Valhallan Ice Warriors - Regimental History: The desolate Ice World of Valhalla is the birthplace of the famously valiant Astra Militarum regiments known as the Valhallan Ice Warriors. Located in the Segmentum Ultima, Valhalla was once a verdant Paradise World of temperate forests and broad fertile plains. However, the planet's destiny was a harsh one -- not long before the end of the Age of Strife over 10,000 standard years ago, a rogue comet entered into a collision course with Valhalla's surface.The planet's Defence Lasers fired at the comet, but only succeeded in breaking it up. Later, it was found that the comet was made of almost pure iron, explaining why the powerful Defence Lasers had proved so ineffective. The comet impacted in Valhalla's vast planetary ocean, but a mile-wide fragment impacted the northern continent, creating vast plumes of dust which proceeded to cover the planet in a blanket of dirt.To make matters worse, the planet's orbit was altered by the ferocity of the impact, moving it on a course that forced it into a new orbit farther from its sun. This change in the amount of incoming warmth and light altered Valhalla's ecosystem permanently, reshaping the planet into an icy wasteland.The Valhallan people struggled to survive in this new environment, fearing famine due to a lack of viable farmland, until they carved out new homes for themselves in massive subterranean caverns deep beneath the ice where there was still some modicum of geothermal warmth.Valhalla is now nothing more than an inhospitable orb, its landscape a perpetually frozen wasteland. Though the planet is no longer affluent, the Astra Militarum regiments raised there are famous throughout the Imperium of Man.The comet strike had been a catastrophe, but was not to be the end of the Valhallan people's suffering. Not long after the strike, a damaged Ork warfleet descended on the planet and proceeded to fight the Valhallans for every gram of the precious food they had stored.The Valhallans held out bravely for a long time in their vast hive cities beneath the ice but were ultimately pushed right back to the food vats. Eventually they destroyed the Orks by using ice-boring machines to strategically strike at the heart of the mob, burning and melting most of the Orks and scattering the rest.Even this Greenskin invasion proved unable to blunt the Valhallans' indomitable spirit. Their grim refusal to surrender, despite overwhelming opposition, had won them a historic, if bloody victory. After destroying the Ork invaders on their own world, Valhallan Planetary Defence Force regiments, in an act of vengeance, joined with other Astra Militarum armies to cleanse their sector of the hated Greenskin menace.The Imperial Guard proved so impressed with the combat ability of the Valhallans that the Departmento Munitorum soon turned to Valhalla as a prime source of new Imperial Guard regiments. After being raised as Imperial Guardsmen themselves, the Valhallans continued to display the same stoic determination that they had shown in defence of the ice-cities of their own homeworld.To this day, the courage and tenacity of the Valhallans in battle continue to earn them the respect and admiration of other regiments from all over the galaxy.