The Royal Blues Household

[Orlunu]

Looking to come back to the hobby with a Knight Household and their Skitarii underlings.  Posting this for feedback and refining the idea.  All colour scheme & icon pictures will wait until I get and paint some of the models.

 

Colour scheme:

Dark blue and pale bone, with silver trim. - Knights and Men-at-Arms

Pale green with bone trim. - Levies

 

Icon:

Chains crossed into Icon Incognitus.

 

Origins:

The first references to the unit date from the time of the Horus Heresy, when it unexpectedly and decisively came to the aid of the Legio Pallidus Mors, earning itself an eternal alliance.  Dispossessed, the Household was clearly cutting away from its past as best it could, with fresh heraldry painted on over filed-clean hulls.  In the dying days of the civil war, the House purged a Dark Mechanicus aligned forgeworld alongside the Pale Riders, and settled there for their new homeworld.  Since then, they have set out to defend numerous nearby systems from xenos predations, and frequently marched to war alongside their Titan allies, but aggressive actions on their own account have only recently begun.

 

Homeworld:

Duster is a feudal world located in the Donorian Sector, on the boundary between the Segmentum Tempestus and the Segmentum Solar.  Agriculturally fertile, the geography is mainly grassland overlaid onto the giant rock formations of manufactories destroyed millennia ago.  The head of the Household rules Duster as the Grand Duke and takes a levy of money and military forces from the lesser nobility in return for title to land, in true feudal style.  The one divergence from the norm is that the levies are hired rather than impressed, as indentured service is strictly outlawed.  Other noteworthy laws relate to the Adeptus Mechanicus, with no members being allowed on the planet; even more stringently, the production, trade, or even possession of servitors is a capital crime on the planet, its orbital stations, its ships, and anywhere else the Household can reasonably extend its sovereignty to (and, often, places they can't).  These laws are even more noteworthy given that in all other areas, the Household's laws are extremely lax, leading many of the wealthy to come to the planet to indulge their small vices against a stunning and romantic backdrop.

  The lesser nobility of the planet continually wage war on each other for almost any reason, as a gallant and stimulating pastime, and it is fortunate that the Grand Dukes keep arms technology at early black powder levels for forces other than their own, or the casualties would be quite horrific.  As it is, the warfare is conducted by small bands and is heavily focused on both close quarters fighting and on cavalry.  The only really noteworthy quirk of these wars is the common use of smoke for concealment in battle, as smoke grenades and the like are available to the forces which are of excellent quality, even by Imperial Guard standards.

 

Combat doctrine:

In the native wars between nobles, mounted soldiers are both the military and social elite; combined with the rule of a Knightly house, the people have a strong orientation towards walker cavalry, often used in a way that seems bizarre to those who do not realise what influences are being imitated.  Armoured lancers are the norm for the standing military, supported by ranged units specialised in delivering fire whilst manoeuvring at high speed and under cover of incense-laced smoke.  The numbers and duties of the permanently retained forces are few enough that they have very few other types.

  Levy troops are trained and maintained as relatively professional militia units, and volunteers are recruited to be the infantry force for specific campaigns.  The numbers are, thus, vastly fewer than drafted Guard regiments, but the cavalry-minded Royal Blues only use their infantry auxiliaries for holding strategic positions and for menial labour anyway, whilst the walkers go out and take all of the active roles.  The infantry wear gas gear, working in a haze of mildly poisonous incense and firing hollow bullets filled with liquified nerve gas (crunch: they're Skitarii Vanguard with Radium Carbines).

 

The Royal Blues also often serve as screening forces for Legio Pallidus Mor, and a system has developed whereby the Men-at-Arms scout around a Knight and skirmish around it, leaving it to deal with larger threats, the Knights in turn perform exactly the same function for the Warhound scout titans, and the Warhounds do the same for the larger God-Engines.  The same tactics are applied to each size category of walker, allowing for exceptionally easy command and control, and for easy increase and reduction of force sizes.

 

Organisation:

The Knights are piloted by members of the ruling family.  Occasionally this leads to the adoption of a noble who has shown himself to be particularly brilliant in battle, but in the vast majority of cases, these means that the pilots are blood descendants of the family.

