Legions

When the Orcs were created, it was to serve as the army of the Dark Lords, a cabal of Young Gods with their gaze set on World domination. They ruled over their creations as divine sovereigns, and mustered them into the fighting force known as the Legions. Each of the Dark Lords took a part of the initial stock to populate their own domain and to shape into their own Legion. Through their divine power and mandate, and under their direct authority as manifest divinities, each shaped their Orcs into a fighting force according to their own ideals and philosophy. Only the Giver of Banners had no Legion of her own, instead claiming authority over all. Her domain was a lifeless barren that she transformed into the verdant paradise of Godsgarden, and she drew troops from all of the other Legions to create her elite cohort, the Rising Storm.
Each Legion encompassed both the fighting strength and the civilian population that supported it, all of the Orcs under the authority of one of the Dark Lords. Although the Legions varied widely in their combat doctrine, the broad organisational model was always the same. The Legion was commanded by the Manus, the right hand of the Dark Lord, and divided into large subdivisions called cohorts, each commanded by a general. In turn, fighting cohorts were subdivided into maniples, and further into hundreds.
Originally, each Legion was composed of the banner cohort, four fighting cohorts, and the extramural cohort. The banner cohort was the personal command of the Manus, assisted by the Adjutant General of the Legion, and focused on religious, command, communication and intelligence functions. The banner cohort was also responsible for maintaining orthodoxy and discipline within the Legion as a whole.
The remaining four fighting cohorts would be divided between field cohorts, dedicated to frontline combat and direct confrontation with the enemy, and support cohorts, dedicated to a mixture of logistics, defence, artillery and arcane support. The leader of a field cohort was a blade general, the leader of a support cohort a shield general, but the two ranks were of equal status. The extramural cohort was the term used for the orc civilians within the Dark Lord’s domain, including non-combatants deployed in support of the fighting strenght of the Legion, as well as the general population. Unlike the other cohorts, it had no fixed size, simply including every non-combatant under the authority of the Manus.
As each Legion built up a body of older fighters, the organisation added the rearguard cohort. This structure absorbed the non-combatants who travelled with the fighting force, but was mostly taken up by the veterans of the Legion and young trainees who could then benefit from the teaching and experience of those veterans. The rearguard cohort had its own command structure, headed by a veteran with the rank of rear general.
The original Legion made up its cohorts of eight maniples, each commanded by a legate. One maniple would comprise the command staff of the General, the others would be devoted to fighting functions: mostly frontline combat and support, but the banner cohort in particular would also include more flexible maniples, intended to be deployed as needed instead of as part of a fixed formation. The extramural cohort was not subdivided, but the rearguard would be broken into a mix of non-combatant, training and veteran maniples, typically just one of each, regardless of size.
The maniples were made up of hundreds, originally ten hundreds to a maniple. Throughout the Legions’ history, the hundred was the one great constant, a unit of one hundred fighting orcs, trained to fulfil a specific combat role: command, frontline combat, artillery, logistics, industrial support, medical, arcane warfare or spiritual force, plus as many as twenty non-combatant supporters. The fighting orcs within the hundred functioned in five to twelve units known as tens, although in fact each consisted of eight to twenty orcs. Each ten was led by a ten captain, the hundred by a hundred captain.
As the Legions and their territory expanded, the size of the Legions expanded: From four to seven fighting cohorts, and then to ten. The cohorts themselves increased to ten maniples, and the maniples first to twenty hundreds, then to fifty, to seventy, and finally to one hundred hundreds, and a total of one million fighting Orcs in each of the Twelve Legions.
Officers of the Legions won promotion through the favour of their masters, and served as priests as well as commanders.
Legion troops fought in highly standardised gear: studded leather armour for light troops, ring mail for regular heavy troops and plate for elites; long spears, round shields and straight swords for cavalry; polearms, tower shields and machetes for infantry.
One of the greatest weaknesses of the Legions as a whole was the competition fostered between the different Legions by their patron Gods. Each Legion specialised in a particular form of warfare, and cohorts and maniples would be arranged into field armies to meet the needs of a particular battle. The fierce rivalries between commanders, however, meant that the members of different Legions never worked well together, causing irreparable harm to the unity of the force in combat, and the image of the Dark Lords as infallible.

Legionary Roles

• Command/Banner - senior officer (manus, general, legate,) adjutant, sentry, bodyguard, priest/acolyte, warseer, spymaster/spy
• Fighting - line infantry (light, dragoon, heavy,) cavalry (light, heavy,) hunters (scouts, assassins, skirmishers)
• Support - artillery, arcane, medical, armoury, sentry, bodyguard
• Non-combatant - logistics, foraging, entertainment, catering.

The Legions

• The Rising Storm – Elite cohort in direct service to the Giver of Banners
• The 1st Legion, the Iron Bulwark, in service to the Master of Shields. Specialists in defensive formation warfare.
• The 2nd Legion, the Shadow of Death, in service to the Marshall of Spears. Specialists in all-out offensive warfare.
• The 3rd Legion, the Grey Wind, in service of the Keeper of Wargs. Specialists in swift attack.
• The 4th Legion, the Thousand Eyes, in service of the Sender of Bats. Specialists in scouting and surveillance.
• The 5th Legion, the Black Thunder, in service of the Driver of Boars. Specialists in heavy assault.
• The 6th Legion, the Shackle of Allies, in service of the Lash of the Hordes. Gave order and purpose to the Hordes; many of its members were Hobgoblins.
• The 7th Legion, the Scouring Flame, in service of the Kindler of Fires. Specialists in siege warfare.
• The 8th Legion, the Unsleeping Vigil, in service of the Warden of the Marches. Specialists in defensive skirmishing.
• The 9th Legion, the Engine of War, in service to the Chainer of Thralls. Specialists in supply, logistics and slave management.
• The 10th Legion, the Silent Death, in service to the Honer of Blades. Specialists in assassination, psyops and sabotage.
• The 11th Legion, the Barren Harvest, in service to the Digger of Graves. Specialsts in necormancy and terror operations.
• The 12th Legion, the Unstoppable, in service to the Binder of Boots. Specialists in transportation.

The Legion waged war against the Regime and the lesser states of the World for centuries, before at last the Orcs turned on their Gods and destroyed them. In the centuries since, a resurgence of worship for the Dark Lords has led to The Creation of Neo-Legion cults.

Type

Military, Army