Akaan'adiike

## Akaan'adiike Regiments

Although forever denied the desired 'coronet of battle', the line soldier of the **Akaan'adiike regiments** was no less a warrior than their Astartes superiors. Lasgun, laspistol, and the bayonet would be their tools as they honoured the Ash-Blooded among the Imperial Army. It would be a service they would receive many opportunities to display as the Ash-Blooded and his clan leaders blatantly preferred the Akaan regiments to any other mortal regiment. Not only did the Sixth Legion secure these regiments to fight beside on the Great Crusade, they also fulfilled a number of duties that the Shadow Warriors, while never proclaiming to be above them, were certainly less desirable. Field support, rearguard duty, and other battlefield tasks vital to any campaign often fell unto the shoulders of the Akaan regiments, enabling the Shadow Warriors to indulge in almost unending frontline combat.

This hold true for garrison duty, above all others. While the Shadow Warriors would never completely surrender the necessity and honour of guarding Keld'abe to mortals, it was a well documented fact that well over ninety percent of the planet's garrison was filled by the Akaan soldiers, with only an honour guard of legionaries to oversee operations. In return, Akaan regiments in good standing rotated first to homeworld defence and then to the frontlines.

## **History**

### **Breaking**

The Eighth Akaan'adiike regiment watched over Keld'abe on the eve of the Breaking. Standing not with stoic duty, but twitching for the ultimate honour of fighting beside the Sixth Legion since they were guaranteed to set out with the Ash-Blooded's next campaign. While the Eighth was equipped for counter-orbital assault operations, they paid the least amount of attention to the duty, far more focused on preparing for their eventual deployment. Irony noted this contrast with nigh-perfect physical preparation versus near complete mental abandonment to the battle approaching them.

## **Organisation & Structure**

### **Ge'solad**

For the Shadow Warriors legion, the Akaan’adiike served a secondary, important purpose. Despite the warrior nature of the people of Keld’abe, not all successfully completed their Astartes training and implantation. However, these failed aspirants still have a use for the Ash-Blooded. Redirected into the Akaan’adiike regiments, they are organised into units called Ge’solad, bringing Astartes-level training to the mortal regiments of the Imperial Army.

The Ge’solad are equipped to mirror their half-brothers in the legion, with the jump packs and downsided Beskor’kad of a Shadow Warrior but the Carapace armour and laspistol of the Imperial Army. Their gear benefits from the Warriors’ dedication to their armour, being crafted in the same ritual as the power armour of the Astartes.

These units hold a precarious place in the hierarchy of the Shadow Warriors and Imperial Army, being both respected and looked down on by the legion as closer to the legion than the Imperial Army but lesser than an Astartes, and viewed with suspicion by other Imperial Army units and commanders as being “half-seeds” who belong in neither group.