Avestan Jezzaliers and Auxiliary Debtors Guard Corps

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## Avestan Jezzalier Guard Corps.

The heraldry of the Jezzaliers: the entrance to one of their subterranean homes.

## Regimental Data

### **Home World**

Avestan Satrapy (home system)Lydios (mustering world)

### **Strength**

Several Theatres (Estimated to currently number 300 million active duty personnel) averaging 9,000-18,000 Guardsmen per division.

### **Nickname(s)**

"Most Beloved""Fusil-Weds"

Derisive names:

"Shiller's Legion""Crapshooters"

## Other information

### **Specialty**

- Unsupported infantry tactics.- Asymmetrical warfare and tunneling.

- Close quarters firefights and combat.

- Attrition.

### **Heavy Weapons**

- Autocannon- Mortars- Portable rocket batteries

### **Special Weapons**

- Plasma weapons- Heavy bolters- Missile launchers

## Commanders

### **Notable Commanders**

TBD

"*You could do with a shave, Shiller."
"Shut up, silly man. Take my battle bowler and puttees, we're going to war.*"
—An unknown Jezzalier of the 376th Lydian Infantry Division trading jokes with a Guardsman of the Mordian Iron Guard before going over the top at the Battle of Qurramshahr.
The 'Jezāyerchi Āvestān Va Sepāh Āmdādie Bedehkāran' (from Bhāṣāvestan, translates to the "Avestan Jezzalier and Auxiliary Debtors Guard Corps"), known more simply as the **Avestan Jezzaliers** are the Astra Militarum regiments that hail from the worlds of the Avestan Satrapy. Found far to the galactic east past the Hadex Anomaly, their posting though fairly quiet is nonetheless a perilous posting.

Population densities vary quite wildly in the Avestan Satrapy, and generally no single population of any one world is considered sufficiently able to routinely offer a standing body in the numbers the Satrapy intends to contribute to the Imperial warmachine without hamstringing them of their output in other facets like manufacture or agriculture. This when coupled with the Satrapy's isolation out beyond the Hadex Anomaly is such that the Astra Militarum regiments must expect to work without a robust supply infrastructure behind them. So instead of recruiting from one world, the Satrapy pools together all of the manpower they are able to spare for the Militarum and garrison them on Lydios. Hence why they go by the name of the Avestan Jezzaliers and rather than the Lydian Jezzaliers, though regiments raised from specific worlds do carry these monikers and other honorifics.

The Avestan Satrapy supplies the Guard with their quota of manpower through whatever means they deem necessary, lest they risk one of their primary defenders in the form of the Astartes of the chapter of the Immortals from intervening. A young and by all accounts an unremarkable part of the wider whole of the Astra Militarum, their founding as men under arms sanctioned by the Departmento Munitorum was only codified following the reintegration of the Satrapy they hailed from when the Immortals pacified the star system and brought them back into the fold. Their primary garrison world is Lydios, a mountainous desert world pockmarked with mountainside fortresses and interspersed with saltwater lakes and oases fed by enormous aquifers which supply the subterranean complexes that the Jezzaliers patrol and call home.

## **History**

Satrapal rule had been in decline in the centuries preceding the arrival of the Astartes to resolve the outstanding tithes they had owed to the Imperium. In millennia prior both Imperial Army regiments and Tercios of the the Solar Auxilia participated in military operations within the region of space known as the Avestan Satrapy and when folded into the Imperium would themselves contribute to both these military service branches of the Imperial war machine. Imperial rule being re-established in this sector of space was largely overseen by a joint Astartes and Imperial Army task force spearheaded by the Word Bearers and White Scars. The Great Crusade saw active duty troops that garrisoned this quadrant of the Imperium clash with exodites, orks, the hrud and other xenos races that have not been formally identified or who's records are lost. The Avestan Satrapy under the leadership of the Master of Mankind saw its greatest height and achievements and did much to further mankind's ends beyond the reaches of the Hadex Anomaly and holding eldritch terrors at bay. However, the Horus Heresy and the opening of the Ruinstorm cut the Satrapy off from the rest of the Imperium proper and traitorous elements already sewn by Lorgar and Horus within the system declared for the Warmaster. The Satrapy was a mess of allegiances and alliances that ran counter to each other and this quickly devolved into the entirety of the territory being treated as a free-fire zone by all parties involved in the fighting.

They fractured and lost all sense of cohesion as a star system when the chief population centres regressed and withered. Any planet that still had any of their void-faring vessels that remained with docks to maintain them began closing themselves off from one another in their own hermit pocket empires. The situation began to calm and stabilise following the Great Scouring but never again would the Satrapy reach its former heights under the Emperor's command. But it was the coming of Vidarna's Immortals in M35 that ultimately saw the end of the floundering satrapy as it stood. He had petitioned the Munitorum to ensure that their infrastructure be restored so that the worlds may once more contribute to the outgoing tithes that were owed to the Imperium. With how depleted the satrapy had already been by the coming of the chapter, it proved to be a swift, albeit incredibly violent reabsorption into the fold for the Imperium and tallied as a resounding success as far as the projected casualties were concerned. Vidarna, though reluctantly, would establish Seleucia as the homeworld of the chapter and was crowned the Shahanshah of Seleucia after its subjugation by the remaining populous.

He would work alongside Munitorum agents to see the restoration of the lost infrastructure and ensured the reestablishment of the martial traditions and the regiments that would be trained using it. Training at least some of these men and women alongside his chapter, it would become the norm for them to partake in drills on Seleucia or on Lydios with the participation of the members of the chapter overseeing their regimen. However, the primary reason Vidarna assured the creation of the Militarum regiments were to free up the chapter from being relegated solely to garrison duty and free up more of their companies to partake in different theatres of war.

