WIP Terrax Guard fluff

[Black Ambience]

The Terrax Guard

Terrax is the site of a major Schola Progenium facility, the Schola Excubitos. The Schola Progenium train many Imperial agents for war, notably Storm Troopers and Commissars, and their methods are rigorous and effective. The tithed regiments raised on Terrax have been have been trained under the auspices of the Scholae Excubitos and are truly moulded in its image almost as an entire regiment of Commissars.

The Terrax System

Terrax is a bleak cluster of planets orbiting a decaying Red Giant. The system is made up of four planets, each of which can make a good claim as being a Dead World – perhaps it was this blasted landscape that drew the Schola Ecubitos to claim the system. Terrax Prime and Terrax Seccundus are the furthest planets from the dying star, and these are the only two planets in the system with permanent Imperial settlements. Their uneven elliptical orbits, caused by the fluctuating gravity well of the star create a confusing orbital path, with Terrax Prime occasionally having a closer proximity to than Terrax Seccundus, which was closer to the star than Terrax Prime when the system was discovered. The outer crusts of the two planets have suffered greatly to the twisting and changing gravity, to the extent that the crusts are less akin to tectonic plates than to the sands of a desert. Terrax Prime is the only planet in the system to support its own orbiting bodies, with three small fortress moons on a slow orbital path around the planet’s equator, providing a perfect defence grid for the planet. The remaining two worlds of the Terrax system are Feirus and Moloch, both located significantly closer to the star than Terrax Prime and Seccundus. Feirus is a volcanic world; wracked by magma storms and ion lightning, making it a treacherous planet that no-one can expect to survive on for more than a few days. Finally there is Moloch, the closest planet to the star and yet strangely far calmer than Feirus – for Moloch’s crust is a lattice of tunnels and caverns, some of them incredibly vast. Imperial Adepts have as yet been unable to explain this bizarre geological phenomenon, but nevertheless it provides an ideal training ground for the Schola Excubitos.

The Schola Excubitos

The unique conditions presented by the Terrax system were perfect for the Schola Excubitos to establish itself – recruits could be trained and tested in some of the harshest environments known to the Imperium. The primary Excubitos facility is built into the secondary moon of Terrax Prime, which generally agreed upon as being the most stable of the bodies orbiting Terrax. Terrax Prime and Seccundus, while being more akin to Dead Worlds, are home to small adamantium mining colonies and low-level Hive structures. Such desolate planets produce hardy citizens – perfect for induction into the Imperial Guard. The tithed regiments from Terrax have a unique relationship with the Schola Excubitos – the Excubitos tithe manpower and resources from the Terrax planets, and in exchange the Excubitos assists in the training of new Terrax regiments. The result being each new regiment of Terrax Guard leaves the system with a high level of training and expertise, far above that of most other “fresh” Imperial Guard regiments, moulded into the image of the Commissars, and accompanied by the agents of the Excubitos. It is not uncommon for the Commissars accompanying these regiments to select the best soldiers, those most adherent to the Imperial Creed, and return with them to the Terrax Schola Excubitos for further training, inducting them into the ranks of the Terrax Praetorians. When Terrax is called upon to make a more substantial contribution to the Imperial Guard, the Terrax Guard are always accompanied by large numbers of Commissars and their Praetorians, who use large conflicts as a means of pushing themselves to reach their full potential, and to eventually promote the Praetorians to full Commissar status. As such, it is not uncommon for a man of Terrax to be recruited into a tithed regiment, selected by the Commissars for additional training to join the ranks of the Praetorians and then, after years of warfare and adherence to the Imperial Creed to become a Commissar teaching or leading the latest tithed regiment from Terrax. The system breeds fine, fearless and potent soldiers, all of whom are intensely proud of their heritage and their manifest destiny as Commissars of the Emperor.

