Post by Cap'n Tightpants on Nov 12, 2012 12:54:17 GMT -5
With the beginning of a new army for me comes the task of writing the fluff for said army. I've improved greatly over the years, (I used to post on the Black Library Forums and will put those early works on here later) but am always ready for improvements. Our gaming club is running a story-driven planetary empires campaign and it's made me go back to some of my earlier work and pick what I liked, added some new things, and I've come out with the 13th Alcomar regiment.
My first two pieces of fluff are from an Imperial Scribe to an Admiral, and kind of overlap information a bit, but it's obvious why when you read it. Anyway, here's the first piece. Enjoy!
<<<<FROM THE DESK OF SCRIBE FIRST RANK DENISON RAXOS {2 756 921 M41}>>>>>
<<<<SENT TO FLEET ADMIRAL TORVEN VIA CONDUIT 4 {2 760 921 M41}>>>>>
Admiral,
Enclosed is the work you desired on the Alcomar system, specifically their campaign against the Tau. I am unable to provide you with precise date referencing as several things, as you can see, are under Level 7 clearance, a level I could only wish to achieve in my most fervent dreams. However, via cross-referencing, I can date the start of the Tau's invasion to roughly 4 450 895 M41, and the civil insurrection to 4 023 912 M41.
THE ALCOMAR SYSTEM
Alcomar is a binary star, eight planet (of which four are rocky worlds suitable for life) system, lying on the Eastern edge of the Imperium, away from the major trade and travel routes to the major central sectors of the Imperium. Close to the border with Tau and Ork Territories, it retains a substantial military of 20 Regiments of PDF per habited planet, a local defence fleet of one battleship, two cruisers and a dozen escorts, and supports 80 Imperial Guard Regiments, a quarter of which are stationed in system at all times to counter pirate raids, civil unrest, and retrain and rearm.
THE ENEMY WITHOUT
The greatest test to the system from without was in the aftermath of the Damocles Gulf Crusade. A rogue Tau sept, seeing an opportunity to expand, and judging Alcomar not to be a strategically important system and therefore one not likely to be heavily fortified, descended on the system in force. Having chased away the local defence fleet, which did not even attempt to resist the overwhelming force on show, they took the agri-world of Alcomari Septus within a week, the PDF having no defence against the superior firepower and air superiority of the sept. Alcomari Quintus took longer to fall, as the steep jungle passes of that world proved imnical to the tactics of the Tau sept, and benefitted the local PDF guerilla forces. Nevertheless, the Tau brought in Kroot reinforcements, and within six weeks the jungle world was theirs. On the manafactorum world of Alcomari Tertius, however, the PDF and Imperial Guard prepared long and hard for the invasion. As the Tau entered orbit, orbital batteries and moon-mounted weaponry battered the invasion fleet. When these had been destroyed, Tau dropships attempting to land were met by Thunderbolt interceptors, Hydra Flak Tanks, and jury-rigged anti-aircraft artillery. Despite numerous attempts to form multiple breacheads over the planet, the Tau failed for two months. The Tau Commander, realising his force would find it difficult to make planetfall over population centres as he preferred, instead decided to land over the middle of the vast ocean, away from any land-based gun emplacements. The Tau succeeded in making the planet, and, quite literally established a beachhead on the eastern shore of the planet's single huge ocean. Railgun strikes from orbit disabled the naval battleships providing anti-aircraft cover over the ocean, as well as the roads that the artillery and tanks scrambling to try and defend the new line of attack were using, and on the ground the Tau set up a 50-mile perimeter. Within days, the line had pushed hundreds of miles forwards, and heavy fighting had broken out within the manafactorums themselves. Again, Kroot relished the close surroundings, and were extremely effective at clearing the streets and buildings. Thousands of Prisoners were taken, and soon the planet had fully surrendered, but for the last pocket of resistance, the Astropath garrison at 9000m on top of Mt. Terrus, which took four weeks to fall due to the low-oxygen environment that Tau found difficult to overcome. As later events would show, that month would prove costly.
The Tau gathered their forces and moved on to Alcomari Prime, the capital planet of the system, which, ravaged by the binary stars combined magnetic fields, was impossible to stay in orbit around for prolonged periods. A concurrent period of solar maxima resulted in the delaying of the Tau's offensive for another week, and the Regiments of Imperial Guard and PDF that were stationed on the planet used their time well. The jewel of the System, Alcomari Prime was a collection of continent-long, 7000m mountain ranges and low, flat, alluvial plains with cities placed in the centre. The rivers that gave the fertility to the planet, helped by its six moons and proximity to the gravity of the stars, flooded dozens of metres high over the low ground, and the cities were built upon rocky outcrops and Estuary islands to compensate. With over 8 billion inhabitants, Alcomari Prime was the final point of resistance, and the four months it had taken the Tau to move through the system had been used well.