## **Notable Campaigns**

**Battle of Qurramshahr [980.M34] -** Following the activation of the 376th Lydian Infantry Division, its 18,000 or so men were deployed for garrison duty on the temperate frontier world of Mazirestan in Segmentum Ultima to assist in raising Militarum units as per the tithe the world owed to the Imperium and in the drilling of local PDF units. They alongside other Militarum regiments would rotate their number to Mazirestan to oversee the tithe collection and the training of the PDF. Most notably of these other regiments, a number hailed from the Mordian Iron Guard, Senerikan Motorised Rifles and the Valhallan Ice Warriors that were also on rotation with the 376th Infantry Division. No major hives were present on Mazirestan, though cities and settlements dotted the landscape, and Qurramshahr was one of the most strategically important settlements that also had the requisite infrastructure to quarter Guardsmen and to moor void and aircraft and as such, Militarum HQ operated from within the city of Qurramshahr. Neighbouring cities were in and of themselves self-contained city states and hostilities between each other were far from out of the ordinary, each with their own governors and they vied for the seat of planetary governor. The preeminent rival city to Qurramshahr was Beothra'a that shared a common border along a river and frequent border clashes were so common that citizens who lived on the river grew used to the ambient violence and even the use of nerve agents were frequently reported. This infighting barred the world from paying its tithe to the Imperium and this went on long enough that the Militarum chose to deploy Guardsmen and establish local control and to exact the tithe and installed a planetary governor in Qurramshahr, temporarily imposing a cessation on the violence. Despite their limited numbers, command staff dispatched a few regiments to other cities like Beothra'a and other neighbouring cities to garrison or conduct patrols to ensure they upheld their end in paying Imperial tithes and most notably the Senerikan Motorised Rifles would dispatch the 432nd and the 443rd Infantry Regiments to Beothra'a with the 833rd Valhallan Armoured Regiment in support. Though the Guardsmen engaged in minor skirmishes with local agitators, the front was a quiet posting following this new control. Any of these agitators who were captured would be subject to Arbites interrogation and would then follow up on the intelligence gathered from these agitators. The Arbites reports came back and postulated that these were organically cultivated anti-Imperial agents who sought to secede from the Imperium, but too small, disorganised and fractious to be of material threat, but identified that many of these agitators were from Beothra'a and carried out operations with local discontented citizens of Qurramshahr. The forces present in assessing the ground and surroundings found that the city lacked adequate and proper defence infrastructure or that they in a state of disrepair and began to fortify their positions to better defend the city and to better provision the Guardsmen deployed. As such, long trenches or dikes reinforced with permacrete and bunker complexes were constructed around the perimeter of Qurramshahr just behind the foetid marshes fed by the river. Engineers laid mines within the surrounding marshland and ran both barbed wire and live electrical cables through the waters with generators brought forward specifically to power these cables.

Anti aircraft and limited void batteries were concealed, tanks and guns were entrenched, and munitions caches were brought to the parapets. The situation came to a boil when the Imperial governor and their family in Qurramshahr were assassinated during Sanguinala celebrations by agitators who caused a stampede by throwing bottles filled with promethium lit with rag fuses into the crowds. This was followed shortly by news that the task force sent to Beothra'a was destroyed utterly and their supplies and armaments looted, especially from the armoured column. This message was relayed by a single Valhallan Ice Warrior who ran the distance between the cities, forded the river, and dying of exhaustion upon arriving to share news of what occurred to command HQ. The PDF regiments raised within Qurramshahr would alongside the Mordian 18th, 29th, 32nd and 105th Infantry Regiments man the trenches with the 88th and 212th Infantry Regiments from the 376th Lydian Division of the Jezzaliers with the remainder pulled into the city with the Valhallan Ice Warriors and the Senerikan Motorised Rifles guarding headquarters and facilitating evacuation procedures, the odds were conservatively stacked against the Guardsmen by a factor of 15 to 1. Imperial historitors dispute the numbers primarily because they aren't certain whether or not to implicate the involvement of outside parties, most notably that of Alpha Legion operatives or sleeper cells and of this line of inquiry, Imperial authorities corroborate that outside involvement could be traced back to the assassination on Sanguinala and they specifically implicate the involvement of the warband of the Headless.

Outposts and pickets surrounding Qurramshahr fell, water and electric supplies to the city were cut off and thousands of those who could not evacuate the city were slain in the crossfire or deliberate targeting by the traitors. The attacks on Qurramshahr itself began in earnest at first light in small isolated pockets by men that forded the swamps under heavy artillery barrages by both sides on each other's positions. Casualties by landmines electrocution in the marshes under heavy las fire though huge did not slow the advance. The defending Guardsmen themselves suffered horrific casualties under the sheer weight of numbers of the enemy once they closed the distance and threw themselves into the trenches, engaging in fierce hand-to-hand fighting and by day's end, three out of five Guardsmen in the trenches lay dead or too wounded to fight, this number would climb in coming days primarily due to lack of medicae supplies and facilities and the traitors themselves dug in opposite the lines of the Guardsmen. Clashes would occur on and off for the next three months with units of the defenders rotating in and out of the trench lines with Guardsmen and traitors each going over the top to confront the enemy, though the majority of these offensives were carried out by the traitors as their numerical superiority just could not be overcome even with a break in the enemy lines. Citizens still inside the city pressed themselves into service, arming themselves with las weapons from dead Guardsmen, or otherwise use autoguns, daggers, shivs, clubs, or whatever they could arm themselves with. The Arbites too would join the fighting and found themselves leading civilians either still being evacuated out of the city to a safety zone or leading those volunteering civilians in battle.

By the first day of the fourth month, the outer trenches were cleared and the defence all fell back within the city itself with the attackers recuperating in the captured trenches and consolidating their positions. By dusk the following day, they entered Qurramshahr through the custom's office by the westernmost spaceport and were repulsed briefly by the defence, though several hours later, the defenders of the port were overwhelmed and slain to the last. Tanks and mechanised units were funneled into Qurramshahr through the port into the city proper, from here on out, the battle was entirely within the city. Heavy shelling by artillery and rocket battery, including the use of nerve agents continued inside the city despite the presence of friendly targets within with casualties being steep on both sides. The sub-urbanised regions were where the armoured columns moved toward and subsequently stalled against Imperial tank aces. However, these too would be overcome under sheer weight of numbers and repeated combined armed assaults and soon the Arbites precinct and barracks fell to the attackers after they seized control of the railway lines. The fighting was often fought house-to-house, floor-to-floor, and room-to-room. Dwindling munitions, supply constraints, constant assaults and exhaustion eventually took its toll on the defenders, the supply situation grew so dire that reports came out that Guardsmen had to lick moisture from the walls to sate their thirst. Thirty-four days after entering the city, the defenders made their last stand in the governor's palace, at high noon the attackers briefly took control of the palace before being repulsed, though were driven out by the defenders. Reports by survivors indicated infighting among the attackers, a sign of weakness within poorly or inadequately trained conscripts.

In spite of this, the palace fell later that evening, now effectively under their control. Of the eight hundred thousand or so Militarum, only 600 of their number remained with several thousand of the PDF, Arbites and volunteers now driven out the city of Qurramshahr. Efforts to retake the city were futile and led primarily by surviving citizens and PDF or Arbites units. Still being chased by the traitors into the surrounding hill, they managed to contact High Command and inform them of the situation. High Command made the decision to call for more Guardsmen to be deployed, greenlighting the recapture of Qurramshahr, to unite Mazirestan and bring an end to its internal squabbling, and most importantly to make an example of Beothra'a. The arrival of Imperial forces to relieve the beleaguered defenders would not arrive for another two years.

**Second Battle of Qurramshahr [982.M34] -** The regrouping of the Avestan Jezzaliers with their surviving allies in other regiments of other Guards Corps began effective immediately after their expelling from the city of Qurramshahr. Though their numbers grew further limited as either other pocket garrisons in surrounding city-states were either killed or defected themselves as they suffered more attrition to exposure, disease and skirmishes. In spite of this, the 600 remaining Jezzaliers of the 376th Lydian Infantry Division and their fellows in the Mordian Iron Guard were able to entrench themselves on the outskirts to the northeast of Qurramshahr and were able to secure landing zones for more Militarum personnel to come through, trickling through in company sized formations. Before long, some two years standard, they began to land by brigade and division strength inflating their numbers from the several thousands to the tens of thousands within the span of days. The Senerikan and Valhallan contingents who suffered the heaviest casualties in the defence of Qurramshahr would receive limited reinforcements from their own homeworlds and were thus folded into the regiments of the Mordian Iron Guard.

