Tanith First and Only
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The Tanith First and Only are also known as Gaunt's Ghosts, as nicknamed by Hlaine "Mad Larkin" Larkin, the Tanith Master Sniper. This nickname originally came about as a result of the name of their commanding officer, Colonel-Commissar Ibram Gaunt, and the disenfranchised status of the original Tanith soldiers after their homeworld was destroyed. It has proved to be a nickname of some further application, as the Verghastite personnel influx into the regiment also considered themselves 'ghosts' due to the destruction of their home city, and the regiment as a whole is noted for its stealth and reconnaissance abilities being almost uncanny in nature. With their tenacious ability to hide in anything, and their obscuring cloaks, Gaunt's Ghosts are masters of stealth camouflage.1
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History
Originally, there were three Tanith regiments raised for the Imperial Guard: the Tanith 1st, 2nd and 3rd - 6,000 men and a small number of vehicles and artillery pieces. When Colonel-Commissar Ibram Gaunt is sent to Tanith to oversee the founding of these regiments, he is not impressed by the appearance of the men, initially describing them as "a scrawny, scruffy mob of soft-voiced woodsmen". His opinion of them changes quickly after seeing them in combat. He impatiently orders the regiments to begin boarding the carriers that will take them to the troop ships waiting to ferry them to their first warzones - a fortunate move which gets enough men off-world before the Chaos fleet strikes Tanith the same night. He confirms after leaving Tanith that this salvages three and a half thousand men and the majority of their equipment. It is unclear which regiments actually were saved from the fires of Tanith, but the remaining men are formed into the Tanith First, which is soon named the "Tanith First-and-Only". On the regiment's first battlefield on Blackshard, Hlaine Larkin coins the nickname "Gaunt's Ghosts". The term Ghosts has two meanings: the first is that Corbec tells Gaunt that his decision to abandon Tanith "made ghosts of them, hollow echoes". The second is that because of their exceptional stealth and scouting skills, they are ghost-like on the battlefield. The Tanith First excels at recon work as the Tanith never get lost, and using camo-cloaks they can move quickly and stealthily through terrain.
The Ghosts' eventually garnered a strong reputation after a number of actions, in particular the defences of Vervunhive, the Beati's Shrine on Hagia and her apparent person on Herodor. Unfortunately, this success did not come without its drawbacks and the Ghosts suffered heavy casualties on a number of occasions. However, two large personnel intakes during the regiment's history (one from the citizenry of Vervunhive, the other from the folding in of the 81st Belladon Recon regiment) managed to offset these losses.
Battle Style
The Tanith are unparalleled scouts, marksmen, masters of stealth tactics, and excellent light infantry. They are said to possess an unerring sense of direction, traits developed for survival on a planet where the forests actually move to conceal the path taken. Verghastite and Belladon claim no such uncanny abilities, but are also proven light infantry specialists, with Verghastite Hive City backgrounds in particular complementing the talents of the Tanith woodsmen.
The First and Only excels in stealth infiltration missions, but has proven particularly tenacious in defensive operations in urban terrain. Even amongst such light infiltration infantry as the Tanith, there is always room for the truly elite. In the Ghosts these take on two forms: The aptly named Scouts, lead by Mkoll, who specialise in reconnaisance and covert operations. The other elite organisation within the Ghosts are the Sniper division. There tends to be an over-representation of Verghastites excelling in snipers while Tanith natives dominate in the scouts.
Appearance & Uniform
The Tanith uniform is black, with optional helmets for standard troopers and forage caps for the regiment's elite scout platoon. Camo-cloaks (made of the fictional material "cameleoline") are standard. Every soldier has a long, double-edged bayonet/combat blade the Tanith call Straight Silver. Their favoured special weapons include long-las sniper rifles and flame throwers, and portable missile launchers the Tanith nickname "tread fethers". The cap badge for the Tanith is a wreath-surrounded skull with three daggers behind it; each dagger representing a Tanith regiment. On the badge is the inscription "For Tanith, For the Emperor". After the destruction of the Tanith 2nd and 3rd regiments, the Tanith snap off the two outside daggers on their cap badges. The Verghastite cap badge is an axe-rake to symbolise their former hive's mining and industrial background. These pins and other badges that indicate rank or specialisation are dulled down with soot or boot-black to aid in stealth operations.
