January 2023: A History of Tierra and Her Peoples (Pt 1)
1: The Kentauri
To ask for a history of Tierra is to ask for the impossible, for just as the Tierra of today is now a land of many fiefs and lineages, it was once a land of many peoples and traditions, each with their own stories. A history of this land is much like the history of many of its great families: united at present, but the result of many disparate roots, stretching across seas and mountains. There is the Tierra of the Unified Kingdom, born upon the field of Montjoy amidst Edwin the Strong’s statesmanship and Callum the Cruel’s intransigence. There is the Tierra of the Kian soldiers who would lay the stones of Cunaris and Warburton. There is the Tierra of the Calligian adventurers and opportunists who would make Wulfram. There is the Tierra of the M’hidiyossi corsairs and merchants and bankers, who would leave their legacy in the bastions of Leoniscourt, the parks of Aetoria, and the streets and monuments of a thousand other places.
But before them all, there is the Tierra that was before. The Tierra which existed before Tierra. Before the stories of the many peoples, there were the stories of the ones who lived in this land before them, the ones whom many are descended, but whom few will adopt as their own. I speak of course, of the Tierra of my own people, the Tierra of the Kentauri.
It can be frighteningly easy to reduce the history of the Kentauri peoples to the shell which they now are. Even the name “Kentauri” itself is a sort of cheap generalisation, a term brought about only after the rise of the Settler-Lords, a name given to us by those who now live in the lands of our ancestors, as if it were the stakes of a pale, to pen us in to that part of our homeland which we still possess. Much of what is commonly understood of the Kentauri are the product not of our old ways, but of the new ones which we have had to adopt to survive in an environment which is as much foreign as it is ancestral. It is these customs which are so easily derided as the barbarous ways of half-literate savages, to the familiar images of half-naked men fighting over a sheep’s carcass filled with whisky, of backwards fools which look with disdain upon all pretense of learning, of a people who are as wild and stark as the harsh lands they live in – as if such “noble” fortitude could justify keeping us in such a place.
The truth is, I think something far more complex, and far more dangerous to those who would see us only as animals – or worse – as victimised innocents. The truth was that in the times before the Settler-Lords, we were not one people, but many. That is a conclusion I think ought to come more easily than it has to most, for even the most cursory glance at Tierra’s varied climes makes clear that the ways in which one might live in one region would prove entirely impractical in others. So it was in those times as well. In the North, men hunted the forests of what is now Wulfram. The midlands were ruled by sheep-herders, who lived in great hill forts atop whose ruins many Aetorian towns now stand. The West was the domain of fisherfolk, who first gave name to the Salt Coast, they who braved the sea on tiny coracles, and first charted the passages still used by today’s seafarers. In the south laid the strongest and most populous of the old peoples, ruled by chiefs who dared call themselves king, and who the others all feared in times of war.
And there were certainly wars, not in the style of the clan grudges and the raids of today’s Kentauri, but of mustered armies in open fields, like those of other armies. The men of those days were every bit as warlike as their Kentauri descendants, and my own clan keeps preserved long records of skirmishes and campaigns, of men riding out from wood and stone fortresses to contest the grazing rights of a pasture, or the possession of a hill, or the tolling of a bridge. The stories of those times tell of schemes and intrigues every bit as complex and vicious as those of any Kian court, and of diplomatic arrangements which might prove a challenge to the comprehension of even a Takaran Senator or an Antari Lord of the Congress. These were not savage animals, or innocent children, but a sophisticated collection of peoples, who were not unwilling to seize any advantage over their enemies.
And this, perhaps, was the key to their downfall, for when the Settler-Lords arrived, they saw the newcomers as nothing more than a useful implement in their own vendettas. They compassed not the long-term intentions of the Kian and the M’hidiyossi and the Calligians, but merely saw their numbers and their weapons in terms of their own interests. It is often lamented that had we been united as a people, we might have easily pushed the Settler-Lords into the sea, but we were never united, or a single people until the circumstances of our overthrow made us one by necessity. Instead, we saw only our familiar enemies, and a means to overwhelm them in eschange for a trade concession here, the right to settle there. It was only after we vanquished our old enemies did we realise that our former allies had become new ones, and by then, it is far too late.
Now, all that remains of the Tierra that was before Tierra is an artificial agglomeration of a people, pushed into the poorest corner of an island by our own short-sightedness. Of what came before, there are only our histories, carved on posts by the Northerners, upon stones by the midlanders, in plates of silver locked in iron-bound chests by those who had once been southern nations, like my own clan. So carefully guarded are these histories that they are rarely shared to those outside the clan, for they are the last relics of the time before.
