Tanith - Tanith First-and-Only: Originally, there were three Tanith regiments raised for the Astra Militarum from that Forest World in the tenth standard years of the Sabbat Worlds Crusade: the Tanith 1st, 2nd and 3rd -- 6,000 troops and a small number of vehicles and artillery pieces. The majority of the troops who joined were Tanith militiamen, although some former criminals were present, and it can be assumed that other non-military members of the population were included.The soldiers were originally organised into three two-thousand troop regiments; the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd of Tanith. A small number of artillery and armour units were also created, although they were intended for supporting roles for what was at its heart intended to be an infantry force. Following the reformation of the Hyrkan 8th, the highly-experienced Colonel-Commissar Ibram Gaunt was assigned to lead the three new regiments.When Gaunt arrived at Tanith to oversee the founding of these regiments, he was not impressed by the appearance of the troops, initially describing them as "a scrawny, scruffy mob of soft-voiced woodsmen". His opinion of them changed quickly after seeing them in combat.Soon after his arrival Gaunt impatiently ordered the regiments to begin boarding the troop carriers that would take them to the troop transports in orbit waiting to ferry them through the Warp to their first war zones -- a fortunate move which got enough of the regiment's men off-world before a Chaos warfleet scattered from the recent Imperial victory at Balhaut managed to evade the Imperial Navy picket and head towards Tanith.Gaunt decided to abandon the world, trying to salvage as many fighting troops in the process instead of wasting them all in a heroic but impossible effort to hold Tanith. The regiments were hastily loaded onto troop transports and shuttled to carrier-ships in orbit, but the Chaos attack occurred earlier than predicted.Gaunt survived, being one of the last members of the regiment to make it off-planet, and he reorganised the survivors into a single infantry regiment, the Tanith 1st, soon also known as the "First-and-Only."Gaunt confirmed after leaving Tanith that his quick actions had salvaged three and a half thousand troops of the original three regiments and the majority of their equipment. The vast majority of the heavy equipment, along with the regiment's entire officer corps, was lost when the forces of Chaos made planetfall. It is unclear which of the original three regiments actually were saved from the fires of Tanith, but the remaining troops, regardless of their original assignments, were reformed into the Tanith 1st.On the regiment's first battlefield on the world of Blackshard, the Tanith guardsman "Mad" Hlaine Larkin coined the nickname "Gaunt's Ghosts." The use of the nickname "Ghosts" had a dual meaning: the first is that Gaunt's  decision to abandon Tanith "made ghosts of them [the regiment], hollow echoes." The second is that because of their exceptional stealth and scouting skills, the regiment's troops were ghost-like on the battlefield.The Tanith 1st excels at reconnaissance work as the Tanith never get lost, and using camo-cloaks they can move quickly and stealthily through most types of terrain.The Ghosts eventually garnered a strong reputation after a number of actions during the Sabbat Worlds Crusade, in particular the defences of Vervunhive, the Beati's Shrine on Hagia and the defence of the apparent actual reincarnated person of Saint Sabbat herself on Herodor. Unfortunately, these successes did not come without its drawbacks and the Ghosts suffered heavy casualties on a number of occasions. However, two large personnel intakes during the regiment's history (one from the citizenry of Vervunhive, the other from combination with the 81st Belladon Recon Regiment) managed to offset these losses.The Tanith First and Only are best known for their participation in the Imperium's Sabbat Worlds Crusade against the forces of Chaos in the Sabbat Worlds Sector, which began in 755.M41. During the crusade, the Ghosts' expertise in covert operations was instrumental in the liberation of a number of worlds. However, rivalries with other, more illustrious Astra Militarum regiments (in particular, the Jantine Patricians and the Volpone Bluebloods) often put the Ghosts at risk.The regiment took heavy losses in its early actions, including the loss of three hundred guardsmen during a friendly fire "incident" at Voltis Watergate. Heavy casualties were also incurred during the effort to recapture the Adeptus Mechanicus' Forge World of Fortis Binary, so much so that by the time of the Ghosts' deployment on Monthax, they numbered only 1,500 guardsmen. The casualties taken at Monthax and later the Hive World of Verghast were replaced by recruits taken from the destroyed Vervunhive, at which time female soldiers first joined the Tanith.After Tanith was destroyed by the attack of the Chaos warfleet, the Tanith First-and-Only had no homeworld from which to draw new recruits to replace losses. Instead, new Ghosts were adopted into the regiment as the crusade progressed. The regiment took heavy losses in its early actions, including the loss of three hundred troops during a friendly fire incident on Voltemand. At the end of the siege of Vervunhive, the hive city was left in ruins and the disillusioned citizens of Verghast were given the opportunity to join the Imperial Guard under the Act of Consolation. This resulted in an influx of Verghastite soldiers into the Tanith First, which brought the first females into the regiment. Several of these women became some of the regiment's best snipers. The soldiers from Vervunhive used a different badge on their caps to represent the regiment, adorned with the axe rake that Vervunhivers used in mining before their hive city was destroyed.Heavy casualties were also incurred during the effort to recapture the Forge World of Fortis Binary, so much so that by the time of the Ghosts' deployment on Monthax, they numbered less than 2,000 guardsmen.Ten Terran years after the regiment was first raised, the Tanith had been involved in numerous campaigns for the Sabbat Worlds Crusade. After Colonel Gaunt and some hand-picked Tanith specialists were dispatched on a "suicidal" mission to Gereon, a world held by the forces of Chaos, the Ghosts were merged with another reconnaissance regiment, the 81st Belladon, to form the 81st/1st Recon Regiment under the command of Colonel Lucian Wilder.Eighteen solar months after making planetfall on Gereon, Gaunt's mission team was retrieved by crusade forces. After Inquisitorial scrutiny, the team members were sent back to the newly formed 81st/1st Regiment, while Gaunt himself was stripped of command rank and sent to be the senior political officer of the Fortis Binars serving at Sparshead Mons.Shortly after taking his position with the Binars, Gaunt began to suspect that the potentially sacred sites or "mons" that the Imperial Guard was fighting over might actually be Chaos artefacts. With evidence mounting, he contacted his Gereon team and determined that the artefacts were, in fact, enormous Chaos traps. Gaunt was eventually reunited with his Ghosts, and his evidence prompted the withdrawal of the Imperial forces from the mons.Caught in a desperate rearguard action, and with time counting down to an orbital bombardment by the Imperial Navy, Gaunt's Ghosts were hard-pressed to escape utter destruction. Only the valiant sacrifice of Colonel Wilder, the 81st/1st Regiment's new commander, his commissar, and the Belladon 1st company allowed the 81st/1st as a whole to escape.Following his actions, Gaunt was again granted command of the Tanith, along with their Verghastite and Belladon compatriots. It is worth noting that following the merger with the 81st Belladon, the Tanith First's organisational structure changed; companies using alphabetical call-signs replaced the previous numerical platoons. The regiment was reorganised so that the Tanith, Verghastites and Belladons were fully integrated with each other within the regiment. Additionally, each group of men and women was represented by an officer directly below Gaunt; Major Rawne of Tanith, Major Kolea of Verghast, and Major Baskevyl of Belladon.Following the reorganisation, Gaunt led the newly reformed unit to help liberate the now Chaos-held world of Gereon.The troops of the Tanith 1st are unparalleled scouts, marksmen, masters of stealth tactics, and excellent light infantry, and are said to possess an unerring sense of direction, traits developed for survival on a planet where the forests actually move to conceal the path taken.