Background

Before the Fall:
The world known as Krieg, in the Segmentum Tempestus, is shrouded in rumor and dark myth, much of its dreadful history has been obscured and lost. The wilderness of ruined cities that span this blasted poison choked world, point to krieg once having been a thriving hive-world, a trading and manufacturing center populated by billions upon billions. The rulers of this world - the council of Autocrats, bloated with wealth and corrupt with indolence, petty vendetta and vice became increasingly insular and debauched. The Autocrats' paranoia over outside threat that could shatter their dictorial rule caused them to plough vast resources into strengthening the defenses of their hive cities, building private armies and further surrounding their world with an d ring of steel. Worse, the Autocrats grew to resent the Administratum on 'their' world and in particular the heavy tithes levied on them on them by the Departmento Munitorium taking resources they proclaimed were vital to their own defense. The citizens of Krieg were sadly ignorant of these slowly spiraling events and terrible ruin the misrule of their leaders was about to be brought down on them.

The Revolt:
For Krieg, the end came in the year 433.M40 when the High Autocrat of Krieg largest hive, the council chairman and the de-facto planetary governor, (a man so hated that his name has been purged from all records), declared a planetary wide martial law and seceded his world from the Imperium. Civil war had come suddenly and violently on Krieg. Much of the world had been quickly capulated to the rebel's power. After the rebel's initial attacks only hive Ferrograd remained under loyalist control, because the 83rd Krieg imperial guard regiment, under the command of Colonel Jurten, was in the final stages of being mustered at Ferrograd

In response to the revolt, Colonel Jurten moved quickly to take control of the hive city from its vacillating rulers in a military coup. With the veteran Colonel at its helm, Ferrograd rapidly became the rallying point for the remaining loyalist factions.

But the situations for the loyalist was dire; the rebel forces had numbered in millions and Ferrograd was soon cut off and besieged. To make matters worse, the loyalists were on their own; the planetary defenses were under the traitors, control, and strong enough that a full scale fleet action would be required to breach them. Jurten had been informed in no uncertain terms that a fleet powerful enough to invade Krieg was simple not available. Colonel Jurten's orders were to resist with all means at his disposal, to engage the enemy, to punish their treachery and emerge victorious - whatever the cost. So faced with the horrific odds stacked against him, Jurten came to the fateful decision that the world Krieg would belong to the Emperor, or it would belong to no one...

Deep below Hive Ferrograd was a secret Adeptus Mechanicus storage facility, and Colonel Jurten with his loyal Adeptus Mechanicus ally, Archmagos Greel, moved to unlock the facility and unleash the forbidden ancient weapons within. Whilst outside the siege ground on, within Ferrograd's walls the defenders laboured a desperate plan.

The Purging:
On the feast of the Emperors Ascension Jurten unleashed his long planned counter-attack. Scores of long range missiles roared forth from the heart of Ferrograd. The traitors helplessly watched their augers as
Jurten's rockets arced high into the planet's stratosphere before detonating in blooms of blinding light, and unleashing tonnes of lethal isotopes which blanketed the entire world in deadly fallout. For days the atmosphere became a sea of nuclear fire. Under Jurtens attack the planet's eco-system failed. The air was poisoned and Kriegs climate collapsed into storms that spanned continents. The raging fires blocked out the sun and a nuclear winter engulfed Krieg. As a results untold billions died. Those that did not perish took to thier fallout shelters and began a new subterranean existence. To future generations who would live terrible consequences of the atomic attack, Jurten's plan would come to be known as the 'purging'. Krieg might have been wrecked, but the purging evened up the odds. The loyalist had been well prepared for the attack, and the traitors would suffer terribly. But the civil war would go on...

Krieg's nightmare had only just begun. To the Imperial authorities Krieg was a prize no longer worth saving, its fate a red mark in the ledgers of the Administratum. Krieg became a man-made death-world trapped in the freezing grip of a radioactive nuclear winter. The war between the secessionist and loyalist developed into devolved into a pitiless bloody war of attrition across a planet where every inch of ground grew to be littered with trench work, rusting razor wire and shell craters, in a deadly landscape where drifting fallout ash shrouded the numberless bones of the unburied dead.

It is doubtful that the full truth of those long and terrible centuries of the civil war will ever be known. Jurten finally perished, how, it is not recorded, but the descendants of those that followed him but the descendants of those that followed him lived on, and became as fearless as they were callous. War was all they would ever know, men were raised from birth to fight. The men that advanced great-coated and vapor-masked through the rad wasteland blasted cities became known as the Death Korps. They existed only to endure a hellish planetary surface, in order to do their duty and to kill in the Emperor's name. Through fifteen generations of terrible bloody attrition, the loyalist slowly re-took their blasted world in the name of the Emperor, trench-by-trench and tunnel-by-tunnel with bayonet, brutality and when needed atomic fire. After more than 500 years of the most nightmarish warfare imaginable and an incalculable price paid in human life and suffering Krieg belong to the Death Korps.

Recruitment:
Krieg Korps men are grown not bred. This is how Krieg maintains its output of human fodder for the Emperor's endless wars. Each Korps man is vat grown and implanted with enough experience to function at a basic human level. They emerge from the vats a the mental age of approximately eleven years of age but a physical age of Sixteen years. Newly emerged Korpsmen are organised into companies of siblings by batch called a sibco and begin rudimentary training almost immediately.