One day, perhaps those stories will once again be shared and added to the collection of those which have become the common record of Tierra’s history. Until they day comes, they will remain, hidden and secret by the will of those who keep them – a wish I have every intention of respecting.
-Sir Alastair Esmonde Ludovic Dyn Kellen, KCSI
2: The Calligians
There has been a Calligian presence in what is now northern Tierra for nearly a millennium. Even during the near mythical time when humans possessed universal Banecasting, there were known to be outposts and trading settlements along the coast of what is now Wulfram. Though often possessed of the impressive fortifications and edifices which we now come to associate with the sorcerous powers of Old Calligia, these were for the most part minor centres of only a few hundred inhabitants, stops along the trade route to Takara, or outposts intended to support the occasional naval patrol against pirates and renegades. To the Old Calligians, the land that would become Tierra was a shadowy periphery, almost beyond their notice, possessed of little in the way of useful riches – and already in the possession of peoples too troublesome to rule and too well-organised to subjugate.
It was the fall of Old Calligia which changed this state of affairs. Suddenly, the scattered outposts along the northern coast found themselves not only without the essential implements needed to maintain their fortifications, but also without regular communication or resupply from their homeland. Though ships from Calligia would continue to arrive, such comings would be irregular, and many of the more isolated communities fell to ruin as their inhabitants starved, walked into the forests to join the natives, or sought to take their chances with larger settlement, or with one of the many warlords which now fought over the ruins of their old homeland.
Those settlements that remained found themselves subject to a new benefactor. The Takarans had sought to use the turmoil in Calligia to their advantage, by creating a state of affairs on the continent more favourable to their own interests. With such an object in mind, they began shipping arms and other means of military assistance to those Calligian warlords they saw as most amenable to their own dominion. Unwilling to either risk delivering such shipments directly to Calligia, and even less amenable to the prospect of making such transfers on their own soil, the Takarans found the Calligian outposts in Northern Tierra to be a most useful expedient. For two decades, the flow of supplies to Takara’s allies would continue. The precise quantity of such transfers would rise and ebb with the change of governments, but the flow itself was great enough to necessitate the great expansion of many of these minor settlements by Takaran engineers, most notably at Tannersburg, whose harbour still bears such marks of Takaran banecasting.
Not all new shipping came from Takara, however. As the ruin of Old Calligia dragged on, many sought to flee their war-torn homeland for more peaceable lands, and the settlements of Northern Tierra – now effectively under Takaran military rule – offered safety and security, if not necessarily freedom or comfort. Thousands took ship south in those years, swelling once-isolated outposts into great networks of farming hamlets and border fortresses – and turning the isolated enclaves of settlement into the beginnings of real kingdoms, built atop land purchased, or outright taken from the natives.
In this latter means of expansion, the Takarans proved to be of great assistance. Seeing the Calligian refugees as a more reliable source of labour than the supposedly intransigent native peoples, Takaran military forces would often play a major role in securing concessions in the favour of the colonists, often at the points of bayonets. It is said that in some Kentauri clans, the Wulframite descendants of those colonists are rumoured to have eru-venne blood, as impossible as that would be in reality. Even after the collapse of the Takaran military missions in Calligia, the Takarans maintained considerable influence among the colonies in Northern Tierra, and the remants of that region’s time as a defacto Takaran protectorate can remain visible even unto this day.
As Takara withdrew, Calligia returned, albeit under a different banner and different symbols. Over the next centuries, the House of Saint Stanislaus would exercise a policy of control over its southern colonies which could be best described as long-term inconsistency, with some Emperors seeing the distant shore as a prime dumping ground for troublemakers and disgraced courtiers, whilst others planned to develop them as a base of power far away from the ambitious nobility and querrelous leagues of the continent. As a result, Octovia would never truly reassert its power over its Tierran possessions. New arrivals might cling to the customs and practises of the old country for a time, but would invariably find themselves abandoned with the changing of emperors and the subsequent changing of policies. within a generation, they would inevitably become part of the local culture which they had found themselves surrounded by.
