Death Angels

"The death angels are a veteran unit in the peacemaker army. Drawn from the seraph warden confederacy, the death angels have been not just the backbone but the spine of every victory claimed by DECTA and the galactic council. They are mainly noted for the fact that when they are deployed, power armour (technology which usually dominates the battlefield) not just useless, but an active detriment to use. This is because they are one of the few units capable of using weapons that load UR-CA ammo." - Hitch-hiker's guid to Jeslorian militaries.

The Death Angels

The death angel corps are a mostly independent military unit in the peacemakers that originally hail from a region in Traupor to the north-west of Frostspike. While the Iron Union invented firearms before the seraph warden confederacy (the death angels before being absorbed into the peacemakers) had independently invented guns not long after them and thus have a similar cultural and historical affinity for firearms. Unlike Iron Union guns which were made primarily for medium to short range as they were meant for subterranean use and built from repurposed mining equipment, the guns the seraph build were always built and refined with range and damage in mind. The seraph wardens were originally a nomadic merchant tribe that ran into trouble with imperial scouts that saw them as slave material, it was this interaction that triggered a new tenant in seraph religion: freedom for all. The empire's scouting force was quickly pushed out of Traupor, but the result was permanent, wherever there is slavery, the seraph and later death angels would be there to root it out by uncompromising force if necessary.
Seraph culture was weird and not unlike that of the giants, where women who birthed new compatriots were seen as naturally well suited for defence and were responsible for wielding the primitive flak cannons (which would later converge with other blunderbuss type rifles into the much more convenient shotgun) to protect the town while the men and volunteers hunted for food and visited nearby settlements for trading. While not technically imperialist (they had no interest in occupying other land), they were very adamant that other civilizations followed their 3 tenants of their code of honour:
1. No person shall own another
2. Acts of kindness are to be returned
3. Traders are never to be hurt
Their habit of wandering into towns and demanding they follow their religious dogmas gave them a bit of a bad reputation, no matter how reasonable the rules were. Still, their traders were more than just that, they also went out of their way to free slaves from larger bandit legions and newer civilizations. They held a respectable amount of territory and were feared by a lot in their immediate vicinity, as with the firearms they had at their disposal at a time when most other civilizations still used crossbows, no matter how well-intentioned they may be.

While their territory was large, their actual presence was rather stretched thin and many could act in ways the seraph considered morally reprehensible without them ever noticing, relatively close to their camps and offices. The seraph lived mostly peacefully, without DECTA ever noticing, only showing up in some historical records of the giants writing about their exodus from Ragnarock where they met with the seraph. In fact, they remained mostly undiscovered well until the great war broken out and the empire begun attacking Dracholm, and they noticed a massive spike in imperial activity, a sworn enemy responsible for the first tenant of their faith. Of course, they could not remain in their isolated wasteland forever, especially with the war pushing them more onto the back foot than ever before. Before the war with the empire, the seraph were often pushed back by organized raider clans, but as their guns kept on evolving, going from muskets to bolt action rifles and eventually semi automatics, through training and technology they always regained the upper hand eventually.
The empire had not forgotten about them. They met well before anyone on the surface had ever heard of a gun before, let alone seen the immediate effects of one. So the incident where 5 out of 7 of their scouts were killed by men in long coats and helmets carrying very loud cannons around with ease was treated with all due urgency. The empire emboldened raider clans and the seraph found it harder to regain the upper hand. The increase in radio chatter close to Frostspike, where the dwarves had set up a camp eventually brought the Dracholmian Union and the seraph warden confederacy together. The Seraph agreed to help the Dracholmian Union in their war, giving them their knowledge of how to train stormtroopers, pointmen, and roamers if the dracholmian helped them defend beaver hill and the 3 superlodges residing there. The treaty was signed in 1778, two years before the imperial attack on the dwarven capital city of Aergique. The Dracholmian Union upheld their part of the bargain and the Seraph Warden forces became the death angel corps, now having a far bigger and organized R&D department behind them, which would later help develop the UR-Ca type ammunition.
Unfortunately, even though both sides upheld their sides, the seraph as a race and culture eventually faded into obscurity as they generally mingled with other surrounding cultures to the point where their race was all that was really left. The wardens were discontinued and replaced with reserve death angel corps members (which weren't always seraph) that performed similar tasks. Nevertheless, the spirit of seraph culture lives on in the bravery and efficiency displayed in the universally feared death angel corps, a branch with units so powerful it made the use of power armour by adversaries an active detriment as their rifles always kept them on top of whatever new armour was developed. Both on Jeslore, the colonies of the galactic council, and even among the ranks of the enemy, the death angels inspire awe and fear with their armour piercing troops felling even the biggest of tanks and their pointmen being a boon to any on field support unit. The spirit of the seraph lives on as the embodiment of one of the most terrifyingly effective infantry divisions the galaxy has ever seen.

