Confessions of a Savlar Chem Dog

by Kindred's Bloody Masquerade

Balphoron IV/Dravenor Star System/Segmentum Obscurus: The Savlar are fighting a bloody war against an enemy that knows no fear of death. Indeed even the dead fight for their Ruinous Lord and Master Nurgle. Can the Savlar overcome the great threat they face, despite their terrible reputation and emerge victorious or are they doomed to join the undead plague hordes of the Plague God?

Confessions of a Savlar Chem Dog

'Quote from Lord Commissar Militant General Vladimus Montepelledor, Commander of all Imperial Forces on the battle scarred world of Balphoron IV during the attempted Pacification of hostile forces allied to the Ruinous Power of Nurgle.'

"I'm not certain what will lose us this war in the end. Maybe it will be the enemies overwhelming numerical superiority. Maybe it will be the fact that the Munitorum can't seem to get the vast numbers of supplies needed for this campaign to the troops on the frontlines in time for them to be an effective fighting force. Maybe the fact that the majority of the troops are green recruits fresh from training and untried in combat against a seasoned force of veterans. Maybe it will be the foul chaos gods that spread their filth and impurity across this plague riddled world.

"Or maybe it will be the so called 'Savlar Chem Dogs' stealing everything that isn't nailed down from friendly forces who would like nothing more than to see the Savlar on the opposite side so they could exact some form of revenge. I for one would gladly exchange the whole bloody army of Savlar scum for one seasoned regiment of Cadians. It's not that they're cowards or ineffective fighters. It's that they are the worst kind of lying, cheating, thieving, raping, murdering, robbing, chemically dependent filth that the Imperium can dig up from their cesspit of a homeworld. But I'll be the first to admit that these 'Chem Dogs' are a vicious band of bastards and by the God Emperor they can fight like rabid dogs. Perhaps all is not lost. These Wardogs, mutts and bitches that they are may just be enough to turn the war in our favour, only time will tell."

Chapter 1

808th Savlar Penal Legion Army Headquarters/

South Western District 012/Hab Sector 4109/Ruins of Karavona Hive/

Balphoron IV/Dravenor Star System/Segmentum Obscurus/

D129.Y020.M42

1st Lieutenant Brandon 'Noxy' Noxton/Commanding Officer of 20th Grenadier Platoon/5th Company/5th Battalion/5th Brigade/5555th Regiment/5th Korps/808th Savlar Penal Legion Army/1st Savlar Army Group

Day 191 of the Siege of Karavona Hive

Today marked the 1st Terran year of our occupation of Balphoron IV. 365 Days on this hell-spawned planet. The reinforcements for the whole army made planetfall yesterday. It is said they number over two million, five hundred thousand men, all from our homeworld of Savlar. All attempts to integrate other Imperial Guard units into the Savlar Army have failed miserably and came close to open rebellion on their part. Command HQ learnt their lesson early with that one.

Transport Drop Ships have been arriving on planet since yesterday disgorging company after company of men each several thousand men strong. They couldn't have arrived soon enough as far as I'm concerned. After a year of fighting the company is down to less than twenty percent of its original strength. Rather than splitting the new companies up, they have been added to existing companies in full where needed. And where units were still near or at full strength the new companies were designated new unit names and added fully to existing battalions. We would be fighting at greater than full strength again for the next battle, but we all knew it wouldn't last.

The Savlar had lost over ten million men from its five armies forming the 1st Savlar Army Group. Imperial Guard forces from other worlds had lost a combined total of twenty three million men. Thirty three million men of the Imperium in total lost to this shit hole of a world. Many were lost in the early days before we knew the true gravity of what we faced. Nurgle may the god emperor destroy the chaos spawned bastard, was the enemy we faced here and early on we learnt to fear the plagues that infested this world. Five million men lost in the 1st month after planetfall.

That was before we realised that protective clothing, rebreathers and oxygen tanks were going to be necessary at all times while we were unfortunate enough to be fighting this miserable god forsaken war. We lived in air-locked tents or air-locked barracks when we were lucky enough. Every time we came back to either the tents or the barracks we had to follow the same old procedure of chemical scrub down and showers before we were allowed inside. This involved showering in water full of chemicals, scrubbing down of equipment, uniform and our own bodies which was not a pleasant experience to say the least.

