Penal legion warband.

[Elva]

I'd say in that case its up to the Imperial officials in charge to weigh the options, hence no two worlds having the exact same stance on the issue.

[MarcoSkoll]

It staggers belief that society has actually evolved in the 30 000 or so years since, especially by the imperial track record for ruthless efficiency.

So ruthlessly efficient that they send legions off to retake the wrong planet, then declare them all traitors when they don't turn up at the fight they were supposed to.
The Imperium is not efficient. Just about everything they do is characterised by either inefficiency or a grim bleakness.

a penal legionarry will have to be fed, armed, housed and transported at the expence of the imperium for crimes which could cost all of a single las or stub round to correct

By that argument, why have penal legions at all?

The thing is, the Imperium always has a use for more bodies. And as penal legionnaires can be mistreated even more than the dime a dozen regular Guardsman, it's an even more cost efficient method way for them to get extra cannon fodder.

...while at worst they'll desert to the enemy.

That's what the explosive collars are for.

[Elva]

I honestly think it depends on the situation and judgment of the Imperial officials. If they are desperate for troops, then a penal legion would be a viable option. If troops are in surplus, then it'd make sense to just shoot them. The values and morals(if any) of a High Command are really the deciding factor, as they attempt(not always successfully) at dealing with what gets thrown on their plate.

[Kaled]

Originally, back in the Rogue Trader era, the Penal Battalions were made up of IG and PDF troops who had committed a capital crime and had their sentence commuted to life service. It wasn't said to be a punishment for civilians.

As for whether they're of any use, in his Meditations on Imperial Command (Book XXI) Leman Russ said;
"There are those who undervalue the Penal Battalions. But they should consider this: should a man who has wronged the Emperor be allowed to wrong Him further? For each man executed is a man who can no longer serve, and to fail in service to the Emperor is the greatest of sins."

[MarcoSkoll]

The values and morals(if any) of a High Command are really the deciding factor

Values and morals have nowt to do with it. The penal legions are still a death sentence*, just one where the condemned is put to some use before you have to dig a hole to put them in.

*Okay, so very, very, very rarely, there will be a penal legionnaire who by some exceptional act fulfils their debt to the Emperor non-fatally and will have his/her sentence cleared. But if the use of three consecutive verys in the last sentence didn't clue you in, this is not common.
That said, it's not a bad background for an Inquisitor character - such an act of valour could well earn the attention of the Inquisition and get you seconded to work for an Inquisitor.

[Kaled]

The is one common way a penal trooper can fulfil his debt to the Emperor and have his sentence cleared and that's to volunteer as a human bomb. Some proportion of the bomb harnesses are designed not to explode and anyone lucky enough to survive goes free...

[Elva]

Kay, so maybe the circumstances are more prolific in the decision making process, but individual and cultural biases would play a part at times. Though, the point I'm trying to make is that raising a penal legion or two is up to those in charge and is not necessarily uniformed throughout the Imperium(though there might be some similarities).

[Darksinger]

Kaled- you seem fixed with the idea of a human bomb... Granted its a way of servin your debt, but not everyone is completely suicidal.


Here is my next character- No. 8 in the list.

Flax 'Diablo' Columbus
Flax is right handed.


WS   BS   S   T   I   Wp   Sg   Nv   Ld      
34   43   51   48   39   39   48   61   44   

Special Abilities
• Hipshooting

Equipment:
• Bolter
•1 clip of Helfire rounds
• Long-knife
•Cloth arnour on everything but head and torso (two points of armour)
• Flak armour on torso (3 points of armour)
• Penal legion collar on neck(counts as on head, because a shot to the neck is gonna do about the same damage as a headshot) (1 point of armour)
---------------
Apearance
---------------
About 5 foot 7. brown eyes, bald. Has number 08146318 on his forehead and collar (penal legion number). Muscular.