So, as the power of the Imperial Throne waned, Octovia’s colonies grew further apart from its nominal overlord. By the time of the rise of the League of Antar, Wulfram had effectively become an independent kingdom. Although Octovia, and later Antar would continue to demand submission and tribute well into the Unified Kingdom era, its hold over Northern Tierra had been broken long before then. The final severing of ties, which came with King Alaric’s War, was less a change in course than the final cementing of a long-established reality: that of an independent Tierra, no longer subject or connected to its Calligian roots.
-Sir Walter Antonio Stanislaus d’al Alberbrich, KCSR
February 2023: A History of Tierra and Her Peoples (Pt 2)
3: The M’hidyossi
When one thinks of the M’hidyossi migrations, one must first realise that one is considering not just one, but three – or perhaps even four such movements. Aside from originating from the same continent, these migrations have very little in common with each other. M’hidyos is, in the end, a very vast and varied continent, and those great movements of peoples who have found its unheavals and unpleasantnesses intolerable have in the past possessed likewise different resources, motives, and specific points of origin. Such distinctions are of vital importance, for although it might be said that the foundation of Tierra as a unified kingdom was laid in M’hidyossi stone, it might quickly become a matter of dispute to determine whether the specific stone in question is the granite of the Mountain People, the limestone of Santamor, or the basalt of Old M’hidyos.
A Digression: although M’hidyossi migration has played perhaps the greatest role in the shaping of Tierra today, and most Tierrans may trace at least some portion of their ancestry to the continent, it ought to be remembered that Tier al-ard was not the destination of all, or even the majority of those who emigrated from the continent. While Varahd was, and remains the most populous part of the continent, and while its people and lands have not escaped the turmoil of the centuries, there are very few people descended from that race in Tierra. In the end, most of of Varahd’s emigrants settled elsewhere, in the northernmost dominions of the Kian, where they to this day maintain a distinct cultural presence amongst the great peoples of that vast and terrible empire.
The peoples of the First Migration, on the other hand, came from further north, the trading ports of Santamor and the Olive Coast. These were the adventurers, men – almost always men – of some fortune and power, out to seek enlargement away from the paltry trade with the insular and proud Octovians of frozen Calligia, or the overpopulated and heacily taxed traffick with the Kian. Hailing from minor nobility, or merchant houses of middling resources and influence, they sought to establish trading relations with the natives of the Tierran continent, and the small Calligian settlements which had begun to spring up in the northern part of that land and the Kian enclaves which were beginning to be established in the south. At first, these posts were mere harbours, with rudimentary defences to deter raids from land or sea, but in time, as trading houses began to build offices, and then headquarters near the source of their wealth, they became towns in their own right.
In these early days, the adventurers were vastly outnumbered by the natives of the land, who would be known as the Kentauri in latter days. This served the adventurers well, for this not only provided them with a great range and number of trade goods, but also with another source of income, for the natives were fractious and warlike against each other, and the adventurers though few in number possessed the arms, organisation, and training to make for formidable additions to their warbands. Alliances were signed to safeguard the growing settlements along the coast of what is now Aetoria, and with musket and pike, the adventurers and their allies drove away their enemies – before turning against their former allies.
For in that time, the adventurers who had first settled the coast had become numerous and wealthy and powerful, and the small bands of guards they had first brought with them had become armies, and the gardens they had cultivated to feed themselves had become vast landed estates. Those of the natives who submitted were married into the houses of the adventurers, as if they had been defeated or junior noble houses in the old continent. Those who refused had their holds ravaged and their people driven into a permanent exile to join their vanquished former enemies. This was not done out of malice or spite, but out of a desire to secure the power of the adventurer-lords over their holdings – yet the wronged party rarely considers malice in intention, only malice in consequence, and it is as a result of this that the descendants of those exiled peoples, who now call themselves Kentauri, remain distrustful of all outsiders – and for good reason.
Contrast this to the story of the second migration, those of the refugees.
As the Santamorids consolidated their rule throughout the continent, many were left without a place in their homelands. Either due to unwise political connections, fear, a lack of stability, or simple sentence of exile, they fled across the sea to the far west, beyond the fledgling trading posts of the merchant houses, until they either found shelter in the rocky coves of what has become the Salt Coast, or were turned back by the schooners of the Takaran Richshyr.
In this place, the refugees found land ill-suited for farming, and seas far too rough for the methods of fishing which had sustained them in their old homelands. However, this country was not entirely incapable of sustaining human life, for although sparse, it was still populated by natives who were able to make a living through their own specialsed methods of harvesting both meat and produce from the sea, the rocks, and the stony soil. It was these people who welcomed the refugees into their settlements. In return, the newcomers put their remembered skills and connections to their previous lives to good use, clearing harbours and building large sea-going ships which could sustain trade with far-off Takara and Butea.