Drugs to protect us from the vast majority of plagues, diseases, infestations and all manner of other things the forces of Nurgle could throw at us were a daily necessity. Drugs to ensure we didn't need to use the toilet more than once or twice a day were also necessary. Removing the protective clothing we wore was punishable by death, mainly because of the fear of spreading disease between the men. We ate only in a sealed environment. We slept alone in one man tents where we could for a while breathe stale reprocessed air.

I had almost forgotten the faces of the men of my platoon. It was a year since I had seen any of them for more than a few minutes at a time. The rebreathers we wore were full faced and the protective clothing concealed what little remained. Only during the rare times that we actually managed to establish a barracks for long enough did we get to fully remove our gear and move about the other men freely. I had seen the faces of my new troopers only briefly. Our Headquarters were well established in Hab Sector 4109 and we had the luxury of sealed barracks for the past two months. Not that we got much chance to rest. We seemed to be permanently on duty when we were not sleeping, shiting and eating.

Tomorrow our troops enter the Underhive. The Underhive is home to a population of over twenty billion hivers. The enemy has taken the war underground from where they launch guerrilla raids on our troops before disappearing back into their holes in the ground. To invade an underground city the size of a continent will be no easy undertaking.

We had all heard the reports of what to expect down there once we began our assault on the Underhive. There would be mutants, witches, heretics, beasts of chaos in all manner of forms, abominations of the Ruinous Powers that defied description. There were traitor marines, traitorous Imperial Guard and Planetary Defence Forces who had chosen to follow Nurgle and damned their souls to an eternity of torment. We could expect nothing but damnation in showing these vile scum mercy, they would receive none from me and my troopers.

I would be the first to admit that the Savlar have something of a bad reputation wherever they go. But we do not take the side of the Ruinous Powers and fight with all the fervour we can muster against them and in the name of the God Emperor of Mankind. We are loyal followers and do his work gladly although some of our number are slightly more begrudging of their eternal service than others.

Eighty Miles West of 808th Savlar Army Headquarters/ Savlar Front Lines/

South Western District 013/Hab Sector 4125/

Ruins of Karavona Hive/Balphoron IV/

Dravenor Star System/Segmentum Obscurus/

D129.Y020.M42

20th Grenadier Platoon/5th Company/5th Battalion/5th Brigade/5555th Regiment/5th Korps/808th Savlar Penal Legion Army/1st Savlar Army Group

Our Chimeras took us through the blasted empty streets of the Hive. There was nothing left untouched. Buildings that had stood for hundreds or perhaps thousands of years were permanently battle scarred from the intense fighting that had taken place in this part of the city only months before. The gains in territory were thanks only to the bravery and sacrifice of the men and women of the 1st Savlar Army Group. Some might say our bravery only extended as far as our next chemically induced burst of bravado. But that would be an insult to the effort spent, to the loss of so many troops and to the overwhelming tenacity of our soldiers.

We had been in barracks for the past five days. It had been a welcome relief from more than sixteen days of continuous fighting. The arrival of reinforcements would change the battle plan substantially over the coming months. At least that was the theory. But the defenders of this world were holding on to every inch of territory and making us pay in blood. How an untrained mob of civilians can be turned into such effective fighters simply by their devotion to their damned twisted god is a mystery to many in this army. They certainly had the numbers to overwhelm us. A planet of sixty billion souls lost to the dark gods. Every man, woman and child was now considered an enemy of the Imperium. Why we were wasting good men on this world was beyond me. A few dozen carefully placed virus bombs would wipe the planet clean of life and then in a hundred or a thousand years, settlers could return to the world and start again.

But this world was a vital part of the sub sectors economy. And though there were no civilians left of a mind to be loyal to the Imperium. If we could wipe them out and leave the vast number of manufactories untouched it would simply be a matter of moving people here from other worlds to continue production once the scum and filth of this world were wiped clean. The only problem with that method was new war gear such as tanks and artillery, las rifles and ammunition rolled of the production lines at an alarming rate. All of this fed the war effort against us with the enemy being able to resupply their forces sooner than the Imperium could send ships to this miserable world.

