Helbardian Highborn
Origins
Until late M41, Helbard was little more than a barely relevant feudal world in the eastern reaches of the Imperium. In 000.M41, the Adeptus Administratum contacted Helbard after nine millennia and installed the infrastructure needed to incorporate the planet into Imperial Space. The effort, a part of the East Forge initiative, allocated just enough resources to build a handful of small spaceports on the planet as well as an astropath temple. The project also saw the planet receive supplies of fertilizer to speed its evolution toward industrialization as well as a supply of primitive stub rifles for hunting and emergency defense against marauding aliens. The only notable expense included dedicating a half dozen Imperial elites to the planet designated as Administrator Generals. They consisted of an Ordo Barbarus Inquisitorial candidate, a Merchant General, a Lord Commissar, a Magistrate Priest, a Mechanicus Techpriest envoy, and a Lord Administrator. Though the Imperium visited Helbard just once every Solar decade, the planet entered a golden age.
The Order of Six, the name given to the six Administrator Generals on the planet, travelled between the primitive kingdoms and empires of Helbard to unite them into what became known as the Pact of Six. In their travels they discovered that, at some point, the Imperial faith had reached Helbard and that worship of The Emperor was, though often misinformed, at least prevalent among the civilized regions of the planet. Those kingdoms that did join The Pact of Six received their supplies of fertilizer and weapons, making them far more powerful than any who did not join. Within just one Solar decade, Helbard was united under the Imperial faith and began to accelerate its rate of growth beyond anything yet seen on the world.
In 780.M41, a storm within the Immaterium forced the cancellation of the once-per-decade Imperial visit. The population knew nothing of the Warp or its perils—only that, each decade, gleaming metal chariots would descend from the heavens and those aboard would bestow seemingly prophetic knowledge upon the Helbardian people. Though the Administratum and the Order of Six understood that this was merely an inconvenience in the long, slow process of nudging the planet’s development forward, the reaction spreading among the populace was one of doubt. In 790.M41, the storm forced another cancellation. In 800.M41, yet a third visit was cancelled due to the seemingly never-ending storm. Just as the Order of Six launched its third March of Faith campaign to reign in the fears of the Helbardian people, fate twisted its knife in the wounded faith of Helbard.
While Helbard was isolated from the Imperium by the storm, another faction made no use of the Warp and so was not affected by its complexities: the T’au. The young race has recently completed its Second Sphere Expansion and Helbard was but one more world in its path. The visiting T’au sept knew little of the Imperium at the time. Their arrival and subsequent introduction of the Greater Good rocked the Imperial faith on Helbard to its core. The teachings of the Greater Good exploded in popularity among the neglected, doubtful people of Helbard. The Order of Six, while influential, could only reach so many people at any time while the Helbardians in their hundreds of millions turned away from those who they thought had abandoned them to their new saviors from the stars. The Teachings of the Order of Six—those of discipline and purity and distrusting the witch and the heretic—seemed small-minded and simplistic. Even the gleaming ships of the Imperium seemed primitive and dated next to the glowing technological marvels of the T’au. Instead of purging those who did not believe, the T’au seemed to liberate the masses from the laws imposed by the Order of Six.
By 810.M41, the planet was in full-blown civil war. Massive revolts of those inspired by the Greater Good were overpowering the centuries-old Pact of Six. Worse yet, the T’au assisting the revolts were nigh-unstoppable on any battlefield not personally overseen by the Order of Six. After all, what good were stub rifles and primitive, muzzle-loading artillery against battlesuits that could effortlessly stride across the battlefield and shatter entire formations? As the Pact of Six braced for inevitable defeat following a fourth cancellation, the storm finally subsided.
Within just hours of the visiting Imperial staff’s arrival, they had deduced the grimness of the situation. The loyalist forces were vastly outnumbered preparing for their last battles. Though the Order of Six were all still alive, they were overwhelmed and exhausted from years of leading diplomatic and military campaigns. Their armies had been heavily reduced and were largely dependent on primitive technologies. If the Imperium did not act quickly, Helbard would likely be lost to the T’au invaders within a Solar year. It was then that Helbard’s fate would become intertwined with the nearby forgeworld of Federa Alpha.
