Ghar Battle Group 9 Veterans

The core of Fartok’s rebel army was the Black Guard, essentially the the most experienced and loyal veterans of his Battle Group Nine. As the bellion gathered pace, the Black Guard expanded with the addition of many other seasoned warriors freed by the rebel army.

When Fartok pardoned his rebels and Exiles, he brought them back into the Ghar Empire. Whilst most are gradually being refitted with battlesuits or Ghar vehicles, Karg’s lack of effective monitoring means production facilities are still being brought up to pre-Rebel days. As a result, many Battle Group Nine (BG9) Veterans still take to the batttlefield, many of them armed with scavenged weapons and many still scavenge mag and plasma weaponry when they face Algoryn or Boromites on the battlefield. As Fartok taught them, they convert such weapons to operate with Ghar power and technology.

BG9 Veterans use mag guns and are equipped with hastily adapted reflex armour, though some have learnt to use micro-x launchers (mini magnetic-rail grenade launchers). Others have been given hastily adapted and short-lived plasma lances whilst leaders are given scavenged plasma carbines. And all can be given maglashes or plasma grenades. The whole sounds a strange mix but can be surprisingly potent mix.

All the scavenged standard weapons suffer somewhat from their ministrations at the hands of the Ghar. Mag weapons, for example, have reduced ranges whilst the more flexible plasma weapons are stuck in one mode, and micro-x’s can only be used in OH, so are all but useless in point blank shooting. The advantage is that there can be plenty of veterans in a squad, making up for a lack of effectiveness with numbers.

BG9 Command

Some Battle Group Nine Commanders are also forced to fight on foot but still roam the battlefield with their former Battlesuit pilot bodyguard whlst the await new battlesuits. The commanders and troopers are armoured and armed with weapons similar to the BG9 veteran squads, but also take a hated maglash. This is not to inflict pain on Ghar but to reflect their status as pardoned Outcasts and to instill in their human foe the idea of brutal subjugation. Many given the maglash train to use it with finess and elan – a surprising attribute to be found in Ghar (see the Agile(maglash) special rule).

Weapon Teams

The Ghar Rebels were forced to ‘make do and mend’ and scavenge what they could from their defeated foes or from transports. Their shortages led to the hybridisation of Ghar technology with the nano-technology of other nations, the result being a variety of, remarkably odd, walkers and crawlers. Whilst their achievements were modest compared to the technical sophistication of the rest of Antarean space, any kind of innovation is remarkable for a Ghar as they are hard-wired to respond to un-Gharlike behaviour and technology with revulsion bordering upon phobia (most Ghar find even the sight of degenerate humans sickening).

Fartok encouraged his technicians and engineers to re-engineer weapons they captured so they could use a non-nanosphere power supply and be manually maintianed. Algoryn weaponry was favoured for this hybridisation because it is constructed with almost unbreakable nano-envelopment that can resist the corrosive radiation that is a common feature of Ghar power plants; Concord equipment, often constructed with access to full and effective shard integration, is much more susceptible to degeneration.

The most successful of these were the light support walkers: Mag Light Support and Mag Cannon; some are still in service with the Battle Goup Nine veterans. the weapons were mounted on Ghar walkers, fed power from the walker’s generator, and had external ammunition feeds attached in place of the existing compression technology. The scavenged weapons use the existing ammunition (slivers or flechettes for the MLS; mass collapsing warheads for the mag cannon) but ended up with a significantly reduced range.

Less dependable was a quad mag repeater, literally the assembly of four mag repeaters onto a single platform to provide (hopefully) a withering hail of fire. In practice, the weapons are less than fully effective, likely to jam and producing a random amount of shots each turn so were either discarded or upgraded to have a performance resembling that of the scavenged mag light support (treat quad mag repeater walkers as scavenged MLS walkers).

Battle Group Nine Veteran squads can take an attached weapon team to boost their effectiveness. Alternatively, a few may be detached units on special duty – not a very popular role as outside their battlesuits or ships, the Ghar feel vulnerable without plenty of other Ghar around. Such a weapon team can take a disruptor caannon, MLS or mag cannon walker.

Bomb Flitters

Flitters are tiny fragile flying machines with mechanical wings a little like a bat. They fly in a jerky, irregular manner and are attracted towards movement, but are not even remotely intelligent machines.

Ghar Flitter Bombs are an innovation of Fartok’s engineers who converted ordinary Ghar Flitters into simple flying bombs by the addition of a small disruptor charge. They are attached to BG9 squads and made to fly ahead of the squad when against hand-to-hand opponents. Being Ghar constructions they are notoriously unreliable and often fail to explode altogether (Erratic 7). When they do so, they inflict Blast D3×SV2 disruptor hits on the target unit as they explode, destroying themselves in the process.

Bomb Flitters are also used by BG9 Wrecking Crews.

Ghar Prophets

A few Battle Group 9 Veteran squads in each army can take a rebel prophet such as Nurk-27. Such individuals do not add much to the combat ability of the squad but act as a focal point for rallying around (Co 9), ensuring the squad is likely to stick around for longer than it might normally.

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