The Nichean Legionnaires (main thread)

[Julian Sharps]

Legio Nichea XXIII (The 23rd Nichean Legionnaires)
"Obedientiam victoriam, victoriam vita."

The Warhammer Archive Page

So, it's been a while since I was last active on the IGMB. Ever since the new Necromunda edition came out, I've wanted to start up a new Guard army using them as a light mechanized force. So, with the help of the girls of Clan Ecsher, and eventually the Catachans and the hulks of House Goliath, I present the Nichean Legionnaires.

This thread will serve as a project log where I will post my fluff and link to pictures of the modeling process, as well as army lists and battle reports.

While a corps of elite storm troopers augmenting a vast horde of semi-civilized cannon fodder is hardly original, I do hope that this proves to be an interesting project to follow and complete.

DISCLAIMER: I do not endorse any of the ideas which the Nicheans represent - in fact, I find most of them morally repugnant. I do, however, feel that the Nicheans are perfectly at home in the grimdark 40K universe and I find it interesting to explore what this sort of world might be like.

Nichea:
Nichea is home to a highly stratified society based on genetics - one’s personal genome dictates one’s position in society, which cannot be deviated from. Those with the means hire the services of Geneticians - experts in human genetics and genealogy - to arrange marriages with members of other families, and the elites can even afford to have “impurities” removed from their genome and replaced with favorable traits. The vast majority of Nicheans, considered degenerate by the elite, either toil their entire lives in the hellish factories or the backbreaking fields, or they eke out a meager existence raiding in the wastelands.

Upwards social mobility does not exist except by birthright - indeed, most Nicheans aren’t even considered for membership in the gentry or nobility because of their low social standing - but those with “inferior” genes are frequently sentenced to life in a lower class than their parents shortly after birth, and when they are kept it is usually because they have some genes worth passing on, they correct a gender imbalance, or they may prove useful as a source of spare organs in the event of illness, injury, or misfortune. Punishment for crimes often involves temporary or permanent demotions in status, or surgical removal of reproductive organs. Depending on the severity of the violation, one’s entire bloodline may be punished for an infraction by one of its members.

“Genetic degeneracy” is a crime on Nichea, committed by any person who conceals genetic impurities so as to maintain a higher social station than their genome would ordinarily allow. The guilty party, as well as anyone descended from them are executed, and anyone who knew of the crime and failed to report or resolve it are stripped of their status and reproductive organs and sentenced to spend the rest of their lives in menial service to whomever purchases the rights to their labor.

The elites of Nichea welcome the Imperial Tithe, as it gives the noble houses the opportunity to rid their lands of degenerates, as well as unwanted noble children who become officers. They treat the arrival of the tithe ships as an excuse to round up factory and farm workers, or clear out regions of wasteland for raiders. They are sent to concentration camps where they are trained to fight in the Imperial Guard. The training is grueling, and the weak and stupid quickly perish in the process.

Officially, Nichean Imperial Guard regiments are designated as penal legions, with a substantial abhuman presence. Ogryns are commonly employed as front line shock troops. Occasionally, when there are more nobles than available officer billets, these officer candidates form up elite strike teams to undertake special missions.

The elites of Nichean society are divided into noble houses, each of which controls interests in the hive cities that dot the planet’s surface. While each noble house controls at least one, the complex interactions between houses have resulted in houses owning enclaves in each others’ cities, and sometimes rival houses that share a common ally will vie for dominance.

On Nichea, alliances between noble houses are primarily forged because of genetic compatibility. Noble houses employ geneticians to examine their genealogical records to find the best genetic matches with members of other houses, and it is the desired genetic traits of potential offspring that drive houses to ally with each other so that marriages can be arranged.

Although the law specifies that genetic degeneracy is punishable by purging of the entire bloodline, each of the noble houses contains hereditary traits in their genomes that would qualify as degenerate, but they have been unsuccessful in removing. House Carmine, for example, is plagued with a genetic disposition toward diabetes, while House Evans has secret dungeons deep beneath their cities filled with kinsmen ravaged by dementia. Cystic fibrosis runs rampant throughout House Mendel, and House Benedict resorts to mass cloning to conceal their extensive progeria. The houses are able to conceal these dirty secrets through shrewd politicking, bribery, and genetic engineering to keep these traits recessive. Exposure of these secrets would be a scandal so great that it could result in the purging of multiple houses, due to millennia of intermarriage. Most houses are aware that the others have these traits, and as a result inter-house politics become complex webs of deception and sometimes even violence.

Slavery is an accepted practice on Nichea. In the hives, it is not uncommon for those of higher status to own and trade their lessers, although it is considered distasteful to directly associate with those beneath their immediate inferiors. Among the lower castes, they usually serve as laborers and organ donors, while among the middle, high, and elite castes, slaves are typically servants and tutors. In all castes, slaves that have been sterilized are often kept for sexual purposes, but legally, a master can use and dispose of their slaves any way they see fit. Out in the wasteland, those that are too weak to defend themselves may be taken as slaves by the stronger. Like in the cities, treatment of slaves in the wasteland varies by master, but usually slaves are well-treated - wastelanders care little for caste structure and social status beyond how one contributes to the community, and slavery often takes the form of a verbal contract in which the slave is protected and provided for by their master, in exchange for service to their master for a time, either specified or indefinite.