The 376th Lydian Infantry Division was now back to full strength and freshly resupplied. They took it upon themselves to initiate the opening engagements of the retaking of Qurramshahr and largely thanks to the very poor reconnaissance ability of the traitors, they were able to advance deep into enemy lines on the road between Beoth'ra and Qurramshahr and seized the railways linking them together. From there they lay the road open for the 300 or so regiments of the Mordian Iron Guard to advance on the city of Beoth'ra while the Jezzaliers turned their attention toward Qurramshahr itself with their own combined total of 49 divisions toward Qurramshahr. The operation began with a fierce rocket and artillery barrage beneath bombing runs by aircraft toward the city itself and the advancing infantry only encountered light opposition on the ground ahead of the city as most of the traitors had withdrawn to Qurramshahr. The defences the Jezzaliers left behind were in shambles and left unconstructed by the defending traitors and armoured divisions quickly secured the perimeter wall from the northwest to the southwest and themselves began shelling the city within. The first attack began with 140,000 Jezzaliers who entered the city through the same port that the invaders came through to root them out two years prior, and in the first three days of the action suffered 40,000 casualties, of them 28,000 dead. Nonetheless, they secured the customs house and the port and made room for their armoured divisions to come through. Within a week of entering the city, the Jezzaliers had captured a third of the whole city in brutal room to room engagements where the hand grenade and knife became the preferred weapons of choice. However, even this would change as a common saying a week in was "A hundred grenades to each Jezzalier", as the focus shifted from breaching, entering and securing each building to simply levelling it if there was even a hint of traitor's presence. Buildings fell, crushing the guilty and the innocent within them and falling on the armour captured by the traitors from the defenders. Less than a month later the city itself fell with a tallied body-count estimated to be between 3,000,000-3,500,000 enemies, with the several tens of thousands of citizens that hadn't been able to make their escape from Qurramshahr. They had captured a further 280,000 enemies and all that they looted from the defenders two years before before executing their captives. With Qurramshahr secured, the Jezzaliers left sixteen divisions within the city to garrison it and hold it as it was repopulated and reconstructed while the rest joined the Mordians at Beo'thra and then to the rest of the cities on the world and pacified any unrest that remained. The campaign is widely remembered by a song by the Corps, "Barādar Naboodi" (meaning "brother, you were not there [to see the city liberated]").

**Drowning of the Orol Pass [010-019.M37] -** When the quarry world of Orolin III in southern Ultima Segmentum rebelled against the Imperium, it was the Guardsmen of the Elysian Drop Troops, Maccabian Janissaries, Kamaran Fusiliers and the Avestan Jezzaliers that were called to quell the uprising and assist the loyalist elements of the PDF and Arbites that feebly attempted to keep control of the situation. Orolin III is characterised by its relatively dense tree cover on its high peaks, deep valleys and rivers, with railways crisscrossing the topography linking mines and quarries together. On the outset of the rebellion, the PDF and Arbites initially drove them underground but attrition would not favour those loyalists. The root cause of the rebellion is lost to time but among reasons cite by historitors include the horrific state of sanitation and railway accidents causing spills of their highly toxic and radioactive substances. The Imperium would be loath to lose the mineral wealth of Orolin III, which supplied local forges with a wealth of varying ores, most notably its fissile elements and the enrichment facilities they were processed within on Orolin III - crucial for the output of the aforementioned forges. Rebellion broke out in pockets that were put down first by the Arbites or the PDF if the lawmen couldn't maintain control over the people. Much of the habitation quarters were partially or wholly subterranean, and made prosecuting the rebels an incredibly dangerous proposition as they had the advantage of being able to cut off fireteams from one another and lay traps to thin the numbers of the attackers. Demolition teams either went missing in the complexes, were unsuccessful in inflicting significant damage or flushing out the defenders. Matters were made worse when PDF regiments would turn coat on their fellow, from the start of 010.M37 to the end of 013.M37: three in five of the garrison PDF had turned their weapons on their fellows and joined the rebel cause. Though loyalists were driven to isolated peaks away from their governor's fortress complex with limited supply and communications, the governorate were able to dispatch a final distress call that would be answered by the Astra Militarum.

The first to arrive were the Elysian Drop Troops with the Kamaran Fusiliers, who made up the bulk of the initial landing force, they made good headway in driving the rebels underground again. They reestablished contact with and folded what loyalists remained into their number and used their intelligence to plan their next series of offensives. These would begin by bombarding the quarry sides or mines from the outside with artillery in an effort to cause cave ins but ultimately proved to be insufficient owing to how deep these fortifactions were. They then resorted to storming the caves but were routinely thrown out of them, suffering the majority of the casualties they suffered throughout the whole of the campaign within the caves. As bodies began to pile up, it became clear that they could not maintain this rate of attrition and that the Drop Troops especially were out of their element, and so dispatched a request for aid. It was the Maccabian Janissaries and the Avestan Jezzaliers who would arrive to reinforce and add to the offensive capacity of the previously deployed Militarum regiments. The Jezzaliers having had more experience in tunnel fighting led teams of Janissaries through the tunnels alongside them, proving to be most useful in the cave systems as they were primed and trained on worlds with expansive tunnel networks (natural or artificial). As such, they were adept at dictating firefights or close quarters combat within such tight spaces, deigning even to begin digging new tunnels to appear unexpectedly in places of refuge among defenders became a favourite method of confronting the traitors. However, once casualties mounted again, and it was found that there were still hundreds of thousands of traitors still inhabiting crevices of the quarries that were not accounted for, it was the Jezzaliers that made the last and most decisive move to eliminate the rebels. They had ordered all their artillery to lay quiet and allowed the engineers to do their work.

However, once casualties mounted again and it was found that there were still hundreds of thousands of traitors still inhabiting crevices of the quarries that were not accounted for and that the rate of attrition would not be sustainable without further reinforcements, it was the Jezzaliers that made the last and most decisive move to eliminate the rebels. The other regiments would follow the example of the Jezzaliers, their lasrifles falling quiet and their aircraft, armour and artillery all standing down. The Jezzaliers called on their combat engineers to begin working. In that relative quiet and lull that lasted weeks, the traitors from their sentry posts observed the combat engineers of the Jezzaliers and other assorted Guard units felling trees and gathering any and all salvageable material. To those observers, they could only have surmised that these would be used for further reinforcing their positions with earthworks, in actuality: these were to be used to redirect the course of rivers. The Commissariat then performed something that all regiments present believed unprecedented: where they expected the Commissars to taunt the traitors or level curses at them in a prelude to an order to attack, they instead offered the traitors a full and final amnesty if they turned themselves in using enormous vox-casters to broadcast their message into the cave networks. Remarkably, there were those who surrendered to the Imperials and made their way out of the caves. The Commissars ordered that they join the efforts in construction to hurry along the pace of the project, to which they obliged. The entryways to these underground complexes were ordered to be filled with earth and stone leaving no one a way or in nor the defenders a way out. Several streams and rivers now damned were channelled into new canals that led to newly bored tunnels that led to belly of the caves. A few guards and sentries of the Militarum regiments reported hearing faint screams and shouts from within the sealed mines, but come dawn: the earth was silent again. Those offered their amnesty were then rounded up and summarily executed by the Jezzaliers, thus concluding the rebellion of Orolin III, remembered darkly as the "Drowning of the Orol Pass".