The Roamer

Known for their charismatic nature as much as their ability to hit a needle from 9 miles out with a handgun with one hand on their back, these wandering snipers make a strong argument for being one of the best singular infantry units the tri-faction federation has access to. They were extremely deadly, even before UR-Ca ammo was invented because for as powerful as it is, they don't necessarily need it to do the job. What makes them such a desirable unit to have on the field is their ability to use any weapon with a mastery seen only in soldiers that have spent their lives training with it.
Perhaps not surprisingly, Roamers are most commonly seraph as they are generally unaffected by war horrors, but really any race can be seen as this unit as long as they have climbed the ranks. Another common sight for roamers are desert elves for their natural increase in luck and sun elves due to their long life spans. It is guessed that 7 out of 10 sun elven roamers have been in service of the death angel corps since shortly after the treaty was signed and not just seraph were given access to the skills that had previously been exclusive to seraph.
Roamers are considered sheriff, marine, scout, and rescue unit rolled into one singular soldier that can perform at any temperature, in any environment and use any weapon. No matter where they are deployed, they will complete their mission, if at their own pace.
Roamer training is brutal, much like anyone in the death angel corps their physical status is tempered and perfected. Their perception needs to be as polished as their strength and endurance, and a common trait among the few who made it to roamer is that they all tend to be charmers. There are many unorthodox skills that are required to promote from pointman to roamer, one of them is instinct. A roamer must be able to blast an enemy sneaking up on them with their revolver while blindfolded, hit unseen targets and detect hidden items without a clear visual clue. The training is absolutely unforgiving, so it's no surprise that many don't make it. Those that do make it though, they essentially have the entire world in the palm of their hand as they are allowed to complete missions at their own pace, given great funding, and are equipped with a set of skills that makes them nearly invincible to the average threat most will encounter.
When they're not deployed solo, roamers take on the role of a marshal, commanding 5 pointmen who in turn command 5 stormtroopers each. With their well-trained, expert strategic insight, they can also take charge of adjacent military units and manoeuvre them around their death angels. Because they tend to take charge of other military units, roamers are not very popular among other military leaders, but due to their overall rarity and immense skill set, roamers are rarely deployed in this position unless an important objective is about to be lost and units are taking heavy losses.
Their signature weapon, the kingslayer rifle is second to none in terms of range and power both on Jeslore and anywhere else. It has the most advanced scope that Instinct Technologies could design, zooming a million times further than any other scope and capable of spotting targets in other space vessels when held with enough stability. Equally advanced are the firing locks. Reloading an kingslayer takes a while, as all the locks that hold the rifle shut need to be released before a new bullet can be placed inside. Due to the kickback of URCA ammo, only one round can be loaded, and the rifle's actual operation is similar to a double barrel. But due to the absurd range of the rifle, anyone using a kingslayer is usually so far away that they remain undetected. Even though Kingslayers aren't silenced.

Roamer armour is not only indicative of the years of service, it also comes standard equiped with the strongest recoil compensators ever made on Jeslore, allowing them to handle kingslayer rifles without having to go prone. Roamers are second to none in terms of accuracy, stability and range. The orange armour strikes fear in the hearts of enemies as spotting a roamer means they are either out to arrest someone or, more commonly, they are angry and want to give an elimination a more personal 'touch'. While a lot of it seems like show, roamer armour is a lot sturdier and tankier than one would guess by looking at it. It uses state of the art shield generators to protect soldiers against incoming fire and the armour plates themselves are made out of semi compressed destroyer steel, offering superior protection against small arms fire when the shields are down. The hydraulic impact compensators not only eliminate falling damage but can also be used in reverse for a super jump.

The Pointman

As the name suggests, the pointman is a rank that takes point in non-roamer operation and commands 5 stormtroopers. They tend to join other military units in the position of a field captain, maintaining command of their stormtroopers, using shotgun and shield to zealously protect them. Even though in the peacemakers cowardice is generally not accepted, many field officers would get themselves to safety at the risk of their unit rather than risk their own life for their men. The Pointman does not act this way, they are as dedicated to the men and women under them as they are to their mission. They use energy barriers to protect compatriots from incoming gunfire, and energy buckshot to blast flankers into the ground. Their dedication is the result of an old seraph warden tradition that became a general death angel habit, where the harrowing duty of collecting dog tags and deliver them to the families of fallen angel is all theirs. Pointmen are also a support unit as much as they are a defensive unit, and have the means to patch up injured soldiers, or at the very least pass on their supplies to better trained medical personnel, so they can focus on shielding the frontliners.
Reflexes and reaction speed are the most important traits a stormtrooper must have perfected before they can promote to pointman. Their training involves protecting a dummy from incoming arrows that are show without warning, which eventually ramps up to bullets. During the bullet shielding trials they are also first given their helmets, which gives a warning that a projectile is coming towards a set ally. Only once they can protect a 5 dummies from 7 bullets coming from different directions they are officially promoted to a pointman.
Pointmen also get very basic first aid training, but unless there is no incoming gunfire and they don't have to worry about protecting stormtroopers, they are never actually seen patching anyone up.
One last skill pointmen need to master is the shield placement. By using the shield lens, the pointman is able to quickly place small energy barriers all over the field to protect soldiers against incoming fire or create temporary safe zones to prepare an attack or help civilians evacuate. Pointmen have 2 lenzes and 2 arcana defenders, allowing them to have 2 shields up at all times. Tactical use of these shields is often the difference between a succesful mission or a massacre.