The Terrax Regiments

On the battlefield the Terrax Guard are a potent fighting force, quite unlike other Imperial Guard regiments. Every soldier is well trained, well equipped and utterly devoted to the Imperial Creed. The faith of a simple Terrax infantry platoon is enough to put other Guard regiments to shame, and they take immense pride in this, fighting ever harder to prove themselves worthy in the eyes of their Commissar teachers. Terrax Guard regiments are always lead by a particularly fiery and stoic individual, chosen from the Officers by the Commissars. If he performs well, then promotion and respect will fill his future. If not, then he suffers the fate of all those found wanting. These Guard regiments are always supported by units of Praetorians and a handful of Commissars, though they make a point of separating themselves from the command structure, preferring to leave command of the army to the Officer in charge so that they may better observe and instruct the regiment. The Officer will issue the Praetorians with instructions and leave them to get on with it, confident of their ability to carry out their orders to the letter and without failure. Similarly, the Commissars are informed of the battle plan, but from that point their actions are out of the control of the Officer in charge, ensuring that he does not overly rely on the Commissars during the battle. The Commissars meanwhile, will roam the battlefield offering leadership and fighting prowess where they deem it necessary, and continue their instruction of the regiment. After all, what better place to test your students than in the heat of a live firefight?



Thanks for taking the tie to read all that - it's my work in progress fluff for the Terrax Guard regiment I am setting my sights on. All comments are welcome, be as critical as you like! (Would a budding Commissar General ask for anything less? ) There will be an accompanying army list for a 2000pts regiment going up later tongiht. Cheers guys.

[Sojourner]

Not bad.

I was drawn to the technobabble in the second paragraph though.

Their uneven elliptical orbits

'Uneven' meaning? Elliptical orbits aren't unusual and can and normally do occur in any system

fluctuating gravity well of the star

Highly unlikely unless you have some sort of warp-related disturbance

to the extent that the crusts are less akin to tectonic plates than to the sands of a desert.

Ehm. Wouldn't a pulverised material like sand sink into the magma and thus reveal fresh material, which solidifies, ad infinitum? Gravitational anomalies tend to create an active geology, incidentally, which in turn will result in considerable plate tectonics.

magma storms

ion lightning

Explain? As ar as i can see these are both nonsense.

Apologies for nitpicking but 'bad science' gets up my nose.

[Black Ambience]

I was just inventing things that sound cool or interesting. Care to make some replacement suggestions?

Edit: Waaaait a second, you're accusing me of bad science while you yourself refer to Warp Storms?

[Sojourner]

I'm deliberately hand-waving with regards to warp storms - and trying to think of any, even remotely feasible explanation for a fluctuating gravity well, which simply doesn't happen.

Harshness aside, it's your fluff. Not my place to go writing things to fill in ideas of yours.

[Typheron]

I was just inventing things that sound cool or interesting. Care to make some replacement suggestions?

dangerous game that, look at how many times GW has fallen into that trap...


but i digress. The problem with a fluxuating gravity field is that it implys that the mass of the star is somehow changing as the pull of gravity is directly proportional to mass. This would mean that somehow the star is loseing bits of mass and then gaining them again at a later date as it cant continue to lose its mass as eventually it would explode (or is it implode) aka. what will happen to most suns eventually.

I would suggest the warp disturbacnce at the heart of the star as a suitable cause as Sojourner suggested. Perhaps a small warp overlap that fluctuates occasionally turning part of the star into warp energy and back again. although emperour only knows what this would do to anyone actually living near it.

The other solution, is to say the C'tan did it, that lattice like planet having some 'cron tech at its core thats screwing with the sun for some-reason-that you-have-to-come-up-with.

also i think its pluto in our own system has a eleptical orbit.

Ion lighting is when the atmosphere becomes heavily ionised due to a highly charged situation occuring, the difference being that the lighting strike is entirely comprised of ionised particles. How this forms is a mystery to me as im an architect not a physist. but at a guesss i think it may have something to do with what im gonna write below.

also i assume magna storms are the areas of hight atmospheric disturbance caused by the eruption of volcanic material from the planets crust resulting in a highly dust and gas filled area in close proxcimity over the rupture in the planets crust. this would result in electrical storms and falling ash/molten material from the sky when it is carried up there by the blasts from the volcano and rising heat.

Theres no avoiding the plate tectonics thing tho, at least as far as i know.

*this is all guess work on my part based on what i see on tv and my basic understanding of how the earths crust and atmosphere works, i could be stone cold wrong so dont blame me if a geolagist or physist laughs at you when you mention this to him...

