Imperial Guardsmen wearing steam-armor?

[Vash113]

I recall a story from black library about an Imperial Guard Regiment whose homeworld nobility possessed a form of pseudo power-armored exo-suits that were described as looking and functioning like steam-punk power suits and the nobles who fought with these things formed themselves into ad-hoc units operating outside the normal chain of command.

 

It's been a while since I read it and I can't seem to remember where I read it or find the material, it's driving me bonkers, does anyone know what I'm talking about and can tell me the source? Thanks!

 

EDIT: Of course shortly after I ask I find my answer. Fire Caste, Thundersuits, fun stuff.

 

 

He saw Captain Machen stomping onto the deck at the head of his command squad. In his Thundersuit the man looked like a vast iron crab that had reared up to walk on its hind legs. Under its elegantly moulded carapace the suit was an industrial masterwork of spinning cogs and pistons that clattered and hissed in perfect harmony, almost drowning out the stirring chords of 'Providence Endures' booming from its brass shoulder speakers. A heavy stubber was fixed to one ironclad paw, the ammo belt coiling into a fluted dispenser on the back, while the other ended in a massive drill inscribed with the 'Testament of the Founding Fathers'. The captain's crew-cut head was visible through the thick glass porthole of his baroque helmet. He was still wearing his wide-brimmed officer's hat and there was a fat cigarillo rammed between his jaws, but even he wasn't quite crazy enough to light it in there.

 

Roach wasn't impressed by the spectacle. The antique fighting suit was a legacy of Old Providence, a cherished heirloom passed down generations of the captain's blueblood family. Sure, there was no denying its toughness - after all, the thing was closer to a tank than a suit of regular power armor - but it was unpredictable and hideously difficult to maintain - not to mention noisy as all the Hells! To the scout's way of thinking such relics were more effective as status symbols than practical tools of war.

 

Which probably suits that son-of-a-(expletive deleted) Machen just fine...

 

Jon Milton Machen was the spiritual father of the Steam-blood Zouaves, a cross-company brotherhood of mechanised nobles who revered the Emperor in His aspect as the Machine God. There were eighteen of them in the regiment, all patricians with the wealth to maintain a fighting suit. They saw themselves as questing knights, free to align themselves with whichever unit had the most need. Each Zouave possessed a unique, customized suit, but they were mostly variants of the smaller Stormsuit template and none of them possessed anything like Machen's monstrosity. Modine had once joked that the captain was compensating for inadequacies elsewhere. It was the only time Roach had laughed along with the pyrotrooper.

 

From pages 65 and 66 of Fire Caste by Peter Fehervari.

[WarriorFish]

Our work here is done. Well done everyone :lol:;)