The Tau made planetfall and immediately ran into trouble. Again, the screaming engines of Thunderbolts intercepted their dropships, despite having taken steps to protect them with their own fighters and battlesuits. However, having learnt his lesson from Tertius, and being only able to stay in orbit for so long, the Tau commander had dropped all of his troops at once simultaneously across the entire planet. The sheer number of ships overwhelmed the fighters of the Alcomari, and so the Thunderbolts, supported by the PDF's own air force, succeeded in establishing a perimeter around the capital city and prevented the Tau from landing on any of the mountain ranges that were key to the defence plan. The Tau fleet, suffering from the magnetic interference plauging their systems, in particular their Railguns, withdrew to a safe distance. The Tau ground force proceeded to establish themselves in the cities of Alcomari prime that had not been defended. All of these were taken peacably, and the Tau presumed their foe had lost the will to fight on much longer.
PDF and civilian volunteers kept news of Tau movements an open secret to the Imperial commanders. Holed up in the capital city and mountain side fortresses built by unknown hands millenia before, they knew that within two months, the solar maxima reaching its crescendo, coupled with the twice-yearly conjunction of all six moons, would lead to a once-a-decade tidal surge that gave Alcomari Prime its beauty and fertility. As such, they kept themselves on the defensive, striking out from the capitals and mountains when they found a weakness in the occupying force, biding their time and keeping the Tau on the back foot, and, importantly, on the plain itself.
The Earth caste had got to work in building a temporary spaceport and military base north of the Alcomar capital extremely quickly after the planet was subjugated. Tau ships could enter orbit for only brief hours at a time, and so shared duties ferrying men and materiel to the planet. Small floods had made the builders site their new constructions on several-metre high stilts, and they felt safe. The sieges of the capital and mountainside fortresses dragged on for nearly two months, but apart from those small pockets of resistance, which were crumbling, the Tau felt that they had taken the system for the Empire.
Probe Drones picked up the first signs of trouble. The binary stars began to become extremely active again, and the Tau fleet withdrew to a safe distance, orbiting Alcomari Septus. Even there, they suffered problems with sensor glitches and weapon malfunctions. The nights on Alcomari Prime were bright with shifting colours as dazzling multi-coloured Auroras lit up the night sky. All this foreshadowed what was to come.
When the moons of Alcomari prime aligned, the tidal devastation was great. The normal 10-20 metre flood of alluvial freshwater became a raging tsunami of 100-200 metres of seawater. The plant life and people of the planet were used to this cycle. The Tau were not. With their ships gone, the tidal wave hit with devastating effect. Only those Tau stationed in the cities or fighting on the mountains were spared. At the same time as the moons aligned, Tau ships in orbit of Alcomari Septus picked up faint readings of warp trails. Within minutes, the fleet was under attack by an Imperial battlefleet, led by the Lord of Alcomar, the defence fleet's flagship. Torpedoes flashed and exploded, and the Tau fleet, beset by electrical and magnetic malfunctions that had got steadily worse the longer they stayed in the system, were outgunned, outmatched, and surrendered. On Alcomari Prime, the remaining Tau forces, shocked by the horrific natural disaster that had befallen most of their comrades and unable to discover where their ships were, were suddenly under counter-attack by the Alcomari defence forces. Within hours, thousands of Tau had been made prisoner and their commander had surrendered. The sept had ceased to exist.
As a people accustomed to contact with numerous alien species, the prisoners of Alcomar were treated relatively fairly. Whilst calls for them to be sent back to T'au were made, they were indentured into service on the land. The Kroot, knowing their place in normal Tau society, offered their military services- for a small gesture of goodwill, to the people of Alcomar. With so many dead after the war raging across all four planets, the system governor accepted, and the Kroot were inducted into the Alcomari regiments. The imperial fleet, led by Admiral Forrest that had accompanied the Lord of Alcomar under Admiral Iro, protested these actions, and a stand-off ensued that ended only when a newly-arrived Inquisitor, by the name of ++FRAGMENT MISSING, CLASSIFIED++, who was apparently on enigmatic 'other business' ended the stalemate by proclaiming the Tau in system under his protection.