Federa Alpha had been declared a forgeworld in mid M38. The planet supplied metal alloys, glassworks, ceramics, and a wide array of and devices made of the processed materials it exported. This included armor, weapons, tools, clockworks, vehicle components, and electronics. In mid M41, Federa Alpha witnessed acts of heresy and a subsequent turn to Chaos by its Fabricator General as well as a great number of Tech-priests under his authority. Following a years-long campaign throughout the Federa subsector, Federa Alpha was invaded and purged. Fortunately, the renegade Fabricator General and his top commanders were killed in an Inquisitorial raid and so the planet fell after relatively little fighting. As punishment, Federa Alpha was stripped of much of its usual forgeworld autonomy and placed into a subservient production role for developing worlds in the eastern Imperium.
The Imperial envoy to Helbard requested that the Pact of Six send ten thousand of their finest troops for training. Meanwhile, the Departmento Munitorum and Adeptus Administratum were contacted to prepare for the raising of new Militarum regiments. Federa was tasked by the Departmento Munitorum to wholly uplift Helbard to achieve the necessary population and modern culture required for Astra Militarum service. The ten thousand elite troops of the Pact of Six were received into Imperial Service and quickly placed into a brutal training regime. They were experienced in codes of feudal honor and the traditional pike-and-shot warfare predominant on Helbard, but needed to be taught much of what the contemporary Imperium needed them to know. They were taught language, technology, culture, and the arts of modern war. They were clad in galvanic plate flak armor styled after that worn by the knights of the Pact of Six. They carried Federa Pattern lasrifles—powerful weapons capable of slaying armored foes behind cover or fortifications. Each trooper was given advanced electronics to better operate in the dense cities of Helbard. The intense period of learning and grueling training regime saw huge numbers of candidates fail.
It was an agonizing Solar year for the Pact of Six. County after county fell across the world as the T’au-loyal Gue’Vesa overran loyalist forces time and again. As 812.M41 dawned, the Order of Six prepared to lead their forces in the defense of the last loyalist kingdom on Helbard—the fortified state of Gothra. As Gothic forces dug trenches and built palisade walls the traitors sent their vanguard forward. Over the coming weeks, the probing raids were replaced by pointed assaults and those were in turn replaced with rolling advances by siege forces. Anywhere the Order of Six appeared to shore up defenses they would meet a lethal spearhead of T’au Fire Caste warriors. Within just a few Solar months, the Order of Six had no choice but withdraw their armies to the walls of Gothra’s capital: the citadel of Gothreign. As they withdrew, streaks appeared in the skies leading to and from the citadel. In Gothreign’s royal plaza, hungry citizens and tired soldiers preparing for their final days watched in awe at the display before them.
As the traitor armies launched their final assault, the loyalists in Gothreign saw the most exhilarating sight of the war: marching down Gothreign’s central boulevard was the Helbardian First Assault Regiment. The five thousand troops who had graduated soon enough to form the first regiment moved in lockstep to reinforce the beleaguered defenders of the citadel’s walls. The pre-industrial peasant militias equipped with pikes, crossbows, stub guns and tattered armor next to disciplined columns of heavily armed and armored Helbardian Highborn. At the request of the regiment itself, the citadel’s gate was opened and the 1st Helbardian Assault Infantry sallied forth to meet their attacker.
The ensuing battle was a massacre. The T’au forces, while mobile, were limited in their number and could not hope to stand before an entire regiment of Imperial Guard. Their human allies had been taught the Greater Good, but not yet uplifted and were almost entirely pre-industrial. The Helbardian Highborn’s lasguns effortlessly shredded Gue’Vesa armor and palisades while their reinforced galvanic armor shed the traitors’ rifle stubs and bombard shrapnel like rain from a street. The Regiment’s electro-visors alerted them to every prospective ambush and their standard-issue vox beads enabled coordination that the traitors struggled to comprehend. As the traitors witnessed their T’au masters driven from the battlefield by volleys of devastating lasgun fire, they began to break. Stands turned to retreats and retreats turned to routs. Still, the effects of the heavy casualties sustained by the traitor hordes paled in comparison to the news that their untouchable alien overlords were being scattered. Within a matter of days, the force besieging Gothreign, once hundreds of thousands strong, was retreating in all directions. The traitors had lost hundreds of their own to each Guardsman killed and even the T’au had suffered heavy casualties from their repeated clashes with the Regiment.
In the weeks to follow, the Order of Six would report into the Imperium. The Pact of Six had suffered such massive defeats at the hands of traitors and revolutionaries that, had it not been for the Order of Six, it certainly would have fallen. The betrayal of Helbard’s ruling class could also not be overlooked. As such, the Order of Six would oversee the punishment of Helbard: they would raise 1,000 armies, each comprised of however many regiments it required. As Helbard was likely to suffer heavy losses to its population, the Order of Six warned the Munitorum that too severe a punishment could permanently ruin the planet and leave the T’au an easy trophy should they someday return. In response, the Munitorum agreed to match every regiment provided by Helbard with another that would be vat-grown from the genetic material of graduated Guardsmen. Odd-numbered regiments would be staffed by natural-born recruits while even-numbered would be staffed with vat-grown troops. Such a practice would protect from annihilation as well as preventing armies of the Helbardian Guard falling to Chaos or xenos influence.