**Coele-Myr [~003.M42]**- Several field armies were dispatched to the Coele-Myr Sub-Sector and participated in the campaign against heretic forces alongside a number of Astartes Chapters and were primarily led by the Regulus Alkaois, the chapter master of the Nemean Lions. Of their most notable engagements, they served as a forlorn hope at the Battle of Batulimas to allow the Lightning Wraiths to make a withdrawal that was otherwise impossible to execute.

## **Corps Combat Doctrine**

Jezzalier combat doctrine is one that emphasises the deliberate and inviolable advance and deep battle. Once in a position to do so, the full weight and advantage of their different unit types will be capitalised on. Deep battle as the Avestan Jezzaliers practice it hinges around the fielding of several army groups or fronts acting in concert with one another. It relied on no single action or operation to carry the day, but instead several operations occur either simultaneously or in succession of one another to cause failures and breaks in the enemy's defence systems. Each operation would be carried out to draw attention away from where the main efforts and objectives lay to keep the enemy guessing. This serves both to overrun the enemy but also to frustrate an enemy's ability to mount a defence-in-depth to wear out the advance of the attacking Jezzaliers.

Deep battle is not solely relegated to the offensive, as deep battle also accounts for when the enemy is on the offensive and as such; deep battle also makes provisions for a defence-in-depth to be carried out with relative ease. Emphasising area denial or the deliberate surrendering of land to the enemy where the attackers could be enveloped by the reserves.

Jezzaliers are named for their use of the Mk.51 Jezzail pattern las rifles and other weapons of this family renowned for its ruggedness and durability as much as the marksmanship of the man or woman behind the rifle. Though they are all capable marksmen at long range, their doctrine at the squad level and at the front line aims to bring the distance to the last hundred metres; where the Jezzaliers are best suited to fighting using their rifles. The advance of the Jezzaliers is an inviolable and deliberate affair when they take to the attack. Fortifications both mobile and static are of central importance to the method of waging war practiced by the Avestan Jezzaliers and thus they boast large numbers of pioneer and engineer battalions in their organisational composition that construct tunnels and fortifications of the front and the hidden cities of Lydios itself.

Lydios is a rugged desert world and relatively resource poor; though with incredible population densities with communities living primarily nearby aquifers contained in mountains and hills in subterranean communities. In waging war, when on the defensive; Jezzaliers prefer to use the terrain to exacerbate supply and logistical problems an enemy would face when on the offensive against them and isolating units from one another and from their supply lines. Though the Avestan Jezzaliers maintain emphasis on strongly maintained and guarded logistical supply lines, their prior history and experience in waging war with weak logistical support and relative lack of armoured support (partially as a result of the highly difficult terrain) placed emphasis on the Jezzaliers being able to carry out unsupported infantry operations both on the offensive and on the defence. Though it should also be noted that this method of deep battle is most effective when the Jezzaliers field a numerical advantage, but it is not without use or efficacy without a numerical advantage either.

As the Jezzaliers call it, they engage in "deep battle" where it relied on no single action or operation to carry the day, but instead several operations occur either simultaneously or in succession of one another to cause failures and breaks in the enemy's defence systems. Each operation would be carried out to draw attention away from where the main efforts and objectives lay to keep the enemy guessing. This serves both to overrun the enemy but also to frustrate an enemy's ability to mount a defence-in-depth to wear out the advance of the attacking Jezzaliers.

A method favoured by the Jezzaliers to level the disadvantages they normally face with better equipped and supported enemy units relies on autonomy of local commanders to act on their initiative. These local commanders identify the weakest point and fireteams are assigned to crawl within throwing range under cover or darkness, and using shock to breakthrough. If they fail, the units rotate and another fireteam does it again and again until the position gives way. Then the entire regiment flows through and they attack from the rear. To the enemy on the ground it appears as though the entire line is suddenly filled with enemies from behind. The Jezzaliers prefer to make use of these tactics largely at night or under cover to avoid the worst of air strikes and to reduce aerial observation of their positions and numbers. In attacks they tried to isolate individual outposts, usually platoon sized formations by striking at the fronts while at the same time using them to outflank them. The purpose was to defeat forces in detail by gaining local superiority. Should they have been unsuccessful in destroying enemy positions; they hoped to induce the opponent to withdraw and when this failed, they got as close as possible to the enemy lines as to prevent enemy close air or artillery support from being able to saturate the Jezzaliers with ordnance out of fear of hitting friendly troops. Jezzaliers especially capitalise on the use of their pioneers and sappers in this capacity; extensive networks of tunnels and fortifactions follow wherever the Jezzaliers tread which resemble their larger cities in microcosm with localised medicae facilities, sleeping quarters, mess hall and all other ancillary facilities beyond just behaving as fortifications and a means to undermine the enemy positions.

### Specialist Units

#### **Piyādeh - Infantry**

* **Jāsoorān** - Jāsoorān (from Bhāṣāvestan, verb Jāsoor lit. "to dare" and translates to "Daring [Ones]" or "The Bold) is the name adopted by the Storm Troopers of the Avestan Jezzaliers. Part of the "Jorateh Marg Sepah", meaning the "Dare to Die Corps", are soldiers that were chosen to attend their equivalent to the Schola to form the tip of the spear of any chosen assault. Their roots can be traced to what were once called the "Companies of Death" who were units of assault pioneers that took on the grave challenge of overcoming obstacles place ahead of enemy positions and trench lines. Though it must be noted that these Companies of Death and the Jāsoorān are quite different, where the Companies of Death cleared obstacles for the main assault, the Jāsoorān were assault units in their own right, often the ones following the Companies of Death into the breach. In contrast to a regular Storm Trooper who is recruited into the Schola as children when they were orphaned from their noble parents, a Jāsoorān is picked from those most brave and willing to engage in hand to hand fighting. A Jāsoorān is thus primarily a volunteer chosen from the youth armies of a planet's given PDF Battalions, though they may also be assigned to such units per recommendation by commanding officers. These recruits are then sent to the \_, a training school that is the Jezzalier equivalent to the Schola where they accurately recreate frontline conditions including live-fire exercises and liberal use of explosives. Fatalities during training in their schools are more commonplace than they ought to be in the Schola Progenium, but such is the way preferred by the Avestan Jezzaliers to prepare these prospective soldiers for war. Though better armed, equipped and trained than the average Jezzalier, they are well regarded by their peers as opposed to Storm Troopers of other regiments that are the target of much vitriol for being glory hunters. Deployed sparingly as they are, they are entrusted to carry the day wherever they are ordered to fight, breaching enemy defensive positions to pave the way for the infantry to advance and relieve them. They perform their role as shock assault units and commandos, able to act on their own initiative unsupported behind enemy lines for extended periods or at the forefront of an assault against strong points with support from indirect battery fire when taking over earthworks and fortifications. While they are peerless marksmen and afforded a wide range of weapons to utilise, they are known equally for their long knives that they use in close quarters fighting. Their unofficial emblem is that of a flaming skull clenching a knife between its teeth: a traditional symbol that no quarter could be asked nor given in combat.
* **Shenāsān -** Reconnaissance/Intelligence specialists.
* **Takāvarān -** Sharpshooter. Meaning "ranger", are the snipers and covert operatives of the Jezzaliers. As any sharpshooter is expected, a takāvarān can be expected to act as forward observers or scouts, or deep behind the lines for extended periods without support. This specialist training further emphasises marksmanship and adds to it much more focus on field and bushcraft, counter-sniping, recon, tracking and stalking, infiltration, and surveillance. Especially cruel ones are adept at using their skills for the means of spreading fear in the ranks of the enemy. These units serve in detachments that are embedded in a regiment, but squad snipers are not unheard of. Such units can operate alone but prefer to work in pairs as spotter and marksman. These marksmen favour the Makala pattern Mk.52 Long Lasrifle, but can use any number of weapons from their armouries and it is not unheard of for such units to choose solid shot projectile weapons for specific missions or targets with or without specialist munitions.

