#mordianae

[katesfoxhole]

Anyone in your tank ever have a close call with a Commissar?

Not to the point of a pistol coming out, but we've had our share of being called out. When we first landed the whole company froze up at our first sight of sunlight. Offworlders have been making fun of us for it ever since, but in our defense, for our whole lives sunlight has meant instant burning death, so… yeah. Commissar Almouk had to yell at Captain Oslina to get the company moving, but then, in a dropship hold with 60 idling engines she had to yell just to be heard.

That first night, when we were digging in on the perimeter, our track got dinged for not packing the sandbags full enough (btw if the groundstuff is called dirt, why are the bags called sandbags and not dirtbags?) She kicked them over and made us redo all of them from scratch. She said "I make allowance for your origin world, but by the same token you should have no trouble working through the night". Which, yeah, but we do sleep on Mordian. Sometimes anyway.

The sky leaked that night. That's when I discovered MUD.

Do not like.

Now, this I only heard secondhand, and it may not be true, but rumor is during our first real battle at the bridge, when the damned Pramar were dropping their arty short and blowing off our vox corrections, rumor is one of their commissars had to threaten to shoot an officer - I've heard versions where it's the battery CO or even a company captain - to get them to adjust their aim and shell the enemy instead of us. Heck, one of the Velani claims they actually did shoot the guy, and promoted a sergeant on the spot. But that's probably an exaggeration.

I hope it's not, though. Fucking Pramar.

(OOC note: I'm a bit of a doctrine purist when it comes to what counts as a tank, which is why I refer to the Salamander scout vehicle as a 'track' instead. Although that is an English distinction that might very well not exist in Gothic.)

[katesfoxhole]

What's been your worst experience(s) having to deal with nature away from the hive?

Mud. Definitely mud. Dirt is bad enough but then you add water and it's DIRT but WET.

Actually, you know what? I'm going to take that back. The real pain in the ass is having to learn all these new words that are all, "[THING] but natural". Like,

ground (floor but natural)

dirt (grime but natural)

mud (grime but natural and also wet)

river (canal or viaduct but natural)

meadow (stockyard but natural)

...etc. There's like a million of them! How do you offworlders keep them all straight?

[katesfoxhole]

Favorite Guardsmen regiment?

You have probably been asked this before, but it’s always a good question

My own, of course! The mighty Mordian CXII Armoured. Nine companies of longbody Leman Russ battle tanks, plus a bevy of specialist support companies, including my own 10th Recon.

(I got the best of both worlds, I'm surrounded by tanks but I don't have to hump battle cannon shells myself.)

(Also Salamanders don't throw a track as often. That extra 30 tons is hell on the track pins.)

[katesfoxhole]

Opinions on the Armageddon Steel Legion

There is only one correct answer

Bold way to talk to someone who does recce for a tank regiment. What are your coordinates again? ;)

I've never fought beside them, but I'm always in favor of more tracks. Those enclosed-cab Basilisks, I bet they have great air-conditioning. Don't get me wrong, I love my Salamander to pieces, but a roof would be nice. The sky leaks on this planet.

[katesfoxhole]

What does your Salamander crew think of Sentinel pilots?

Kinship with fellow scout/light armour? Professional rivalry with walkers vs. tracks? Secret third option?

Part of me would like to mock them viciously. They look ridiculous and brew up if you look at them funny. But I gotta admit, it takes guts to be a sentinel driver. The job of reconnaissance is basically to go out and get shot at so we know where the bad guys are. That's not a job I would want to do in a glorified forklift.

As for my crewmates… Tandiy, our driver, is crazy enough to be one, but I think she'd miss crushing heretics with 33 tonnes of scout track.

Rhionna, our bow gunner, I'ma hafta get back to you on that one. She's having hysterics because of this skin rash she's developed. The medicae says it's called "freckles" and it's harmless, but she's convinced she's dying. This daylight shit takes some getting used to.

The Sarge, if I asked her, I'm sure she'd say something pious about cooperating with the other regiments' recon units, and then something corny like "teamwork makes the dream work". She tries so hard to be a good sergeant. Throne, don't tell her I said that.

[katesfoxhole]

Oi. Where do I get me some o' dem Mordy-Ann uniforms for meself? You'z got da Flash Gitz beat for style.

Well, you know, I wasn't the most attentive juve in schola, but I seem to recall there are some rules about commerce with xenos. So I guess you'll just have to take them from our cold, dead--wait, no don't do that either.

I guess just envy us from afar?

[katesfoxhole]

You're given a choice between scouting out a heavily shelled city with lots of blind corners and ambush points or a deep wilderness like jungle or swamp. Which are you picking?

I don't know what a "jungle" or a "swamp" is but if they're anything like the wild orchards on this planet I'm picking the city.

[katesfoxhole]

What's a misconception about Mordians everyone makes that you want to set the record straight on?

That we can fight well. It seems to be a common assumption - I've encountered it from people of three different worlds now - that fancy, ornate uniforms mean ceremonial guard troops who are useless in a real battle. In fairness to them, that does seem to be case on the worlds they come from. And Mordian's Tetrarchs have their ornamental bling-troopers too, to be sure. But we don't tithe those cretins to the Imperial Guard, we send our best, as any world loyal to the Golden Throne should.

It was a shock to me in turn to see how GRUBBY troopers from other worlds are. They cross the void on great starships but can't do better than clothes made from woven plant fiber? Or even animal hair, some of them! Tandiy's Velani girlfriend, she grew up on something called a farm where she actually shaved animals of their hair to make cloth from. It's called wool. Their uniforms are made from it. The very idea makes my skin crawl.