In the months following the arrival of the 1st Army, 1st Regiment—abbreviated the 1-1—Helbard saw widespread introduction of marvels of technology brought from Federa. These marvels were paid for in tithes of human life to be reforged as Imperial Guardsmen. The armies of those loyal to the T’au were routed across the world as thousands—soon millions—more Helbardian Guard arrived to drive back the traitors. Once-per-decade Imperial visits were abandoned and the Pact of Six was reformed into the Helbardian Court, a governing body that would be harder to sway than a single governor. The Order of Six would remain on the planet until, one by one, the Emperor granted them rest from their old age. Helbard itself was brought back into Imperial Compliance and, as the Era Indomitus sees the Imperium torn asunder, will see its future as a bulwark of the Imperium in the east.
Trivia / Minor Information
Helbardian Imperial Guard are organized into 1,000 armies whose specialty is dictated by the most common type of regiment in the army.
Regiments vary somewhat in size, but a standard Helbardian Assault Infantry regiment numbers around 5,000 at full strength, including command, support, and noncombatants.
Armies vary in size. An Assault Army numbers roughly 100,000 and is formed of 15-25 regiments of various types and sizes. Other specialties, such as Siege Armies, can include a quarter million or more. Shock Armies or other high value forces may number in the tens of thousands.
Armies are organized into Army Groups when multiple armies are required for campaigns. Within Armies, regiments are organized into corps with 8-12 regiments, divisions with 3-5 regiments, and brigades with 2-3 regiments.
Approximately 50% of Helbardian Highborn are vat-born. Natural regiments are odd-numbered while vat-born ones are even-numbered.
The vat-born troops are created from the genetic material of natural-born training graduates—typically a sample of hair or skin. The vat-birth process is deliberately primitive and destructive to the sample so that only one vat-birth can be achieved per sample. This ensures that Federa cannot grow an entire army from a synthetic genome. The samples are randomly scrambled so that, should a regiment fall to Chaos, there is not a genetically identical regiment that could also be vulnerable.
Helbardian regiments carry on the old tradition of Imperial visits by visiting their home world once every decade when not on campaign. The visits are on the anniversary of each regiment’s founding and provide the regiment an opportunity to replenish its numbers, restructure into a different type of regiment, and to show the might of the Imperium to the citizens of Helbard.
Helbardian flak armor does not follow the common pattern of Imperial Guard armor. Instead, the Federa pattern flak plating is styled like the medieval gothic armor commonly found on Helbard during its civil war.
The armor is forged of composites commonly used in flak armor, but is coated in galvanic plating. The plating blunts and shatters incoming projectiles, enabling the composite underneath to absorb the remaining force. The plating also absorbs and spreads the effects of energy weapons across its surface, diminishing their penetrating effects to the composite underneath.
The plate suit can even be wired into a circuit with a power pack to repurpose as much as 10% of absorbed electromagnetic energy toward recharging the power pack. Kinetic impacts do not contribute toward the charging and energy weapons are far too focused and high intensity to be useful, but exposure to sunlight and other ambient radiation can speed the recharging rate of the power pack while the trooper carries it.
The galvanic plating is also easily recognizable on the electro-visors worn by all Helbardian infantry, acting as a convenient IFF.
The Federa Pattern Mk.I lasrifle is technically a hotshot lasgun and uses roughly triple the power of a standard Kantrael Pattern lasrifle.
It uses a power pack made on Federa Alpha using a charge-carrying alloy folded into dozens of layers of foil and suspended in a stabilizing solution that prevents violent reactions when the pack is physically damaged. The powerpack contains enough charge for roughly 300 shots with a standard lasgun. Because of the Federa Pattern’s high power consumption, each power pack provides just 100 shots.
The Federa Pattern fires a variable wavelength, nonvisible laser that trades a small amount of range for substantially higher power delivery and penetration. Focusing and wavelength variation mechanism within the weapon produces most of its felt recoil.
The weapon uses a modular construction method intended to be serviceable by most ordinary Guardsmen in order to reduce the workload on high-skilled armorers. Replacement of the laser projection system still requires a techpriest or armorer.
