The Griffin of Zakuul
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
The Vandemarian Legions have their origin in the Knights of Zakuul many millennia ago. Aurelian Sigismund who himself was such a Knight and even an Exarch, held the capabilities and devotion of the Knights in high honour and regards over the passing time. When his Zakuulan remnant forces moved to Vandemar there were many who were Knights, members of the military or Overwatch of the original Eternal Empire, all devoted to the ideas of justice and the Benevolent Emperor Valkorion.
Yet the Eternal Empire failed, weak and ill-thought leadership moved it into an early grave, the Force proven to be a meagre ally against itself. Therefore the single man at the top of this small colony set himself a new goal, long before the Grand Army of the Republic or Galactic Empire would come into being, he plotted to raise one of the best armies the Galaxy has ever seen, without cloning though. And most importantly, without Force users, but to counter them.
Centuries of research and other activities passed, developing Vandemar into a sophisticated society and building the secret laboratories of Olympus Vulcanus deep in the Arx Tyrannis Mountains near the planets capital. Scientists, researchers, smiths, forgers, architects and engineers passed through these halls as the planet kept turning and slowly the seeds for a rebirth of the Project Exarch were spread. Sigismund himself giving himself to be closely scanned, investigated and eyed.
The extreme heights of the Eternal Empire under Arcann would not be reached, but the Vandemarian Legions were born with the First Generation of Paladins, named after the lieutenants of the Exarchs. Sent into the Unknown Regions to trial and test their strength, the results were adequate but improved over time. More years passed and as mass-cloning appeared, the considerations were made to create a Clone Army greater than that of the Republic, but the cost and secrecy could not be assured, therefore the Legions remained a secret of Vandemar, drawn from the local population.
Even as an era of Chaos spread around the Galaxy, realms rising and falling, the Legions were not committed. Sigismund did not believe that the time was right to enter the stage just yet. The fall of the Sith Empire and the rise of a New Imperial Order which knocked on his doorstep though proved to be a turning point.
In the previous year the last remnants of the First Generation had been used to prepare the Galaxy, known as the Rim-Guard Order they were unleashed upon the Galaxy and scored in savage fights against the Bryn'adûl. Their High Imperator moving into various negotiations himself.
Upon revealing the planet and appealing for an official status within the New Imperial Order, the Vandemarian Legions were fully activated. Stationed on warships and in bastions around the Vandemar system their campaign was just about to begin.
- Intent: Creating the background of a Vandemarian Shield Legion.
- Image Credit: Imperator Armor, Marshal Armor, Tribune Armor, Centurion Armor, Legionnaire Armor, Praetor Armor, Emblem
- Role: The elite troops of Vandemar, created to battle the worst nightmares and strongest fighters, the Vandemarian Legionnaires are bred for war, genetically engineered they fight as the speartip of the military, jumping into the thick of the battle and trying to cut off the enemies head. Personally established and even trained by the High Imperator, the Legionnaires are devoted, zealous and disciplined.
- Permissions: N/A
- Links: Aurelian Sigismund, Vandemar, Rim-Guard Order
- Unit Name: Vandemar Shield Legion (Number) (Name)
- Affiliation: Aurelian Sigismund, Vandemar
- Classification: Super-Heavy Gene Engineered Soldiers
- Description:
-
(Artwork commissioned by myself from Carpy )
- Loyalty and mindset: The Shield Legions are sworn soldiers, zealous and without doubt trained, indoctrinated and educated by selected Masters to obey and live the virtues and goals of the High Imperator. Their secretly implanted inhibtor chip guarantees absolute obedience which they take for dutifulness and devotion to the orders of their commanders. Orders are not an option but a commandment, disobedience being a nearly unknown occasion. The troops usually develop a strong bond between each other, forming enclosed and sophisticated brotherhoods of warriors, loyal to their goal, commander and each other.
- Order execution: A Legionnaire does as he is told, they have no restrain or conscience in regards to what they have to do. They are the clenched, armored fits of Vandemar and the will of the High Imperator. They are not mindless or without own thoughts, but the drive to disobedience or second thoughts is drilled out by endless, devoted training and lecturing.
