The Iron Alliance Regiment has built a series of trench lines to defend the Antiem Manufactorum from the Death Guard.

The Iron Alliance Regiment is the sole Imperial Guard regiment recruited from the planet Alliance, a lightly populated agri-world that provides vast quantities of food to the Forge World of Anvillius.

The regiment was originally designated the 1st Alliance Regiment. That changed during the Destinos III campaign of 386.M41, when the regiment held a critical defensive position despite suffering 90 percent casualties during a single battle. To honor this accomplishment, the senior commander on the scene officially added the sobriquet “Iron” to the regiment’s name.

Since then, the regiment has proudly insisted on being known as the Iron Alliance Regiment.

It is an honor that the regiment has continued to maintain. Three times over the centuries, the regiment has been decimated and refounded on its home world.

The last such decimation occurred in 623.M41, when the regiment took part in the ill-fated defense of Rilga VII from an ork Waaagh! In that action, the only survivors were two severely wounded guardsmen who had been evacuated to an orbital hospital only days before the planet’s fall.

The fourth founding of the regiment occurred in 631.M41.

Regimental Details

Upon its Fourth Founding, the regiment departed Alliance with 12, 193 officers and men. As of early 742.M41, its ranks are listed as 8,783 combatants.

The combat uniform of the regiment consists of practical gray-green fatigues,  a standard combat helmet with a shallow side brim to protect the neck, and hardened-leather, black boots.

Although the regiment originally was equipped with a standard-pattern lasgun, the regiment recently received nearly 1,000 of the more-powerful and heavier-stocked Mark 2b Lathe-Lasguns. These weapons, supposedly derived from an ancient archeotech design, previously belonged to the now-destroyed 11th Crimson Guard Regiment and were salvaged from the battlefield to keep them from traitor hands.

Founded on a planet with limited industrial capacity, the Iron Alliance Regiment is organized as a non-mechanized infantry unit and is limited in its number of armored transports, artillery, tanks, and combat walkers.

For this reason, the regiment’s combat doctrine is focused on holding defensive positions or serving as a follow-up unit for mechanized forces on the advance.

Morale remains high in the regiment, despite suffering significant combat losses in recent months. Senior officers attribute this partly to rank-and-file’s background, growing up in an agricultural environment that demanded hard physical labor.

The devastation of the fighting outside the Antiem Manufactorum is made abundantly clear by this pict taken by the Iron Alliance Regiment’s senior intelligence officer.

The culture of their home world also accounts for the troops’ elan. Growing up with ample food, clear air, and a relatively benign planetary government, the people of Alliance are friendly and easy-going.

This is reflected in the day-to-day interactions of the officers and rank and file. Military discipline is respected, but there is a light-hearted and informal banter and familiarity between the ranks that is considered unseemly by outsiders.

This behavior has led some observers to question the regiment’s discipline and combat effectiveness. That assumption has been repeatedly reputed by the regiment’s combat history. In the past 40 years, the regiment has received numerous commendations for standing its ground against terrible odds.

It was instrumental  in holding back the ork hordes on Paledron IV, and it held alone for three days against a sizable Drukhari force that raided the manufactorums of Iapetus and wiped out six Planetary Defense Force regiments before the xenos withdrew.

Members of the 3rd Mordian Iron Guard Regiment, who had dismissed Alliance troops as “ill-disciplined farmers,” also learned to their discomfort that their prejudices were seriously misguided.

Although hushed up by the Commissariat,  a Mordian officer insulted an Alliance officer over some trivial matter, and there was an exchange of insults that led to an all-out brawl between about 200 guardsmen on both sides. Born to a life of hard work, the Alliance guardsmen were big and brawny men, and the Mordians suffered twice as many hospitalizations after the brawl as did Alliance troopers.

A church of the Imperial Creed is left in rubble by the Archenemy’s artillery barrages. Overhead, three Thunderhawks of the Blood Angles Chapter are on their way to the front lines.

Action on Dozaria

Arrival on Dozaria (739.M41)—A flotilla of troop transports carrying three Imperial Guard regiments, including the Iron Alliance Regiment, were in orbit over Belliose III when world arrived of the Death Guard invasion of Dozaria.

Sent to the war zone, the regiment’s landing on the war-torn planet was treacherous. The Death Guard’s invading forces had ravaged the Planetary Defense Force (PDF) and was advancing on several fronts, seizing hundreds of square kilometers of territory every day.

The regiment landed several hundred kilometers southeast of the capital city of Alicante, confronting ground-to-air fire and repeated attacks of their transports by traitor aircraft. More than 200 guardsmen died before they ever reached the surface of the planet.

Defense of Inaspolis (mid-739.M41)—The Iron Alliance, along with four PDF Regiments,were deployed around the industrialized city of Inaspolis and ordered to hold against an approaching Chaos army.

Outnumbered, the five regiments held the city for three months, enduring repeated assaults, day-and-night artillery barrages, and a host of plagues that killed thousands of Imperial troops. Well-equipped with respirators, and blessed by a childhood environment that promoted good health, Alliance soldiers proved more resilient that most in surviving the traitors’ deadly miasma.

Troops outside the city were not so fortunate. Having failed to seize the city by force, the Death Guard attempted to advance around the city and cut it off its logistical support. As troops were pushed back on each side of the city, High Command recognized that the defenses could not hold—and ordered the Iron Alliance to withdraw before they were destroyed.

The One Thousand Kilometer March (739-740.M41)—After the fall of Inaspolis, the regiment found itself engaged in a months-long fighting withdrawal. More than two dozen battles were fought as the Iron Alliance and its disintegrating PDF allies would attempt to hold a river crossing or key transportation hub for a few hours or days to allow other regiments to escape north.

Battle of Antiem: The Turning Point (6 489.741.M41)—After a year-long offensive, the Archenemy’s advance across Dozaria began to lose steam. Casualties, exhaustion, and long supply lines—while constantly under attack by Imperial air attacks—were all taking their toll on the invaders.

That prompted High Command to end its fighting withdrawal and risk holding the line. The anchor of this new Imperial position would be the Antiem Manufactorum to the southwest of Alicante.

The Iron Regiment was ordered to dig in, and its combat engineers created a series of trench lines, bunkers, and other fortifications designed to fend off the Chaos troops.

On 6 489.741.M41, the Death Guard attacked after a six-hour artillery barrage. Hordes of cultists stormed the entrenchments, but with rapid volleys of lasgun fire and  heavy artillery bombardments, the Imperial line held. By day’s end, nearly 60,000 traitors and cultists lay dead on the battlefield.

Stalemate (latter half of 741.M41)—After the battle, it was determined that no combat units reported seeing a traitor Astartes. For whatever reason, Death Guard warriors had not joined the assault on the manufactorum. The location of these traitor Astartes is unknown and of great concern to senior military leaders.

Their absence, however, proved fortuitous in another way for Imperial troops. Without their masters to whip them into shape, the surviving cultists and heretics proved reluctant to continue their assaults. They began building trenches and, although sporadic fighting continues around the manufactorum, no serious attempts to test the Imperial line has occurred in nearly six months.

As 741.M41 came to a close, the Iron Alliance Regiment was enjoying a relatively comfortable deployment for the first time of the war.

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The Corvus Cluster is a Warhammer 40K blog documenting our gaming adventures in the fantastical sci-fi universe of Games Workshop.