Ibram Gaunt - Tanith First and Only: During the founding of the First, Second and Third Tanith Regiments, Tanith fell to a surprise Chaos attack. Gaunt ordered the forces of Tanith to retreat, depriving them of the chance to fight and die for their homeworld. The retreat was costly; from three entire regiments there were less than four thousand survivors, and not a single officer of the three regiments made it off Tanith.While waiting for orders, Gaunt was instrumental in the reorganisation of the survivors, reorganizing the men into the Tanith First-and-Only, and promoting the non-commissioned officers and soldiers who had shown initiative and leadership during the retreat and subsequent reorganization to officer positions. The Tanith were ordered to the world of Blackshard, and during their successful first engagement were dubbed "Gaunt's Ghosts", a moniker that would stick with the regiment for the duration of its existence.Gaunt is considered to be an unconventional but effective leader, slowly winning the devotion and respect of the soldiers who initially hated him for letting their homeworld fall to Chaos without a fight. He is feared among the upper echelons of the Imperium almost as much as he is feared by the forces of Chaos, as he is a model for honour and defiance of corruption in all forms. He is respected by many soldiers and commanders because he leads from the front, attacking the enemy alongside his men. He gained great respect with his men and the new recruits for the Tanith First-and-Only when he killed the Chaos warlord Heritor Asphodel during the battle for Verghast. However, some would consider his unorthodox approach and rank problematic, as in many ways he fails in his duty as a commissar. His ability as a leader is never questioned, indeed he has been approached for promotion several times, but to assist his duties as a Commissar, Victor Hark was introduced to the regiment.After a standard year on the frontline trenches of the world of Fortis Binary, the Ghosts were used as an arrowhead unit for a deep counterattack following an assault by the Shriven, former Imperial workers who had been corrupted by Chaos and transformed into mutants. Leading from the front personally, Gaunt achieved even greater success then he had imagined, as a gruelling battle led to him breaking through the Chaos lines with a great portion of his men intact, finding themselves in abandoned dugouts and industrial areas. They were quickly pinned down with no hope of retreat by a carpet bombardment which greatly bemused the men. Having encountered a series of drumming machines in factories, Gaunt pulled his men away from the main approaches, where they linked up with a similarly-sized force of Vitrian Dragoons under the command Colonel Zoren. It was there that Gaunt noticed an explosion from an industrial area further along the line that was not a result of the bombardment. Surmising that this was the work of his own men, Gaunt established contact with the saboteurs, who turned out to be another Tanith section led by Corbec. After Gaunt berated Corbec for his lack of discipline, the Tanith forces joined together and eventually penetrated the Shriven's stronghold and destroy its garrison's ammunition stores. Eventually, the Ghosts joined with other Imperial forces to sabotage a Chaos ritual intended to turn the soldiers of the Imperial offensive into Daemonhosts and Fortis Binary finally fell to the forces of the Crusade.Eventually, the Tanith First-and-Only had been fighting in the Sabbat Worlds Crusade for approximately ten standard years. They had seen combat on several worlds, including Fortis Binary, Menazoid Epsilon, Monthax, Verghast, Phantine, Hagia, Herodor and Ancreon Sextus. However, due to the inevitable casualties, and the lack of a homeworld from which to draw new recruits, the regiment is constantly dwindling in size. This fate was held back for a time by the mass-recruitment of survivors from the hive-city of Vervunhive, on Verghast, but even with these reinforcements, it was only a matter of time before the Ghosts shrunk below the size of a viable military force. To solve this problem, the Tanith First was disbanded and folded into the 81st Belladon Recon under Colonel Wilder to form the "Eighty-first First."Eventually, the Commissariat's suspicion and unease with Gaunt's unorthodox command approach reached a boiling point after his return from his Vermilion-level mission (coded EZ for Extremely Hazardous) on Gereon. Afraid that he and his team were "tainted" during their extended stay on a Chaos-held world, and because the Tanith First was folded into the Belladon 81st and technically did not exist any more, the Imperial command decided to strip Gaunt of his command position and revert him back to his original Commissar status. Gaunt eventually managed to regain command of the Eighty-first First, but only after Colonel Wilder of the Belladon 81st granted him field command before sacrificing himself in a heroic rearguard action. Gaunt's hold on this field command remained uncertain.Gaunt later returned to Gereon, bringing with him the Imperial liberation forces and finally freeing Gereon from the rule of Chaos. He was ordered to establish contact with the Gereon resistance, given his prior experience with them. To do so he had to go into the Untill again, discovering on the way that Mkvenner was dead, being reunited with surgeon Ana Curth and chopping off Larkin's foot with his Power Sword. It eventually transpired that the Inquisition wanted him to broker contact with the Partisans in order to exploit the fauna and flora of the Untill in the search of a cure for Chaos corruption. Gaunt told the Inquisitor that it is only through "The Armour of Contempt" that any may resist the temptations of Chaos.During the defence of the Hinzerhaus on Jago, Gaunt was captured by the Blood Pact and presumed dead, leading Major Elim Rawne to take command of the Ghosts. Gaunt was recovered by Mkoll and Eszrah ap Niht on the Deada Waeg while they destroyed a Blood Pact command camp, though he had been blinded by the forces of the Arch-Enemy and was close to death due to the torture that he had suffered. He was told by Lord General van Voytz that his new augmetic eyes will be the best possible. Gaunt's only response was to make van Voytz promise never to place his regiment in such an impossible situation again.