Savlar Chem-Dogs

The Savlar Chem-Dogs are penal legion regiments of the Astra Militarum (the Imperium’s Imperial Guard), raised from the prison population of Savlar. Savlar Penitens is recorded as a toxic mining world in the Segmentum Solar whose failure to meet its Imperial tithe saw it converted into a penal settlement, its volcanic moons worked for chemical deposits by transported criminals under the watch of the Adeptus Arbites. The regiments trace their origin to an armed uprising among the prison population, put down and then organised into a fighting force by an Arbites judge who offered the prisoners two terms of service: they might keep whatever war loot they recovered, but any who broke discipline again would be returned to Savlar.

Chem-Dogs troopers fight in bulky rebreathers adapted to Savlar’s poisonous atmosphere, often fitted with nitro-chem inhalers that deliver hyper-aggression stimulants in combat, a practice that gives the regiments their name. Discipline is maintained by an unusually high proportion of commissars, and in at least some battalions by officers known as mercies, who serve alongside the commissar with powers of summary judgement over penal-troopers. Command ranks are generally filled by non-native officers, often Schola Progenium graduates, frequently serving as commissar-colonels. The regiments favour flamers and heavy bolters over more venerated pattern weapons, make use of Ogryns, and field mounted Chem-Riders on chemically hardened beasts native to Savlar; armour and artillery support is drawn from Chimeras, Sentinels, Hellhounds, Leman Russ variants, Basilisks and Griffons.

Savlar Chem-Dog regiments are recorded fighting in the Kalidar War of 397.M41, but their best-attested campaign is the Third War for Armageddon of 998.M41, when six Chem-Dog regiments and two regiments of Chem-Riders were deployed by General Kurov to hold the underhives of Armageddon’s hive cities against Ork incursion, fighting alongside Cadian and other Imperial Guard formations sent to the same warzone. Individual regiments, including the Savlar 14th, are recorded serving on into later Armageddon campaigns and further engagements across M42, among them the Argovon Campaign, the Charadon Campaign, the Season of Blood and the Fourth War for Armageddon, with other regiments lost or disbanded in more obscure circumstances on worlds such as Lazulai and Donoria Prime.

In the present era the Chem-Dogs remain a distinct and distrusted current within the Astra Militarum: effective in confined, toxic and hostile terrain, valued for their tenacity, but kept under close commissarial supervision on account of their criminal origins and their tendency to loot and barter equipment, including matériel taken from other Imperial regiments. Accounts differ on how many regiments remain active, and no single commander is established as representative of the Chem-Dogs as a whole; the regiments are instead remembered collectively, through the record of the individual formations that have served under the Chem-Dog name.