Wargear22

The Schola refractor is the officer's field — a refractor generator tuned to the finest tolerance the Progenium can issue, throwing a 4+ invulnerable save around a Tempestor or the Prime. Where the common officer's field flickers at a lesser setting, the Schola's best holds a shot from a power weapon or a lascannon as readily as it turns a stub round. It is worn over carapace, not instead of it, so the officer who leads the drop trusts armour and field together. In a strike that leans on the quality of its kit to keep it standing rather than sheer numbers, it is the difference between an officer who leads the next insertion and one who does not.

Augmetics: a bionic limb or eye grafted onto a much-rebuilt veteran, restoring what the Emperor's wars have taken. A fighter fitted with augmetics offsets a Lasting Injury, its ruined flesh replaced by crude but serviceable machinery. It is the mark of a soldier who has been broken and mended more than once and returned to the line each time — proof that in the Guard, a man is kept fighting long after his own body has given out.

Camo Cloak: a hooded drape of dulled, patterned fabric that breaks a fighter's outline against broken ground. A trooper issued a camo cloak may begin the battle in hidden setup, lying unseen until it chooses to strike or is stumbled upon. It suits the ambusher and the marksman — the soldier who wins by being where the enemy does not expect and firing before he is ever seen. Off the firing line and into the shadows, the cloak turns an ordinary trooper into a threat that must be found before it can be answered.

Carapace Armour: rigid plates of moulded armaplas worn over the bodyglove, the grade issued to veterans and elite storm-troopers. It gives a 4+ save — the sturdiest infantry protection the Guard field short of a Brute's plate, and a real step up from the flak the ordinary line wears. Heavy and reserved for the soldiers worth keeping alive — the hardened Veteran, the Scion dropped behind enemy lines — it lets a trooper stand where a Guardsman in flak would fall.

Combat Stimms: a jab of battlefield chemicals — 'slaught and stimulants — that floods a fighter with a one-shot surge of aggression and numbness to pain. Favoured by the wildest jungle regiments, a dose drives a trooper harder for a moment than his body should allow, before the crash that follows. It is a gamble spent in a single decisive push, burning a man's reserves to win the instant that matters. The disciplined regiments take none of it; the savage ones swear by it.

Commissar's Writ: the peaked cap, the sash, and the sealed writ of summary authority that mark a Commissar to every soldier who sees him. It is not a purchase but the office itself — the visible sign of the power to steady a wavering line or to execute the man who breaks it. Where the writ is present, discipline is law and cowardice is a capital matter. It is the Aura of Discipline made into cloth and paper, worn by the officer whose word decides whether a frightened trooper stands or dies.

Enginseer's Servo-Arm: a heavy mechadendrite mounted at the tech-priest's back, tipped with clamps and cutting tools. Integral to the Enginseer and never carried by another, it serves as both his instrument of repair and, at need, a crushing close-combat limb. With it he coaxes machine spirits back to life, frees a jammed heavy weapon, or seizes a foe who strays too close and breaks him in its grip. It is the working hand of the regiment's keeper of machines.

Entrenching Tool: the short, brutal spade every siege trooper carries — the same tool that serves as an improvised melee weapon in the trenches. In a Guardsman's hands it digs cover from bare ground, scraping a firing scrape or a rampart where the battlefield offered none. It is the humble instrument of the entrenched regiments, who fight from holes they carve themselves and make even open ground into a defensible line. The blade that shifts earth by day breaks a skull by night.

Flak Armour: the standard-issue protection of the Imperial line — layered ablative plates and padded fabric giving a 5+ save. It is the armour of the ordinary Guardsman: enough to turn a glancing round or a shell splinter, no proof at all against a determined hit. The Guard do not buy survival in armour marks, and flak is the honest measure of that — a mortal covering for mortal men, who live instead by numbers, cover and the officers keeping them in line.

Grav-Chute: a compact descent harness that lets a trooper drop from a great height and land ready to fight. A fighter equipped with a grav-chute deploys by aerial insertion, arriving from reserve behind or amid the enemy rather than starting on the line. It is the signature kit of the storm-trooper regiments, whose whole doctrine is the precision drop — striking suddenly at a chosen point, far from where the foe braced to meet them. The sky itself becomes the flank no wall can guard.

Light Flak: the thinnest issue in the Guard armoury — a stripped-down flak jerkin giving a bare 6+ save, handed to conscripts and levies. It is barely armour at all, protection in name for men expected to soak fire rather than survive it. A levy in light flak is the most disposable soldier a muster fields, and his kit says as much. What keeps him standing is never the jerkin on his back but the officer at his shoulder and the ranks pressing forward beside him.