Although we had liberated a sizeable area of production facilities from the heretics the fact remained that this was a vast world with a massive population all willing to join the enemy. They had years of indoctrination into the cults of Nurgle without the Imperium knowing how far and how deep the corruption had spread. By the time agents of the Imperium had arrived to investigate the rumours the entire world was in the grip of chaos. Terrible plagues and diseases ravaged the population. It was too late to save the people from this terrible fate.

Eighty miles to the front lines we travelled. The only activity was our own forces preparing defences and pushing forward, back to where we had been five days earlier. It seemed relentless. But the enemy had shown no sign of stopping, and assaults on our forward lines were common enough that we could not afford to be careless in our defence of the territory we had already taken. The amount of dead that piled up in front of our forward firing positions was in the thousands, perhaps the millions. And that leads me on to the next problem, the dead don't stay dead. We couldn't understand what was happening at first, but anyone exposed to the atmosphere of this cursed world is likely to rise from the dead if slain. We call them 'Plague Zombies', how correct the term is it doesn't really matter. The only way to truly stop them is to either destroy their brain or thoroughly burn them cleansing their bodies of this abomination.

We arrived two hours later. It was exactly the same hab zone that we had been defending for months. At least the reinforcements meant we could push forward once again. Our supplies were restocked. And we had new gear for those who needed it. The Munitorum seemed to be sparing little expense when it came to resupplying us, this world must have been important for them to ensure we could keep fighting.

My platoon consisted of twenty squads which were ten Grenadier squads, four heavy weapons squads, two engineer squads, two recon squads, and two sniper squads. This amounted to a total of two hundred front line troopers, and a Platoon Command HQ of twenty one command personnel and twenty personnel that made up ten heavy weapons teams for HQ defence. The support personnel for the platoon numbered some five hundred Munitorum staff. This included vehicle drivers, cooks, cleaners, logistics, nurses, orderlies, doctors, mechanics, technicians, scribes, vox operators etc.

Twenty five Chimera Armoured Personnel Carriers. Thirty five Trojan Logistical Support Tanks. Five Atlas Armoured Recovery Vehicles. Five Hydra Anti Air Artillery Flak Tanks. Five Salamander Armoured Reconnaissance Vehicles. Five Samaritan Armoured Ambulances. For the most part, everyone except the front line troops and their Chimera transports would be on the front line. Everyone else would be back at Regimental Command HQ, some fifty miles behind the front lines and thirty miles forward of the Army Group HQ.

The units were large in the Savlar Army, mainly because there weren't enough qualified officers to go around. It meant the lieutenants and captains were responsible for a greater number of troops than usual. But they were generally kept in line by a large contingent of commissars that ensured the Savlar didn't forget why they were actually here in the first place.