#### **Spāhān - Cavalry**

In spite of the availability of the mechanised and armoured divisions, cavalry play a fairly important role in the military operations of the Astra Militarum, and this is certainly true of the Avestan Jezzaliers. However, they do make greater use of such units to counteract the relative lack of vehicles compared to other Militarum units. Be it over open ground or terrain too difficult to negotiate for the armoured units, the horses and other animals can either be used as beasts of burden or as steeds to mount in combat. Cavalry regiments are broken down into three squadrons, each numbering 120-150 cavalrymen. All cavalrymen wear a white feather or plume affixed to their helmets.

* **Olāni -** (pluralised as *olāniyān*) are the shock assault rough riders of the Avestan Jezzaliers. Armed with long hunting lances with their characteristic exploding tips that came in one of two varieties: a conventional cavalryman's lance of approximately three metres long including the lance tip, or the kontos, a cavalryman's pike of four to five metres long either tipped with spear heads, or sword blades. These lances include switches for a cavalryman to detonate a lance tip at a moment of their choosing, typically after impaling an enemy. The heavier kontos allows the same functionality, but olani are known to engage in competitions with each other on the charge to see how many enemies they can impale on a single lance strike before detonating the head of the lance. Beneath the lance heads are eyelets that can carry lance pennons, small triangular flags that denote squadron and regiment. In addition to this lance, they carry several pistols and a sabre for when they engage in the melee. An olani is expected to capitalise on weak points in an enemy formation or to be deployed to cause a break with other units in support. For this reason, the olani favour the heaviest, most powerful, and aggressive steeds who themselves oft kick or bite when in close quarters.
* **Chonsār -** Hussars. The lightest form of cavalryman available to the Jezzaliers, they prize the lightest, most agile and fastest horses and mounts. Amongst the Spāhān, the chonsār, for better or worse had a reputation for being dashing and passionate young men, their **n** he swashbuckling ansomewhgt aely at odds with the serious and more mature manner of conduct the Jezzal In that way, some commanding officers sees service in these units as a means of allowing the Guardsman to excise themselves of their hot-bloodedness.iers. These units go aahead of with assault pioneers at the advance and act as their eyes and ears, primarily partaking in reconnaissance d, seaching for enemies, eliminating their patrols, acting as pickets, relaying intelligence and to test ground conditions ahead of the advance, or even as runners and courier if need requiresutThe better nature of their reputation comes from their station as an arm of the light cavalry, their passion and emphasis on speed over power projection as the forward most units could see them facing a vastly superior foe, demanding these dashing and young Guardsmen to execute a hasty retreat to more secure positions. However, the worse may manifest itself especially with Imperial citizens specifically as they, as the first Guardsmen likely to interact with the native citizenry, and passion may easily translate to cruelty, particular when in a territory hostile to them and their army far behind. They do not act as shock cavalry like the olāniyān, and maintain a distinctive niche as being the light cavalry of the Jezzaliers and are not ordered to engage in frontal assaults on strong positions unless the enemy are already broken and fleeing, or are in particular exposed position, like seizing guns that are not defended by infantry. The chonsār typically eschew the use of their flak armour to reduce the weight they carried and go either with a naught but a helmet or a hat of some kind for their armour. Their armaments are limited to various forms of sabres, chainsabres, laspistols and perhaps grenades.
* **Kizhtāhān -** Carabiniers or dragoons. Their use fluctuates between using them as either as mounted infantry, meaning infantrymen who used horses to ride to objectives and who dismounted to fight, or as light horsemen that used their firearms on horseback as a skirmishing unit. They are well optimised and trained for operating in both capacities and deploy as the situation demands as either mounted infantry or light cavalry, and some units show clear preference for one over the other. Those more well versed in mounted infantry tactics where they would ride to objectives, dismount and carry on as regular infantrymen at forward positions, or perhaps ride out, hold a position and test enemy strength before mounting up again and can return to their horses to go to new objectives or to retreat if need be. Whereas those that prefer light cavalry tactics maintain their mounts to quickly to provide las fire from the saddle. Their equipment reflects this as they moderately armoured, are typically armed with carbines or rifles, bayonets and perhaps a sword and their steeds fall somewhere between the most aggressive stallions favoured by the olāniyān and the faster breeds favoured by the chonsār. Though they prefer to skirmish from a moderate distance, they can and often will do so near an enemy formation and principally when they dismount and where applicable engage in close quarters fighting where their swords and bayonets do their work. Similarly, for this reason, shotguns have begun to reveal themselves as another choice weapon and is steadily gaining in popularity in their ranks. There is some manner of overlap with the between the cavalry units and types, but the kizhtāhān appear to have stayed the test of time and filled in a niche as the skirmishers and in the cavalry, and the saying goes that should a chonsār live past thirty, its because they were meant to be one of the kizhtāhān.

## **Corps Culture**

### Bans on the Field Tontine

In the ranks of the Avestan Jezzaliers, the placing of wagers though a typical part of the lives of most guardsmen is highly discouraged within their ranks. Especially the forming of contracts like tontines where such contracts are expressly forbidden under pain of death or being reduced to a servitor. This has been the case for many thousands of years following several incredibly high profile instances of such field tontines being signed by untold thousands of men and women in the ranks of the Jezzaliers. These annuities are shared by multiple guardsmen who pool together what income, earnings or assets at agreed upon intervals they can into a communal fund to share in the risk of living a long life (as long as the Guard permits) and pairing it with a form of mortality lottery. As each guardsman perishes, the amount payed into the pool increases and the whole of the earnings of the deceased are also added to the pool. This continues until the last signatory is able to collect on this fund in full.

Such tontines are not unheard of in civilian life either, most particularly among the poor. These pacts used to be a cornerstone of Jezzalier culture and its black-humoured guardsmen, but tontines must be overseen, assessed by and signed by guild members, brotherhoods or Imperial assessors and clerks of the Adeptus Administratum who attest the legitimacy of this contract for the actual signatories of such a pact. The practice of signing tontines in the field were so regularly reported and prolific that the Jezzaliers became derisively called the "Shillers Legion" and "Crapshooters" for the widespread nature of such lotteries being drafted in their ranks.

