Apocrypha Guard

"As you've probably noticed, you were singled out for this job, distinguished as prodigies even while within the care of the Schola Progenium, a place that's supposed to train those who distinguish themselves as prodigies in the first place. But don't count yourself lucky, you've been singled out to fight an enemy that's started some of the biggest and bloodiest battles in the Imperium's history. An enemy that existed while our ancestors were still crawling out of the swamps of ancient Terra. An enemy, might I add, that scares most grown men shitless at the very sight of 'em. That's right ladies and gents, you've been singled out to fight the forces of the Ruinous Powers. Still feeling lucky?"

- Colonel Isaac Brenks, giving the new recruits a "pep talk"

The Apocrypha Guard are a specialized regiment of little-known Inquisitorial Storm Troopers with the sole duty of protecting and retrieving dangerous artifacts for the Ordo Malleus Starfort known as the Arce Secretorum. While small in number, composed of roughly over 1,000 courageous men and women drawn from all over the Imperium, the Apocrypha Guard make up for their lack in numbers in sheer efficiency and determination that has put other Storm Trooper regiments to shame. In fact, the "Arce-Borne" are are one of the few regiments of the Imperial Guard specifically trained to fight the Daemonic, and thus are armed and armored with some of the most potent wargear the Ordo Malleus can provide.

History
The Apocrypha Guard are perhaps one of the oldest Imperial Guard Regiments in existence, a fact that they take no small amount of pride in. During the Great Scouring, while the Arce Secretorum was still under construction, the Ordo Malleus realized that such a installation would require a dedicated security force, as well as a private strike force to secure artifacts of Chaos. Thus the first members of what later would become the Apocrypha Guard where selected from the ranks of the Imperial Army, particularly those who fought, survived and gained victory in the face of Daemonic assaults and fell sorcery. It was slow going to say the least, as the Schola Progenium had not been founded yet, and thus each individual had to be carefully evaluated, recruited, have all their personal records deleted, subject them to specialized hypnotherapy, and finally induct them into the newly-formed Apocrypha Guard.

In order not to arouse suspicions, the Ordo Malleus only recruited 1,000 individuals into the fold, as not to arouse to much suspicion over their sudden "disappearances". While this meant that the regiment would never be the advantage of sheer numbers, it did allow for a more easy time of individually training and equipping each Storm Trooper, and thus did the Apocrypha Guard become an extremely efficient fighting force from the very start.