7th Fen Guard

Erzählung

Time: M41.2–M41.4, one and a half years · Theatre: Dead world Grimmfenn, southern continents · Enemy: Orks, Nob armada under Wummtrogg Zwo · Duration: 16 months

The Fen Guard was part of a flotilla of seven regiments—the Fen Guard as artillery, two infantry regiments from Ophilia VII, a tank company from Olvenmark, an aircraft squadron without a name, and two support logistics units. The plan of operations was simple: the Orks out of the industrial ring first, artillery bombardment of the hive structures, ground penetration with infantry. That was the plan. The plan burned down in the third month.

Wummtrogg Zwo was not an ordinary Ork tide—it was an agglomeration of five older armadas, formed together in one of the larger invasions since M39. The Orks were too numerous to be crushed. The artillery bombarded, but Orks are hard to bear. After nine months the Fen Guard had fired four hundred shells per day and gained barely any ground. The infantry stayed stuck in tortoise formations. The tanks were overrun by Ork rollers.

In the tenth month came a commissar's order: the Fen Guard was to fire a direct salvo on a group of positions in which twenty Ophilia infantrymen were crouching, unable to move. The Orks were a hundred metres away. A colonel of the Ophilia asked Senior Master Eckhart to miss with the salvo. That has not been documented in writing. It has not needed to be documented in writing—Eckhart fired. The salvo killed the twenty infantrymen and ninety-eight Orks. Three of the infantrymen survived wounded. None of them was ever requested as an infantryman again.

The course of the war ended in "attrition to stagnation"—a military euphemism for "we are too tired to fight, and the enemy no less." Wummtrogg Zwo withdrew into the inner wilderness. The Fen Guard withdrew into the port city to resupply. The position was termed "stabilised" and not "secured."

Allied regiments: Ophilia VII (infantry), Olvenmark Tank Company (plasteel and fury), aircraft squadron [name unclear, register lost]. The Ophilia VII lost eight hundred soldiers in this campaign. The relationship with the Fen Guard never became normal afterwards. During resupply the regiments ate separately. In camp they did not speak. In the report afterwards the Ophilia commissar listed the Fen Guard as "capable but unreliable"—the code for "artillery that targets allied infantry when required." That is a stain that does not sit as deep as the cultist suspicion, but remains long enough to destroy trust. The Fen Guard still see this campaign today when they hear the names.

Casualty record: 187 fallen, 312 wounded, 4 Basilisks lost (one converted into a demolition charge), 23 mortar positions overrun and evacuated.

Erzählung

Time: M41.5–M41.6, ten months · Theatre: Lava Plain of Schlackmar, Southern Archipelago · Enemy: Orks, the last remnants of Waaagh Wummtrogg and three new invasion waves · Duration: 10 months

After the fall of Grimmfenn the Fen Guard was too weak for major operations. It was assigned to the fight for Schlackmar—a ruined trade colony on a neighbouring world. The objective was simple: repel the Orks, hold the colony until reinforcements arrived. It was a rest posting. It was a mistake.

Three invasion waves came one after another: the first small, a tactical probe; the second larger, a serious offensive; the third a flood that could not be counted. The Fen Guard bombarded each of them with artillery that was worn out and could no longer be resupplied with ammunition, because the supply line had been cut. By the eighth month regimental strength had fallen to five hundred and fifty. One battalion was disbanded and integrated into another regiment—for the first time the Fen Guard truly grew smaller. Three other regiments were also there: the Kessler-Garde from Olvenmark, the Funkenhüter from Noctis Aeterna (a flamer regiment that covered small withdrawals), and two unnamed infantry detachments.

The Funkenhüter died almost to a man—three hundred and ninety-one casualties in total out of four hundred and nine requisitioned. That was the visible catastrophe. The Fen Guard watched it, day after day, and fired shells without counting its own dead. A commissar of the Funkenhüter later became legendary because he defended one of the last fire positions with four living soldiers and two dead, before an Ork creature broke through the position and tore him apart. The site is called "the Last Service", undefeated in the local records, because the Orks did not hold the hill.