In time, the combination of these strengths allowed the refugees to survive, and their hosts to attain a new degree of prosperity. The two peoples intermarried, and with the addition of other arrivals – including a second wave of emigrants following the unification of Tierra and the fall of the Santamorids – laid their own road separate to either that of the exiled Kentauri or the lands of Santamor and M’hidyos which they came from. From here springs the people of the Salt Coast, as dominated by the great double-headed house of Englessea/Englessey, and whose cities of Crittenden and Castermaine represent the union of two peoples as one.
An examination of Crittenden and Castermaine’s construction quicly reveal evidence of particularly heavy defensive works: curtain walls, sea batteries, a series of watchtowers and citadels along the coast. These are the legacy of the last, and perhaps the least-welcome of the M’hidyossi waves of settlement, the criminals, or perhpas more euphemistically: the freebooters.
Common understanding is that these freebooters primarily hailed from High M’hidyos and the Olive Coast, from hill bandits and sea corsairs. This is an impression which has been formed by the well-documented lineage of the most famous of the resulting houses: the Cazarostas of Leoniscourt. Yet not all of these individuals came from such places. Here also were the dregs of Kastellia, failed merchants and disgraced nobles from Santamor, even particularly bold gangs from Varahd. All were drawn to the Takaran trade, and the wealth which the ships plying it carried in their holds. With the Takaran Third Empire focused entirely on a confrontation with the Kian, and much of the western coast of Tierra uncharted, these freebooters were able to build havens and fortresses for themselves all along the coast, demanding tribute or extracting loot from the Salt Coast when needed.
It is this latter contest, between the freebooters and the descendants of the refugees which still shapes the cultures of that region. In many ways, the two waves were very alike: the unwanted cast-offs of M’hidyos, joined with the locals of the country, and using their shared knowledge for mutual benefit. In time, thanks to the occasional truce, intermarriage, and the final imposition from above of a general peace by the new Kings of Tierra, these cultures grew into a restive, if tense peace with each other. It is not a perfect fusion. The joining points are obvious to see, yet one may yet bear hope that such differences may be resolved in the generations to come.
-Sir Ibrahim Iskander Joachim d’al Altamira ae Montalban, KCSI
4: the Kian
There had never been any intention on the part of the Grand Staff to give over any part of Tierra to civilian settlement. Initial Kian interest in the landmass of the Tierran continent was purely military. In the last years of the previous dynasty, as confrontation with the Great Enemy loomed, it was the intention of the Ministry of Planning to secure forward operating positions from which the Empire’s fleets and armies might defend the homeland without placing into risk those Dominions which traditionally find themselves targets.
To this end, during the twelfth year of the T’ienneanne Emperor, a fortification was established on the Eastern coast of the continent, well south of the known area of extant M’hidyossi settlement. This fortress would form the northernmost point of what was then called the Outer Sea Line, a series of bases spread in a wide and shallow arc covering much of the Sea of Concord. Intended primarily as a resupply point for naval expeditions, treaties were duly signed with the local indigenous peoples for the purchase and provision of some of the materials needed for this purpose, with the remainder to be shipped from the homeland. As time passed and the fortress grew in importance, many of these imports were replaced with goods and equipment manufactured on site.
These manufactories and workshops, of course, required men to work them. In addition, the soldiers and sailors which garrisoned this outpost required the customary services of a garrison town. To meet these needs, a small town arose around the walls of this fortress, consisting of wine shops, handicrafts, tailors, and brothels. As the town grew, the existing agreements with the local peoples became insufficient for the purpose of feeding the settlement, let alone providing sufficient produce to fill the naval depots. As a result, veterans were settled in the immediate hinterlands of the town, to provide additional food and other necessary crops. By the time of the Great War, what had begun as a mere outpost was a large town in its own right, one which persists today as the city of Fernandescourt.
This pattern continued up and down the coast and beyond, in what is now Callindria, and further on. The island of Warburton first originated as the anchor of the so-called Foremost Sea Line, a further pattern of outposts intended to extend the reach of the Emperor’s fleets and armies even further. By the time war between the Kian and the Great Enemy finally began, this line of bases was also fully established and partially self-sufficient. They would prove their value in the subsequent campaigns, and although several smaller outposts were destroyed or otherwise lost during he fighting, the Sea Lines served their purpose. Never was the Kian homeland directly endangered by Takaran forces. The strategy of the Ministry of Planning had shown its worth, while the enemy’s overconfidence in their own command of the sea allowed for no similar strategy, allowing allied forces to bring the war to a successful conclusion.
