History[]
Founding[]
The Regiment was founded on Serlendor in 320 M40, as one of ten Imperial Guard Regiments soon to be sent offworld to protect Imperial interests in and around The Kashidaan Cluster. The regiment, drawn from local PDF units was already experienced in fighting Orks, having spent their entire careers fighting the Ferals that preyed on their farms and towns.
The Fall of Kryptoria(400.M40)[]
The Ork Warboss Slakkjaw brought a large WAAAGH to Kryptoria, landing his Orks via Rokk onto Kryptoria and spent the next twenty years fighting both the PDF and the Ferals haunting the wilds outside the planet's tower blocks. Slakkjaw finally brought his rival Orks to heel and aimed them at the planet's largest city.
The city fell in only six weeks and Slakkjaw, unique among Orks for his ability to read Low Gothic, styled himself "The Dred King" after a Kryptoria folk tale. Vatian and Serlendor units were sent to respond and assist the overwhelmed PDF troopers and Planetary Governor's personal guard.
The following campaign lasted for five years and for every victory Imperial forces suffered a defeat and in the end they were defeated, despite fighting until the last possible moment the last city on Kryptoria fell and the Planetary Governor ordered a retreat. They were forced to flee on any vessel available to them and within another year the entire planet was overrun by greenskins.
Cancridrae Subector(440-447.M41)[]
The Amphra Matriarchy began a series of small probing strike on contested planets and so the Regiment was one of several Kashidaan Cluster Imperial Guard units sent to defend Imperial interests in the region. What followed was seven years of sporadic and ultimately inconclusive fighting between Imperial Forces and the Xenos Horrificus race.
Despite the conflict ending in a draw the experience would serve them well, they learned how to defeat creatures with armored shells, tactics they would put to good use throughout the campaign and again against Tyranids roughly three centuries later.
Convoy Duty(440.M41)[]
The first of these battles happened while the regiment was en route. Their transport, part of a convoy of Imperial vessels came under attack by Amphra forces and was boarded. A desperate close quarters battle followed as both forces fired energy weapons at point blank range and threatened to tear their ship apart from the inside. The Amphra almost carried the day, driving the defenders back into the cargo areas of their transport.
Desperation led to extreme risk and with no other options vehicle crews discharged their heavy weapons into the narrow hallways killing and mortally wounding hundreds of Barnica and lower class Amphra and forcing them to retreat. The badly damaged vessel was abandoned and the regiment divided among the other transport ships for the remainder of the journey.
Return to Kryptoria(610.M40)[]
The Kashidaan Cluster leadership contacted the Tempered Souls and asked for their aid in gathering intelligence on the Orks that ruled over the world.
The Space Marine Scouts reported that the Dred King had grown lazy and indolent in his old age, enforcing his will through his elite group of Nobs, his so called "Blakk Nites."
His subordinate warbosses were chafing under his rule and would fight among themselves if he were defeated. They ignored the rest of the report and deployed every available Imperial Guard unit to invade Kryptoria and retake the capital city from which Slakkjaw ruled and let the remaining warbosses descend into civil war.
Slakkjaw, despite his old age and generally lazy attitude toward his rule, still possessed his wits and easily defeated the ill prepared Imperial Guard units, inflicting upwards of sixty percent casualties before they were extracted by elements of Battlefleet Medici. No attempts to retake the world were ever launched and a newly completed cruiser was named in honor of the lost planet.
Toslov(565.M41)
Serpent Lake Bridge[]
The Heretek Farrus Alpha-Nine claimed the abandoned planet Toslov for his own and converted an abandoned Leviathan into a fortress where he was conducting heretical experiments on Imperial citizens captured in pirate raids on nearby shipping routes.
The 9th were sent to reinforce Imperial Guard units already fighting alongside by the Battlefleet Medici Exorcist Grand Cruiser Rodanthe who provided them air support from the Malocchio Valkyrie Squadron.
The Fortress, built into a cliff on the Eastern shore of Serpent Lake, was unreachable by orbital bombardment, forcing the army to lay siege to it. With no room for the regiment to deploy they landed on the Western shore of Serpent Lake and began to march across to join their allies, coming under fire within minutes of their arrival.
