Tectonian Magma Guard

The Tectonian Magma Guard was the given name of Astra Militarum regiments raised from the planet Tectonia Prime.

Origins and Martial Traditions
The first Magma Guard regiments were raised in M38, shortly after the colony planet Tectonatta was given the status of a true Imperial world, governed by its first Imperial commander, and renamed Tectonia Prime.

Owing to their home world’s vast population and industrial wealth, not to mention its rich military tradition as a strategic lynchpin, the Magma Guard became a ubiquitous sight throughout the northern Vlaktes sector. Magma Guard were drawn from the planet’s underclasses, often made up of the lower populations of the twin hives Varrendonk and Asalhive. Recruitment into the Guard was seen as an avenue for upward social mobility within Tectonian culture.

The raising of a new regiment was always cause for celebration, typified by the traditional honor march, wherein the recruits of a new regiment, be it from Varrendonk or Asalhive, would engage in a cross-continental march to the opposite hive city for departure. Always accompanied by an entourage of thousands of civilians, each honor march took the newly raised soldiers along ancient trench works and bastions that lined the highway between the two cities. Created to halt the Rendreugh Invasion of early M39, the inter-hive fortifications served as a reminder to the new recruits of the rich tradition they now stepped into as Magma Guard.

Regimental Numbering
In late M39, in preparation for the ill-fated Second Ketamo Crusade, Supreme Militant General Lanaus ser Kramen declared ninety-nine regiments of Magma Guard be newly raised from amidst Tectonia Prime’s planetary defense force. This depleted the best of the PDF’s ranks, but it provided ser Kramen with the soldiery he needed. The Second Ketamo Crusade was a disaster of notably historical provenance, and all ninety-nine of the newly raised regiments were killed to a man.

In tribute, Tectonian tradition declared that never Magma Guard regiment ever be designated a number higher than 99. The available numbers exist in a cycle, with a regiment raised and sent out with its number, only to have that number assigned to a fresh regiment once the cycle has revolved again, typically by the time the previous force has been wiped out to a man in one of the Imperium’s many wars.

This system worked fine until the raising of 742.M41, when the planet was called upon to raise a full two hundred and four regiments for the ongoing Damocles Gulf Crusade. During that raising, the world founded two of every regiment numbered 1 through 45, and three of every regiment numbered 46 through 99. The combined honor march lasted the better part of six solar months. By the time the regiments reached the front, the crusade had reached its end, and the soldiers were re-tasked to the emerging fronts of the First Tyrannic War. To the knowledge of Tectonian historitors, none made it out alive.

Methods of Warfare
The Magma Guard were a highly-mobile force of hostile environment soldiery. Whether armed with short-stock, Tectonian-pattern lasguns and mounted in the holds of Chimera armored transports, or crewing the vast armored regiments of red tiger-striped Leman Russes, on the ash-choked igneous flats of their home world or the rust-red rad wastes of the Anvil Worlds, the Magma Guard became a byword for stoicism across the battlefields of the Vlaktes sector.

The Fall of Tectonia Prime
Main article: Fall of Tectonia Prime

A full forty-five regiments of Magma Guard were on-planet during the Fall of Tectonia Prime, with a further fifteen regiments fighting in defense of the system’s lesser worlds. The Tectonian PDF numbered in the millions, and by the end of the conflict, the majority of the planet’s military-aged populace was engaged in fighting, either through forced conscription or in voluntary scratch-battalions.

Against the formations of poorly-armed irregulars, turncoat hivers, and plague zombie hordes of the Archenemy, the Magma Guard stood triumphant. Against the true heretic Astartes of the Black Legion and Corpsemakers, the Guard were sorely out-matched; these engagements were blessedly rare, owing in large part to the comparative rarity of the Astartes and the larger threat of their loyalist cousins in the form of the Iron Hands. It was only when set against the Cataphract Generationals that the Guard saw true, equal opposition. The Generationals—themselves descendants of a milieu of traitor guardsmen from centuries past—were well-equipped, well-disciplined, and battle-hardened.

In battles across the igneous wasteland between the hives, Magma Guard armored elements clashed with traitor tanks.

Regiments in Exile
When Tectonia Prime fell, the majority of the regiments on-world were left to die. Only a few dozen companies made their escape with the last evacuation shuttles. These survivors were formed into the core of three new regiments—the 100th, 101st, and 102nd Magma Guard, breaking the stricture of numbering for the first time in centuries by decree of Lord Sector Governor Lorsum Ippalia ser Dolor XVII. Further regiments were raised thereafter, composed of the displaced populace of Tectonians now spread throughout the northern Vlaktes sector.

Seconded to northern sector command, the new Tectonian regiments engaged in the many wars that broke out across the Tectonian sub-sector following the Fall of Tectonia Prime. Thus did these dispossessed population engage in a multi-year honor march of their own to reach and retake their lost home world.

Magma Guard in the Anvil Worlds Invasion
Main article: Anvil Worlds Invasion

Twelve regiments of the Magma Guard were caught in the Diorton system during the outbreak of the warp storm which engulfed the Meaxi cluster in 14 post KCM.M41.