Name: Savlar 19th Penal Regiment, the "Daft Rats"
Home World: Savlar, Penal Colony (2 pts.).
Commanding Officer: Colonel Massif Tohes, Billious (2 pts.). Criminals are usually "commanded" less than they are herded into combat with a set of instructions and dire warnings about what will happen to them in case they deviate from those or fail to accomplish the mission. Colonel Massif considers his assignment to commanding what he considers an unruly mob of near-heretics a curse, to the point his paranoia about the possibility of being killed by one of the chem dogs seeps down into what few commissioned officers the regiment has. In practice field command of the regiment falls to the dogs nominated by the Commissars overseeing the platoons to be "sergeants", picked for their ability to keep the chem dogs in line and actually working against the enemies instead of trying to nick their allies.
Regiment Type: Siege Infantry (2 pts.)
Doctrines: Die-Hards (3 pts.), Scavengers (3 pts.).
Drawbacks: None.
Cost in points: 12
Standard Regimental Kit: One M36 lasgun and six charge packs per Player Character (Main Weapon), one suit of Imperial Guard flak armour per Player Character, one respirator per Player Character, four empty sandbags and one entrenching tool per Player Character, two frag grenades and two photon flash grenades per Player Character, one uniform, one set of poor weather gear, one knife, one flak vest, one rucksack, one set of basic tools, one mess kit and one water canteen, one blanket and one sleep bag, one rechargeable lamp pack, one grooming kit, one set of dog tags, one Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer, Corpse-starch rations, two weeks' supply.
• Additional Standard Kit Items: 15 points, to be decided.
Favoured Weapons: Basic: Hades Assault Flamer; Heavy: Heavy Bolter.
Uniform: Mismatched, sometimes patchwork, pieces of clothing and armor, normally either painted in dark colors or covered in enough grime to look that way.
Characteristic Modifiers: +3 to any two of the following Characteristics: Agility, Strength, Toughness. +3 Toughness, -3 Intelligence.
Starting Talents: Paranoia, Nerves of Steel.
Starting Skills: Intimidate, Linguistics (Low Gothic), Tech-Use.
Starting Aptitudes: Toughness.
Starting Traits: Scavengers (OW, 67), Larcenous (OW, 62), Scum and Villainy (OW, 62),
Keep What You Take (Personalized, replaces Honour Amongst Thieves from OW 61).
Starting Wounds: Penal colony characters begin play with +1 starting Wound.
Background: Savlar was a mining colony turned penal colony, a toxic wasteland so vile that those who labored there had life expectancies much lower than most other penal establishments. The malcontents and criminals sent there threatened rebellion and were
kindly given the option of dying for the Emperor in combat, with two instructions: they could loot what they found in the battlefield and if they were caught committing crimes they'd return to Savlar, never to leave. Stuck between a rock and a harder place, the criminals were happy to accept the rock and so were born the "Chem Dog" regiments.
The 19th Penal Regiment should be like any other created from that horrendous hellhole, fated to be sent into areas so polluted and hopeless most commanders would think thrice about sending a non-condemned regiment into - hive sumps, irradiated wastelands and acid-raining deserts. What made the 19th "special" is that as soon as it was disclosed the regiment would be sent into a theatre that involved the Tau, powerful interests turned their gaze to the recently-raised fighting force. Powerful figures within the Ordo Xenos secretly began to pull some strings, interested in having the regiment's commanding officers suffer from an even more severe case of acute blindness if it meant the Ordos could acquire pieces of xenotech without risking their own operatives.
Nicknamed after one of the most persistent vermin known to Mankind - the humble Terran rat - the 19th was briefly trained, (badly) equipped and shipped off across the void to fight and die for the Imperium, unaware of their intended roles in a game of power that might get them in unwanted troubles even worse than the expected ones.