With Malcocchio squadron unable to engage for fear of friendly fire Sniper Vera Van Eisen engaged in a prolonged duel with a Skitarii Ranger among the burned out vehicles and support beams of the ancient bridge as the unit slowly advanced. In the end she proved victorious, killing the Ranger with a single headshot from her Deerstalker rifle.
Serpent Lake[]
With the bridge secured the 9th Serlendor crossed Serpent Lake and joined the siege, bringing their tank guns to bear with limited effect but the bombardment continued on all the same, lasting for nearly three weeks before they were able to create a breach in the walls.
Two squads of volunteers lead by Captain Sander Van Hofte infiltrated the stronghold's prison wing and led the imprisoned Imperials in an uprising against the Servitors tasked with guarding them. They quickly secured the area and waited for help to arrive and soon The Chimera Good Charlotte arrived with another squad to carry the wounded civilians back behind friendly lines. The three Infantry Squads held their ground despite against a force four times their size, drawing valuable units away from the main battle line while the rest of the Imperial Guard took advantage of this and stormed the gates.
The fortress fell after nearly sixteen hours of further fighting and three days of searching Farrus Alpha-Nine was found dead of a self inflicted gunshot.
Aiparo(590.M41)[]
The 9th Serlendor and Rodanthe returned to the Kashidaan Worlds and was sent to the planet Aiparo to protect Imperial citizens from a Feral klan known to eat their slain enemies and cannibalize their own dead. Reasoning that the only proper defense against Orks was to strike first the unit was sent into their territory with Malocchio squadron once again flying air support.
The unit deployed near the Tenguara Narrows,the one way across the flooded Tenguara River into the dense jungle beyond, when they came under attack. Tens of thousands of Ferals and several dozen Squiggoths swarmed across the river. Their air support entered the battle, ripping the Squiggoths apart with volleys of rocket fire.
The regiment's armor was in little danger from the primitive weapons and so Captain Valerie "White Tigress" Van Timmer ordered her tank forward, trying to form a wall between the Orks and the regiment's infantry. The other four Leman Russ and Chimeras followed her lead, easily cutting through hundreds of Feral Orks and firing point blank shots into the advancing mass. The Orks fought to the last and the Imperial Guard clogged the river with Ork bodies.
The unit advanced into the dense jungles of Suratman Province, enduring weeks of rain and Ork attacks before finding their base of operations, a camp the size of a small city hidden from Imperial augur arrays by the foul weather and mountains surrounding it. Regimental Colonel Jerome Van Kort was unwilling to have Rodanthe simply level the site from orbit, fearing that there were still Imperial citizens trapped inside and so he ordered his unit forward to assault the camp.
The Palisade wall, decorated with the skulls of rival Orks, did nothing to stop an armored column from plowing right through it and engaging the klan in a battle that finished five days later. Finally satisfied that there were none but Orks inside he ordered a withdrawal and requested that Rodanthes gun crews destroy the camp once they were out of range. They complied, burning the jungle for twenty kilometers in every direction to be sure no Orks remained.
Rerigen(745. M41)[]
Like most Kashidaan Cluster Imperial Guard units they were called home to defend their planets and like most were destroyed fairly early in the fighting. Their first and only battle on their homeworld occurred within the city of Rerigen. While the closely packed houses and winding streets slowed the Hive Fleet somewhat they were unable to respond to the Mycetic Spores raining from the skies around them. The battle lasted for roughly six hours but they were defeated and the few survivors were absorbed by another nearby Serlendor Regiment.
