White Scars - Legion Organisation: As has been noted, the Vth Legion has never adhered closely to the strictures of the Principia Belicosa, that great military treatise written by the Emperor that informed the basis of most of the early Space Marine Legions' organisation and structure. Lacking in the numbers that allowed many of the other Legions to operate as fully-fledged war hosts, the Vth Legion was originally organised into small Pioneer Companies, each operating as a separate and independent force.This independence of operation and command was both a necessity due to the size and mission of the early Vth Legion and a legacy of the fierce spirit of its original recruits. Each Pioneer Company operated as an augmented line company, comprising perhaps 1,000 Legionaries and a varying array of specialist detachments, with each unique in its exact configuration and total fighting strength.Over the first century of the Great Crusade, these companies continued to deviate from the standard organisational pattern of the Principia Belicosa, in part due to the increasing difficulty of resupplying them. The rediscovery of Jaghatai Khan on Chogoris brought an end to this era of independent operations and saw the Legion go through a complete re-organisation.By 865.M30, there were approximately 70,000 warriors in the Vth Legion, which would later increase to around 95,000 at the peak of the Legion's strength shortly before 007.M31. The Great Khan reformed these warriors into a number of "hordes," a formation that stood above the brotherhood in the Legion's structure.In creating his new Legion, the Great Khan was careful to split up the old Pioneer Companies, mixing warriors of differing origins together with new recruits from his homeworld of Chogoris to constitute the new hordes. Most documents dating to that time place the number of original hordes at five, although some accounts place the number as high as seven.The exact number is difficult to ascertain due to the irregular size of these formations, as both the original hordes and those that would follow varied wildly in size, with the smallest numbering little more than 5,000 warriors and the largest as many as 20,000. The difference in size did not appear to indicate any tactical or strategic speciality, but rather was tied to the will of the horde's commander, known in the newly re-organised White Scars as a "noyan-khan."Indeed, the various hordes often fluctuated wildly in size during the transition from one noyan-khan to another, with warriors transferring between hordes, or even splitting off to form new hordes at the whims of either the noyan-khan or Jaghatai himself.This process seems to have been intended to allow each individual commander to operate efficiently within the bounds of their ability and strategic preferences, rather than enforcing a strict organisational system upon them.Whether this is the spectre of the old Pioneer Companies and their independent spirit, or part of the Great Khan's Chogorian heritage is unknown, but its effectiveness when combined with the free-spirited nature of the Vth Legion has been demonstrated in battles beyond count. It did, however, cause a number of difficulties with both their brother Legions and with the logistics and command echelons of the Divisio Militaris.A number of Great Crusade operations encountered problems properly classifying White Scars detachments, both for purposes of resupply and of properly gauging the threat level of opposing forces. On Algeron VII, where two hordes of White Scars were deployed for harrowing operations against Renegade human enclaves, Great Crusade Divisio Logisticus supplied munitions and supplies for two standard Legiones Astartes units of Chapter-strength, only to find this insufficient for the two over-sized hordes sent by the White Scars.On Therona Secundus, an Ultramarines grand task force besieging a Fra'al stronghold requested reinforcement by a similar-sized force of the Legiones Astartes, only for Divisio Strategists to mistakenly assign a nearby White Scars horde to the conflict. The horde, numbering only half the strength of the Ultramarines force, fought bravely as a part of the assault force, but its relatively low strength forced the Ultramarines to endure higher casualties than their strict protocols would allow.The warriors of Ultramar, always dubious of those who chose to disregard the logic of the Principia Bellicosa, saw this as a failure of the White Scars, one among a number of one-sided grudges -- for the White Scars marked the Therona conflict as a great victory against adversity, and spoke highly of the Ultramarines' fortitude.The only other main organisational unit within the White Scars was the brotherhood, a unit roughly equivalent to the standard company. Just like the larger hordes, each brotherhood varied in size quite widely, with some being formed of less than a few hundred warriors and others up to several thousand. Again, this disparity was rarely directly linked to the tactical role of the brotherhood but rather the preferences and charisma of the khan, as the White Scars called the officer known in other Legions as a Captain, who led it.That being true, many brotherhoods also tended to favour a specific mode of engagement, with the majority being outfitted and trained to operate as skirmish forces and rapid strike units. These most typical brotherhoods were almost always mechanised units, in that the entire force of the brotherhood was either mounted on Jet Bikes or supplied with other forms of rapid transport.Brotherhoods specialising in either long range combat or siege work were in a distinct minority and often among the smallest of these formations. This left the White Scars at something of a disadvantage in some combat theatres, forcing them to either rely on their own innate versatility to make do or to draft auxillia units into their line of battle to cope with specialised combat situations.Within each brotherhood the exact roster of units varied considerably and rarely adhered to standard company structures seen within the other Legions. Though