Yavule
surveyed the corpses. He whistled. Even after 70 years of being a
commissar, that’s still impressive. The bloodied and mangled corpses lay
scattered in the rubble. He heard a soft purring sound and glanced to
his left. Yavule
stared at the corpse, a purring chainsaw still buzzing where it was
embedded in flesh. He grinned, by the emperor that must have been a hell
of a throw… he turned back to Kellen’s body, and walked over. He nudged
him with his boot, and flipped it over. Blood pooled out on the ground
on either side of Kellens body, and the huge gash in the center of the
Carapace armor showed where the Cultists had delivered the killing
wound.
He
glanced to his right and saw a bloody scrap of metal lying not 10 yards
away from his body. Holy throne he must have been one hell of a
fighter, to take a blow like that and keep going. He picked up the piece
of metal and inspected it. Odd, he thought. That’s a strange shade of
blood, haven’t seen that before. Ah well, he shrugged it off and walked
over to Kellen, preparing to make sure the weapon fit the wound. He bent
over to inspect the weapon and glanced back up at Kellens torso.
Suddenly he dropped the metal, staggered to his feet and stumbled
backwards.
“Holy throne, this…this can’t be….”
For the first time in 40 years, Commissar Urian Yavule of the Imperial Guard felt afraid.
The Goal of Every Citizen of Krieg is Sacrifice, for Only in Death Can The God Emperor Forgive the People of Krieg Their Sins.
99.8% casualty rate...
... And the 0.2% are apologizing for not dying just as they ran out of
enemies to fight. They're currently driving around in three of the few
remaining functional Chimeras and looking for anyone they may have
missed.
What's a pyrrhic victory then, 99.9% casualty rate?
Actually less than 99% casualty rate would be more considered lazy,
pyrrhic victory implies that the victory is as bitter as defeat, where
the resources made any gains not seem worth it. With the Death Korps of
Krieg, that would either have a narrow error margin (as narrow as Rogal
Dorn's tolerance towards deviations of his standards, which the cedar
tree up his a*** represents in regards towards his distain towards
that) or just not be in their vocabulary.
"Commissar, sir!"
"Speak Kriegsman..."
"We are ready to charge the enemy titans at once!"
"There's a titan out there?"
"Fifty of them actually... We'll charge immediately!"
Each Death Korps soldier is fully trained to the standards expected for
combat-readiness set down by the Departmento Munitorum, with particular
emphasis placed on hazardous-environment survival and endurance, and
physical and mental resilience. Proficient in the use of all basic
Imperial Guard weaponry types as well as the use of grenades and
explosives, a Death Korps soldier is also proficient in rapid and
skilled construction of trench works and defences. They are also
exemplary hand-to-hand combatants, with bayonet-drill being practiced
from childhood. Accuracy is secondary in Death Korps weapons training to
fire discipline, with the ability to maintain continuous fire en masse
as part of an infantry formation considered to be of paramount
importance. Death Korps Guardsmen have a tendency to be highly insular,
unemotional and often taciturn to the point of silence outside of their
duties. They also display a high degree of fatalism and an unusual
morbidity of habit, such as carrying relics, ossuaries of bone or other
memento-mori about their persons as a form of religious observance to
honour those who have fallen in the service of the God-Emperor.
Spiked helmets are famously worn by the troops of the Death Korps of
Krieg; however this is in truth rarely the case in the field, but many
Krieg troops maintain the tradition either with improvised spikes or,
less commonly, older patterns of the spiked helmet that have survived
and been passed down through families (ie they still have family blood
lines)
The minds and characters of the young prospective Guardsmen are
purposefully broken and remade stronger, just as their bodies are
trained to withstand hardship and endure suffering that would kill other
men -- a task already begun by the mere fact of living a life on
blighted Krieg.
"You would laugh monster. But let me remind you. Within this weak sack
of meat and bone, uncared for by his god and wept for by none, beats a
heart. A human heart, that carries with it the strength and courage of
all mankind. Within that sack of meat is the hope, the will, and the
fury of every man women and child from every corner of the Imperium.
Within that weak sack of meat, festooned in thin armour and weapons only
powerful in numbers , beats the heart of a man. And for ten thousand
years, the hearts of men have beaten, strongly, in defiance of your so
called "powers".
For ten thousand years, your black crusades have been pushed back,
beaten down, and made a mockery of, by weak sacks of flesh with cheap
weapons and disposable equipment. For that weak sack of flesh that you
so gleefully mock is no supersoldier, no immortal warrior, no creature
cursed by chaos like you. He is a man, an Imperial Gaurdsman drawn from
some forgotten corner of the Imperium to fight for his species and for
the safety of the people he loves.
He is a factory worker. a farmer, a storekeeper, a father, a brother, a
son, a mere man. And against creatures like you teeming and numberless,
powered by the wills of thirsting gods...He holds the line. He has held
the line for ten thousand years. So what is your excuse, monster?"
