defenders with rapid strafing attacks to leave them in disarray before a final mass charge. The thunder of dropships and the howling of jetbikes were often the last thing heard by rebellious defenders as the Scumdogs descended upon them.

Skoptsi Redeemers

The Redeemers are a series of regiments hailing from Skoptsi Prime, a planet brought into the Imperial fold late in the Great Crusade. The regiments are composed entirely of a secretive religious sect from that world, whose leader prophesied that those who joined the Crusade would eventually have their long-awaited hopes and dreams fulfilled in 'the divine realm'. Fanatics all, the Redeemers charge the enemy, heedless of the cost in lives that result from such tactics.

Vaartes Fated

The regiments of the planet Vaartes are vat-grown and tithed to the Imperium. Outside of the society which created them, the Vaartesian troopers often find themselves questioning their programming and choosing to shift that 'built-in' loyalty to a chosen cause-- the Imperial Army, the Emperor, or the Imperial Creed. Mechanized infantry who are fanatical and loyal to a fault, the 'Fated' nevertheless gain the respect of those allies they fight alongside.

Gallery

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  Propaganda poster issued to the Motroit Enforcers. These sinister images were intended to help cow newly-subdued worlds without the need for bloodshed.

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  Auron Infantry recruiting poster

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  Auron Infantry recruiting poster, produced after the Imperium's narrow victory at Destino

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  Artist's impression of the Death World Auron

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  One of the Haeltoth stations, home to the Starguard.

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  A scene from the Aeroguard's ruined homeworld, Kondrus.

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  Artist's impression of Ciban IV, home to the Chasseurs.

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  Carlisian Shock Troops gunship in close-up

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  A super-heavy vehicle used by the Chelob Hammerers

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  Dolsene Rifles rover

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  Sketch of an Exiran infantryman

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  A sniper from the 88th Aeroguard. Note the intimidating Mortis-pattern Targeter-Surveyor Rebreather underneath the hood of the soldier's camo-cloak.

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  Sketch of a soldier from the 5th Ciban Chasseurs, "The flower of Orléans".

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  Sketch of soldiers of the Ardito Highwatch