Platoon Command HQ

Platoon Commander: Senior Veteran 1st Lieutenant Brandon 'Noxy' Noxton

Platoon Commanders Adjutant: Sergeant Miles Bradley

Platoon Junior Leader: 2nd Lieutenant Parisse Dromorne

Platoon 3rd in Command: Senior Veteran Master Sergeant Morei Jandanelli

Platoon 4th in Command: Senior Veteran Master Sergeant Randon Wazowski

Platoon Standard Bearer: Sergeant Lars Denning

Master Vox Operator: Sergeant Sigg Fromor

Munitorum or Regimental Command HQ Staff attached to 20th Grenadier Platoon

Platoon Senior Commissar: Veteran Commissar Yan Kosovar

Veteran Commissar's Adjutant: Timo Kenderick

Platoon Junior Commissar: Kalders Hancroft

Chief Medic: Sergeant Doran Nesquith

Platoon Surgeon: 2nd Lieutenant Mina Navarre

Platoon's Senior Tech Priest Enginseer: Vlindom Nguya

Master Vox Operator: Senior Veteran Sergeant Milton Landellini

Platoon Communications Officer: 2nd Lieutenant Mikkel Qualaine

Platoon Intelligence Officer: 2nd Lieutenant Zune Jabowski

Regimental Command HQ Liaison Officer: 1st Lieutenant Kristona Kalldovere

Munitorium 'Logistics' Quartermaster: 2nd Lieutenant Mandellina Montague

Platoon Psyker: Zalen Raine

Platoon Priest: Morte MCarsky

Platoon's Quartermaster: Sergeant Vrim Masterson

I settled the new recruits into their positions for what would be the foreseeable future. Many seemed surprised that they were actually going to be expected to fight so soon. A thousand metres away in a crater filled landscape likened to an asteroid blasted moon, the enemy's frontlines stretched into the distance. Where once there had stood hundreds of Hab Block Towers now only rubble remained. It made for a terrible sight. Millions of bodies lay scattered across the battlefield. Occasionally they would get back up and move towards us. Their zombie like mentality telling them to seek us out and destroy us. A sniper shot to the head was usually enough to put down these walking dead.

We were well dug into our positions. Rockcrete bunkers surrounded by layers of sandbags made for good defensive positions. Even the tanks and personnel carriers were fortified behind their own defensive lines. Barrages from artillery were an almost hourly event. We returned fire with our superior 'Earthshaker' guns and the noise was deafening as the onslaught likely killed the enemy by the thousands. But they were equally as well dug in. Their whole front lines bristled with armoured vehicles and infantry regiments, with heavy weapons and artillery. We had fought to a standstill with neither side willing to expend more men on assaults that were only likely to fail.

Out of the two hundred men and women under my command, a hundred and forty six had arrived with the new reinforcements. Our Company was resupplied with a whole new Company of recruits. I had to split them up and worked them into the existing units, as small as they were. The veterans were responsible for showing the rookies how everything worked.

I sat in the Command Chimera taking a moment to breathe some recycled air. The air tight interior of the armoured personnel vehicle ensured a reasonably safe environment from the plague filled atmosphere outside. I took a bite out of a Nutrition Bar, and swallowed it down with a cold drink of fresh water. Not from this world, all our water was transported from the local water planet of Oceania.

A sudden blurt of information was spoken over the Vox Caster. Our forward spotters in the ruins of no-mans-land where seeing a build up of forces on the enemy side. Just as this was happening a massive barrage from their artillery hit our forward positions. The Chimera shook with the explosion of an artillery shell a hundred metres from our position. I quickly put my food in a sealed packet and replaced the water canteen. I made sure the rebreather was firmly in place and that no skin was exposed to the elements once I left the safety of the vehicle. I left the Chimera and entered hell. Men were dying all around me, though most were already behind their defensive positions and out of the reach of the artillery. The Samaritan Armoured Ambulances of the platoon and from other units worked tirelessly to get the wounded back to the rear lines and into the Army hospitals set up around the city.

The front lines opened up as one. I looked as far as I could see in both directions. The enemy fell by the thousands as they came into range. They returned fire and the position I was in two seconds earlier was blasted with las fire. I entered the rockcrete platoon Command Bunker. It was a plain structure, almost none descript. But it served as a HQ for the platoon's officers and the command unit's heavy weapons teams. The structures were all pre built and dropped via transport ship into position.

The platoon command HQ was a two storey structure approximately ten metres along each side with a small central stairway, and each floor being almost three metres in height. Plasteel shutters all along the wall were opened up to reveal the battlefield in front of us. Ten heavy weapons teams placed their deadly weapons facing the oncoming storm of vile scum. All along the platoon's front lines smaller squad size single storey structures were in place. There were twenty of them, one for each of my squads. It was the same for every infantry unit on the front line, with the exception of the forward spotters.

The great tide of chaos worshipping filth was getting closer despite their incredible losses. Their armoured vehicles raced forward into positions behind fallen rockcrete hab block towers. Our own armoured vehicles and tanks added their firepower to the withering barrage that had been let loose from our front line troops. Their tanks took cover in the ruins of fallen buildings and steadily began pounding our defences with their formidable firepower. What really annoyed me was the fact that this chaos filth was using machines fresh off the Imperial construction lines.

