Editing Setting:Cloudburst/Guard (section)

===== [[Setting:Cloudburst/Spindle|Spindle]] System =====

As a Hive World, Thimble is bursting with people, and their many hundreds of Astra Militarum contributions are ubiquitous across the region.  Thanks to their world’s great industrial manufacturing capability and excellent clothing supplies, their regiments can fight in most environments.

* 30th Argent Sword Heavy Infantry Regiment “Silver Soldiers”: Thimble produces more soldiers in total than any other system in Cloudburst, thanks to its enormous and rapidly growing population.  Many of its regiments are well overstrength compared to their Septiim templates.  The 30th Argent Swords are a typical Thimblan regiment in many ways, but their claim to fame is for standing alongside Lady High Inquisitrix Lerica herself in her suppression campaign against the Cold Trade smugglers caught transporting their Helix Elixir across the Drumnos Voids asteroid belts.  Lerica located dozens of tiny asteroid bases across the region and commanded the 30th to suit up in vac suits to capture them, and they did so despite having never trained in the technique.  Imperial Navy boarders might have been more effective, or even Sea Dragons, but they were not available in time to board before the enemy escaped, and Lerica wanted the smugglers peddling the alien immortality potions dead at once.  The 30th served alongside the High Inquisitrix for ten years after that, flushing out smuggler dens and alien nests along the breadth of the Cloudburst southern border, and were allowed to retire to Thimble with extra pay for their hard work even before their mandatory tour was over in thanks for their service.  The regiment reconstituted after that, and has become a mainstay of the Sector’s defenses against alien pirates and raiders, including those besieging the Rampart system at the end of the 42nd millennium.
* 38th Argent Sword Xenohunters Regiment “Beehives”: Naturally stemming from the large pool of recruits that Thimble can produce, specialized regiments such as the 38th usually raise to persecute the enemies of man in long-term planning, rather than raise to aid a single Crusade or settle a new world.  The 38th specialize in fighting aliens underground or in urban ruins, where air cover is impossible or hard to use safely.  As such, they stock their regiment with vehicles that have heavily armored undercarriages and all manner of auspexes, and employ mining and breaching equipment to chase down enemies that bore or dig to escape divine justice.
* 101st Argent Sword Artillery Regiment: Hive Worlds rarely produce much artillery, given the usually-hostile environments of the planets from which they hail.  However, some of the barren polar regions of Thimble are suitable for artillery practice.  The 101st Artillery is a typical Thimblan regiment, with a little over twenty thousand men divided into sixteen battalions, and each battalion having a few hundred artillery pieces, spotter devices, hauling vehicles, repair and maintenance trucks, field ambulances, and logistical tankers bearing ammo and fuel.  The noteworthy aspect of the regiment is its deployment history, not its composition.  Of all of the regiments in the Cloudburst Sector, this is the recurring regiment that has spent the most time in other Sectors, but has never been a part of a Crusade.  It has a pair of Banesword super-heavy tanks from Syracuse to its name, and has engaged forces of Nurgle, including the Rot Soul Brigade itself, over twenty times.  To protect it from the vengeful targets of its mighty guns, the regiment employs multiple companies devoted exclusively to the fielding of Hydra and Manticore vehicles in AA roles, usually accompanied by Tarantula and Sabre gun platforms with autocannons and heavy bolters for additional air defense.  As the logistical costs of fielding twenty thousand men with heavy vehicles are enormous, the regiment has its own Navy transport, the Galaxy-class troop carrier ''Seismic Events''.  The Navy will sometimes sortie spotter planes from the carrier as well.
* 476th Argent Sword Stormtrooper Regiment: Cloudburst Stormtroopers are regarded as something of a joke by the Stormtroopers of the frequently-assaulted Naxos and pirate-infested Drumnos Sectors.  This is because Chaotic invaders and nimble pirates are the exact enemies against which fielding Stormtroopers makes the most sense, and so they are in constant demand there, with some Stormtrooper regiments and Astra Militarum Scion units having nine-thousand-year pedigrees.  The 476th Argent Stormtroopers, however, are no joke at all.  The regiment divides into four small companies, each of which attaches itself to another Thimblan regiment of conventional troopers, and each of which is issued state-of-the-art targeting equipment by Cognomen’s mighty Castle of the Forges.  This allows their Stormtroopers to land shots on targets through walls, in total darkness, even in hard vacuum, with the precision of a marksman and the range of a sniper.  The 476th are more than merely well-equipped, however; they are also led by the best.  The regiment’s commander is Lieutenant Colonel Yukimura, the Lord Gemweld himself, a scion of the Highborn of Thimble and a forty-year veteran of the worst wars in recent Sector history, and he has made sure to surround himself with the most talented and experienced Commissars, War Priests, and Sanctionites he can find.  He distributes these specialists and advisors evenly over his four companies and leads one himself, to ensure that his men are always holding themselves to the highest standard.  Not for nothing is his regiment the preferred Spindle force under arms for accompanying Sisters of Battle on missions in the Circuit.