The Warden’s Levy is the Chain’s military foundation. Its soldiers, crews and officers provide the weight and endurance required to keep the Chain in the field, accompanying the Faculty and the Shard wherever their duties require a military presence.

The Levy is generally reinforced by formed Imperial Guard units rather than individual recruits. Regiments, battalions, companies, troops and squadrons enter the Chain with their own histories and traditions, and over time become part of a force whose responsibilities are broader than those of any single regiment. Its work is rarely glamorous. The Levy campaigns, guards, transports, garrisons and holds. It secures perimeters and protects investigations; it moves supplies and heavy equipment; and when there is no other way to accomplish the Chain’s purpose, it fights.

The Warden

The responsibility to select, draw down, integrate, train, and deploy the Levy falls to the Warden. It is after all the ‘The Warden’s Levy’. This duty to select line units of the Astra Militarum is a heavy one – for though inducted units will be drawn away from the endless slog of the Imperiums larger campaigns, the deployments of the Levy will expose his charges to unspeakable horrors. The Warden must therefore balance the needs of the Chain against the lives entrusted to him. The Levy cannot refuse the work for which it exists, but neither is its purpose to spend soldiers merely because they can be spent. Every deployment must be judged: what is required, what can be sustained, and what price the Levy’s soldiers may be asked to pay.

The Warden’s Charge

The Warden’s responsibility does not end with forming and deploying the Levy. He also identifies soldiers whose ability, judgement and temperament mark them for service beyond its ordinary ranks.

Most importantly, the Warden selects candidates for the Anchorage Stormtrooper Course. Those who succeed leave the Levy and enter the Faculty Household; those who fail return to Levy service. The Warden may also identify exceptional Breachers for onward selection, although Breachers themselves are normally drawn from the Imperial Navy.

Senior Officers

The Warden’s relationship with the Levy’s senior infantry and armour officers is unusual. He may not formally outrank every officer, but his office places him unquestionably above them in the Chain’s military hierarchy. Some officers privately compare the relationship to that between an Imperial officer and an Inquisitor: not because the Warden possesses the Inquisition’s authority, but because his responsibility extends beyond their immediate command.

The Warden must know when to intervene, and when to leave professional officers to do their work.

With the Column

The Warden is often mounted when accompanying a mixed deployment, allowing him to move between infantry and armour as circumstances require. He is not the commander of either. He is responsible for the Column as a whole, and may be found wherever its attention is required: moving between formations, conferring with officers or standing alongside the soldiers whose lives have been entrusted to him.

The Column

The Levy deploys as a column, specifically made up as required for a given deployment. A Column has an HQ and usually at least one core Infantry Platoon, comprising an HQ Section and one or more Infantry and/or Support Sections. It may also include one or more Armour Lances, each comprising between one and three vehicles.

The precise composition of a Column is determined by the requirements of the deployment. A Column must contain the personnel, units and assets necessary not only to accomplish its immediate tasks, but to sustain itself for as long as the Chain requires it in the field. A deployment may be a single accession mission, or an extended campaign in which the Levy establishes and secures an operating base from which the Faculty and the Shard can undertake multiple missions to secure one or more accessions.

This is a basic structure rather than a fixed order of battle. Additional personnel, vehicles and specialist capabilities may be attached where the requirements of a deployment demand them.

The Infantry Platoon

The Infantry Platoon forms the core of the Column.

Its HQ Section provides command and coordination, while its Infantry and Support Sections provide the manpower and firepower required to secure and hold ground. The precise number and composition of its Sections may vary according to the requirements of the deployment. The Levy has a small amount of armoured transport available to assist in maneuver but is fundamentally an infantry unit.

Infantry Sections

Support Section

Fire support

The Support Section provides heavier weapons and additional firepower to the Platoon. Its precise composition remains under development.

The Armour Lance

The Levy maintains its own armoured force. It is not routinely equipped by drawing vehicles from the wider Astra Militarum for each deployment. The tanks and transports of the Levy have been accumulated, rebuilt and maintained over generations, and remain the property of the Chain.

The result is an armoury that would look distinctly unconventional beside a standard Imperial armoured regiment. Its vehicles are recognisable in purpose and broadly analogous to established Leman Russ configurations, but few conform precisely to a contemporary production pattern. Chassis are rebuilt, turrets replaced, armour altered and components retained long after their original manufacture. What matters is that the vehicle works, that its crew know it, and that the Levy can keep it running.

The result is an eclectic force of battle tanks, siege tanks, plasma-equipped vehicles, transports and walkers: old machines, maintained well and adapted repeatedly to the work the Levy actually does.