This practice would conclusively banned in the ranks of the Avestan Jezzaliers following the proliferation of one such contract by an Assessor of the Black Tontine during the Pax Tenebrae Campaign in the Calixis Sector of Segmentum Obscurus against the Nurglite warband of the Feasting Lords in late M34. The especially high rate of attrition they suspected to endure saw an exponential uptake in the signing of tontines and some twenty-two divisions worth of regiments were made to sign the so-called Black Tontine. Throughout the fighting, each signatory of this tontine would be dragged from their fortifications screaming into the immaterium. The loss of nearly 300,000 fighting men in so asinine and undignified a manner as signing a contract proved to be such a stain on the otherwise exemplary record of its guardsmen in service to prosecuting the Emperor's campaigns, that high command immediately and brutally enacted reprisals on any guardsman found to be proliferating such treaties in the future. This has since bled over into the notion of gambling of virtually all kinds to be viewed as a taboo. The placing of wagers, signing of contracts or mortality lotteries within the ranks of the Avestan Jezzaliers as a is expressly forbidden on the field, though reports of it still continuing to some degree between individuals or small groups do still a occur. Should they be found out will face whatever punishment deemed appropriate by commanding officers or the Commissariat. Guardsmen who wish to partake in such activity without facing prosecution must do so with a clerk of the Adeptus Administratum and even then will be ostracised and the subject of ire and animosity in the ranks of the regulars if it comes to light that they have signed a tontine, even an officially overseen and attested document by a clerk. Reports of enlisted men and women being murdered even on suspicion of having signed an officially issued document are not unheard of in the ranks of the Jezzaliers.

### Tontines of the Penal Legion

In near total contrast to the Jezzaliers, to be allowed to serve in the penal battalion and escape whatever back breaking labour sentence the person has been sentenced to demands that the prospective legionnaire sign a tontine that is overseen and attested by a clerk of the Adeptus Administratum. Normally such tontines are signed by an entire regiment, numbering between 1,000-3,000 men. As penal legionnaires, they are awarded the luxury of keeping any and everything they loot from the field of battle before the regulars do and typically add to the communal pool what they looted. The lone survivor of this regiment is guaranteed their freedom and retirement alongside everything pooled in the tontine. This model has seen success in terms of performance expected from the average penal battalion with noticeably higher morale than most of their contemporaries. However, this hasn't been without other adverse affects to the goings on within a penal battalion and the homicide rate within the ranks of Avestan penal battalions tend to be between two to four times greater than a similarly sized and equipped penal battalion hailing from other worlds. Though this practice is not condoned, it remains unregulated and as such remains a pervasive feature that underlies the existence of serving in the collated totality of Avestan penal legions.

## **Corps Organisation**

In order to make the most of a tithe and to uphold and maintain a similar level of training amongst all those mustered, many regiments are raised together and formed into divisions and corps. Divisions are the preferred formation size for operational use by the Jezzaliers, typically numbering between 9,000-18,000 men and divided triangularly: composed of three subordinate regiments. Exceptions to this rule exist especially in mechanised divisions where they might be broken up into four component regiments where three are either tank or motorised infantry and the remaining one another infantry regiment. During field operations, this fourth regiment is typically folded and divided among the three regiments to make a combined arms regiment, each then roughly of brigade strength. These divisions deployed alongside in whatever configuration comprise the building blocks of army groups, fronts and theatre command.

## **Corps Command**

#### **Flag Officers - Theatre Command**

Senior commissioned officers who have authority of large formations of men, as per the name, implies that the officer in question is senior enough to fly colours of a flag. These officers are in charge of coordinating the larger, theatre scale goals and objectives that their Guardsmen are to accomplish or capture.

* **Arteshbod -** General. An Arteshbod of the Avestan Jezzaliers are those flag officers who direct and command region or theatre sized formations where they are in charge of hundreds of thousands, to millions or even tens of millions of men under the command of an Arteshbod. The constituent part of these formations are fronts, field armies and corps that are led by other lower ranking generals.
* **Spahbod -** Lieutenant General. A Spahbod oversees operations of one of the field armies or fronts that constitutes a theatre.
* **Sarlashkar -** Major General. A Sarlashkar can either be a corps or divisional level commander, the constituent parts of a field army. The numbers they command can vary quite widely between 9,000-54,000 men depending on operational circumstance and formation size they are to command.
* **Sarhād -** Brigadier General. Operates at the brigade level, numbering typically between 3,000-6,000 Guardsmen.

#### **Senior Officers**

Occupying the middle ground between junior and flag officers, the senior officer cadre typically occupy the operational scale on the unit level, like regiments.

* **Sarāhang -** Colonel. Occupying regimental command a Sarāhang is typically in charge of formations numbering in the several thousand and are typically discouraged from getting too close to the front lines, instead relying upon their subordinates to deal with low level situations and to feed back larger issues.
* **Sarāhang Dovom -** Lieutenant Colonel. Battalion commander and staff officer. Can be detachment commanders or be assigned to head a task-force.
* **Sargord -** Major. Battalion executive officer.

#### **Junior Officers - Field Officers**

The lowest grade of commissioned officer and operational command, they typically receive command of a company sized formation of men.

* **Sad-Bāshān -** Captain. Company commander. Afforded a great deal of autonomy to allow a Captain to exploit enemy weakness using their own initiative. Sad-Bāshān means "leader of ten" in the native Bhāṣāvestan of the Satrapy.
* **Astāvān -** Lieutenant. Platoon commander.
* **Astāvān Dovom -** Second Lieutenant. The lowest grade for a commissioned officer. Upon graduating an officer's academy and earning their commission, a Dāneshjan receives the rank of Astāvān Dovom. Though they have earned a commission, they are not yet afforded command until they gain experience as the 2IC of an Astāvān.

#### **Officer Cadet**

Not a class of officer as much as a descriptor for an upcoming officer still undergoing their schooling to earn their commission. Upon graduating, they receive

* **Dāneshjan (plural: Dāneshjoo) -** Cadet Officers or candidates are referred to as Dāneshjan, meaning "student" or "academic".

