Colonel Willem Vance of the 310th Cadian Regiment

Colonel Willem Vance, currently commander of the 310th Cadian Regiment, is a 27-year veteran with a distinguished military record of service in the Astra Militarum.

He also has the distinction of being one of a relatively few regimental officers who rose through the ranks, starting as a private in the 419th Cadian Regiment.

Early Military Career

The son of a military officer in the Cadian Interior Guard (Planetary Defense Force), Vance was inducted into the Cadian Youth Army at 14 and was recruited into the 419th Cadian Regiment at age 17.

By six months into his military service, Vance had earned a reputation within the regiment as being an intense, highly motivated guardsmen. During his first campaign in the Karaman System, when a corrupt planetary government was overthrown by its citizens, Private Vance took command of his squad after his sergeant and corporal were killed.

Under heavy fire, he ordered the squad to lay down covering fire while he outflanked the enemy and killed four rebels with grenades and lasgun fire, panicking the rest of the enemy who fled. By the time the campaign ended, similar heroics—coupled with repeated displays of tactical acumen—Vance had been promoted to sergeant.

Young Officer

Over the next three years, Sgt. Vance distinguished himself at the Battle of Dygub, Siege of Xoph, the Assault of Kiped, and the Defeat of Cowards to name a few.

Straken distinguished himself at the Battle of Moden’s Ridge, the Dulma’lin Cleansing, the Ulani Aftermath, and the evacuation of Vartol City to name but a few. On the world of Voohs, he rescued the executive officer of the regiment when the regimental HQ was overrun by Chaos Marines, taking command of a leaderless platoon and ordering a bayonet charge.

For this last act of courage, Vance was awarded the Medusan Laureate and offered a commission. This was an extremely rare honor.

As a still relatively young lieutenant, Vance led a platoon in the First War of Orehr, then received a commendation during the attack on Dulf Station. Ordered to hold a crucial road intersection, his platoon withstood six attacks by a superior number of heretical cultists. By the time reinforcements arrived in support, only 10 guardsmen were still alive but more than 130 enemy corpses blanketed the battlefield.

Over the next 10 years, Vance continued to display the qualities of a up-and-coming officer. During the Battle of Faiths on Demicron VI, newly promoted Captain Vance commanded a company of guardsmen and, when superior officers unintentionally exposed the regiment’s flank, Vance responded by redeploying his men and  stopping a flank attack by Dark Mechanicum Skitarii.

Arrival in the Ultima Segmentum

Regimental Flag

The 419th Regiment was decimated in the Battle of Yhz, where an Imperial Crusade against a Necron-held world failed spectacularly, with six Imperial regiments utterly destroyed and a dozen more evacuated with less than half their original ranks.

After this disaster, the high command decided to disband the 419th and reassigned its survivors to the 310th Regiment. To ease the amalgamation of the two units, newly promoted Major Vance was assigned as the regiment’s operations officer, responsible for training, planning, and executing the regiment’s operations.

After three months of rest-and-refit, the 310th Cadian was transported to Quietus in the west quadrant of the Ultima Segmentum. On this hive world, civil disorder was rapidly spreading across the planet, and several regiments were deployed to bring back order because the planet was a major producer of weapons and munitions for the Astra Militarum.

What followed was five grueling years of fighting a guerilla war in the massive yet confined space of the underhives of several hive cities. Casualties were not particularly heavy given the poor weaponry and tactics of the rebels, but significant strategic victories appeared impossible. As Vance once commented, “This is a slog of a fight, which may last until the last star in the galaxy burns out.”

Counterinsurgency

In 739.M41, Vance proposed a new strategy for fighting the insurgency: Abandon the costly troop sweeps of the underhive and instead combine counterinsurgency tactics with traditional military campaigning—a hybrid attempt to undermine the insurgency’s base of economic and recruitment sources.

Specifically, he recommended that Imperial Command provide military-grade arms and training to the most powerful street gangs that still held territory in the underhive.

He argued that the gangs knew the underhive far better than military intelligence officers. The gangs knew how to fight effectively in the claustrophobic maze of alleys, shunt pipes, and maintenance corridors of the deep hive, and they were more closely associated with the non-cultist population who simply were trying to survive.

If the gangs could expand their territories, protecting civilians and recruiting new fighters, they would gradually shrink the holdings of the rebels. That would, in turn, deny the rebels needed sources of food, new recruits, a population to hide amongst, and key underhive manufacturing facilities that kept the rebels armed.

For his heroism, Vance was awarded The Steel Aquila for, in the face of great personal danger, having triumphed over a formidable enemy. In addition, Vance was promoted to full colonel and firmly established as permanent commander of the 310th Cadians.

Currently, Vance and his regiment are part of the Damocles Gulf Crusade and fighting on the Tau sept world of Dal’yth.

Art created using the AI services of NightCafe Studio.

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