  The Men-at-Arms are the other part of the Royal Blues (being the name of the Grand Duke's standing army), and are mostly untitled members of the middle class, with units being led by the nobility.

  Levy units form the infantry and, very rarely, artillery units which are mustered to support the Royal Blues in times of war.  They are well-equipped militia, and units are led by Men-at-Arms who are on trial to become officers in their own units.  Thus, nobility start off commanding these squads and common Men-at-Arms trying to enter the nobility through promotion must also spend time leading them.  It is seen as a lesser role and it is claimed that the leaders' skills matter less with regards to the slower infantry; nobody would be so crass as to say out loud that it matters less if the fresh commander messes up and gets his unit slaughtered when that unit is composed of mere infantry.

  As leaders, the nobility at least have a tendency towards bravery inculcated in them through their upbringing.  More important is the point of view of their subordinates, who respond more certainly and with less hesitation to orders given by someone of a clearly higher standing.  This is useful in itself, and also helps to buoy up morale.

 

Notable pilots [Petty Council]:

Grand Duke of Duster and Baron of Rhuen – Conquerant – Lancer

Baron of Vexil – Daddy’s Girl – Acheron

Count of the Main – Unbound – Crusader

Count of the Isles – Inimicitiæ Æternam – Crusader

Baroness of Eux – Lacrimas Odium – Atrapos

 

Detachment from Legio Pallidus Mor:

Ultima Ratio – Warlord

Jaegerin – Warhound

Kriegerin – Warhound

 

 

Family name and inter-links in the fluff (the family being a secret is a big part of the fluff, but can't check how well it all fits together without revealing in.  Oh, well...):

 

House Morbidia, elements used Horus Heresy as chance to turn on the Heretek Fabricator-General and break free of the Pact Morbidia.  That's the main part of the fluff, and the reason for the intense hate of various things.

Blue is as contrast to the red of Mars, showing the strength of their break from their enslavers.  Bleached bone symbolises their ancient, unburied grudges and also matches the main colour of the Legio Pallidus Mor.  Pale (sickly) green is secondary colour of Legio Pallidus Mor and also reference to Levy units using several types of poison.  Pallidus Mor colours based on their name and a slight modification of the only ones I could find that someone had painted up as Pallidus Mor.

The name comes from having a nickname as the official name ('cos of secrecy), from being a household unit and a cavalry unit, and from being the dark blue unit amongst red'uns -- Blues and Royals, Household Cavalry

Düster is how I, at least, would translate "morbid" into German.

Knights and Men-at-Arms heavy cav made me think Brettonians, I always picture them practically trailing clouds of incense, and having my units pump out clouds of "incense" fixed the fluff for a couple of the special rules.  Volunteer troops ain't going anywhere near Rad Carbines.

Titles are just bastardisations of the old bits of Normandy.  Again, Brettonia.

 

 

 

Thoughts?

[Erasus]

Hello, just a few questions, some to help me some to help you (I hope)

Their homeworld of Duster was once a Dark Mechanicus forgeworld but is now agriculturally fertile? Wouldn't it have been completely ruined by both pollutants and chaotic influence, how can it be filled with rolling plains of grass?

AdMech is banned, Servitors are banned, yet the Legio Pallidus Mors is an AdMech unit and they will definitely have servitors, why are they still allies with them?

The wealthy people coming from other sectors and planets will probably have servitors too, maybe even those vat-grown cherubs

How does the House maintain its assets with no AdMech assistance at all?

I like the idea of breaking away from the strict controls of the AdMech, just maybe a bit extreme in the end result

The black powder tech doesn't reduce casualties, the Chinese had loads of battles with medieval weaponry and that was horrific casualty number wise, the limiting factor is army size, less people less casualties. Also how do the ground troops fight through the smoke? If they're black powder levels wont it blind them as much as the enemy? I mean I know there's clever ways to use it but with the wind that usually blows through plains its a double edged sword.

In regards to the levies' opinions of the officers, wouldn't many hate them? These men who rule their titles over the lower classes and seemingly have no regard for their lives by waging needless wars and insane tactics.

Is 'Daddy's Girl' the real name?