Following the peace, however, the Sea Lines were seen as superfluous. It was firmly understood that the Takarans would not again be a threat for at least another century, and the newly established regime of the Duke of Zi’enne required all resources to be directed towards the consolidation of their own rule. The forces of the new Emperors thus withdrew from the outer defences, with the assumption that those who had lived and worked within them would also opt to return to the homeland.
This assumption proved unfounded. By this time, the bases of the Outer Sea Line had been established for over a century. Those of the Foremost Sea Line for more than two generations. Communities and settlements had not only formed in the shadow of these bases, but well out into their hinterlands. When the armies and fleets withdrew, some went with them, but most stayed in what had become the homeland which they and their families had been born in.
It is, perhaps, understandable what happened next, for the withdrawal of Kian military forces also meant the withdrawal of Kian administration and bureaucracy. These former bases were thus obliged to assemble their own means of governance, ones which naturally began to plot a course which focused on the immediate interests of local populations over the long-term necessities of a military plan which no longer applied. Within a generation, these new powers began asserting themselves over the lands around them. Freed from Kian control, they often saw little need to respect treaties between the local native peoples and the envoys of the Grand Staff. As a result, the territory under their direct control grew, as those natives who did not submit where either driven out, or otherwise removed.
Thus ended the history of the differing peoples who settled the Tierran continent, and those who – perhaps unwisely – welcomed them. Thus began the stories of the period we call the Petty Kingdoms, from which eventually arose the Tierran state.
-His Excellency the Count of Leannejouwe
March 2023: The Generals of Brigade
Except from NORTHERN WARS, a commercially avaliable Kian Tabletop Wargame from the 9th Century.
TIERRAN GENERAL OF BRIGADE (Generic)
Point Value: 65
Type: Commander
Statblock: 1x General of Brigade + 5x Mounted Staff Officers
MOR 5 – MOV 15 – RNG – 12 – FIRE 2 – MELEE 3 – TOUGH 5
The cream of the Tierran officer corps, the General-of-Brigade is a senior commander in the King’s Army. Although lacking a formal military education, he has distinguished himself enough as both a fighting officer and a leader of men to secure an appointment to high command. He is capable of both directing a battle effectively from afar, or charging into battle at the head of his command, assisted by a small group of staff officers who double as his bodyguard, should the general’s life be imperilled.
Special Rules:
Leadership(6/30): Designate up to six other units at the beginning of play. The General-of-Brigade provides a +2 bonus to MOR to these units so long as he is within 30cm of them.
Specialty – Line Infantry: Line Infantry units affected by the General-of-Brigade’s Leadership rule also gain +1 FIRE.
OR
Specialty – Shock Infantry: Shock Infantry units affected by the General-of-Brigade’s Leadership rule also gain +1 MELEE.
OR
Specialty – Skirmisher: Skirmisher units affected by the General-of-brigade’s Leadership rule also gain + 1 FIRE.
OR
Speciality – Shock Cavalry: Shock Cavalryunits affected by the General-of-Brigade’s Leadership rule also gain +1 MELEE.
Sub-Commander: This Commander unit may be placed under the command of a Commander unit with the Commander-in-Chief rule, providing the latter unit’s leadership benefits to the former and all units under his command.
VARIANTS
JOHANNES, DUKE OF CUNARIS
MOR 6 – MOV 0 – RNG 18 – FIRE 2 – MELEE 3 – TOUGH 5
First wartime commander of the illustrious Royal Dragoons, the Duke of Cunaris was head of the wealthy and powerful Findlay Clan, a family with a long history of military service. After distinguishing himself as a talented regimental colonel, he was wounded and immobilised by an Antari Church Hussar whilst leading a desperate charge at the battle of Blogia. However, despite his injury, he would prove a capable brigade commander in the years to follow, playing an instrumental role in holding the Tierran Army’s right flank during the Second Battle of Blogia.
Bold on the field, he proved more vacillating in the political sphere, and his unwillingness to choose a side during the early phase of the Tierran Civil War did much to damage his subsequent reputation.
Special Rules:
Leadership(8/40), Specialty – Skirmisher, Sub-Commander
Immobile: This unit cannot be moved after deployment, and takes a -1 MELEE penalty when the target of a Charge action.
