Nitro Syndicate
+++Army Profile+++
Faction: Astra Militarum
Battalion Sobriquet: Nitro Syndicate
Regiment Tactics: Guerilla, Hazardous Environment Specialists
Preferred Wargear: Chemical and Promethium-based Close Range Ad-Hoc Repurposed Mining and Salvage Equipment
Possible Heresy: Crimes against the Machine Spirit, Habitual Dereliction, General Unorthodoxy
The 29th Penal Reformatory Conglomerate or Nitro Syndicate is the system of of oligarchs, corrupt officials, and vast prison infrastructure that keeps tithes of life and promethium flowing to the Imperium at large. This perverse machinery that spares so many the privilege of death ensures that prisons are full and that excess convicts are sent to fill the ranks of Astra Militarum conscripts needed on battlefields near and far.
Holding dominion over all life on the various death worlds of the Acastir Sytem, the Nitro Syndicate uses brutal tactics to ensure the survival and profitability of the system.
+++Origin+++
+++The Acastir System+++
A collection of caustic remnants from an immense, ancient, and unwitnessed collision. Spewed forth from an impact between real-space and the immaterium itself. As much a system of planets as broken drift of lumps of rock and radiation.
…but the Emperor protects.
And in the seam between life and death, on the crumbling crust of shifting yet fleetingly habitable soil, Humanity exists. The Emperor protects, and the Imperium profits. For in that seam, born of heat and violence, crushed together in profane union, vitriolic soil meets the lifeblood of the Imperium.
Promethium.
No Hive Spire clawed ever skyward without it. No Battlefleet ever traversed the Warp deprived of it. No foe of Humanity was ever vanquished in its absence.
+++Population and Purpose+++
Countless generations past, most of the doomed pilgrims to this vile backwater of the galaxy found themselves cast into the Acastir System as part of a mandatory colonist decree instituted on nearby hive systems with bloated penal institutions. The decree sumped out the dregs of the underhives and the Imperium gained a tenuous foothold on the system of dead planets with the potential for considerable gain. Joining the ranks of the deplorables were often marooned wayfarers, desperate fugitives, or occasional chem-profiteers seeking to secure lucrative commercial interests and the favor of interstellar energy merchants.
The Oligarchs
Over the course of time and through the staggering cost of human life to the grinding industry of Acastir the vast profits generated through Promethium production could not afford to be threatened by a shortage of man power. Several millennia since, the once tenuous imperial foothold on Acastir had become a swollen penal colony on a scale unmatched outside the system. So much so that the penal colony became an industry in itself.
The demand for penal servitude was so great that the entire justice system has become incentivized toward wholesale incarceration of citizens for even the most minor infractions. The czars of these corporate energy empires required a source of manpower to stem the ever-receding tide of mining labor. With life for workers being so brutal and short, civilians who found themselves charged with a crime and imprisoned would often bypass a cell and go straight into a chemsuit.
+++Feedback Loop+++
The primary organization at the rotten core of this dismal spectacle, the black heart which pumps equal parts acrid chem-smoke and misery into the victims of this cursed charade is the 29th Penal Reformatory Conglomerate, known commonly as the Nitro Syndicate.
Its jurisdiction regulates justice in the Acastir System and ensures that most if not all convicts receive terminal labor sentences. Enforcement actions for commonplace infractions are often automated with no appeals. High incarceration rates guarantee a constant flow of labor to chem fields and mines, bolstering an already bloated penal system with a portion consigned to the system’s planetary defense forces and Astra Militarum regimental tithes. Tithes that generate additional Imperial stipends and incentives for the Acastir elite. Those who aren’t sent to the mines or distant systems on tithe ships are often tasked to serve the private interests of the Acastir oligarchy, and between bribes and brutality the whole corrupt cycle is reinforced.
Government feeds the prisons, prisons feed the chemical production and Astra Militarum tithes, and commercial enterprises supported by the military feed government officials through kickbacks and directed privatized military influence.
This is the Nitro Syndicate.
+++Active Campaigns+++
Astra Militarum vs Death Guard
Death Guard interdiction teams have executed hit and run strikes against imperial forces stationed on Cleron 4763. Astra Militarum regiments currently stationed on the planet have been unsuccessful guarding against these attacks.
+++Data Board Snapshot+++
The Syndicate in Action
In recent centuries this method of procuring, training and assimilating penal colonies into a steady flow of combatants has become not only perfected but accepted as commonplace in most parts of the Imperium. The sobriquet of Nitro Syndicate has largely been divorced from the disagreeable associations with corruption and brutality of its origins and now instead puts to mind the gritty, capable, and effective fighting force that that its reputation in the field has earned.
Methods
The officers in the Nitro Syndicate could be from other Astra Militarum regiments, from within the local penal system, descendants of the elite class, or particularly capable convicts who have moved up through the rank and file. Either way, the Syndicate operates primarily through achieving results for whomever, whenever, and by any means necessary. Soldiers are often granted claim to spoils of war and are generally motivated by the fact that they are no longer in the mines, though in some cases their circumstances are indeed much worse. They are whatever they need to be to get the job done and live another day. Sometimes they are corporate goons. Sometimes they are mercenaries. Sometimes they hold the line like any other Imperial Guard unit. Their life and freedom are forfeit, their fate in the hands of distant machinations.
Faith & Fire
The roll of the Ecclesiarchy in the daily life of Nitro Syndicate soldiers is largely dependent on the leadership of their battalion or detachment. However, these leaders tend to be on the more fervently devout and radical end of the Cult Imperialis spectrum largely due to the emphasis on redemption and penance that looms over many penal legions. Some detachments are led by draconian disciplinarians who lean heavily on the only thing they believe a Syndicate soldier could ever understand – fear of punishment. These units tend to include a high number of Commissars and even more bolter rounds. Other detachments are led by commanders so instilled with the righteous fury of faith in the Emperor that they inspire their soldiers to reach to new heights of conquest and achievement as though their very souls were at stake.
Ex Cathedra
Leman Russ 3x Heavy Flamer Battle Cannon
Ferrum Ultima
Leman Russ 3x Heavy Flamer Battle Cannon
Vigilanti Eterna
Leman Russ 3x Heavy Flamer Battle Cannon
Mortar Team One
Angel Summoner
Basilisk
Reach of Judgement
Basilisk
Emperor’s Benediction
Basilisk
Heavy Bolter Team
Sentinel Powerlifter
Sentinel Powerlifter
Sentinel Powerlifter
Mortar Team 2
Ad Infernus
Bane Wolf
Praetor Solaris
Bane Wolf
Nitromancer
Bane Wolf
Pyroculus
Bane Wolf
If Needs Must
Whether it’s an overzealous commander, the constant exposure to combat stims, or decades of traumatic encounters with the harshest environments and foulest creatures of the Imperium, there are rumors that some Nitro Syndicate detachments have let their better judgement slip to the subtle influence and sweet promises of the unreal. The so-called ‘ruinous’ powers. The search for salvation can be strong enough to lead one down a false path, however, all Ordo Hereticus reports surrounding Nitro Syndicate operations have concluded with null results. Any whiff of heresy has either been completely redacted or destroyed, but given the power dynamics and complex network of influences that prop up the very foundation of the Acastir System, it would be no surprise that such transgressions are intentionally overlooked or otherwise expunged from the record, after all… the status quo is to be maintained…
