Thursday, October 6, 2011

The Bleeding line

o/

Its been a short week, so notta whole lot has happened hobby wise. Indeed about all that I've accomplished was the creation of some background fluff for my Quar and the creation of their Catrawd's company standard. With SoA players so widely scattered (the closest that I've found on their forum lives approx. 5 hours away), tourney play seems to be nonexistent, and instead games are of the beer & pretzels sort. Themed armies also seem to be a common, which I'm sure makes its appeal to me obvious to all.

First up, the standard:

The design is based off of a standard that was created by the Headzombie (the Quar's creator) and Pete (Pete who? you ask...well, damned if I know the answer to that). The two triangles are Quar numbers ('5' on top with '7' below) and the three lines in the bottom right corner is the Quar number '9'. This will one day become a battle standard and probably trimmed down to a square (removing the numbers) for a vehicle decal or two.

As for the fluff, first I'll offer a few translations for those completely unfamiliar with the Quar (and somewhat miraculously still reading at this point):

Catrawd: regiment (though the word 'regiment' itself appears in the Quar fluff as well, so perhaps not?)
Tok: The nation that spawned the Crusade against which all of the Royalist factions have been fighting (and generally losing) against.
Aklyinder: The Tokish general who deposed Tok's royalty, reorganized the military (structurally as well as in tactically) into the Crusader form it has now.
Quar: Kinda overweight looking, bipedal aardvarks with guns who have been at war with themselves for centuries.
Chyweethal: The Royalist MBT (essentially anyways). Its a turretless design like the WWII Stug. The resemblance ends there however as it looks more like an oval shaped British Mk 1 with a pedrail rather than tracked method of locomotion. It certainly is a bizarre vehicle.
Backside Plates: A name of my own creation to describe the 57th's spaced armor.

I think that about covers all of the otherwise untranslatable bits for you. So onto my bit o' fluff (which I'm pleased to say has been fairly well received on the Zombiesmith Forum).

57th Consolidated Catrawd - ‘The Bleeding Line’


The 57th is believed to have originally been a Tokish guard catrawd that mutineed and then switched sides after Aklinder’s reorganization of the unit into a light infantry catrawd. However due to the mutiny, the 57th never gained the trust of royalist generals. Unfortunately all of the supposedly mutinous Quar of the later renamed 57th Consolidated Catrawd have long since passed. Whether or not the mutiny actually happened, or the 57th simply got (and kept) the 'short straw' during a long forgotten retreat is something that no living Quar knows.


What is known is that the 57th is now the dumping ground of survivors from shattered, depleted and all but destroyed royalist units. Worse yet, the 57th is permanently tasked with the thankless job of going forward to ‘hold the line’ and then make an orderly fighting retreat, after more prestigious or simply intact catrawds have already pulled back out of danger. Needless to say, losses to the ranks of the 57th (be they killed/injured/or captured) tend to be exceedingly high. However as the Crusader armies continue to slowly grind their way forward, the 57th Consolidated finds itself with no shortage of ‘remnants’ with which to fill its continually depleted ranks.


Any Chyweethals that are unfortunate enough to get posted to the 57th are hastily equipped with 'backside plates' on the tank's forward facing along with the addition of a roof mounted, rear facing periscope for the driver. After such modifications, the Chyweethals make a mad dash to the front. Their chances of survival during their slow retreat are marginally improved with their newly up-armored 'backsides' facing the enemy. More importantly, they're be able to provide fire support for the rest of the 57th rearguard with their main guns, whilst moving in reverse! Interestingly, given the moniker of 'backside plates', it's never occurred to any other Quar regiments to add such armor protection to their advancing tanks...

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