THE ENEMY WITHIN
In the decades following the Tau attack, the prisoners that remained gradually gained a sense of parity with the average citizen. This culminated with the passing of a bill making the Tau prisoners into fully-fledged members of Alcomar society. This event however, incited anger and violent scenes erupted. A previously benevolent sect of the imperial cult became warped and twisted by some unknown hand, which some believe to have belonged to ++FRAGMENT MISSING, CLASSIFIED++, and Chaos sects began to infiltrate elements of the planet's PDF, civil, and political structures.
With most of the system's 80 guard regiments on-planet for the celebration of 'The Day of Deliverance' (as the victory over the Tau had become known), a planet-wide coup of Alcomari Prime was set into motion. The Defence fleet was disabled by saboteurs, and nearly all communication off-world was cut off. The only regiments that remained loyal or intact past the first few days of the revolt were the 13th, and 26th Armoured, which soon found themselves holed up in the planet's spaceport, a few miles outside the capital. Captain Ancor Gyto led the defence of the spaceport, and the few messages he got through were received by ++FRAGMENT MISSING, CLASSIFIED++ and a portion of the Black Templar crusade fleet en route to the Damocles Gulf for action against possible Tyranid incursions over the Imperial border. The Black Templars made planetfall and routed the chaos cultists. Alcomari Prime, was, however, deemed safe by the Ordo Malleus, who blamed the actions of its citizens on certain factions of Eldar slavers. A first-hand account of these events can be gleaned by reading the Interrogation notes of Inquisitor Satyr Arrivis [VID AND AUDIO LINKS ENCRYPTED BELOW, LEVEL 7 CLEARANCE NECESSARY].
THE ALCOMARI 13TH AND 26TH
As the only regiments to escape from their capital's divergence intact and with their name unsullied, these two Alcomar regiments have been the only ones used for outside action since the incident. The 13th, under Ancor Gyto, is now serving on ++FRAGMENT MISSING, LEVEL 4 CLEARANCE NECESSARY++, with the Alcomar's newest, and perhaps now most important allies, the kroot, under his command.
Several attempts to remove kroot from Alcomari regiments have met with failure, and it is yet to be seen whether their continued assistance will be accepted by the Inquisition. However, for now, they provide the diminished Alcomari forces with much needed warrior`1s. Whether they will be treated as Aberrants, like the Ratlings or Ogryns of other regiments, or cast out like the xenos they are, is a question that hopefully should not be too long in the asking.
For the Emperor, I am, and hope to remain eternally your servant,
Scribe Denison Raxos, the Ivth
<<<<MESSAGE ENDS>>>>
My first two pieces of fluff are from an Imperial Scribe to an Admiral, and kind of overlap information a bit, but it's obvious why when you read it. Anyway, here's the first piece. Enjoy!
<<<<FROM THE DESK OF SCRIBE FIRST RANK DENISON RAXOS {2 756 921 M41}>>>>>
<<<<SENT TO FLEET ADMIRAL TORVEN VIA CONDUIT 4 {2 760 921 M41}>>>>>
Admiral,
Enclosed is the work you desired on the Alcomar system, specifically their campaign against the Tau. I am unable to provide you with precise date referencing as several things, as you can see, are under Level 7 clearance, a level I could only wish to achieve in my most fervent dreams. However, via cross-referencing, I can date the start of the Tau's invasion to roughly 4 450 895 M41, and the civil insurrection to 4 023 912 M41.
THE ALCOMAR SYSTEM
Alcomar is a binary star, eight planet (of which four are rocky worlds suitable for life) system, lying on the Eastern edge of the Imperium, away from the major trade and travel routes to the major central sectors of the Imperium. Close to the border with Tau and Ork Territories, it retains a substantial military of 20 Regiments of PDF per habited planet, a local defence fleet of one battleship, two cruisers and a dozen escorts, and supports 80 Imperial Guard Regiments, a quarter of which are stationed in system at all times to counter pirate raids, civil unrest, and retrain and rearm.
