Kshatriya

## Tactical Analysis

* **Warrior caste:** The best field soldiers of the Commonwealth, the Kshatriya act as high-tier infantry, able to charge into battle with rapid-firing SMGs to suppress enemy infantry as they move in for the kill with their khanda.

* **Indra's wrath:** Like the Saudi White Guard defectors, the Kshatriya go into battle armed with burst radios to call in mortar barrages. Unlike the White Guard chlorine mortars, the Commonwealth prefers to use conventional shells that keep the enemy's heads down and damage vehicles and tanks. Though higher ranking Kshatriya would requisition shells that contain small packets of nausea gas for extra oomph.

* **Even warriors fall down:** Despite being more heavily armed than the sepoy, the Kshatriya are not heavily armored and only move slightly faster thanks to their intense training. Heavily armored opponents or enemy anti-infantry systems will cut them down easily.

* **Help me help you:** After enough time in battle, Kshatriya veterans pick up a thing or two about first aid and medicine. While not as good as trained medics or doctors, Kshatriya vets can make the difference between life or death for many a comrade.

## Background

*"Keeping the Peace is our Personal... affair?"*

- The motto of the Kshatriya corps (ostensibly).
Peacekeepers are a much beloved figure throughout the so called "First World" of the Allies and even the "Third World" of the Empire of the Rising Sun. They're kind, they help build schools, they distribute medicine, they stop the fighting in areas torn by war or crime, and a million other items of glowing praise. The Commonwealth shares this adoration for the "boys and girls in blue", and to meet the standards of recruitment into the Peacekeeper Corps is considered a tremendous honor. Peacekeepers are even common characters in Indian cinema and television (though the prop replicas of their armor make the dance numbers rather difficult).

Seeing this popularity, the government mandated the creation of India's own elite among the elite. Strict requirements were set, a world-class but extremely difficult training program was created, and the Commonwealth's military-industrial complex was tasked with creating worthy equipment for these elites. Creating copies of the actual Peacekeeper's equipment was out of the question, obviously; the armor could not be replicated in a satisfactory or cost-effective manner, and without the armor, the Grummond-8 was simply not practical for ordinary people to use.

Rather, a more conventionally bullet-resistant uniform (light ballistic armor beneath the outfit) and weapons suited for special ops were chosen. Rather than shotguns as tall as a teenager or traditionally crew-served automatic weapons, they would be armed with SMGs, mainly the pre-Syndicate WW2 Italian Model 38 (often a less reliable local copy), and sometimes carbines and/or light shotguns with a khanda sword as a badge of office (that is still just as capable at hacking off limbs as it was in the past). Instead of a shield, they would have the authority to call down mortar strikes from their radios. Dubbed the **Kshatriya** after the Indian warrior caste, the first Kshatriya regiments were unveiled with great celebrations, and immediately the public had a new love affair. Those who were of the actual Kshatriya caste in particular took it upon themselves to join this elite formation and swell its ranks.

In every theater they are deployed in, the Kshatriya has proven to be a formidable asset for the Commonwealth, cutting down clone hordes to enrich their hell-blasted soil with their blood, sending Imperial warriors to join with their ancestors in melee combat, showing the GLA who the heavens truly favor, making the Communists red on the outside as well as in ideology, and making the Africans afraid of what might lurk in their own lands. A weakness to armored enemies has been noted, but the Frontier Corps worries not; it is a unit where every element works together to ensure success (in theory), and a Kshatriya can always (on paper) count on the aid of his or her brothers and sisters in arms to deal with such obstacles.