Helswall

The tough frontier-worlds of Helswall breed grim-faced, inward-looking men and women. With orks raids a constant threat, the few settlements that dot these tough worlds are heavily fortified and hostile to outsiders. It is precisely these qualities that make the inhabitants such excellent recruits for the Imperial Guard and Navy. The planets are relatively lightly-populated, and supplement their limited tithes of lumber, fish and fossil fuels with their men and women. It has become a tradition for the planets to tithe to the Guard in turn in order to maintain their own defences, though extraordinary events like Scallop Star Purges and Crusades are answered with combined regiments drawn from across the system. The so-called 'Mongrel Regiments' are notorious for their poor discipline, but when well-led, have contributed to some of the most important victories of the subsector's history.

The forest-world of Metis is covered with dense evergreen trees and rainforest. Thick mists swirl around the principal settlements and visitors to the planet often report inexplicable eerie sensations. Inquisitorial investigations have revealed nothing especially untoward, though a large Arbites precinct is present in every port.

Themetis was the birthplace of the famous Inquisitor Hardrada, a bombastic and fiery individual who oversaw the Helswall Purges of late M40. His pickled body, sat in a mighty throne, is displayed for all to see in front of the Imperial Governor's palace; where his lifeless eyes overlook the graves of over one hundred thousand psykers he executed.

Something about the atmosphere of Iocaste means the populace produces a disproportionately low number of healthy boy-children. As a result, most of the Iocastan regiments are made up of female soldiers. The Iocastans have won many glorious victories and produced a number of famous regiments, including the 14th Iocastan 'Riot Girls' Rifles and the 6th Mechanised, known as the 'Vixens' after their regimental number (VI). 

Virtue was populated by fundamentalist recusants, who refused to attend regular service. The world is a gleaming blue ball from orbit, and its storm-wracked surface is mostly hidden beneath deep ocean waters. Regiments from Virtue specialise in Valkyrie-led drop assault, and include a high proportion of Ecclesiarchy priests.

 

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+ inload: Forces of the Scallops Stars +

+ Metis Light Foot +

+ The Helswall system lies in the spinwards reaches of the Hesiod-Siculus subsector, near the Scallop Stars border, and has long-provided tough and resourceful regiments to the Imperial Guard. The three principal planets usually contribute their own regiments, but in cases of unusually high levels of recruitment, they are known to combine individual companies into one of the so-called 'Mongrel' regiments.    + The Light Foot were the sole regiment supplied entirely by the forest world of Metis to the Fourth Great Purge. Their superlative fieldcraft skills proved invaluable during the planetary invasion of Genyx, which marked the first large-scale planetary assault by the Ambitine Purge Fleet.   + The world of Metis has a higher gravity than terra, and the dense forest cover and low population density has bred men and women that are tough, stoical and resourceful. The planet is lightly populated and most inhabitants are isolationist, living individually in short-term 'wood-igloos'. They gather semi-regularly to meet family obligations and to trade. Large-scale mobilisation is seen as a necessary duty to which most Metans acquiesce, however grudgingly; but the planet has an extremely high Arbites presence in order to enforce the tithe.   + Metans are famed both for their personal adaptability and initiative, and unfortunately also their insubordination. Metans called to serve off-world frequently find themselves wrong-footed by the void gravity and claustrophobia of life on ship, though they generally quickly adapt. The term 'Metan' quickly entered the Fleet's officer slang as a shorthand term for soldiers that were irascible and violent – perhaps unfairly, as the Light Foot quickly settled once granted leave to bivouac throughout the ships, rather than being cramped into barracks. +  

+ Desetar Goran Chomatemj +

+ Desetar is a non-commissioned officer rank, which grants command over a handful of other soldiers. A Desetar might find himself tasked with leading anything from a single fireteam up to an entire platoon, but more often he will be serving under a higher rank, and specialised.

 

+ Chomatemj has been issued with a short-band communication device. The bulky Braun VI-pattern long-range backpacks were issued as standard, but suffered a near total attrition rate on Genyx. It was widely-held belief amongst Imperial command that the Metans were deliberately abandoning the awkward packs or cannibalising the parts to create short-band communications that were considerably more useful to their independent modus operandi. For obvious reasons, such reports were not passed on to the Adeptus Mechanicus – the High Command taking the Metans' reports of mecahnical failure at face value on the basis that the operational ability of the regiment increased as their comms-gear deteriorated. 

 

 + Members of the Light Foot were deployed as infiltrators, sappers and generalists in support of the main Astartes drive on Genyx. Members of the Lions of Sol reported their admiration of the Metan's stoical and self-reliant attitude, and they worked unusually closely with the troopers. 

 

+ Chomatemj is pictured here bearing a clearly non-standard boltgun. The ident tags mark it as drawn from the Forgeworld Conisium in the Hynde's Crimson Star system; a drawing point for the Stellar Steeds Chapter – also operating on Genyx.

 

+ The hard grey carapace and light fatigues pictured here were standard; though many of the Light Foot opted to wear only a light flak vest in the steaming heat of the Genyx campaign.

 

+ Chomatemj is also carrying supplies sufficient for a two-day ranging deployment, including a camo-cloak.

+ The Genyx campaign was often fought in close-quarters without support; a deadly position that favoured the eager and dangerous orks of the planet. While the Metans were tough and resourceful for humans, they – like other regiments – couldn't compete for sheer physicality with the greenskins. This sat badly with the regiment, who prided themselves on their fieldcraft, and morale was low throughout the campaign. 

 

+ Nevertheless, the Metan Light Foot provided invaluable support for the Astartes forces, and while they took heavy losses on Genyx, their effort and sacrifice ensured that the war could grind on. +