Just a few thoughts ​

[Orlunu]

Oooh, thanks, plenty of stuff to chew on.

My thoughts on the fertility were that the planet was carpeted in a fairly thick deposits of mineral-rich ash and pollution in the aftermath of the razing, and it degraded down into soil over the following decades. Kinda how you get really fertile land around volcanoes. You're right, though; there'd probably be a lot of heavy metals and so on doing millennia of damage in the pollution of a forgeworld, I'll probably have to change that.

For the AdMech bans, I copied badly across from my notes. Techpriests are banned, others such as Skitarii and various Titan crews would be allowed as servants of the cult rather than a true part of it (not in their own eyes, of course, but from the Household's point of view). Ships are considered territory of wherever they are based, and Titans have been wedged into this category on Duster in order to allow Legio Pallidus Mor's detachment to operate there. The crews in general are allowed to leave them, but the Magi and the servitors must stay on board the Titans at all times. The two units saved each other during the Horus Heresy and have been operating side by side ever since. The Legio knows of the House's history (at least, the highest ranks do) and have strong historical ties to it, so are willing to overlook the inconveniences, and the House see the Legio as their saviours and also the necessary link to the AdMech, much as they'd hate to admit that.

The ban on servitors does majorly restrict the influx of wealthy immigrants, yes. This is the main factor which has prevented Duster from becoming a garden world, and which keeps the nobility relatively small and relatively ideologically unified.

Duster trades with the AdMech via its orbital stations and its relatively small forces for its wealth allow them to buy high quality equipment. High enough quality that the cash flow easily navigates any diplomatic obstacles. The House also maintains Sacristans, as all houses do, and these do train with the Legio Pallidus Mor (and are somewhat helped by escaping Mechanicus scrutiny in their work). In absolute worst case of a locally irreparable suit or need of a new one, anything that needs repairing or an order list gets put on a Legio transport with a lot of money and they take care of it. The suits are heavily distrusted for a bit after they arrive, but there have never really been problems.

They hate the AdMech, but are utterly dependent on them. The rules are mostly there to prove a point and make members of the House feel better about it, but a fairly large degree of cooperation is needed. The primary purpose of the Legio detachment on Duster is to provide just such a relatively acceptable diplomatic channel. Anyway, with the House's history, they'd be completely zero-tolerance towards servitors, so, gotta kinda set it all up around that.

The smoke tactics are essentially based off Imperial Japanese interwar tactics but dialled up to eleven. Thick smoke is used to conceal troop movement, whereas thinner smoke and goggles are used to force close quarters combat, nullifying a lot of defensive firepower and satisfying the soldiers' beliefs that real men fight hand to hand. Given that, troops are trained and equipped primarily for close quarters combat, which means that commanders are even more keen to get stuck in, and so on and so forth. It has definitely reached the point where it is used dogmatically even when not the most sensible idea. On the casualties, I worded it badly. I was thinking more in terms of civilian casualties that would follow from having artillery &c. I'll rewrite it.

The lack of conscription kinda works against that. Partly the people in general feel less like the nobles are doing that, and partly only those who look favourably on the setup are likely to join up. Also, the local Imperial Cult strongly identifies the House and their machines with the Emperor, and they have pretty much divine status as his chosen. Kinda an Imperial Shinto thing, to further stretch the unintended IJA analogy. Brettonian peasants religiously devoted to their knights IN SPESS.

The Knight went Freeblade in the immediate aftermath of the Heresy and its name was changed to "Daddy's Girl" (there is a good reason, I just haven't actually written the fluff yet ) when it left the Household. On its successful return, the name was kept. It's the House's most hateful engine (no mean feat), and borders on insanity.

Quite a bit of clarifying to do, stuff to change and to ponder, just what I wanted!

[Erasus]

The fertility near volcanoes is due to the minerals and organic materials released from the igneous rock and soil, the ash still chokes the life out of everything it comes across. I get the idea but the two concepts fail to add up in the 40k universe, the fact its a Hell-Forge world is the real clincher; no way to bring life back to that. Maybe a regular minor forgeworld? Or an abandoned Hive world that played host to a Heresy-era battle? Maybe the population was being relocated to AdMech manufactorums when the Dark Mech show up and attack the Legio Pallidus Mors? Its your call.