---------------
Background:
---------------
Flax was a devil hunter on the death world Catachan before his 'mistake', which goes some way to explaining his nickname, and the fact he has a full clip of rare bolter rounds, prehaps even why he has a bolter in the first place. He supposedly shot a comrade in the back with his heavy bolter, although he insists that it was an ambush from a squad of orks. Despite investigations into the appearance of an ork rok some weeks before, and to the fact that the dead mans corpse was found with  non-bolter pattern bullets in his chest, Falx had already been sentanced to death by the time his storys were confirmed. Flax was saved at the last minute by Colonel Grayham, sentanced to Penal legion duty literally as the executioners were loading thier guns. A nearby commisar executed the officer in charge for disobidiance after he tried to execute Flax anyway, and Flax was fitted with his collar and imprented with his number. Flax was immediatly dragged off to a mission, whereapon he proved his worth by killing a catachan devil with half the squdron in its grips. Flax was the 7th member to be recruited by Colonel Grayham, and stands as the legions heavy weapons expert.

Before anyone rants at me about how a penal legionaire couldnt have his wargear so rare- he needs something he can use to defend himself with. And he was A catachan devil hunter before- they are quite large (if its what im thinking of) and a bolter would be a fine weapon to deal with them. Hellfire rounds would be useful for geting rid of the buiggest ones too.

[GAZKUL]

 i'm curious about how the phrases "5.7" "T= 48" and "Catachan" go together, a bolter is an awfully heavy weapon for such a light build, if he was more muscly then it'd work well.

other than that he looks pretty cool and okay fluff wise but Markoskull'll inevitably blow holes in it so i won't say any more.

[Kaled]

Before anyone rants at me about how a penal legionaire couldnt have his wargear so rare- he needs something he can use to defend himself with. And he was A catachan devil hunter before- they are quite large (if its what im thinking of) and a bolter would be a fine weapon to deal with them. Hellfire rounds would be useful for geting rid of the buiggest ones too.

Well, I'm not going to rant - but why would a convicted criminal be allowed to keep his old weapons? Surely he'd just be issued a standard lasgun and a fancy weapon like a bolter would be quickly grabbed by someone else. I doubt any quartermaster is going to issue bolt shells to a penal battalion. Just because he used to be a Catachan Devil hunter isn't really a justification for giving him one now. I still don't really understand where he got it - you say his crime explains it, but then you don't mention it.

[MarcoSkoll]

he looks pretty cool and okay fluff wise but Markoskull'll inevitably blow holes in it so i won't say any more.

I just seem to have this way of picking usernames that people horrifically misspell.

Anyway, seeing as I've been nominated (why, I don't know - I'm not the most fluff literate here by any means) to get on with the business of "inevitably blowing holes in it".

Kaled- you seem fixed with the idea of a human bomb... Granted its a way of servin your debt, but not everyone is completely suicidal.

You seem to have misunderstood the idea of the penal legion. It IS a death sentence. You will keep fighting until you die. If you don't die the first time, they'll throw you into the crucible once again, and again, and again until you finally catch a bullet with your face, or perform a one in a million feat of valour that earns you a pardon.

The human bombs are actually a more reliable way out. Sure, you'll probably die, but you're more likely to earn your freedom than any other way.

WS   BS   S   T   I   Wp   Sg   Nv   Ld     
34   43   51   48   39   39   48   61   44

A Catachan devil hunter with stats like that? The physical stats of that kind of character should be more like in the 60s, perhaps even low 70s for a couple of them, not 30s to low 50s.

Gazkul's point stands too. Catachans, as my memory recalls, are taller than average, so 5' 7" would be short for them. (This is probably because Catachans are based off ARNULD! in Predator, so share his greater than average height.)

Next, my comments about galactic geography from the other thread stand - your penal legion is made up of troopers who were born thousands if not tens of thousands of light years apart. It's very unlikely they would ever get assembled into one group (and is unnecessary name dropping).

What I do to get around this is write similar worlds in a more likely position. When I wanted a Kasrkin in the Segmentum Pacificus, I wrote the world Tryphosa, a world whose military was heavily based off Cadian doctrine (although a lot smaller, they're not a fortress world), to the point they even borrow from the Cadian language. It's even in the canon that many worlds emulate the Cadian military, although not all of them necessarily as closely as Tryphosa. The difference being that Tryphosa was where I needed it to be.

I don't normally bother with the geographical differences of warbands that may meet, but a warband should try to be internally consistent.