#### **Non-Commissioned and Enlisted Ranks**

* **Ostovar-Bashan -** Warrant Officer. Company 2IC and quartermaster.
* **Dah-Bāshān** - Sergeant. Commander of any given squad of ten. Dah-Bāshān itself means "leader of ten" in the native Bhāṣāvestan of the Satrapy. The doctrine of deep battle allows the unit level a great deal of autonomy and flexibility to adapt to situations as they occur, hence a Dah-Bāshān is encouraged to seize the initiative and make reports to regimental HQ wherever they believe they are most able to make impact on the field.
* **Sarjākh -** Corporal. Section leader and second in command to a Dah-Bāshān.
* **Sarjākh Dovom -** Lance Corporal. Typically the specialist of a given squad as a signalman or the operator of a squad heavy or special weapon.
	+ **Alāmat-andaz -** Signaller.
	+ **Nārenjak-andāz -** Grenadier.
	+ **Ātash-andāz -** Thermal weapons specialist (flamethrower, plasma, melta)
* **Spāhān -** Cavalry and mounted units still plays an important role both in the corps deployed by the Jezzaliers as both shock units over open ground where it allows and as reconnaissance units. This is largely due to the relative lack of mechanised and motorised units compared to their contemporaries and model themselves on the likes of the Atillans or the Rough Riders of Tallarn. Horses of many builds and types are all bred for the corps, from swift and agile horses for light cavalry, the heavy, large and powerful mounts of a lancer, or hardy beasts of burden to lug the war materiel on carriages.
* **Stōrān -** A Stōrān is one of the Stōr-Bizashk who form the core of an artillery regiment or division and their accompanying crew and siege battalions and all accompanying personnel in the maintenance and supply of the heavy guns, mechanised or otherwise.
* **Tabarān -** Sapper. Enlisted Guardsman that serve as combat engineers and pioneers that have gone to and completed their training in a sapper school, they are muscle of the engineering arm of the Jezzaliers and their tasks are hugely varied. From demolition work, the breaching fortifications, clearing minefields, bridge laying, mining, digging trenches, as well as the inverse of the tasks described; a Tabarān is involved in the design stage, directing and delegating work of other engineers, and construction or deconstruction of whatever task they are to do. Though trained and equipped as an infantryman, it is nonetheless secondary to their role as the combat engineer, and their primary objectives and tasks are to . They wield large felling axes for with they take their name from, the tabar and will often use them in close quarters, though many use improvised tools or weapons especially in trench sweeping or in tunnels where their axes are too bulky to use efficiently.
* **Pishgām -** Assault Pioneer. These are infantrymen who serve primarily as infantrymen but who have some capacity in combat engineering. Such formations are usually of platoon sized units embedded in a larger battalions to offer their own units integral light engineering support and are to the advance of the force, assessing ground, clearing obstacles, and beginning the work of digging entrenchments. They do not replace combat engineers or sappers who have much more in the way of resources, skill sets, experience and specialists not available to an assault pioneer. What these units allow are for a given battalion to work with more autonomy than to have to rely on external units of combat engineers who are themselves supposed to contend with more pressing logistical pressures and priority tasks. On an operational basis, a pishgām work separately in small teams providing specialist skills, tools and advice to the infantry companies and platoons. As such, these sub-units provide the bulk of the labour.
* **Dāvoudi -** Corpsman. An enlisted health services technician, a Dāvoudi is expected to serve in many different capacities as clinical specialists, medicae administrative roles, or as primary healthcare providers. They also serve as battlefield corpsmen and on the field offer care under fire to provide immediate assistance at he point of injury with what medical equipment is carried by each Guardsman and an accompanying Dāvoudi. Care on the field when the situation is is still limited and a Dāvoudi can serve as a triage officer in this capacity. Anything beyond this occurs during the evacuation stage where a Dāvoudi and dedicated chirurgeons and trauma surgeons provide the care necessary unavailable on the field to keep a Guardsman alive.
* **Jezāyerchi -** Rifleman. Used to denote difference between a penal unit and true Guardsman. Sarbaz means infantryman and applies to everybody.
* **Tofangchi -** Rifleman (penal unit).
* **Sarbāz -** Private. Line infantryman.

## **Wargear**

### Uniform

* **No.3 Service Battledress -** standard issue. Worn beneath the overcoat it features a pair of fitted trousers with martingale and loops to accommodate a belt with a pair of pockets either side and a gusset pocket to the right hand side of the belt to house the Guardsman's timepiece. The trousers are tight on the calves by way of lace through eyelets and a buckle and wool paw allowing an infantryman to better maintain and support their puttees. The shirt is a single breasted long sleeved tunic with a standing collar held together with three buttons and lacks shoulder straps. An optional light gray undershirt goes beneath the tunic. These fatigues are in a light khaki or forest green.
* **Overcoat -** Standard issue. A double breasted overcoat with a falling collar, two rows of six buttons and is of a cross cut design. These are colour coordinated with the battledress and reaches past the knees. The hips feature a pair of buttons and the ends of the coat are provisioned with buttonholes and allow the Guardsman to fold the ends of the coat up to their hips. The overcoat features a pair of pockets beneath the waistline. The shoulder rolls beneath are to prevent a lasrifle from slipping when slung, however, this is normally covered up by a spaulder. Over this goes a belt and accompanying webbing. The belt is made from fawn leather with a double barb buckle to insert into two sets of holes and the webbing is affixed to this and can be made of fawn leather but is typically a durable fabric. The scabbard of the bayonet is held onto the belt and is affixed to the Guardsman's left side at the waist and falls beneath the folded left flap of the overcoat when buttoned up (though some Guardsmen wear the bayonet in their puttees) and a steel or plastek canteen closed by cork and chain is covered in canvas and sits opposite the bayonet on the Guardsman's hip but is supported by its own shoulder strap and held beneath the belt to prevent excessive movement of the canteen.
* **Sapper's Shelter-half -** This style of garment is specifically issued to the Tabarān or for Sharpshooters, it is a tent quarter, much like a the infantryman's poor weather gear, but of a different cut, colour, and size. Should two be used together: a sizeable tent or other rudimentary shelter can be erected, but more often is worn as a poor weather garment like a poncho or smock, or can be worn as camouflage in and of itself. They are colour matched and coordinated with the rest of the uniform issued and feature a camouflage pattern in the colour palette of the uniform, each side also features a spring and autumnal hues of the chosen camouflage pattern. This replaces the regular poor weather gear issued to each Guarsman. The Tabarān habitually wear these smocks atop their overcoats as part of their own uniform.
* **Puttees -** Standard issues, woolen or canvas wrappings, these are wound counterclockwise over the calves down to the ankles and provide support and protection of the lower leg and are colour coordinated with the uniform. These measure a little over two metres in length, the bands are symmetrical and include reinforcement made of leather or more canvas on the part in contact with the boots and the other has either cotton tie tape or velcro to keep it well fastened and positioned, these could also be secured with fabric hooks.
* **Gloves -** A pair of white gloves, standard issue and are of dyed white leather or wool. White gloves are an iconic feature for the Jezzaliers and to lose them could mean flogging or demotion.
* **Sappers Gauntlets -** Special issue for the Tabarān, reinforced white gloves for heavy duty construction.
* **Mattock Pattern Ammunition Boots** with hobnailed soles. Named the mattock for the sound of its hobnails over rough terrain or when on the march.
* **Glasses or goggles -** Typically worn or attached/strapped to the helmet.
* **Shemagh/Keffiyeh and scarf -** Cloth and scarves feature heavily, come in several forms and all offer protection from the sun(s) or the hostile weather conditions. There's some manner of choice in cut and finish but are all colour matched to the uniform given.
* **Mk.IV Flak armour -** Locally produced variant with its own sub derivations depending on troop specialisation and of different levels of protection between assault units and sappers or rough riders or the regulars. Some form of flak armour is standard issue to every soldier.

