Legionaries

The Imperial Legionaries are foremost amongst the defenders of Humanity, the greatest of the Imperator's warriors. They are barely Human at all, but superhuman; having been made superior in all respects to a normal man by a harsh regime of genetic modification, psycho-conditioning and rigorous training. Considered elite, highly adaptable and versatile general use soldiers that can find deployment in virtually any mission conducted by the Galactic Terran Imperium. They are deployed as Marines on space stations and starships as well as crews in tanks and artillery, and finally as the conventional Infantry on planets, moons or similar environments where they spearhead grand assaults and serve as heavy battlelines.

Legionaries are untouched by plague or any natural disease and can suffer wounds that would kill a lesser being several times over, and live to fight again. Due to their genetic enhancements they cannot die to old age, although due to their permanent active combat deployments - for there is no retirement for even the most veteran Legionary - they die in battle in all cases, and there is no recorded case of death to old age.

Clad in power armour and wielding the most potent weapons known to man, the Legionaries are terrifying foes and their devotion to the Emperor and the Imperium is unyielding.

   The Legionaries have been genetically engineered and enhanced, giving them a far variety of superhuman abilities. They are one of two primary unit types of the Imperial Legions.

**Selection, Training and Enhancements**

Legionaries do not start out as the Demi-God like Warriors with superhuman abilities. They are forged with years of rigorous training, genetic modifications, cybernetic enhancements and psycho-conditioning.

#1

The **first phase** to become a Legionary begins with recruitment. Recruiters scour the major Imperial Population centers to look for candidates, mainly searching for those who have a natural toughness, intelligence, aggression, a psychotic-level killer instinct and live in harsh conditions, most commonly among the poorest who have to fight daily to survive.

Ones selected for possible induction into the Legionaries they become an **Aspirant** and are brought to a Legion's Facility, of which there are often many on a Hive World, where they are tested and assessed thoroughly in all imaginable aspects, from mental factors such as willpower, pain resistence, concentration, intelligence and personality to their physical fitness and genetic makeup. Here the weakest and those with undesirable genetic signatures will often be phased out, thrown back into the world.

    The ones deemed strong enough will continue to a Imperial Training Facility and become Neophytes, signyfing their mental and physical transformation to become a Legionary.

#2

At this point the **second phase** begins and consists of grueling, rigorous, tortorous, physically challenging and psychologically stressful training regimes. This serves both to prepare them for whats to come and to further phase out the weak.

Additionally hypnotherapy and psycho-conditioning ensures absolute loyalty to the Imperiumand Imperator, strong willpower, pain/torture/interrogation resistance, mental thoughness and other desirable traits, as well as education in the many arts of war.

Furthermore their physical transformation is begun with special foods which improve and support massive muscle growth rate and enable quick regeneration, a fact which is virtually the only factor which lets them survive and thrive during the training as any unaltered human would easily die just after a short time. Their genetic modifications are started with special chemotherapies, surgeries and radiation treatments.

This process will essentially repeat over a decade on average, steadily enhancing their bodies, mind and adjusting their training and equipment to new levels. At the end of the ten years they will be ready to transfer from training to first active combat deployments.

**Legionary Power Armor**

Power armour is an advanced form of powered combat armour, worn primarily by the Elite Legionaries of the Great Sovereign Galactic Terran Imperium, though suits have been created to be worn by mere mortals. It is a completely enclosed suit of combat armour composed of shaped adamantium and plasteel plates, encased in a ceramite ablative layer.

Each suit possesses a full suite of life-support functions for operation in hostile environments, an automated medicae system to provide some level of first aid to a wounded wearer and a highly advanced and fully integrated tactical targeting and threat analysis system known as auto-senses.

The suit would be heavy and cumbersome to wear but for the electrically-motivated fibre bundles within the armour that replicates the wearer's movement and enhances his strength beyond its already considerable superhuman baseline.

Power armour has a range of auxiliary systems that improve the Legionaries' effectiveness, including auto-senses made up of thought-activated communications systems, augurs, audio filters, targeting reticules and numerous other features. Life support functions include pain suppressors, combat stimulants and anti-venoms. Reinforced greaves incorporate gyroscopic stabilisers and power units that magnetise the soles of the armour's boots for zero-gravity and vacuum combat. The backpack also contains the armour's environmental and life support systems and additional movement stabiliser thrusters for low and zero-gravity combat.

Plug-in points mesh with Legionary power armour, linking the wearer's nervous system to his suit's mind impulse controls, turning the suit into a second skin that moves with all the speed and precision of the soldier's own body.

A Legionary is 2.6m tall in full power armor.

**Common Components of Legionary Power Armour**

Helmet - The armoured reinforced headgear that protects an Legionary's head.

Auto-senses - A Legionary's helmet contains most of his armour's combat systems, all of which are referred to by one title -- Auto-senses. These include thought-activated comm-augers and audio-filters, targeting reticules and range finders, tactical displays and auspex-links, and a host of other features that further enhance the Legionary's already superhuman senses.

Photolenses - The photolenses are the reinforced eye guards in the helmet that protect the Legionary from dazzling light bursts. They also allow him to see into the infrared and ultraviolet ranges, as well as enabling vision in low-light conditions.

Respirator Vox Grill - The vox grill can amplify a Legionary's battle cries to deafening volumes. It also contains a respirator to filter out toxins and can be shut off with a thought, drawing instead upon an internal oxygen supply.

Gorget - Part of the armour that protects the throat.

Pauldron - The auto-reactive shoulder guards are shaped to deflect as well as absorb incoming blows.

Gauntlet - The armoured glove that protects both the hand and the wrist.

Cuisses - The part of the armour that protects the thigh.