each brotherhood was a unique formation, most were formed of a core of Jetbike-mounted troops, although these were sometimes known to fight dismounted in the style of more standard tactical units.In addition to this core of highly mobile strike troops was a number of more specialised units, of which the exact nature is highly variable. Most common among the various brotherhoods were reconnaissance cadres or close assault specialists, roles which held particular value within the Chogorian traditions that sat at the heart of the White Scars doctrines.The inclusion of units that fall outside of these preferences, most especially static heavy weapons support units, was rarer but farfrom unknown. Indeed, some brotherhoods were composed almost entirely of such units. Such specialised brotherhoods were not pariahs among their swifter brethren, but often honoured for their role in the Legion's victories and their willingness to sacrifice the thrill of the hunt for victory.Most brotherhoods also included what the White Scars referred to as a "Keshig," which indicated a body of troops somewhere between an honour guard for the khan and an elite reserve of veterans intended to bolster both the fighting spirit and tactical firepower of line troops. Given the aggressive nature of most White Scars tactics, these units often formed the forefront of any assault, and most often contained the most skilled and experienced warriors withinthe brotherhood.Among the more extreme deviations from standard practise within the White Scars Legion were their so-called "weather-witches." These were the Librarian-adepts fielded by the Legion during the earliest days of the Librarius experiment, their training and role dictated as much by the superstitions of the Chogorian tribesmen as by the standardised training coda of the fledgling Astartes Librarius.They quickly came to fill the role of mystics and advisers to the khans, more akin to primitive shamans to outside eyes than to the ideal of the warrior-scholar of the more orthodox Legions.Yet beneath the veneer of their shamanistic heritage lay a surprisingly complex position, serving their brethren as counsellors and mediators as well as shields against aetheric menace, and with a deep understanding of the Warp rooted in both Chogorian mysticism and the scientific studies of the Imperium's greatest scholars.In many ways, the studied respect these early adepts displayed for Warp phenomena showed a wiser approach than that of more secular scholars whose approach was rooted in science and often dismissive of the real threat concealed within the aether. In battle, these "Stormseers" stirred the Warp to aid their brethren, preferring more subtle applications of psychic power than crude bolts of energy.They obscured the advance of the White Scars with fog, wind and rain, and impeded the foe with relentless flurries of hail or foul monsoons. Many of the Vth Legion's victories were founded on the cunning application of both the Stormseers' psychic power and their sage advice. Despite their abilities, the Stormseers were most often judged on their appearance, which to the more stringent adherents of the Imperial Truth harkened back to the dark days of Old Night on Terra and superstitions of religion which the Emperor Himself had condemned.Among their most vocal opponents was Mortarion, whose innate hatred of the psyker was only exacerbated by the positions of influence the Stormseers held within their Legion, but he was not alone in questioning their loyalty to the core tenants of the Imperial Truth and the Great Crusade itself.Among the various specialised units common within Legiones Astartes ranks, there were some rarely seen among the White Scars. Most prominent amongst these were the assault troops known as Destroyers, dedicated to the deployment of proscribed weaponry and the utter annihilation of the foe. The tactics employed by these cadres in other Legions were considered anathema by the White Scars, whose joy in open combat and reverence for the unspoiled wilderness of many Frontier Worlds was ill at ease with such wanton destruction.Destroyer cadres did exist within the Legion, but in limited numbers. Known as the Karaoghlanlar, or the "Dark Sons of Death," their armour was painted a dull black and festooned with Chogorian shamanic charms to ward off the evil spirits that followed in their wake. These grim warriors, often considered deranged and as omens of evil tidings by their fellows, did not serve with any single brotherhood but were instead placed under the direct supervision of the Stormseer Council, only deployed when both khan and seer agreed they be set loose.This apparently pagan superstition appeared to serve simply as a tool to vilify the use of the extreme measures represented by the Destroyers, a choice known to have originated with the Great Khan himself, who held little respect for those who resorted to such extreme measures too frequently.Another notable exception within the ranks of the White Scars was the almost complete lack of any kind of position dedicated to the enforcement of military law. The White Scars never operated any kind of disciplinary corps, the officers known as consul-opsequiri in the Principia Belicosa.Despite this, they also recorded one of the lowest rates of internal dispute and other infractions under the Imperium's Divisio Militaris military law. Some claim that this record is due to the White Scars' insular nature and unwillingness to properly report their activities, while others note that the White Scars maintain a complex code of honour, with several units that might be described as penal units by outsiders.Of these, the most well-known was the Kharash, a temporary body of warriors filled by volunteers whenever the need for diversionary or shock assault tactics occurred. Though assigned duties considered near-suicidal by many observers, the Kharash never lacked for volunteers, with those seeking to expunge some perceived sin equally matched by those seeking advancement through the honour attached to serving with the Kharash and surviving.