The hot-shot nature of the weapon and its ability to fire at its standard operating power in full-auto requires that the weapon had a robust cooling system built-in that allows the lasgun to operate normally even in dangerously hot environments.
The Federa Pattern lasrifle lacks a variable power setting, but includes safe, semiautomatic, burst fire modes. Burst mode fires three shots at 600 rounds per minute.
Despite hailing from a recently uplifted world, all Helbardian Highborn carry two critical pieces of advanced technology:
Helbardian sallet helms contain integrated electro-visors that allow them to see the electromagnetic fields and signatures of electronics, living beings, and other Helbardian Guardsmen. This acts as a form of night vision and prey-sense. The device can even see through thin walls of nondisruptive material, enabling the Helbardians to anticipate ambushes before the enemy reveals themselves.
Each trooper is issued a short range vox bead for encrypted squad-level communications. On their wrists, troopers wear devices to set which channel they send and receive on as well as being able to enter encryption protocols.
Standard issue Helbardian sallet helms can fit compact air filtration systems for use in toxic or chemical environments. The helmet can also be connected to an onboard air supply for short-term use in a vacuum but doing so is inefficient and should not be done for more than 20-30 minutes.
Rather than recruiting directly from the general population, the Helbardian Highborn are recruited from lords and nobles who provide the requisite number of sponsored recruits. These are generally the best students from each noble’s martial schools, personal guards, etc. Rejected recruits carry a penalty to the nobles that sponsored them, encouraging the sponsorship of the finest recruits available.
Troops from the same sponsored fiefdom are generally kept in the same units when possible to encourage unit cohesion. Guardsmen are allowed and encouraged to wear the family colors of the noble who sponsored them as part of their uniform.
Structure
Infantry are referred to as Assault Troops or Ranksmen, though the use of the latter generally excludes officers.
Officers are promoted entirely from within the guard. Strict laws and harsh penalties exist on Helbard to prevent nobles from leveraging their influence to attain powerful ranks in the Highborn. Much to their chagrin, nobles join the Highborn at exactly the same status as other recruits.
Recruits can graduate from basic training as high as Squad Sergeant. Higher ranks come from later promotions or additional schooling.
Failed recruits may remain in training as long as they wish until they pass. Those who wash out are tasked to low intensity labor before they can be sent home.
Doctrine
Constant, widespread pressure
Helbardian Highborn specialize in sustained combat. Their armor and weapons are heavy and best suited to the limited mobility required for defense or to short, aggressive attacks.
Helbardian forces utilize slow, but constant, movement and rely on their heavy armor and weapons to afford them margin for error while they reposition.
In the field, Helbardian advance short distances in short, aggressive attacks with supporting fire from artillery and then establish new defensive positions. Positions should be chosen to maximize overlapping infantry firing lines. Those positions are then relieved by fresh troops who are easily able to follow the front line and launch their own attacks to maintain the pressure.
Combining these heavy assault tactics and slow but steady advance yields a force that constantly reinforces, re-engages, and strains enemies under the inexorability of the Helbardian offensive. Pressure is applied across whole fronts and foes’ retreats are immediately—if often slowly—exploited.
Exploitation and assault rely on infantry. Helbardian doctrine focuses more on holding captured territory than capturing more territory. Thus, breaches in enemy defenses are exploited by positioning the original breakthrough force into a defensive posture at the tactical level. They are then quickly reinforced by additional infantry—typically delivered via non-dedicated armored transports. The reinforcements are to at least hold the breach or at most expand pressure outward and expand the length of the frontline to turn the salient into a bulge.
Whether attacking or defending, the Helbardian methodology of constant engagement can function as probing attacks to find vulnerable flanks or weaker positions respectively. Strong positions naturally slow the advance while weaker areas crumble without the need for costly set piece battles. This mitigates casualties and enables Helbardians to build up more troops along a frontline the longer a fight goes on. This results in more simultaneous attacks, more firepower, and ever more pressure. In this way, the Helbardians use the sheer weight of numbers and massed firepower to cause enemies to buckle under the widespread strain. Against defenders, the Helbardians will utterly saturate otherwise capable in-depth defenses. Against attackers, the Helbardians simply bleed foes with fighting retreats before enveloping and counterattacking the exhausted enemy.
In urban environments, Helbardian Highborn rely heavily on their communications and visors to methodically clear every building, every alley, and every nook and cranny that could conceal a foe.
Infantry rather than vehicles are generally the focus of Helbardian combat forces. The role of vehicles is to provide supporting fire to and transport for the assault infantry.