The Nichean Imperial Guard:
Unlike most regiments raised from Imperial planets, Nichea’s regiments do not represent the best troops that the planet has to offer. Rather, the PDF are an all-volunteer corps of elite shock troops that form the official “core” of the regiment.

Nichean Imperial Guard units are organized into legions of 5,000 shock troops and 45,000 troops levied during the planet’s periodic cullings. Each legion is commanded by a Legate, who has two Prefects who answer to him - one in command of the shock troops and the other the levies. The Prefects hold command over the tribunae, who each command 1,000-man cohorts. Directly beneath the Tribunae are the Centurions, 10 of whom answer to each tribunus. Each centurion commands a 100-man century, including 4 Principale who represent the most junior officers in the legion. The basic maneuver unit is a 10-man maniple led by a Decurion.

Discipline is extremely harsh in Nichean legions. While the shock troops are volunteers and benefit from extensive training and conditioning to help avoid disciplinary problems, the levies have almost none of that, making maimings, beatings by one’s fellows, torture, and executions common remedies in levy cohorts - punishments that the officers have no qualms about ordering as they typically consider levy troops a waste of resources and treat them accordingly.

Basic training for the levy troops is among the most harsh, brutal, and cruel in the Imperium. It is expected that 2/3 of levies will not survive training. When a new cohort is raised, each levy trainee is stripped of all possessions and surgically sterilized to prevent reproduction. They are issued dummy rifles and packs weighted to simulate full field kit, but they are required to spend the first 10 of their 12 weeks in training stark naked, to dehumanize and humiliate them even further.

Every day, the cohort is force-marched out to the training grounds in the wasteland and ruins of Nichea, and made to run barefoot 20 km across the rough and difficult terrain, through searing sunlight, abrasive sandstorms, noxious sewers, and dark, frigid ruins to the drill grounds, where they will receive rations and water if the top sergeant training them is satisfied with their performance. Any trainee who falls behind is left behind - this is to desensitize the trainees to the inevitable deaths of their comrades in battle. If a trainee stops to help a fallen comrade, they will both be flogged upon reaching the drill grounds, but this is the only situation where insubordination is not punished by death.

Upon reaching the drill grounds, the cohort breaks to repast before beginning marksmanship, bayonet and maneuver drills. Weapons are secured tightly and only issued to trainees actively drilling on the grounds. Any trainees that disobey orders while armed are summarily executed by their shock troop jailers. Insubordinate trainees are chained to posts and used as targets for the marksmanship and bayonet drills. Trainees who underperform in the drills are flogged. After six hours of grueling training, the cohort repasts again before they are marched back another 20 km to the barracks, where they repast for the last time before curfew. They get 8 hours of bunk time before reveille, when the entire ordeal is repeated the next day.

One day a week the cohort is granted a day to rest. If the Prefect finds their performance satisfactory, a supply of grain beer may be provided for their consumption. It is generally expected that they will feast, fight, drink, and have sex in order to relieve stress and boost morale. Although their regime is significantly relaxed on these days, their liberty is still heavily restricted and those who break restrictions are punished.

After the end of the 10th week, after the unfit have been culled from the ranks, the Nichean Imperial Guard finally go to the expense of providing the trainees with their uniforms and equipment. The training continues as brutally as before, but a pair of good boots and clothes to protect their flesh from the elements and the chafing of heavy packs are a balm that makes the training more bearable. With fewer insubordinate trainees, the marksmanship and bayonet drills utilize more training dummies than live targets. Specialized equipment training, including vehicle operation, is done in these last two weeks and continues while the legion is underway to its scheduled warzone.

Once the 12th week is completed, the cohort is assigned to a legion and ships out to whatever warzone the Departmento Munitorum assigns it. Casualty rates are alarmingly high - roughly on par with Valhallan and Krieg regiments - although neither of them have an officer corps that demonstrates such callous disdain for the very existence of their rank and file troops.

Abhumans are fairly common in Nichean cohorts - Ogryns in particular feature prominently in levy formations, although their existence has less to do with the environment of the planet itself and more to do with a Mechanicus genetic experiment that had unintended, if mostly benign, consequences.

[Trickstick]

An interesting read, I like the idea of a genetic dystopia. I was imagining the society from the film GATTACA, turned up to nightmare future levels. I liked your description of the training. Or maybe I should say "liked", because it really was pretty horrific. The part about live target practice was especially disturbing, well done!

Being a tread head at heart, I would like to know more about the vehicles they used. Would they mostly be reserved for the nobles? I'm not sure I would trust penal legionaries with heavy armour.

Nice read, interested to see more. I really should give my own fluff thread a large edit too, it is a fun side of the hobby which is often ignored.