Bastion

At the head of the Levy’s principal armoured formation is Bastion.

Bastion is more than a command tank. The vehicle has become a symbol of the Levy itself: familiar across generations of soldiers, recognised wherever the Levy deploys, and regarded with an affection rarely extended to military equipment.

The current Bastion is an unusual machine, its configuration analogous to a Leman Russ battle tank but incorporating substantial deviations from the standard pattern. Its history is inseparable from that of the Levy’s armoury.

In Bastion we trust.

That saying has passed into Levy usage as something between a regimental toast and a statement of faith.

Lieutenant Colonel Corystan

Lieutenant Colonel Jonas Hillary Corystan, addressed simply as Colonel, is the commanding officer of the Levy’s principal Armour Lance and its ranking Armour officer.

Corystan is an accomplished horseman as well as a professional soldier. He is known less for force of personality than for an ability to keep learning: a calm, humane and adaptable officer with a particular interest in the practical problems of combined-arms warfare.

He usually goes to battle aboard Bastion, but it is not unusual to see him mounted on horseback during a deployment. Rubble-blocked streets, narrow causeways and soft ground can all frustrate the progress of heavy armour, and Corystan is as comfortable moving with the infantry as he is commanding from behind the armour of his tank.

He is a practical commander who understands that a vehicle is a means to an end, rather than an end in itself. The Levy’s armour exists to enable the Column to accomplish its mission, and Corystan is prepared to leave it behind when the ground demands it.

Some within the Levy regard him as a possible future Warden.

Armoured Sentinel Lance

The Levy’s Armoured Sentinel Lances are much like the rest of its armoury: older machines, maintained long after more modern patterns have entered wider Imperial service. Their open-topped configuration is distinctly old-fashioned, but their crews value the visibility and mobility it provides.

Like much of the Levy’s armour, the Sentinels tend to be festooned with packs, stowage and field equipment. These are vehicles expected to remain deployed for days or weeks at a time, carrying the supplies and equipment their crews need to operate away from established bases.

Sentinel pilots are rarely accused of excessive caution. Though the Levy’s Sentinels are armoured variants and carry autocannons, their crews have a tendency to turn reconnaissance into reconnaissance in force — advancing aggressively into uncertain ground and discovering what is there by shooting at it.

This reflects a wider difference in the Levy’s way of war. The Faculty and the Shard may deploy for a particular accession, but the Levy must be prepared to stay. Its vehicles carry the accumulated clutter of a force that expects to establish positions, maintain them and continue operating long after the first objective has been secured.

Before Dawn

The first orders group had broken up, and the Warden and Colonel Corystan had returned to the lee of Bastion. They finished their tea as the eastern sky began to lighten, the cold air carrying the sounds of the laager waking around them. Then came the deep vibration of Bastion’s engine turning over, a steady thrum through the tank’s hull.

On the pad at the perimeter, Shuttle 55 was preparing to lift for orbit. They watched together as Harrow and the Junior Inquisitor made for the open ramp in step, deep in conference.

“It’s good to see Harrow looking so assured,” the Warden observed. “You must have done something right with him.”

Corystan smiled. “I seem to remember you had rather more to do with that than I did.”

“I selected him,” said the Warden. “You trained him.”

“And then you sent him away,” Jonas reflected wryly.

“When the Faculty asked for him,” the warden replied with a hint of mock defensiveness in his voice.

Corystan watched Harrow for a moment longer. “He was ready.”

“He was,” the Warden agreed. He knew the history well enough not to need reminding of it. “And he appears to have found his place.”

The two men watched until Harrow and the Inquisitor disappeared aboard the shuttle. Corystan drained his tea, then glanced back towards the armour park.

“How are the new intake managing?”

“Too well,” Corystan said.

The Warden looked at him.

“They’re enthusiastic. Very enthusiastic. At this rate I may have to recommend them for Sentinel duties.”

The Warden gave a quiet laugh. “That bad?”

“Worse. They actually seem to enjoy it.” For a moment Corystan’s amusement remained, then faded as he looked towards the vehicles waiting beyond Bastion. “Though there may be vacancies after today.”

The Warden followed his gaze. “You think the experience will cure them?”

“Probably not.” Corystan paused, considering the distant light. “But it would be remarkable if they survived the day with quite the same level of enthusiasm.”

Bastion’s engine settled into its deep idle.

The Warden finished his tea.

“Then we’d better make sure they know what they’re being enthusiastic about.”