Plastron - The armoured chestplate that is designed to protect the suit's armoured power cables, and more importantly, the Legionary's vital organs.

Couter - Part of the armour that protects the elbow.

Vambrace - Part of the armour that protects the forearm.

Poleyn - Part of the armour that protects the knee.

Greaves - Part of the armour that protects the lower leg. The greaves incorporate gyroscopic stabilisers and power units that can magnetise the soles of the armour's boots for combat in zero-gravity or other unstable conditions.

Sabaton - The armoured boot that protects the foot.

Backpack Power Unit - This backpack houses the primary power core for the armour, as well as reserve cells and an emergency solar collector.

Life Signs Monitor - Suite of life-support functions, including an auto-medicae equipped with various painkillers, combat stimulants and anti-venoms.

Temperature Regulator - Automatically maintains the Legionary's temperature. Heat is provided by the power core and thermal build-up can be vented via the backpack's distinctive nozzles. As a result, a Legionary can fight anywhere, in the cold vacuum of space or the raging heart of a volcano, without even noticing the change of temperature.

Nutrient Reservoir - Contains a self-replenishing, high-energy liquid food store that can sustain a Legionary's metabolism without need for further nourishment. During battle, there is no need for a Legionary to stop to eat or drink.

**Legionary Weaponry**

**Combi-Rifle** - The Primary Weapon System and Standard Issue Multi-Purpose Rifle is multiple weapon types in one.

One is a rocket-propelled armor piercing grenade

coilgun which fires tiny projectile

plasma round

**Coilgun** - The Standard Issue Multi-Purpose Rifle for the Legionaries which firesArmor-Piercing High-Explosive Rounds at Hypersonic velocities. Various specialized rounds are available. The weapons are encoded so that only a Legionary can fire them, and they are reliable, easy to maintain and cheap to produce after thousands of years of improving and reiterating the design.

**Power Knife** - The Power Knife is the signature standard issue melee weapon issued to every Legionary. It consists of a very sharp but immensely durable adamantium blade and can be used extensively as a tool when deactivated. When activated it is able to pierce the thickest armour, all the way to its hilt and slice through stone, metal and heavy armor like a hot knife through butter. Due to its length it may be more akin to a short sword for some.

**Storm Shield** -

* Boarding Shield - A **Boarding Shield** is a large tower shield comprised of ceramite and plasteel, which contains a small field generator similar to that utilised in the smaller wrist-mounted Combat Shield. These bulky shields are favoured by Legionary assault units for protection. During the confined close quarter fighting of void combat boarding operations, Boarding Shields allows these assault units to absorb the sustained incoming enemy fire that normally accompanies the first breach in a voidship's hull. They are also employed by Legionaries during siege operations following the first breach in the defenses of a static fortification, when the heavy intensity of incoming enemy fire at close quarters creates a combat environment similar to that of a voidship boarding action.
* Combat Shield - A **Combat Shield** is piece of defensive equipment utilised mainly by the Legionaries, and is a lighter form of the Storm Shield and smaller form of the Boarding Shield often used during close combat assault actions. It is favored when additional protection is needed but use of two weapons and higher mobility as well. They are fabricated from plasteel, and incorporate a form of technology very similar to that of Imperial Power Weapons in the form of a miniaturised power generator which, when activated, emits a field of disruptive energy around the face and circumference of the shield. A Combat Shield is a compromise between flexibility and defence, trading the stronger field and physical protection a Storm Shield's size offers for a free hand. A Combat Shield is small enough to be strapped to the arm, leaving both hands free for another weapon to be wielded. As such, Combat Shields are used by many Legionares wearing normal patterns of Power Armour about to enter melee combat or ranged combat where they will face an unusually high intensity of incoming fire.
* Storm Shield - A **Storm Shield** is a Power Shield that is used by the Legionaries to provide an extreme form of protection from ranged weapons fire and potent melee strikes. The Storm Shield is a much larger version of the Combat Shield and unlike the Combat Shield, which is attached to the user's arm and thus allows the hands to remain free, it is heavier and needs to be carried in one hand. The Storm Shield is equipped with an internal gravitic energy field generator which renders all but the most powerful blows completely ineffective. The shield provides protection against both melee and ranged attacks and it is able to withstand an assault from even heavy weaponry like a direct hit from an artillery piece. When the generator is activated, the shield shimmers with blue energy and when struck it emits crackling lightning, which gives the Storm Shield its name. It is often paired with a Power Hammer or other large Power Weapon.

**IPOS** - Infantry Portable Ordnance System; modular missile launcher system for anti-air, anti-tank, and many specialized rounds

**Plasma Weapons** - Deliver pulses of searing energy and superheated matter that have been transmuted into a gaseous plasma state that carries an electrical charge. The plasma "bolts" fired by these weapons explode on impact and generate the destructive heat of a small sun, and the sheer amount of energy released by the impact of superheated plasma is often enough to completely vaporise the target.

**Lasgun** - Continuous-wave laser projector weapon with a constant, narrow beam for its firing pattern; the nozzle can be adjusted to alter the width and spread of the beam. Its power source is a cell cartridge that could be replaced when depleted. It is used to destroy enemy Infantry or Armored Vehicles as well as to open fortifications and barricades that Legionaries may encounter.

**Hardlight Rifle** - Equivalent to a sniper and anti-material rifle. Drawing from its own reactor as well as the reactor onboard the user's armor it can generate immensely powerful and accurate bolts of hard light for an infantry based system, with large power cells near the rear for storing reserve energy for sustained salvos of fire. These can easily puncture even the toughest powered armor and some vehicles.

**Disintegrators** - Fire a green-tinged blast of lightning-like energy that shears apart the target's atomic bonds, literally stripping their bodies apart atom by atom and molecule by molecule.