Equipment:


Organisation:
The organization of the 291st is quite standard for Imperial Guard regiments. The smallest official unit of organisation is the squad of 9 troopers lead by a Wachtmeister or a Feldwebel. The squad will almost always include at least one Weapons specialist, a senior korpsman entrusted with the squads special weapon. The squad is often unofficially broken into two fire-teams of 5 with the Wachtmeister leading one and the weapons specialist leading the other. In addition the Squad can sometimes include a two heavy weapons specialists, in which case the heavy weapon equipment and ammunition is distrubuted amongst the korpsmen making up the squad.

Two to five infantry Squads are grouped to form a Zug (Platoon), lead by a Command team of 5 which includes a Zugfuhrer(Platoon leader), normally a Leutnant. Three to Nine Zugen are grouped under a headquarters Zug to form a Kompanie (Company). A Kompanie is normally lead by a Hauptman or Feldwachtmeister, but can often be lead by the senior Leutnant of the attached Zug where no more senior officers are available. Attached to the Kompanie HQ Zug is all of the companies support and specialist assets. These assets can vary widely Kompanie to Kompanie given the Kompanie'e role and current mission. The 291st has 32 Kompanies of its establishment 40 companies giving the regiment approxmately 3000 fighting Korpsmen and 6000 support personel.

The 32 Kompanies are grouped under the Regimental HQ commanded by an Major. Attached to the Regimental HQ are the regimental support; armoured; cavalry; artillery and specialist assets. Like the Kompanie support assets these will vary according the regiments current mission with assets either attached for missions to Kompanies throughout the regiment or in reserve under the command of the Major.
The 291st also has attached as part of its establishment strength a Divisional HQ company led by a General-Oberst. This special unit is intended to provide the special skills needed command to multi regimental groupings of Imperial Guard.

Doctrines:

• Motorised Infantry
• Grenadiers
  
• Iron Discipline
• Hardened Fighters
• Special Weapons Squads

Notable Figures:
Gen. Steiner - H'Rus Incident
Col. Paulus - H'Rus Incident
Major Kurtz - Malvairn Rearguard, Praxedes IV
Hauptmann Alder
Commissar Nero - Down town Videghese Praxedes IV
Korpsman Drusus Keppler-A5031-7 - Counter attack at Vidighese, Praxedes IV

Command Rank Structure:

General	Brigade/Divisison
Colonel	Regiment/ Brigade
Major	Company
Hauptman	Company
Leutnant	Platoon
Ensign
Vet. Watchmaster	Platoon/Squad
Watchmaster	Squad
Corporal	Section
Guardsman

Timeline:

433.M40 The Autarch of Krieg seceeded from the Imperium and Renounced His Fealty to the Golden Throne.

949.M40 the 500 Year Civil War on Krieg comes to an end.

741.M41 9031st Imperial Guard division is formed as a reinforcement for the Damocles crusade against the Tau. The 291st Death Korps Panzer Grenadiers are included on the roster

742.M41 Damocles crusade comes to an end. The Division is initialy retasked to assisst in holding worlds from the thrust of Hive Fleet Behemoth. During a lay over for refit, the division was requisitioned by +++ PURITY SEAL++++, to take part in the H'rus incident, A punitive expition against an outlying Tau colony

743.M41 9031st Imperial Guard division arrives on Ixus V to take part in the forlorn defence of that world against a Hive Fleet Behemoth tendril.

745.M41 Hive Fleet Behemoth is destroyed ending the first tyrannic war.

745.M41 At the beginning of the year the 9031st Imperial Guard division is finally transfered to the Damoclese Crusade 10th Army operating on Praxedes Qunitus. The division loaded quickly, translating through the warp to arrive on the surface of Praxedes IV 6 Imperial months later. The Damoclese Crusade itself had been over for three years. Operations had continued on the surface of this world at the behest of the Administratum.

058.747.M41 Tau H'Rus Sept launch a counter offensive, recapturing the outer suburbs of the town of Vidighese on Praxedes Qunitus.

071.747.M41 Inconclusive Fighting continues in and around down town Vidighese on Praxedes Quintus between the 291st Death Korps of Krieg regiment and the H'Rus Sept.

093.747.M41 Tau finally break the Imperial line in the town of Vidighese. A Company of the CCCLLI Vostroyan broke under sustained Tau assault. With the Tau in positions overlooking the main highway into the city from the south, the Imperial position became untenable and the withdrawal began, with the 291st Death Korps of Krieg regiment covering the retreat.

109.747.M41 Imperial forces around Vedighese fell back to wards the next defense line based around the defensible feature known as the Malvairn heights. At the foot hills the 291st Death Korps of Krieg regiment turned at bay and utterly smashed the Tau vanguard in hot pursuit. Imperial forces had lost 15 km of line and the town of Vedighese had fallen, but the line was re-established

903.M41 19th Founding of the 291st Death Korps of Kreig as an Infantry Regiment

912.M41 The regiment is pulled out of the line on Lausanne and rotated to garrison duty on the Troika Magnifica, a civilised world where the Munitorium could rest and refit the regiment back to full book strength.

934.M41 When the nation of Demezines on the third continent of Troika Magnifica revolts, the 287th Krieg Panzer Grenadiers Move swiftly to counter the traitors.

925.M41 Tau expansionst policies in the Damocles Gulf have mean't almost continuous low level conflict with the Imperium of Man. The regiment is posted to the Damocles Gulf Ready reaction force, Posted to Feyda Arakeen to counter Tau raids; Then rapidly pulled out and retasked to bolster PDF forces on the agriworld of Lausanne hard pressed by Tau sponsored rebels.