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Jantine First

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This page contains spoilers for: First and Only (Novel)

The Jantine First (known as the Purpure Patricians[1j] or the Emperor's Chosen[1s]) were a Jantine Patricians regiment of the Astra Militarum that took part in the Sabbat Worlds Crusade.[1s]

Such was the regiment's fame that they were often referred to simply as the Jantine Patricians, despite the existence of other Jantine regiments.[1a][1s]


History

The Patricians were one of the oldest and most decorated regiments to take part in the Sabbat Worlds Crusade.[1a] At the time of the Crusade, the Patricians' regimental history went back fifteen generations[1b], but all Patricians brooded over the single black mark on their otherwise illustrious history: the fact that one of their former commanding officers, General Aldo Dercius, had been executed by Commissar Ibram Gaunt on Khedd 1173 for cowardice in the face of the enemy.[1b][1l]

In fact, the feud was much more personal; although Gaunt's official reason for executing Dercius was accepted, Gaunt was actually taking revenge for the death of his father, who had been left to be slaughtered by Orks when Dercius fled the planet Kentaur.[1l] On the other side, the Patricians' Colonel, Draker Flense, was Dercius's own son, whose family had been disgraced and stripped of its land, honour, and wealth after his disgrace. Flense was forced to adopt a new name and work his way up to command rank from the bottom.[1u]

During the later years of the Sabbat Worlds Crusade, the Patricians were deployed in several of the same theatres as the Tanith First and Only regiment, now commanded by Gaunt. In addition to their loathing for Gaunt, the Patricians were inclined to look down on the Tanith "Ghosts" as rough, uncultured savages.[1a]

This feud only increased after the battle on Fortis Binary. The Patricians were ordered to storm the flank of the dug-in Shriven forces as the Tanith First and Vitrian Dragoons led a frontal assault.[1a][1b] Unfortunately, the Patricians' advance was interrupted by a Shriven artillery bombardment. The Patricians were forced to retreat from the killzone while the Tanith and Vitrians continued to advance into the enemy lines.[1b][1c] Later, Colonel Flense ordered the Patricians to attack the enemy positions when it appeared that the Tanith and Vitrians had been wiped out by the artillery but before the Patricians got underway, a strike team led by Gaunt destroyed the enemy's ammunition stores and destroyed their morale.[1c][1d][1e] Feeling cheated of glory, the Patricians ambushed several Ghosts on Pyrites, but were forced to back off when they were outnumbered.[1f][1g]

Flense's hatred of Gaunt made him and the Patricians an easy tool for Lord High Militant General Hechtor Dravere[1a], who was secretly plotting against Warmaster Macaroth.[1h][1i] During the warp transit to Menazoid Epsilon, during which the Patricians and the Ghosts were aboard the same ship, Flense and several Patricians ambushed the Ghosts and kidnapped Major Elim Rawne, to be tortured by Dravere's ally, Inquisitor Heldane.[1i][1j]

On Menazoid Epsilon, Dravere ordered the Patricians to follow behind the Tanith and wipe them out once they had engaged the Chaos forces.[1n][1o] Falsely declaring Gaunt's Ghosts to be corrupt, Flense led his Patricians straight at the rear of Gaunt's men, who were fighting inside the caves of the Chaos stronghold.[1p]

Anticipating this betrayal, Gaunt had stationed a small detachment of Ghosts at the rear - his regiment's seventh platoon, led by Sergeant Blane. This detachment numbered only fifty men - the most men Gaunt could spare - and were killed to the last man, but not before inflicting heavy casualties on the Patricians.[1q][1r] From a regiment numbering roughly a thousand heavy shock troopers, more than three hundred were killed or incapacitated, by a force of only fifty lightly armed scout-class infantry. Flense was furious; he, however, had orders to fulfil. As such, he had his second-in-command, Major Brochuss, take control of the rest of the regiment to attack the Ghosts' rear, while he and a team of Troopers infiltrated a nearby cave system to hunt down Gaunt.[1r]

Brochuss was poised to annihilate the Tanith First when the Vitrian Dragoons Third, whose commander the Ghosts had aided on Fortis Binary, attacked the Patricians in a flanking manoeuvre. Focusing on a single weak point of their line, the Dragoons wiped out the Patricians nearly to a man.[1s]

Meanwhile, Flense had caught up to Gaunt's team in the caves. Not realizing Flense was Dercius's son, Gaunt pleaded with him to stop and fight the true enemy. Flense ignored Gaunt's attempts to make peace and attacked him. Gaunt and Flense fought furiously but in the end Flense went down with all of his remaining Patricians.[1u] Since General Dravere and his command Leviathan were destroyed earlier in the battle[1t], there was no record of any "official" sanction for the Patricians' actions in attacking a fellow Guard regiment. However, due to their heretical actions, all records of the Patrician's honours and victories were destroyed and the regiment was never reformed.[Needs Citation]

Known Actions


Assets

By the time of the campaigns on Fortis Binary and Menazoid Epsilon, the Jantine Patricians numbered over 8,000 guardsmen[1h][Note 1] although only around one thousand were line infantry.[1q]

In addition to their heavy infantry core, the regiment had access to moderate armoured support, including Phaethon-pattern Leman Russ Battle Tanks, Leman Russ Demolishers and Chimeras, along with some light artillery in the form of Griffon Armoured Weapons Carriers.[1c]

Notable Members

Trivia

Notes

See also

Sources

  • 1: First and Only (Novel)The Founding (Omnibus)
    • 1a: Part Two, Chapter Four
    • 1b: Part Two, Chapter Eleven
    • 1c: Part Three, Chapter Five
    • 1d: Part Three, Chapter Ten
    • 1e: Part Three, Chapter Eleven
    • 1f: Part Four, Chapter Seven
    • 1g: Part Four, Chapter Eight
    • 1h: Part Five, Chapter Six
    • 1i: Part Five, Chapter Eight
    • 1j: Part Five, Chapter Nine
    • 1k: Part Five, Chapter Twelve
    • 1l: A Memory: Khedd 1173, Sixteen Years Earlier (Interstitial between Parts Five and Six)
    • 1m: Part Six, Chapter One
    • 1n: Part Six, Chapter Two
    • 1o: Part Six, Chapter Seven
    • 1p: Part Six, Chapter Nine
    • 1q: Part Six, Chapter Sixteen
    • 1r: Part Six, Chapter Nineteen
    • 1s: Part Six, Chapter Twenty-One
    • 1t: Part Six, Chapter Twenty-Six
    • 1u: Part Six, Chapter Twenty-Eight