THE ENEMY WITHOUT
The greatest test to the system from without was in the aftermath of the Damocles Gulf Crusade. A rogue Tau sept, seeing an opportunity to expand, and judging Alcomar not to be a strategically important system and therefore one not likely to be heavily fortified, descended on the system in force. Having chased away the local defence fleet, which did not even attempt to resist the overwhelming force on show, they took the agri-world of Alcomari Septus within a week, the PDF having no defence against the superior firepower and air superiority of the sept. Alcomari Quintus took longer to fall, as the steep jungle passes of that world proved imnical to the tactics of the Tau sept, and benefitted the local PDF guerilla forces. Nevertheless, the Tau brought in Kroot reinforcements, and within six weeks the jungle world was theirs. On the manafactorum world of Alcomari Tertius, however, the PDF and Imperial Guard prepared long and hard for the invasion. As the Tau entered orbit, orbital batteries and moon-mounted weaponry battered the invasion fleet. When these had been destroyed, Tau dropships attempting to land were met by Thunderbolt interceptors, Hydra Flak Tanks, and jury-rigged anti-aircraft artillery. Despite numerous attempts to form multiple breacheads over the planet, the Tau failed for two months. The Tau Commander, realising his force would find it difficult to make planetfall over population centres as he preferred, instead decided to land over the middle of the vast ocean, away from any land-based gun emplacements. The Tau succeeded in making the planet, and, quite literally established a beachhead on the eastern shore of the planet's single huge ocean. Railgun strikes from orbit disabled the naval battleships providing anti-aircraft cover over the ocean, as well as the roads that the artillery and tanks scrambling to try and defend the new line of attack were using, and on the ground the Tau set up a 50-mile perimeter. Within days, the line had pushed hundreds of miles forwards, and heavy fighting had broken out within the manafactorums themselves. Again, Kroot relished the close surroundings, and were extremely effective at clearing the streets and buildings. Thousands of Prisoners were taken, and soon the planet had fully surrendered, but for the last pocket of resistance, the Astropath garrison at 9000m on top of Mt. Terrus, which took four weeks to fall due to the low-oxygen environment that Tau found difficult to overcome. As later events would show, that month would prove costly.
The Tau gathered their forces and moved on to Alcomari Prime, the capital planet of the system, which, ravaged by the binary stars combined magnetic fields, was impossible to stay in orbit around for prolonged periods. A concurrent period of solar maxima resulted in the delaying of the Tau's offensive for another week, and the Regiments of Imperial Guard and PDF that were stationed on the planet used their time well. The jewel of the System, Alcomari Prime was a collection of continent-long, 7000m mountain ranges and low, flat, alluvial plains with cities placed in the centre. The rivers that gave the fertility to the planet, helped by its six moons and proximity to the gravity of the stars, flooded dozens of metres high over the low ground, and the cities were built upon rocky outcrops and Estuary islands to compensate. With over 8 billion inhabitants, Alcomari Prime was the final point of resistance, and the four months it had taken the Tau to move through the system had been used well.
The Tau made planetfall and immediately ran into trouble. Again, the screaming engines of Thunderbolts intercepted their dropships, despite having taken steps to protect them with their own fighters and battlesuits. However, having learnt his lesson from Tertius, and being only able to stay in orbit for so long, the Tau commander had dropped all of his troops at once simultaneously across the entire planet. The sheer number of ships overwhelmed the fighters of the Alcomari, and so the Thunderbolts, supported by the PDF's own air force, succeeded in establishing a perimeter around the capital city and prevented the Tau from landing on any of the mountain ranges that were key to the defence plan. The Tau fleet, suffering from the magnetic interference plauging their systems, in particular their Railguns, withdrew to a safe distance. The Tau ground force proceeded to establish themselves in the cities of Alcomari prime that had not been defended. All of these were taken peacably, and the Tau presumed their foe had lost the will to fight on much longer.
PDF and civilian volunteers kept news of Tau movements an open secret to the Imperial commanders. Holed up in the capital city and mountain side fortresses built by unknown hands millenia before, they knew that within two months, the solar maxima reaching its crescendo, coupled with the twice-yearly conjunction of all six moons, would lead to a once-a-decade tidal surge that gave Alcomari Prime its beauty and fertility. As such, they kept themselves on the defensive, striking out from the capitals and mountains when they found a weakness in the occupying force, biding their time and keeping the Tau on the back foot, and, importantly, on the plain itself.
The Earth caste had got to work in building a temporary spaceport and military base north of the Alcomar capital extremely quickly after the planet was subjugated. Tau ships could enter orbit for only brief hours at a time, and so shared duties ferrying men and materiel to the planet. Small floods had made the builders site their new constructions on several-metre high stilts, and they felt safe. The sieges of the capital and mountainside fortresses dragged on for nearly two months, but apart from those small pockets of resistance, which were crumbling, the Tau felt that they had taken the system for the Empire.
Probe Drones picked up the first signs of trouble. The binary stars began to become extremely active again, and the Tau fleet withdrew to a safe distance, orbiting Alcomari Septus. Even there, they suffered problems with sensor glitches and weapon malfunctions. The nights on Alcomari Prime were bright with shifting colours as dazzling multi-coloured Auroras lit up the night sky. All this foreshadowed what was to come.