LOUIS, EARL OF CASTERMAINE
MOR: 5 – MOV 15 – RNG 12 – FIRE 1 – MELEE 3 – TOUGH 5
The Earl of Castermaine was a man known from an early age for his great attention to detail. He proved himself a brave and capable commander throughout the Dozen Years’ War, but proved truly skilled as an administrator and a staff officer. As a result, the brigade he commanded maintained a reputation for being the best-supplied and the best-led. However, his methods in maintaining such standards did not always endear him to his men, who nicknamed him “The Old Complainer”, for his constant focus on seemingly minute logistical affairs.
However, such meticulousness would prove an immense boon to his allies during the Tierran Civil War, when he proved to be the most talented senior military administrator in the Wulframite army.
Special Rules:
Leadership(6/30), Speciality – Line Infantry, Sub-Commander
Meticulous: This Commander may forgo his Move action to add an additional + 1 FIRE and + 1 MOR to all units under his command within his Leadership radius until his next activation.
JAIME, BARON MATHESON
MOR: 6 – MOV 12 – RNG 8 – FIRE 3 – MELEE 4 – TOUGH 6
Baron Matheson did not secure his position through patronage, as most of his colleagues did. Instead, he clawed up the ranks of the Royal Tierran Marines. He quickly gained a reputation for aggression and boldness, especially for personally leading unexpected attacks with outmatched forces, and using the ensuring confusion to his advantage. By the time of the Dozen Years’ War, “Havoc” Matheson was already a living legend among the Marines, and his continued exploits through that conflict only spread his reputation to the rest of the Tierran military.
However, by the time of the Tierran Civil War, Matheson was well past his prime. Refusing to take sides, he ceded the field to younger men, who would forge reputations soon to eclipse his own.
Special Rules:
Leadership(6/30), Speciality – Shock Infantry, Sub-Commander
Bayonet Leader: If engaged in a Charge action, this Commander may choose to add double his normal Leadership bonuses to his own unit, instead of providing them to units under his command within his Leadership radius.
TOMAS, BARON TOURBIRDGE
MOR 6 – MOV 15 – RNG 12 – FIRE 1 – MELEE 2 – TOUGH 6
Tomas d’al Eldridge, Baron Tourbridge was an unlikely fighting officer. Before the war, he was thought to be more at home at a card table than a map table, more likely to command a dance floor than a battlefield. Yet when the Dozen Years’ War broke out, and the commission he had purchased solely as a social ornament suddenly became a pressing duty, “Twelve-Gin Tommy”rose to the occasion with a sometimes shocking ability. He quickly proved one of the better officers in the Tierran Army, and by the Blogia campaign, had secured an appointment as one of the Duke of Wulfram’s Generals-of-Brigade.
It was Blogia which made Tourbridge’s reputation, his command holding off charge after charge of Antari Church Hussars as the rest of the army retreated. Unfortunately, it would also unmake him and most of the men under his leadership as well.
Special Rules:
Leadership(6/30), Speciality – Line Infantry, Sub-Commander
Die-Hard: Once per activation, this Commander may designate a single unit under his command within his Leadership radius. That unit may automatically succeed on a single MOR check.
SIR LOUIS-AUGUSTE D’AL PALLISER
MOR 5 – MOV 24 – RNG 0 – FIRE 0 – MELEE 4 – TOUGH 5
Born the dashing second son of a well-connected, if relatively minor noble family, young Louis-Auguste seemed almost born to be a cavalry officer. However, despite serving with distinction as a junior officer during the early part of the Dozen Years’ War he showed little aptitude for command until the fateful day of Blogia. Left the most senior surviving officer of his regiment, Palliser won promotion and knighthood by playing an instrumental role in rallying and organising the retreat of what was left of the Tierran cavalry.
His greatest accomplishment of the war, however, would come at the Second Battle of Kharangia, where his brigade would strike the decisive blow against Prince Khorobirit’s flank. As a result, he was elevated to the Tierran Cortes as Viscount Palliser of Kharangia, the title by which he would be known during the final, and perhaps most glorious part of his career.
Special Rules:
Leadership(4/24), Speciality – Shock Cavalry, Sub-Commander
First Lancer of the Realm: If engaged in a Charge action against an enemy cavalry unit, all other units under his command and within his Leadership radius gain an additional +1 MELEE bonus if they also engage in a Charge action. This effect lasts until this Commander’s next activation.
Paul Wang 