13th Penal Legion (Last Chancers) - Regimental History: Most Astra Militarum Penal Legions are vast hordes of scum dredged from the bottom of the Imperium, turned loose from Imperial prisons, given the cheapest equipment, and used as cannon fodder ahead of more valuable and accomplished units. The condemned soldiers who populate these regiments fight knowing that death is their only escape, and fight savagely to seize their last chance at redemption.However, there are other regiments that have been similarly condemned but are too valuable to simply discard -- at least, not without making sure that their lives are sold at a heavy cost in the blood of the Imperium's foes. Some regiments also carry this practice out on a squad level, sending those who have disgraced themselves in the eyes of the Emperor on critical but nonetheless suicidal missions.Sometimes, multiple regiments sharing a field of operations even expunge all of their "undesirable" elements and form these condemned soldiers into a savage (if short-lived) battle group capable of wreaking terrible damage upon their foes.Perhaps the most famous of such groups of desperate "Last Chancers" are Colonel Schaeffer's 13th Penal Legion, who bear that very name and have proven extremely effective under the direction of their commander.Initially, Colonel Schaeffer recruited thousands of criminals at one time, gathering enough troops to form an entire regiment. These convicts would then be thrown into quite literally the worst battlefields he could find, using attrition as a mechanism to determine the most capable members of the unit until only the most hard core survivors remained.This was a process that usually reduced the original numbers of the unit down to under a dozen convicts. These remaining hardened killers would then be informed of the colonel's true objective, although rarely of its status as the driving force behind the regiment's existence. Those who survived this last suicidal mission would then be granted their pardon with the caveat that they could never commit another crime, and allowed either to return to civilian life or rejoin the Astra Militarum as regular Guardsmen.However, Schaeffer was known to track these few "lucky" Last Chancers, and keep close watch on them. Unhinged by their many near-death experiences, almost all of them would re-lapse into lives of criminal behaviour, and Schaeffer would be there to reabsorb them into the regiment, this time permanently.One trooper who followed this pattern was Lieutenant Kage (see below), who survived his first mission following the death of Lieutenant "Hero" Green during the Battle of Ichar IV and took command of his unit. He was later taken back into the 13th Penal Legion after murdering three senior officers as his personal demons caught up with him. Kage survived a second campaign before heroically sacrificing himself on the Hive World of Armageddon to ensure a third succeeded.Following this modus operandi of Colonel Shaeffer, there have ultimately been many different 13th Penal Legions in the Imperial Guard's history, one for each chosen objective, and although it is not known if all of these units were commanded by Schaeffer, his extreme age and status within the Inquisition suggest that the two have been linked for some time.Though they are often not liked or even respected by other regiments, these desperate fighters are known for their ability to get the job done -- and this includes "acquiring" the equipment and wargear they need.