- Organisation:
- Shield Legion commanded led by a Marshal
- 5x Shield Cohorts led by a Tribune
- 4x Shield Companies led by a Warden Centurion
- 10x Shield Cadres led by a Optio
- 3x Fireteams led by a Shield-Templar
- 5x Shield-Legionnaires
- 3x Fireteams led by a Shield-Templar
- Shield Cadre, Evocati Cadre, Socii Cadre
- 10x Shield Cadres led by a Optio
- 4x Shield Companies led by a Warden Centurion
- 5x Shield Cohorts led by a Tribune
- 3.000 Legionnaires
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Supreme Command High Command Commissioned Officers Non-Commissioned Officers Enlisted High Imperator - Supreme Commander and Ruler of Vandemar
Castellan - Second in Command, Steward of Highcastle
Lord Praetor - Most senior instructor and ideological officer
Artifex Forgelord - Master of the Olympus VulcanusImperator - Supreme theatre commander
Demi-Imperator - Theater leader, freshly promoted High MarshalHigh Marshal - Veteran Shield Legion Commander
Marshal - Shield Legion Commander
Tribune - Shield Cohort Commander
Prefect - Junior Shield Cohort Commander
Special:
Praetor - Instructor and ideological officer
Forgelord - Master of engineering, repairs and maintenance of equipment and vehiclesJusticiar Centurion - Senior Veteran Shield Company commander (Primus Pilus)
Paragon Centurion - Veteran Shield Company Commander
Warden Centurion - Shield Company Commander
Shield-Optio - Veteran cadre commander
Optio - Cadre commanderShield-Evocatus - Fireteam commander
Shield-Legionnaire - Rank & file
Aspirant - Recruit in training
- Shield Legion commanded led by a Marshal
-
- Unit Size: Medium
- Unit Availability: Rare
- Unit Experience: Elite
- Equipment:
- All Cadres: Tactical Armor Mk. V, Thermal Detonators, Frag grenades, Flashbangs, Smoke Grenades
- Shield Cadre: Lancer-blaster, optional Paladinblade or Motorblade, Lancer-pistol, Vibro-Knife, Scutum
- Evocatii Cadre: Paladinblade or Motorblade and Lancer-pistol, optional Scutum, Jetpack, Vibro-Knife
- Socii Cadre: Missile Launcher, Heavy Repeating Blaster, Blaster Cannon, Flamethrower, Detonation Packs, Vibro-Knife
- Transports: Stormeagle, APC or IFV
- Combat Function:
- Tactics: A Legion is rarely deployed in attritional warfare and it is not even happening very often that they are seen in full strength on a battlefield except the expected resistance and value of the target justify such extreme measures. Their main force is the Cohort, dispatched on its own it is more than capable to deal with many threats, equipped with tanks, mechanized units and other support forces, they will be sent to the targeted zone and fulfill their task. The balance of Line, Storm and Heavy Cadres in a Shield Company is giving a lot of tactical flexibility.
- Hasta (Strategic deployment, tactical maneuvre): The Legion uses Stormeagles or other fast crafts to strike at the enemies center. They unleash their full destructive potential in one concentrated blow against the enemies throat and head to cut it off.
- Ultor (Tactical maneuvre): Designed to deal with the threat of Force users as well, the Legionnaires adapted tactics to deal with them. When faced with a Force practitioner, the locally strongest duelist of the Legion will challenge the individual to a duel while the brothers form a protective perimeter around the individuals. As soon as the Legions champion is pushed back or close to be killed, the other Legionnaires intervene with all weapons available to kill the Force user.
- Testudo (Tactical formation): The testudo is a shield wall, utilising the Scutum to its maximum protection. The front rank forming a wall with their shields, the Lancer-blasters ready to shoot through gaps while the ranks behind cover the top. It can be a moving formation where there is a gap below the shields and the ground or a stationary, where the front ranks shields are put directly onto the ground.
- Training: To be a Legionnaire means to give up everything personal and private, there only individuality left are the four hours of daily sleep. The rest of the day you spend in combat training, tactical lessons, meditation, equipment maintenance and additional classes. Everything is aimed to make you a perfect soldier and the epitome of a warrior, skilled, disciplined and courageous. The training includes daily visits on the shooting range, melee and close combat, tactical simulations, group combat all done in varying conditions, terrain, climate etc. plus lessons on tactical subjects, potential enemies, technical details of weapons, equipment and vehicles, and lectures on history, art and science, strongly influenced by the Legions Praetors.