When the moons of Alcomari prime aligned, the tidal devastation was great. The normal 10-20 metre flood of alluvial freshwater became a raging tsunami of 100-200 metres of seawater. The plant life and people of the planet were used to this cycle. The Tau were not. With their ships gone, the tidal wave hit with devastating effect. Only those Tau stationed in the cities or fighting on the mountains were spared. At the same time as the moons aligned, Tau ships in orbit of Alcomari Septus picked up faint readings of warp trails. Within minutes, the fleet was under attack by an Imperial battlefleet, led by the Lord of Alcomar, the defence fleet's flagship. Torpedoes flashed and exploded, and the Tau fleet, beset by electrical and magnetic malfunctions that had got steadily worse the longer they stayed in the system, were outgunned, outmatched, and surrendered. On Alcomari Prime, the remaining Tau forces, shocked by the horrific natural disaster that had befallen most of their comrades and unable to discover where their ships were, were suddenly under counter-attack by the Alcomari defence forces. Within hours, thousands of Tau had been made prisoner and their commander had surrendered. The sept had ceased to exist.
As a people accustomed to contact with numerous alien species, the prisoners of Alcomar were treated relatively fairly. Whilst calls for them to be sent back to T'au were made, they were indentured into service on the land. The Kroot, knowing their place in normal Tau society, offered their military services- for a small gesture of goodwill, to the people of Alcomar. With so many dead after the war raging across all four planets, the system governor accepted, and the Kroot were inducted into the Alcomari regiments. The imperial fleet, led by Admiral Forrest that had accompanied the Lord of Alcomar under Admiral Iro, protested these actions, and a stand-off ensued that ended only when a newly-arrived Inquisitor, by the name of ++FRAGMENT MISSING, CLASSIFIED++, who was apparently on enigmatic 'other business' ended the stalemate by proclaiming the Tau in system under his protection.
THE ENEMY WITHIN
In the decades following the Tau attack, the prisoners that remained gradually gained a sense of parity with the average citizen. This culminated with the passing of a bill making the Tau prisoners into fully-fledged members of Alcomar society. This event however, incited anger and violent scenes erupted. A previously benevolent sect of the imperial cult became warped and twisted by some unknown hand, which some believe to have belonged to ++FRAGMENT MISSING, CLASSIFIED++, and Chaos sects began to infiltrate elements of the planet's PDF, civil, and political structures.
With most of the system's 80 guard regiments on-planet for the celebration of 'The Day of Deliverance' (as the victory over the Tau had become known), a planet-wide coup of Alcomari Prime was set into motion. The Defence fleet was disabled by saboteurs, and nearly all communication off-world was cut off. The only regiments that remained loyal or intact past the first few days of the revolt were the 13th, and 26th Armoured, which soon found themselves holed up in the planet's spaceport, a few miles outside the capital. Captain Ancor Gyto led the defence of the spaceport, and the few messages he got through were received by ++FRAGMENT MISSING, CLASSIFIED++ and a portion of the Black Templar crusade fleet en route to the Damocles Gulf for action against possible Tyranid incursions over the Imperial border. The Black Templars made planetfall and routed the chaos cultists. Alcomari Prime, was, however, deemed safe by the Ordo Malleus, who blamed the actions of its citizens on certain factions of Eldar slavers. A first-hand account of these events can be gleaned by reading the Interrogation notes of Inquisitor Satyr Arrivis [VID AND AUDIO LINKS ENCRYPTED BELOW, LEVEL 7 CLEARANCE NECESSARY].
THE ALCOMARI 13TH AND 26TH
As the only regiments to escape from their capital's divergence intact and with their name unsullied, these two Alcomar regiments have been the only ones used for outside action since the incident. The 13th, under Ancor Gyto, is now serving on ++FRAGMENT MISSING, LEVEL 4 CLEARANCE NECESSARY++, with the Alcomar's newest, and perhaps now most important allies, the kroot, under his command.
Several attempts to remove kroot from Alcomari regiments have met with failure, and it is yet to be seen whether their continued assistance will be accepted by the Inquisition. However, for now, they provide the diminished Alcomari forces with much needed warrior`1s. Whether they will be treated as Aberrants, like the Ratlings or Ogryns of other regiments, or cast out like the xenos they are, is a question that hopefully should not be too long in the asking.
For the Emperor, I am, and hope to remain eternally your servant,
Scribe Denison Raxos, the Ivth
<<<<MESSAGE ENDS>>>>