[Barbarossa]

Well, to do some shameless plugging:

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y68...nelTerraxI.jpg

This is my Terrax Pattern Sentinel.
The Schola Excubitos not only trains soldiers in traditional tactics, but always tries to devise new stratagems for defeating the many foes of mankind on all imaginable worlds.
One problem was to bring heavy weapons into difficult terrain.
Several resilient alien species posed a long standing problem for Imperial Guard regiments, especially when hiding in nigh-impassable terrain. With the arrival of the Tyranids and their wide variety of bio-monstrosities this problem became great enough that the Schola Excubitos actively sought to rectify it.
Finally the Sentinel chassis was modified to carry a multi-melta into battle. In mountainous or dense forest regions this short ranged anti tank weapon soon proved to be invaluable during test runs. Presently the Terrax pattern Sentinel is making field tests with several selected regiments, while the Adeptus Mechanicus closely scutinizes this modification for possible future production on a larger scale.

[Morgan Keyes]

Hmm...kinda like the Elysian Drop Sentinal.

[salty]

That Drop Sentinel is horrible! I prefer Barbarossa's sentinel to be honest.


Salty

[Barbarossa]

Hey, thanks salty! And I converted mine before the Elysians were released, too.
Actually that drop sentinel looks pretty nice. It's bulkier and looks more durable. But it differs too much from the standard pattern for my liking. I don't think imperial worlds have the right (or the means) to change established STC patterns that much without the AdMech showing up and confiscating all their lognuts.

[Morgan Keyes]

Well was remarking on the fact the Sentinal is more compact and is armed with a multi-melta like Barbarossa's. As for it looking ugly,...that's just the way some of the best military vehicles tend to look. Certainly no one is going to call an A-10 "pretty", unless of course you've been a ground pounder and had them in for support. But the Elysian Sentinal had it's mods to fit inside a Valkyrie (and someone at Forgeworld actually did just that) for dropping. It ain't pretty, but was built for the job at hand (kinda like an M551 Sheridan; just tends to work more often right after dropping).

As for designs, there are still alot of different patterns out there. If you think the Elysian Sentinal is a divergence, then you should see the Elysian bullpup lasrifles, auto-feed mortars, and bipod support weapons (as opposed to the Guard-standard carriages).

[Black Ambience]

Dragging the thread screaming and kicking back to the original point, I've re-written the central paragraph (and broken it in half) of my fluff, based on the feedback I received earlier. You'll note that some of the "bad science" is gone (proabbly replaced by more of the same though, alas). I was pleased to know that Magma Storms sounded slightly plausible - I did picture them as essentially a swirling maelstrom of swirling magma pellets propelled by the forces unleashed by titanic volcanic erruptions and the effects of the Red Giant star. All further comments are welcome, cheers guys.



The Terrax Guard

Terrax is the site of a major Schola Progenium facility, the Schola Excubitos. The Schola Progenium train many Imperial agents for war, notably Storm Troopers and Commissars, and their methods are rigorous and effective. The tithed regiments raised on Terrax have been have been trained under the auspices of the Scholae Excubitos and are truly moulded in its image almost as an entire regiment of Commissars.

The Terrax System

Terrax is a bleak cluster of planets orbiting a decaying Red Giant. The system is made up of four planets, each of which can make a good claim as being a Dead World – perhaps it was this blasted landscape that drew the Schola Ecubitos to claim the system. Terrax Prime and Terrax Seccundus are the furthest planets from the dying star, and these are the only two planets in the system with permanent Imperial settlements. All four planets in the system follow highly elliptical orbits, with no apparent trend between the four paths. Imperial Adepts have speculated endlessly on this phenomenon, some suggesting that it is a characteristic of the Red Giant, while others suspect a more malign influence, with the possibilities of localised Warp Storms not being above speculation.