Weapons & Equipment
The Tanith are noted as being adept at using the Flamer and Missile Launcher (though the type of missile-launcher they favour appears to be a cut-down rocket-tube referred to informally as a "tread-fether") and also regularly deploy autocannons and sniper rifles.
Regimental History & Battle Honours
The Tanith First and Only are best known for their participating in the Sabbat Worlds Crusade, which began in 755.M41. During the Crusade, the Ghosts' expertise in covert operations was instrumental in the liberation of a number of worlds. However, rivalries with other, more illustrious regiments (in particular, the Jantine Patricians and the Volpone Bluebloods) often put the Ghosts at risk. The regiment took heavy losses in its early actions, including the loss of three hundred during a friendly fire "incident" at Voltis Watergate. Heavy casualties were also incurred during the effort to recapture the Forge World of Fortis Binary, so much so that by the time of the Ghosts' deployment on Monthax, they numbered only 1,500.
As Tanith is destroyed, the Tanith First-and-Only has no homeworld from which to draw new recruits to replace losses. Instead, new Ghosts are adopted into the regiment as the series progresses. The two most significant drafts of new troops occur in Necropolis and His Last Command. At the end of the siege of Vervunhive, the megacity is left in ruins and disillusioned citizens of Verghast were given the opportunity to join the Imperial Guard under the Act of Consolation. This resulted in an influx of Verghastite soldiers, which brought females into the regiment. Several of these women went on to become the regiment's best snipers.
While Gaunt is leading a small infiltration team on Gereon the Tanith First is left without a senior commander, and due to the decreasing size of the regiment, the Ghosts are merged with a Belladon covert unit and become the 81st/1st Recon. during this time, the Tanith First's organisational structure changes; companies using alphabetical call-signs replace the previous numerical platoons. Following Colonel Wilder's death in a heroic rear guard action and Gaunt's return to command, the regiment resumes the name the Tanith First-and-Only. By the beginning of The Armour of Contempt, there are three cultural sections: Tanith, Verghastite and Belladon; led by Majors Rawne, Kolea and Baskevyl respectively (each is native to the section he commands).
Following their actions on Jago, the Ghosts are stationed on Belhaunt for nearly two years.
Postings and Garrisons
Since its founding, the Tanith First-and-Only has served in the following campaigns and warzones:
Blackshard, Voltemand*, Ramilles 268-43*, Bucephalon*, Typhon Eight*, Caligula*, Fortis Binary, Nacedon*, Menazoid Elipson, Oskray Hive (Sapiencia), Monthax, Vervunhive, Hagia, Phantine, Aexe Cardinal, Herodor, Ancreon Sextus, Gereon and Jago.
(note that campaigns marked with * are not confirmed to be in correct order in timeline)
On Phantine, a number of Ghosts took part in "Operation Larisel", an airbourne operation that deployed specially selected fireteams into Ouranberg to seek out and assassinate Sagittar Slaith, the Chaos warlord in command of the Blood Pact forces holding the city. This mission took place at the same time as the main assault in which the rest of the Tanith First was deployed. After the battle for Herodor in Sabbat Martyr and before the events on Ancreon Sextus in His Last Command, Gaunt and a hand-picked team of Ghosts were deployed to the Chaos-held world Gereon, on a mission to find General Noches Sturm and rescue him from his captors or kill him if the mindlock on his memories had been broken. The team would later return with the rest of the regiment to liberate Gereon.
Notable Regiment Members
See List of Gaunt's Ghosts Characters
Sources
- Gaunt's Ghosts (Novel Series)
- Gaunt's Ghosts Article on Wikipedia (Tanith First and Only Section), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaunt%27s_Ghosts#The_Tanith_First-and-Only
1 First And Only (Novel) by Dan Abnett Part.Two: Fortis Binary Forge World. Chapter Nine.