[Julian Sharps]

Tauroxen feature prominently in Nichean cohorts, as they have the speed required to make the balls-to-the-wall hit-and-run attacks Nicheans are fond of making. The shock troops are provided with the Prime variants (typically fitted with missile launchers), while the levies make do with an open-topped variant of the standard Taurox. Hellhounds provide heavier armor for frontal attacks, while Sentinels are commonly used for flanking maneuvers.

The Ecclessiarchy often sends missionaries to lead the levies into battle, singing praise-filled hymns to the Emperor as they charge to their fates. Missionaries from the Archdiocese of Nichea encourage the use of chemicals in levy deployments, both to maintain discipline and to use against the enemy. Nichean troops don't use flamers - promethium is too valuable as a vehicle fuel than as a weapon - instead they prefer to dissolve their targets in cleansing acid sprays so that their bones can be scoured of polluted flesh.

[Julian Sharps]

The Nichean Legionnaires have a page on B.G. Foster's Warhammer Archive! Check it out!

[Julian Sharps]

I added a couple new entries on the Warhammer Archive page, specifically for my Harker and Stracken counts-as characters, Rook "Get Some" Castle and Alex "Stone Cold" Knaver.

I've built models for both of them from converted Goliath gangers - pics once I have a halfway decent camera and a place to shoot them.

[Julian Sharps]

Nichean Genetic Purity Quanta:

As Nichean society is stratified based on genetics, they naturally have a system in place for documenting and classifying an individual's genetic profile. Nicheans are typically marked in some way to identify which of the 22 classes they belong to - purity seals for the upper strata, identification cards for the middle, and brands for the lower.

Alphas are the absolute highest rank in Nichean society, representing human genetic purity at its finest. So coveted is an Alpha-class rating that Alphas spend their entire lives cloistered in the upper spires, quarantined until death to protect them from accident, injury, malfeasance, or exposure to any mutagens that might rob them of their status. The only individuals they directly associate with are their Beta subordinates. In the wider Imperium, Space Marines, Inquisitors, starship captains, Canonesses of the Adepta Sororitas, and other high-ranking Imperial officials are considered honorary Alphas.

Betas are the highest rank that actually appear in public, although they almost never leave Nichea. The Beta caste is actually the most powerful politically, as they not only run the government and all major industries on Nichea, but they also keep the Alphas sequestered away so that they may fulfill their function as figureheads, trophies, and breeding stock for their Houses. Betas mainly associate only with Alphas and Gammas, although it is not uncommon for them to be in the same room as a Delta. Magos Biologis of the Adeptus Mechanicus are honorary Betas for their service in effecting the more scientific aspects of their society.

Gammas and Deltas are often employed as junior executives in Nichean society, and represent the highest ranks in the Nichean Legions. Gammas that join the Legions tend to get their start as Prefects, and Deltas, Tribunae, after a brief period in the lower officer ranks so that they can get accustomed to their roles as leaders.

Most other officers in the Nichean Legions tend to be Epsilons or Zetas, with Etas making up the bulk of the shock troops. Career advancement is limited for these classes - even the most qualified Epsilon will never issue orders to a Delta.

The lowest of the acceptable quanta are the Thetas, who tend to be overseers or foremen. It is possible for a Nichean from one of the degenerate ranks to rise up to the rank of Theta by demonstrating exceptional utility to society and working hard to maintain the social order. In the Nichean Legions, Thetas tend to be officers in the levy cohorts.

Ranks Iota and lower are considered the "degenerate" ranks - they live and die at the pleasure of their betters. Those that show initiative and utility can sometimes be raised in status, some even rising to the coveted rank of Theta. They are all branded with a "D" on their right shoulders at a young age (for degenerate) with their rank tattooed on their flesh just down the arm. The teeming masses of Nicheans tend to rank Iota, Kappa, and Lambda.

Mu, Nu, Xi, and Omicron ranks are reserved for abhumans, with Ogryns typically filling the last two. These Nicheans tend to be treated more as livestock than as people, and it is rare to find a Nu, Xi, or Omicron who is not a slave or a wastelander.

The lowest ranks, Pi, Rho, Sigma, Tau, Upsilon, Phi, Chi, Psi, and Omega, tend to lead nasty, brutish, and short lives on Nichea. Individuals with severe mutations or crippling disabilities, these poor souls are fated to either die for the amusement of the masses - typically in deathmatches or cruel races through abbatoir-like labyrinths haunted by underhive monstrosities - or to be processed into corpse starch to feed their superiors. Regardless, they only rarely are allowed to live long enough to reproduce, and in those cases it is mainly due to an oversight in the sterilization process. A prominent criminal syndicate operating out of the abyssal depths of Armstrong Hive have been known to deal with a small Dark Eldar kabal in selling members of these lowest castes to them by the thousands and entertaining them with the bloodsports. Sometimes the Xenos offer their own ideas of how to "improve" the games or participate themselves as yet another deadly threat hunting them in surroundings where for every hundred that are sent in, perhaps one will come out alive if they are exceptionally skilled or exceptionally lucky.

There is a 23rd rank, Null, but that is only reserved for non-humans. Xenos, beasts, daemons, abominable intelligences - Nichean law dictates that they must be exterminated without delay and with extreme prejudice.