Magnoculars: an officer's ranged sight, a set of powerful magnifying optics for reading the battlefield at distance. A fighter with magnoculars can pick out hidden foes and mark a target for the guns — negating an enemy's hidden setup or singling out a mark for concentrated fire. It is a tool of command rather than combat: the officer who sees first directs the fire that lands first. Through the lenses the fog of the field thins, and the Orders that follow fall where they will do the most harm.

Master Vox: a heavy long-range vox set carried by the Master Vox-Operator, powerful enough to relay a single Order beyond line of sight. Through it the chain of command reaches squads an officer could never see or shout to, an order passed across the field to men who never glimpsed the one who gave it. It exists only because the Guard fight by Orders — a communications weapon in a faction whose strength is the command net itself. Where the master set carries, the officers' voices reach the whole line.

Medic's Narthecium: the medi-pack, injectors and cutting tools of the Regimental Medic. Friendly fighters near its bearer gain a Feel No Pain 6+ against wounds that would otherwise fell them, and after the battle far more of the fallen are dragged back to fight again. It grants no miracle revival mid-fight — only the steady work of keeping mortal men alive a little longer than they had any right to be. In a muster that measures its strength in bodies, every soldier the narthecium saves is another gun back on the line.

Munitorum Servitor: a lobotomised maintenance familiar — half-man, half-machine — that shuffles at an Enginseer's heel carrying ammunition, tools and spare parts. It attends the tech-priest alone, a mindless companion that hauls and fetches at his command and, fitted with a crude weapon, adds a dull volume of fire. It has no will and no fear, only the loops burned into its cortex. Where an Enginseer serves, the servitor is his extra pair of hands and his beast of burden both.

Ogryn Plate: slabs of riveted armour bolted over an Ogryn's already thick hide, sized for a body no ordinary plate would fit. It is part of the Brute itself, never issued separately, giving the abhuman a soldier's save over a frame that shrugs off half of what strikes it. Between the plate and the hide beneath, an Ogryn wades through fire that would cut down a rank of Guardsmen and keeps coming. Armour for a creature built to absorb what the line cannot.

Preysight: a targeting optic favoured by the storm-trooper regiments, tuned to the precision drop. A fighter that has taken the Aim action may, through the preysight, re-roll a Hit — the marksman's second look that turns a good shot into a certain one. It rewards patience and position: the trooper who steadies, aims, and fires deliberately rather than spraying the line. In a small elite force where every gun must count, the preysight is what makes each careful shot tell.

Refractor Field: a compact energy field generator worn by officers, throwing up a shimmering 5+ invulnerable screen that turns aside blows no plate could stop. Because it is a field and not armour, a hit's armour penetration never touches it — the screen either holds or fails on its own terms. It is the closest thing to real protection the Guard afford anyone, and it is spent on the men who matter most: the Commanders and Commissars whose fall would unravel the whole muster. The field keeps the chain of command standing one blow longer.

Regimental Standard: the colours of the regiment, borne aloft on a battle-standard for every soldier to see. A friendly fighter within 6" of the standard may re-roll a failed Nerve test, its courage anchored to the banner that has flown over the muster's every fight. It is a totem of belonging as much as a rule — men do not break while the colours still stand, and rally to them when all else fails. Where the standard falls, so does the heart of the line; while it flies, the regiment holds.

Servo-Skull: the gilded skull of a servant of the Emperor, reanchored to a hovering anti-grav mount and set to drift above the battle. It serves as a relay and a floating eye, feeding sight of the field back to its master and extending his awareness beyond his own line of vision. A grim, faithful familiar, it goes where a living scout could not and sees what a soldier on the ground cannot. Through its dead eyes the officer directs his men one step ahead of the enemy.

Slabshield: a great riveted slab of a shield carried by a Bullgryn, broad enough to cover the abhuman behind it. Part of the maul-and-shield loadout and never bought on its own, it presents a 4+ save against anything striking from the front — a moving wall of plate that advances into fire and shrugs it aside. Behind a rank of slabshields an Ogryn charge becomes a rolling barricade, closing the ground the enemy's guns were meant to deny. The front it faces simply cannot get through.

Vox-Caster: the regimental communications set, and the one item that exists purely to serve the Voice of Command. Carried near an officer, it doubles his command range to a flat 18", carrying his Orders across the field to squads far beyond the reach of his own voice. It is the faction's signature piece of kit — found nowhere else, because no other force fights by Orders the way the Guard do. The further an officer's word reaches, the more of the line moves as one machine.