Before anyone rants at me about how a penal legionaire couldnt have his wargear so rare

I will go against Kaled here, but while I could perhaps see them issuing a bolter as a special/heavier weapon to a penal legionnaire (although not if they were just planning on using the poor sod as cannon fodder - just the really unlucky ones they send on the suicidally dangerous missions no-one else will do), bear in mind, special bolter ammunition is like hen's teeth.

Hellfire bolt ammunition is the kind of thing you normally need ties to the Ordos Xenos to get hold of, not something they hand out to dead men walking - and if he had it beforehand, they would have relieved him of it upon his entry into the legion. Any gear you still have in the legion is what they've given you, or anything that was so worthless they couldn't be bothered to take it off you.

[Darksinger]

Marcoskoll- i dont think i have misspealt you name before. if i have, sorry
I know penal legion is a deat sentance, but they dont get a choice to join really- not everyone wants to die for their freedom, some soldiers wouldn't take the chance.
ok, 5'7'' may be short, but space marines are only like 7 foot tall. So either Catachans are huge, or 6'2'' is an apropriate sorta height and im misreading stuff. Also, maybe his stats are a bit low. Will edit soon.
Gazkull seems pretty set on the idea he is thin built. It specifically says muscular in Flax's description, so i dont know where that came from.
Galactic geograhy- Not as unlikely as you think. Many penal legionaires are recruited as the legion passes on missions.
the bolter- i never said his crime justifies the reasons he is keping his wargear. Grayham requested he keep it (shoulda put that in his fluff), for the specific reason flax be used as a heavy weapon guy. Not every enemy they will face is gona be similar sizes to them, so Grayham decided to keep his hands on the ammunition in order to ensure some form of security. I could give a rule to both Greyham and Flax, stating Flax may use the clip of inferno ammo if he is withing 6'' of grayham, who is holding it to ensure Flax dosent get up to anything.

[GAZKUL]

the fact that he's thick set and has a T of below 50 and a S of 51 is the issue, a similar comparison would be to have in the background that a character's a genius prodigy but only give him a sg of 30.

[MarcoSkoll]

ok, 5'7'' may be short, but space marines are only like 7 foot tall. So either Catachans are huge, or 6'2'' is an apropriate sorta height and im misreading stuff.

Er, what? There's still a foot between a 6 foot something Catachan and a 7 foot something Space Marine.

6' 2" is perfectly normal for humans. I'm 6' 2" , but put me alongside a 7 foot Space Marine, and I'd still appear tiny.

Gazkull seems pretty set on the idea he is thin built. It specifically says muscular in Flax's description, so i dont know where that came from.

It came from his stats! The problem here is the conflict between your background saying "muscular" and the rules you've given him saying "Eh, average - maybe".

Galactic geograhy- Not as unlikely as you think. Many penal legionaires are recruited as the legion passes on missions.

They don't ship Penal legionnaires around the galaxy, for the reasons Gazkul had covered - unnecessary costs to ship "not yet dead bodies" around. There'll be a closer penal legion, use that one.

I can't see any reason why a penal legion would have been shipped even thousands of light-years, let alone tens of thousands.

[InquisitorHeidfeld]

TLDR on the rest of the thread I'm afraid so, apologies if I repeat comments already made.

First off:
You've forgotten the deep seperations between the Adeptus groups and the Imperium as a whole.
When Mars has a problem with one of its people it doesn't send them to a Penal Battalion, it deals with them internally. There's too much risk of contamination of the purity of the Machine otherwise - ChronoGladiators IIRC are a good example of what happens when you cross the Mechanicus as opposed to the Archoflaggelants (what happens when you cross the Ecclesiarchy).

Officers in command of Penal battalions, first it's a waste of resources, second there's too much risk they'll be corrupted by their charges. A Commissar is a much more sensible option... especially as he doesn't even have to shoot them if they play up - that's what the explosive collars are for...

No Frenzon dispensers and no Human Bombs - not to mention that it doesn't look like any of these fellows see service in the Penal Battalion as a road to redemption... The rubric is that they're there because they don't have a choice and they're going to do what they're ordered because they don't have a choice - not because if they do their duty to The Emperor then it wipes out their previous sins.