- Recruitment & Enhancement: The aspirants for the Legions are selected from those that survive the extreme trials which are put onto the individuals who apply. Trials which test not only physical strength, combat capabilities, but also mental health, the will to push on and if the applicant can defeat pain, exhaustion and despair. The trials vary from Praetor and region of recruitment, but will always aim to get the absolute maximum out of any applicant. It was the High Imperators desire to get only the most resilient and intelligent species onto the planet to get them into the ranks of the legion. The recruitment rate is dominated by Zabrak and Thyrsians, only then followed by Humans, Echani and Arkanians. After the trials the aspirants are sent to the Olympus Vulcanus to enter their enhancement process. The aspirant receive biological and cybernetical enhancements which make the perfect soldiers of them, including an inhibitor chip to increase obedience to a maximum and to support comradeship between the Legionnaires.
- Uniforms
- Oath:
- Upon my honor I do swear undying loyalty to the High Imperator... and unwavering obedience to the officers of his great realm. May those above judge me, and those below take me, if I fail in my duty. Long live the High Imperator! Long live Vandemar!
- Tactics: A Legion is rarely deployed in attritional warfare and it is not even happening very often that they are seen in full strength on a battlefield except the expected resistance and value of the target justify such extreme measures. Their main force is the Cohort, dispatched on its own it is more than capable to deal with many threats, equipped with tanks, mechanized units and other support forces, they will be sent to the targeted zone and fulfill their task. The balance of Line, Storm and Heavy Cadres in a Shield Company is giving a lot of tactical flexibility.
- Heavy Infantry: Due to their power armor and improvements, the Vandemarian Legions make the perfect heavy infantry. Armored, heavily armed and supported by mechanised units they are a deadly force on any open battlefield.
- Devoted: Through indoctrination, inhibitor chips and propaganda, these soldiers know no disobedience or remorse, they do as they are commanded and move on. Professional and cold every day of the year.
- Training: Due to the extreme high standards, the training times are several years of daily training. Losses are extensive to be replenished and therefore major losses will take to time to be filled up again.
- Selection: The ultra-high standards of selection are difficult to come by and more than 90% of the applicants are either sent away after failure or die in the selection trials.
- Expensive: Cybernetic, bio-engineering and high-end equipment, the Legion demand a high percentage of the military spending.
The Vandemarian Legions have their origin in the Knights of Zakuul many millennia ago. Aurelian Sigismund who himself was such a Knight and even an Exarch, held the capabilities and devotion of the Knights in high honour and regards over the passing time. When his Zakuulan remnant forces moved to Vandemar there were many who were Knights, members of the military or Overwatch of the original Eternal Empire, all devoted to the ideas of justice and the Benevolent Emperor Valkorion.
Yet the Eternal Empire failed, weak and ill-thought leadership moved it into an early grave, the Force proven to be a meagre ally against itself. Therefore the single man at the top of this small colony set himself a new goal, long before the Grand Army of the Republic or Galactic Empire would come into being, he plotted to raise one of the best armies the Galaxy has ever seen, without cloning though. And most importantly, without Force users, but to counter them.
Centuries of research and other activities passed, developing Vandemar into a sophisticated society and building the secret laboratories of Olympus Vulcanus deep in the Arx Tyrannis Mountains near the planets capital. Scientists, researchers, smiths, forgers, architects and engineers passed through these halls as the planet kept turning and slowly the seeds for a rebirth of the Project Exarch were spread. Sigismund himself giving himself to be closely scanned, investigated and eyed.
The extreme heights of the Eternal Empire under Arcann would not be reached, but the Vandemarian Legions were born with the First Generation of Paladins, named after the lieutenants of the Exarchs. Sent into the Unknown Regions to trial and test their strength, the results were adequate but improved over time. More years passed and as mass-cloning appeared, the considerations were made to create a Clone Army greater than that of the Republic, but the cost and secrecy could not be assured, therefore the Legions remained a secret of Vandemar, drawn from the local population.
Even as an era of Chaos spread around the Galaxy, realms rising and falling, the Legions were not committed. Sigismund did not believe that the time was right to enter the stage just yet. The fall of the Sith Empire and the rise of a New Imperial Order which knocked on his doorstep though proved to be a turning point.
In the previous year the last remnants of the First Generation had been used to prepare the Galaxy, known as the Rim-Guard Order they were unleashed upon the Galaxy and scored in savage fights against the Bryn'adûl. Their High Imperator moving into various negotiations himself.
Upon revealing the planet and appealing for an official status within the New Imperial Order, the Vandemarian Legions were fully activated. Stationed on warships and in bastions around the Vandemar system their campaign was just about to begin.
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