Hi everybody,
at last I start to present my Imperial Guard, loosely based upon the ottoman Empire at the end of the 19th Century.
Please excuse if there are any problems with my english, i read english pretty well, but writing is a little bit more tricky.
The planets name is stolen from a city in southeastern Turkey (for the simple reason to look cool, i asked a turkish friend how to speak it, but I will damned if i get it spoken right), and Alay simply means 'regiment'.
And so it begins...
Çorum - the planet, the history.
Çorum is a mostly barren, sandstorm-wrecked world in the center of the Bellheim-Subsector, near to Fleist,the prosperous capital of the said subsector. But because of it's obvious lack of good weather and a populance that was regarded as barbaric, if not outright heretic, imperial authority never got a very strong hold on the planet. It was rumored that dark cults and dangerous magic were rife on Çorum, and some people even considered to virusbomb it, just in case the rumors were true.
All this changed when in M37 a man of well-known reputation for being pious and industrious in equal parts made his apearance: Osman Bey from Tel Tarnav.
He promised to the Lord of the subsector to pay for a army on his own costs with which he intended to conquer and reclaim the planet for the Imperium, if only he could rule it afterwards.
Seeing that it wouldn't cost him anything and would help to get ridden of a horde of propable heretics the Lord was easily persuaded.
Backed by the Cardinal of the subsector, who even sent a small group of Sisters of battle to aid his goals, Osman began to gather his host. He gave away every last bit of his enormous wealth to buy lasguns, equipment, uniforms and even a rusty old space freighter to hold all his men. After a year he had gathered over tenthousand soldiers, further strengthend by thousands of preachers, vigilates, mercenarys, fortune-seekers and willing colonists from the overpopulated worlds like Fleist and Nardion.
They set sail from high orbit around Fleist on the year M37.302 and blessed by the Emperor reached Çorum without any warpborn problems.
Surveying the planet from above Osman pondered his options and at last decided to use the moment of suprise and attack the greatest concentration of people and so knock out the greatest potential center of resistance. So the Place he choose to attack was the fertile river-valley of Antiochia, which could not be reached by the sandstorms because of the high mountainpeaks around it.
He deployed his troops in a wide circle sourrinding the small settlements and called upon the people to surrender and pleadge loyality to the golden throne. What then happend is hazy up today, but the saintly legends tell that at first the people threw themselves at the mercy of Osman and his men, beliving that their gods had returned from the skies. But Osman was soon to find out what foul gods these were when he was shown the most holy place of these people. The priests took him to a cave high above the valley where he found a most horrible place, reek with the stench of the warp.
And it is written: 'And thus spokest the most holy of Saints: 'These are not my gods, and from this day on they shall neither be yours.' And the heathen priests shook in repulse, and tithered with hatred for the most holy man in their midst. But he told them to be silent, for THE Emperors might was greater than all their demonic gods power. And so he stepped into the uttermost horrible cave and there was great turmoil from within, but at last the most holy man returned, bloodied but unbroken and brought with him the shattered statues of the false gods. 'They never were gods, and they never will be again.' Thus spokest he, and had the cave sealed and the priest beheaded. And from this day on there was only the righteous God-Emperor in the hearts of all men upon Çorums soil.'
Actually there followed three decades of bitter warfare against every tribe or man that didn't kneel before Osman or the Emperor, but although some of his enemys even used foul warpborn magic against his armies, they were few while Osmans warhost grew from day to day.
After his final victory Osman began to develop the backwaterplanet by founding a big city at the shores of the greatest inland-sea of Çorum, where great water-processing plants soon helped to make the barren soil fertile. And at the Valley of Antiochia he began the construction of a great temple to the Emperor, to forever banish the foul magics that lingered there. Today the Temple covers most of the mountain-range and is lauded for it's high and delicate white towers, it's spacious emerald cupolas and peaceful courtyards where the most learned scholars and priests study the holy books of the Emperor.
As it has been mentioned soon after his dead after 300 years of a, at last peaceful, reign the inhabitants began to revere Osman as a saint and patron to Çorum.
and another break...gotta go learning again, state-exams should be forbidden.
Pictures:
Everything that is completly painted up todate:
The Officers:
From left to right: Elendi Effendi (Lieutnant), Onur Agha (Colonel), Akili 'Demir' Pascha (Fieldmarshal = Creed-proxy)
The Stormtroopers/Yanissaries:
The Ogryns:
The Veterans:
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Originally Posted by Lord Cook