Terrax Prime is the only planet in the system to support its own orbiting bodies, with three small fortress moons on a slow orbital path around the planet’s equator, providing a perfect defence grid for the planet. Terrax Prime is the main population centre of the system, with almost every native family being able to trace its origins back to the Patriarchal family structures controlling the small hive structures scattered over the world. Terrax Seccundus focuses more heavily on mining adamantium, found in abundant clusters within its crust. The remaining two worlds of the Terrax system are Feirus and Moloch, both located significantly closer to the star than Terrax Prime and Seccundus. Feirus is a volcanic world; wracked by magma storms and ion lightning, making it a treacherous planet that no-one can expect to survive on for more than a few days. Finally there is Moloch, the closest planet to the star and yet strangely far calmer than Feirus – for Moloch’s crust is a lattice of tunnels and caverns, some of them incredibly vast. Imperial Adepts have as yet been unable to explain this bizarre geological structure, but nevertheless it provides an ideal training ground for the Schola Excubitos. The unique makeup of the Terrax system draws many scholars from the Libraria of the Imperium, ensuring that the system continues to be an important hub of activity, not just for the militaristic Schola Excubitos.

The Schola Excubitos

The unique conditions presented by the Terrax system were perfect for the Schola Excubitos to establish itself – recruits could be trained and tested in some of the harshest environments known to the Imperium. The primary Excubitos facility is built into the secondary moon of Terrax Prime, which generally agreed upon as being the most stable of the bodies orbiting Terrax. Terrax Prime and Seccundus, while being more akin to Dead Worlds, are home to small adamantium mining colonies and low-level Hive structures. Such desolate planets produce hardy citizens – perfect for induction into the Imperial Guard. The tithed regiments from Terrax have a unique relationship with the Schola Excubitos – the Excubitos tithe manpower and resources from the Terrax planets, and in exchange the Excubitos assists in the training of new Terrax regiments. The result being each new regiment of Terrax Guard leaves the system with a high level of training and expertise, far above that of most other “fresh” Imperial Guard regiments, moulded into the image of the Commissars, and accompanied by the agents of the Excubitos. It is not uncommon for the Commissars accompanying these regiments to select the best soldiers, those most adherent to the Imperial Creed, and return with them to the Terrax Schola Excubitos for further training, inducting them into the ranks of the Terrax Praetorians. When Terrax is called upon to make a more substantial contribution to the Imperial Guard, the Terrax Guard are always accompanied by large numbers of Commissars and their Praetorians, who use large conflicts as a means of pushing themselves to reach their full potential, and to eventually promote the Praetorians to full Commissar status. As such, it is not uncommon for a man of Terrax to be recruited into a tithed regiment, selected by the Commissars for additional training to join the ranks of the Praetorians and then, after years of warfare and adherence to the Imperial Creed to become a Commissar teaching or leading the latest tithed regiment from Terrax. The system breeds fine, fearless and potent soldiers, all of whom are intensely proud of their heritage and their manifest destiny as Commissars of the Emperor.

The Terrax Regiments

On the battlefield the Terrax Guard are a potent fighting force, quite unlike other Imperial Guard regiments. Every soldier is well trained, well equipped and utterly devoted to the Imperial Creed. The faith of a simple Terrax infantry platoon is enough to put other Guard regiments to shame, and they take immense pride in this, fighting ever harder to prove themselves worthy in the eyes of their Commissar teachers. Terrax Guard regiments are always lead by a particularly fiery and stoic individual, chosen from the Officers by the Commissars. If he performs well, then promotion and respect will fill his future. If not, then he suffers the fate of all those found wanting. These Guard regiments are always supported by units of Praetorians and a handful of Commissars, though they make a point of separating themselves from the command structure, preferring to leave command of the army to the Officer in charge so that they may better observe and instruct the regiment. The Officer will issue the Praetorians with instructions and leave them to get on with it, confident of their ability to carry out their orders to the letter and without failure. Similarly, the Commissars are informed of the battle plan, but from that point their actions are out of the control of the Officer in charge, ensuring that he does not overly rely on the Commissars during the battle. The Commissars meanwhile, will roam the battlefield offering leadership and fighting prowess where they deem it necessary, and continue their instruction of the regiment. After all, what better place to test your students than in the heat of a live firefight?



Also, nice Sentinel! Shame they never produced rules for a Multimelta on a Sentinel. Doubt many people would mind you swapping it for a Lascannon though.

[Walls]

A lot of complaints about realism in a game with demons and warp storms and what not. I think adding in the inplausible makes it 40k!