 

Why is there a ban on servitors? What's the history there?

 

Won't the AdMech have forgiven the House for its past due to how things went during the Heresy? Trying to word it so there's no spoilers, but surely there's no need for the AdMech to have the same view pre-heresy, especially after so many of the ruling elite on Mars went Dark Mech calling into question certains pacts and organisations brought about by traitors.

 

ah forget it, I'll do a spoiler bit

 

you might have to think about what House Morbidia did to earn the Pact Morbidia, it'll help gauge what is in particular they value and hate; for example if they tried to use non-martian pattern customisations then the House might've valued progress and development whilst hating stagnation, this would make them highly heretekical. If they still held onto this belief the Legio Pallidus Mors wouldn't like them but you get the idea about what the House was like before the fall, it shapes why they broke away. You also can't escape the fact they are originally martian born, whoever was a Knight at the foundation of the new House would still have a heavily martian influenced ethos. The Legio Pallidus Mors would verify their loyalty to the Emperor and the loyalist AdMech who would most likely forgive them for what they did. If  it was that bad they would've been destroyed not enslaved. Just some thoughts

 

 

 

The Skitarii are all linked to the Tech-priests in orbit, effectively placing the tech-priests planetside walking around under the guise of a Vanguard or a Ranger. How does the House feel about this? Also, how do they feel about the more augmetic troops such Sicarians? Do they accept the lowly Adepts of the AdMech?

 

Sacristans are AdMech, fully indoctrinated into the Cult of the Omnissiah, they also hold a lot of political weight on the worlds they serve. Due to the history of the House I can't imagine the Sacristans were super keen to cut all ties, they never went to war, they just fixed the holy suits. Before Sacristans, so before AdMech, the artisan class struggled to keep the suits working at all, apparently many didn't operate at full efficiency while a lot just couldn't be fixed without AdMech knowledge. Your history dictates what the artisan class was like, it doesn't present a strong case for cutting AdMech out. The Sacristans that train with Legio will be training with AdMech, as it will be tech-priests that run the Titans.

 

I get the impression that the Legio Pallidus Mors is bending over backwards to help a House that half hates them half loves them, like a strange abusive relationship where the Legio can't stop taking demands from the dependant Knight House because it still loves them.

 

I truly get the reasoning behind the decision to hate AdMech, its just so hard to implement with a Knight House, especially with your background. They're just so reliant and indoctrinated. Then they have Legio allies which complicates it further. And a servitor ban. The AdMech could just abandon them to rot, unable to properly fix their Knights until they had to join up with AdMech on AdMech terms. The AdMech doesn't need the House, but the House needs AdMech. I'll help think on a way to legitimise this in a stronger way but it's a tough concept to handle. :sweat:​

 

 

How and why did the House suddenly come to believe in a different culture? Why not make their new homeworld similar to what was lost? What influenced them to do this?

 

Why help the Legio Pallidus Mors if they hate AdMech? Why didn't they ally themselves to Space Marines, a politically powerful Militarum world or something else away from AdMech but powerful enough to fend the off?

 

If they see the Legio as their saviours then why order them to stay within their Titans, why are the Legio accepting that?

 

What part of the House's past means the Legio is willing to accept inconveniences?

 

Why does the House get ultimate sovereignty over Duster? Why not the AdMech who control the Legio or the Imperium? Who gave that concession and why? Where did they suddenly get all this political leverage?

 

Servitors are so widely spread that to say 'you cant bring them' would be like saying in real life 'come on holiday here, but don't bring any electronics'

Servitors would most likely form half the crew on the ships the nobles use to get there. In some cases servitors are superior to humans, there is a functional need for them. If you still want them banned you'd need a really strong reason to scrap the Imperium's workhorse.

 

Where is this wealth coming from?

 

So do the Men-At-Arms have a predilection for close combat?

 

You mentioned walker cavalry, what kind of walkers?

 

 

Sorry if it seemed like I was gunning for you when you read all that, I just want your Knights to have a strong background that makes sense and fits. I get you're really doing this as a side bit for your modelling, so some things will revolve around that. ^_^