We were fighting Leman Russ Tanks and Chimeras, and their multitude of variants. I hoped the traitors were made to suffer a terrible death. They were responsible for taking the lives of loyal Imperial troops. I felt like trying to shoot something but a Hellgun wasn't going to reach them at this distance. I felt frustrated that we were under orders to defend instead of attack. I wanted to take this war to the enemy and scour them clean of this world.

A massive swarm of inhumanity passed by their stationary tanks and APC's. These were the filthy rotting dead of the enemy. Millions of them charged forward covering the advance of their front line troopers. They were disgusting creatures to behold. I studied them through my Magnoculars. They were rotting, diseased, foul, a mere shadow of what they had been in life. The charged forward without thought for their safety. This was the will of Nurgle and they were his plague riddled children, his to command and expend at his leisure.

Our artillery blasted them to pieces of dried rotting meat by the hundreds of thousands. Literally thousands of Basilisks and other variants of heavy artillery laid waste to a vast area in front of or positions not more than five hundred metres away from us. The whole Hive shook with the tremors of exploding Earthshaker shells. Mindlessly they came forward, unable or unwilling to give back the ground they thought they had gained. But it was called no-mans-land for a reason. The very reason our own forces had been forced to hold position and not try suicidal attacks against a far greater numerically superior force. For every man they lost they had another hundred thousand to replace him. We had only the forces at our disposal not the entire population of this traitor world.

Suddenly the world seemed very much smaller as a hundred thousand or more smoke shells landed all across the front lines. Within minutes our view was cut down to five or six metres directly in front of us. Frantic Vox Caster chatter erupted from every forward position. Our artillery carried on firing blind until they could no longer risk hitting their own troops. It would take time for the smoke to disperse, and they could keep it up indefinitely.

I went over to the Plasteel and Ceramite door and ensured it was sealed. This would bring them close to our positions and we had to be ready for possible hand to hand fighting. Something the 'Chem Dogs' excelled at. Within minutes we could see them coming through the great wall of smoke. The rotting corpses looked terrifying at this distance. Their vile forms each more disgusting than the next. This is what comes from allying with the Ruinous Powers. Surely any fool can see that. Only death and damnation await those who forsake the God-Emperor of mankind.

Heavy weapons teams armed with flamers cleansed the filth from in front of our positions. Companies of Hellhound flame thrower tanks added their firepower all along the front lines. The enemy burnt by the hundreds of thousands. The rest of the platoon and indeed the whole front line exploded into a fury of las fire. Now in range the dead fell where they stood. Heads exploded, limbs were shot off, bodies riddled with las fire. But we all knew this was the cover for their main assault. Soon their real troops would hit us.

That was when we heard the lances piercing the fog laden sky. Heavy plasma beams shook the ground with their ferocity. The chatter on the Vox suggested that the Imperial fleet in orbit had received the coordinates from our forward spotters. Their whole advance was being obliterated from space. For ten whole minutes the earth shook as though we were experiencing minor earthquake tremors. Those building that partially remained in no mans land were reduced yet further as were those taking covering behind the fallen rockcrete. I could only hope our forward spotters had time to get underground before they unleashed hell on our enemy.

As the smoke cleared over the next twenty minutes or so the true devastation was revealed. The entire advance had been halted. Millions, perhaps tens of millions lay dead across a massive swathe of no-mans-land. Those that could have retreated back behind their lines. Already our flamer teams were ensuring the dead remained dead and went meticulously from body to body cleansing them with purifying fire. Our losses were minimal. Five thousand dead, Twenty thousand injured. A good day on the front lines. Of my own platoon, it seemed we had been blessed by the God-Emperor, apart from a dozen minor injuries there were no losses to report. I would take that as a sign that we were doing the work of Holy Terra and that the foul enemy was to be thoroughly purged from this place. I ordered the medics to attend to the wounded where necessary and then consulted with my Command Staff. I informed Regimental HQ of our situation and then settled in for the afternoon. Perhaps tomorrow we would join the regiments going into the Underhive. We will make these daemon-worshipping scum wish they were dead.

1st Lieutenant Brandon 'Noxy' Noxton/Commanding Officer of 20th Grenadier Platoon/5th Company/5th Battalion/5th Brigade/5555th Regiment/5th Korps/808th Savlar Penal Legion Army/1st Savlar Army Group