### Personal Equipment

* **Chelydra Pattern Helmet -** Locally produced, a canvas covered flak kettle helmet, named for a species of land dwelling turtle and affectionately referred to by its users as the "Battle Bowler". The Jāsoorān wear an evolution of this helmet with varying degrees of enclosement. This design includes a visor that reaches beneath the nose to protect the eyes and nasal region with lens with its own integrated HUD and other functionality, said design is typically called the "Cyclopean Turtle".
* **SBR Pattern Gas mask -** A small box respirator and gas mask with its satchel that rests over the chest.
* **Webbing -** Different forms of webbing and holsters issued to soldiers as per their requirements in their specialisation.
* **Bandolier -** Typically worn by cavalrymen or by infantry in conjunction with webbing to carry more ammunition and charge packs or other equipment. Cavalrymen especially favour the use of a bandolier.
* **Poor weather gear -** Standard issue, includes a long smock and a ground sheet which can be used to construct a rudimentary shelter. This is worn in a rolled bundle tied over the rucksack.
* **Tornister -** The infantryman's backpack. Any and all equipment or personal affects would be carried within this tornister. Many soldiers use either a greatcoat or a blanket they brought from home and tie them beneath their poor weather gear in a roll over the tornister.
* **Entrenching tools -** Held together on the webbing or over the tornister. Tabarān have specifically produced webbing for any number of tools that they may need for entrenching or any construction projects. Most infantrymen get a spade held to the rear of their waist.
* **Proximity alarm system -** Automated or manual systems.
* **Basic toolkit.**
* **Mess kit -** Lashed over the tornister.
* **Water canteen -** Strapped over the shoulder and held on the right hip.
* **2 weeks rations -** Held in a bread bag.
* **Blanket and sleeping bag -** Held in the tornister or lashed
* **Rechargeable lamp-pack -** Held in the tornister.
* **Grooming kit -** Held in the tornister.
* **Dog tags -** Worn over the neck or on the wrist.
* ***Imperial Infantryman’s Uplifting Primer -*** A standard-issue Imperial text that covers a vast variety of topics, this book is possessed by all members of the Imperial Guard as part of their standard-issue equipment. The *Primer* is a basic guide that details everything a Guardsman needs to know: principles and regulations of the Imperial Guard, issued arms, attire, apparatus, and equipment, basic battlefield policy and Imperial Guard organisation and structure, elementary battlefield medical instructions, and a detailed guide on the foes of the Imperium. No Guardsman should ever be found without possession of a copy of the *Uplifting Primer* for the punishment is severe.

### Weapons

* **1 Mk.51 Jezzail Pattern Lasrifle -** Standard issue, every Jezzalier is issued with a Mk.51 pattern Jezzail Lasrifle and superficially resembles a larger, more robust version of the same weapon and features a dial to alter the charge of each blast shot by a rifleman. Jezzail translates to "long barrel" owing to its forebearer, an archaic black powder muzzle loading fire arm that was on average twice the weight of a contemporary musket and could themselves measure some six feet in length. The long barrels were typically smoothbore but exceptionally accurate weapons and made more so when applied rifling. These weapons are named for them and of smaller frames than their black powder predecessor but carried their names. These weapons can be outfitted with low power scopes.
* **1 Mk.53 Jezzail Pattern Hellgun (Special Issue) -** These are reserved for the Jāsoorān. Virtually identical to the Jezzail Pattern Lasrifle on which it is based but it is provisioned with extra cabling leads to a power pack that offers the hellgun more power than the standard issued lasrifle, multiplying the output of firepower by a Jāsoorān several times over that of the average Jezzalier. Compared to a regular hellgun, it also has a reduced cooling shroud around the barrel to reduce the weight lugged around by the Guardsman. However, this demands the user be vigilant of the temperature of their primary weapon.
* **1 Mk.54 "Needle" Hellpistol (Special Issue) -** Reserved for the Jāsoorān, the pistol is largely the same as its contemporary and modelled on the
* **1 Mk.52 Makala Pattern Long Lasrifle (Special Issue) -** Reserved for Sharpshooters, these weapons are dedicated marksman's weapons for sniper teams. Characterised by their exceptionally long barrels and feature a partial pistol grip, these lasrifles are the most like their namesake, being similarly long and cumbersome at close range.
* **7 lasgun charge packs -** the battery supply for their primary weapon.
* **Laspistol -** and 2 charge packs
* **Layla Pattern Sword Bayonet and scabbard -** standard issue pattern mono knife, a heavy, but slender and long blade measuring slightly over a foot long with a hooked quillon and steel topmount, and bayonet frog. When lugged, it turns the lasrifle into a short spear at the discretion of its rifleman. Its scabbard is made of fawn leather and is chaped.
* 2 frag grenades.
* Anti-personnel perimeter mines.

### Optional Wargear

* Lascannon
* Heavy bolter
* Mortar
* Missile launcher
* Autocannon
* Flamer
* Grenade launcher
* Plasma gun
* Meltagun
* Shotgun
* Heavy flamer
* Boltgun
* Autogun
* Hot-Shot Volley Gun
* Bolt pistol
* Autopistol
* Plasma pistol
* Chainsword
* Power sword
* Power fist

## **Notable Divisions**

* **88th Infantry Division, the "Red Devils of Orol" -** of the X Corps, they hail from the world of Dosidai and numbers some 18,000 men, this infantry division is comprised of three infantry regiments and an accompanying artillery division with its own component batteries. They were first raised on Dosidai and finished their training on Lydios, activated, they were then dispatched to the world of Orolin III. It was the 88th Division that took the heaviest casualties in the tunneling war against the traitors. It was the 88th Division that petitioned the Commissariat to flood the quarries and tunnels; and their engineers who laid the groundwork for the diverting the rivers. Some of their men even braved to dive into the newly flooded tunnels to ensure all their foes were drowned and to recover the bodies of their fallen, losing a number of their own in the same effort. It was this bravery and callousness that earned them the moniker of the Red Devils of Orol.
* **376th Infantry Division, the "Kestrel's Eyes" -** of XIII Corps, activated in 897 of M36, the 376th Infantry Division saw its first action during the Age of Apostasy and was raised on the garrison and headquarters of the Jezzalier Guard Corps. on Lydios. It has been formed and reformed several times over throughout the centuries and most recently saw action alongside the Nemean Lions during the Indomitus Crusade on their way to the Myrian Front. The Avestan contingent numbered some ten field armies that were activated and then mobilised to the front. Their casualties, especially those of the 376th were catastrophic, during the Battle of Batulimus. Beginning their deployment with 15,000 men, they only barely held the line with 78 men remaining by battles end. The remaining men were seriously wounded or executed as a mercy.

## **Trivia**

The inspiration for the Avestan Jezzaliers are fairly disparate though in doctrine identifiable as being inspired by the likes of the People's Volunteer Army that participated in the Korean War on behalf of the North. The Storm Troopers/Kasrkin equivalent are most specifically inspired by the Italian Arditi of World War One and the People's Arditi that fought on the Isonzo River against the Austro-Hungarian and German armies; and who fought clashes against the Blackshirts in Interwar Italy and as volunteers against Franco's Spain against the Fascists respectively.