In the ninth month the order to withdraw came. The positions were evacuated. A company of the Kessler-Garde was left behind—not as a sacrifice, but through a logistical error in the evacuation. A transport ship was not sent to the coordinates. A company was forgotten. They were still fighting when the Fen Guard lifted off. No reserve tank battalion was available to retrieve them—the tanks had been ordered in another direction. This has not been mentioned in the reports.

Allied Regiments: Kessler-Garde (infantry from Olvenmark, later largely destroyed), Funkenhüter of Noctis Aeterna (flamer regiment, almost annihilated), nameless infantry detachments. The Funkenhüter were not re-formed after this campaign. The register reads "DISSOLVED — losses unsustainable — survivors in reservist status". In administrative language this means the survivors were sent to camps on worlds of no significance. These survivors no longer appear in active records. The Fen Guard knows this. It also knows that the Funkenhüter would still have been calling for artillery had the evacuation come later—calling with the pauses between words that only a unit in complete disintegration makes. No guilt was recorded. It was a choice between two destructions.

Personnel Tally: 211 killed, 156 wounded, 6 Basilisks lost in combat or degraded, 18 mortars rendered unusable.

Erzählung

Time: M41.6–M41.7, fifteen months · Theatre: Home world Brakmoor, inner ring, salt-flood industrial sector · Enemy: Remnants of Waaagh Wummtrogg, cultists of the symbiont cults, unknown third party · Duration: 15 months

The Fen Guard was finally called home—not to rest, but to defend. The home world was under attack by Orks and something worse that the Munitorum reports did not name. The 7th Founding was to take over a defensive position around the saltworks complexes. That meant: Brakmoor was defending itself.

The first problem was that there was no 7th Founding any more. The 7th Founding had been dissolved in M41.6 on grounds of "resource optimisation"—a code for "you are too small to stand alone." The 344 surviving fighters were consolidated into one company and half of another. They were attached to a "battle group" consisting of the 3rd Founding of the Brakmoor armoured unit, two detachments of infantry of unknown origin, and a priest battalion of the Ecclesiarchy.

The defence was a mortar duel in the salt floods. The Orks came in waves. The symbiont cults came through the underhive tunnels that no one had mapped well. The "unknown third party" revealed itself as three figures that were neither Orks nor humans: Aeldari warriors who, for reasons never communicated, were also bombarding the saltworks. The battle group fired on everything, because it was not clear what was enemy and what was merely competition for the same sector.

After some months it became clear that the battle group had lost. The saltworks fell. The defence withdrew into the hive city. Underground, the infantry detachments waged a war against the symbiont cults whose end no one could foresee. One tank commander grew so desperate that he refused to acknowledge an order and drove his tank into a symbiont cavern to destroy the brood chambers. The tank exploded. The tank commander died. In the local records this is named a "sacrifice attack", a kind of ritual code resembling a ship's captain who drives his ship into a fleet. It was probably not a choice—it was probably desperation with a name.

After fifteen months an order came that no one had expected: the battle group was to evacuate to the fleet reserve. That meant: the battle group would leave the area. That meant: Brakmoor would fight alone against the Orks and cultists. That meant: the home world would lose unless reinforcements came, and reinforcements were not in sight.

The evacuation proceeded in confusion. The 3rd Armoured Founding lost two tanks during the withdrawal (presumably fired upon by uncoordinated infantry units, unclear). The infantry detachments were distributed across three different transport ships—an error that meant three regimental numbers existed, each without the others. The Fen Guard—what was left of it—was gathered on a ship whose name the soldiers were not told. The ship did not sail to a new war zone. The ship sailed in an unknown direction.

Allied Regiments: Brakmoor 3rd Armoured Founding (home armour, later fragmented and placed in reservist status), unknown infantry detachments (possibly four, possibly three, the records contradicted one another). One of these detachments was re-formed shortly afterwards, renamed the "Brakmoor-Reserve-Kolonne" and then transferred to another flotilla. The Fen Guard has not seen this detachment again. Nor has it seen Brakmoor again.

Personnel Tally: 89 killed, 64 wounded, 2 Basilisks irretrievably lost in battle, 7 mortar positions abandoned. The ship on which the Fen Guard was evacuated is registered in the Munitorum archive as "stranded in warp disturbance" in M41.7. That was ten months ago. The ship is listed as missing.