Structure and equipment[]
1485 men[]
- Command squad of 10 men (Colonel and 9 staff)
10 companies of 143 commanded by a captain Each company was
- 1 elite squad of 11 veterans
- (10 veteran troopers 1 veteran sgt.) and 12 squads of 11 men A squad was made up of
- 1 Sergeant(issued a chainsword alongside his lasgun)
- 1 voxcaster
- 1 sniper-carried the Deerstalker rifle originally built to hunt the Serlendor Primus Deer and at least six magazines(due to the large bullet size each magazine contained only four rounds with deer hide leggings and a necklace made of a piece of antler as marks of their status)
- 2 grenadiers
- 1 flamers
- 4 guardsmen
- 1 medic
5 Leman Russ Vanquishers (30 men total)
- Witte Tijger (destroyed before 745M41)
- Hamerslaan(Hammerstrike)
- Lennert Van Kippe (named for a legendary PDF Commander)
- Distant Thunder
- Wildvuur(Wildfire)
- Spearhead
These Vanquishers, like all Serlendor Leman Russ, carried a hull mounted lascannon and two Sponson mounted Meltaguns,making them effective anti armor platforms.
5 Chimera(15 men)
- Skull and Bones
- Muildier(Mule)
- Vallenbek(named for the city where it was built)
- Zwarte Koningin(Black Queen)
- Good Charlotte
Infantry Equipment[]
- Blue Painted flak armor (ranks painted on right shoulder, unit number on the left)
- Matching camo fatigues
- M36 Kantrael pattern lasgun(or Deerstalker /flamer/etc.)
- "Buckskinner"Combat knife/bayonet
- The Imperial Guardsman’s uplifting primer
- one week of rations(supplemented by hunting)
- Blue dyed deerhide coats and woolen fingerless gloves(for winter operations)
- dogtags showing name, rank, serial number and birthplace
(note:)Medics carried a lascarbine to save space for extra medical supplies while snipers carried the gear noted above
Armor Eqipment[]
- Blue leather helmets with vox earpieces
- Issued armor but most refused to wear it reasoning their vehicle hulls were armor enough.
- lascarbine
- combat knife/bayonet
- The Imperial Guardsman’s uplifting primer
Officers Equipment[]
- Dress uniform(not worn in the field)- a high collared white shirt, a midlength blue jacket with the same markings as infantry armor blue pants with a white pinstripe and black shoes
- laspistol and chainsword
- Black wool greatcoat with a high collar cuffs and facings, all done in blue.
- Black deerhide gloves
Famous Members[]
Captain Valerie "White Tigress" Van Timmer[]
It can be said her lifelong battle with Orks began in her tenth year when she burned down a barn infested by Squigs on her family's farm in Birsringen Province. While the fire drew in a group of Ferals her family was able to see them coming and hastily organized a defense, killing their warboss and a few of his lesser Nobs before the local PDF units could arrive to finish off the remainder.
The farm was later destroyed in a territorial dispute between two Klans, forcing her and her family into a convoy of refugees headed to the nearest city. The young girl was fascinated by the vehicles and when she came of age joined the PDF as a tank crewman and then became a tank commander all that time keeping a favorite childhood toy, a stuffed white tiger, nearby for luck. When the unit was sent offworld she was given a captain's position, the white tiger had become her trademark and so she personalized her command tank with the image painted on the hull.
Vera Van Eisen[]
Her father was executed for murder shortly after her birth in 545.M41 and as an only child she took to hunting to provide food and income for her family, hunting deer and collecting bounties on Sguigs that plagued local farmers, primarily using a Deerstalker rifle inherited from her grandfather.
In time she found that the largest bucks were found on private land not open to hunting. She grew arrogant, she took to wearing a handmade deerhide coat and antler handled knife as proof of her skill. Because of this she was caught, convicted of poaching and given an option: A seven year prison sentence or seven years of service in the Imperial Guard. She chose the latter and by her twentieth birthday she was an accomplished sniper with more than a hundred confirmed kills.
Adriaan Van Reiker[]
Born in 685 M41 Van Reiker had no plans to join the Imperial Guard. However his parents lost their farm after a series of poor harvests forced them to borrow money they were unable to repay. Rather than submit to poverty the young Adriaan joined the Imperial Guard,driven mostly by steady pay and a place to live. He found other reasons to fight over the course of the next decades, rising to command the unit in 741M41.
Van Reiker would preside over the unit's destruction four years later.