Generally, someone can become a pointman after 16 years or when they are nominated by another pointman. At this stage, someone has been with the corps for several years already, meaning they have enough confidence and more importantly familiarity with the horrors of war that confirms their ability to act under pressure.
Pointmen wear a blue coat that make them easy to spot for allies and are equipped with personal energy shields to protect against small arms fire. Their snow white gloves are made of a reflective fabric, making them visible even with dust and darkness enveloping the pointman. Their helmet protects against the same environmental hazards as stormtroopers and roamers, but they do not have a bulldog style helmet. This is not only done to make them more visually distinct, it is also easier to wear as pointmen need to rely on reflex more than other death angels. The helmets are lighter mostly because they don't need the heavy duty filters to deal with URCA fumes. Most of the armour plates on a pointman are very light and only protect against limited amounts of small arms fire, but their exo skeletal equipment allows them to move around at breakneck speeds, be it to run from an enemy or come to the aid of an ally.

Pointmen use a set of guns known as arcana defenders. These were built to be able to act as speakers in the off chance a pointman is capable of using magic. They are light weight, have little recoil and have no need of traditional ammunition as it uses a battery that can be charged by 60% simply by cranking a lever. Each shot consumes about 12.5% of the entire battery and it is for that reason pointmen are often seen twirling their guns around in mid combat. The defenders also control the placement of the shields, essentially acting as the pointers for the lens to respond to and the shields can be put in place so the user can use the gun itself to shoot or reload, or the shield can be moved around to catch multiple incoming projectiles with the flick of a wrist. The defender fires a dense cloud of energy buckshot that has identical properties to regular buckshot.

The Stormtrooper

The stormtrooper, despite the price of admission being the nomination of another death angel at any rank or 8 years of server with the peacemakers, is not an uncommon sight around Jeslore or any of the galactic unions occupied territory. Due to their flexibility and ability to take out any threat with a single shot they are deployed just about anywhere, from the frontline to guarding places of entry and even babysitting the new immortals as a handler. A far less common sight is stormtroopers without a pointmen nearby. Stormtroopers are the gateway into the death angel corps and due to the fact they fight over long and medium range just as often as they engage in brutal, horrifying melee combat not a lot of them make it to the other sight, and that is assuming they make it past the training. Disturbingly, 1 out of 6 stormtroopers end their own life because they weren't prepared for the trauma of killing someone at point blank range. Melee battle is ugly, and the stormtroopers tend to be riddled with PTSD because of it.
Aside from physical fitness, reflexes, endurance and psychological screening, one of the first habits death angels need to shed is that they can't aim like traditional soldiers do. The recoil on knightbreaker rifles is simply too great, so they rely on ocular compensators that help them track laser modules on their rifles to land hits at long range. Stormtroopers also need to have a verified resistance to addiction, as they are frequently made to inhale chemicals that help them control their emotions and nerves when under great pressure. These chemicals can be addictive and those with a tendency to get addictions are rejected from stormtrooper applications. The chemical compensator does not suppress fear, as they are expected to control fear on their own nor does it let them enter a trance that helps them ignore the brutality of a melee kill. The Chemical compensator mainly supresses feelings of rage, as all death angels, stormtroopers included are expected to maintain self control at all times.

Stormtroopers are often considered kind of weak by other military units due to their tendency to develop psychological issues and constantly needing to have a pointman around to comfort and support them both medically, militarily and emotionally. But an often overlooked fact, especially due to the effective range of their rifles is that they are the second most likely class to engage in melee battle (except for dedicated melee units) and have no graphics that mask the brutality of a melee kill. Shooting a man from a distance is one thing, but seeing the white in the eyes of a man as you kill them and doing it very often is an entirely different thing.
Like any other death angel rank, stormtroopers can fight at any range, in any temperature and on any battlefield due to the way their rifles work. They can effectively force the enemy between using power armour and becoming easy prey to death angels or not using power armour and becoming far more vulnerable to peacemaker units that use power armour of their own. Any sort of slow armoured approach is nearly suicidal as long as death angels are still active, to the point where the historical enemy of the peacemakers, the empire has begun targetting death angels with airstrikes. This backfired a little bit as stormtroopers and roamers just began shooting the pilots. With stormtroopers on the field, the battles are decided by who fires first, and this is where the fact that death angels are trained not to aim comes in. They shape the battlefields they are on in their own favor and force the enemy to approach them in ways they may not be used to.

Their biggest weakness is artillery fire, as they do wear a form of light power armour that both protects against damage but enhances speed (especially in rough terrain) just as much. Unfortunately, unlike raider suits, they don't become much harder to kill than regular soldiers bar the slightly higher resistance against small arms. They are vulnerable to explosives, especially when they approach an enemy position in their famous bayonet charges. Many tend to get hit and many more get hit trying to rescue their fallen compatriots. The ones that make it to the enemy position will have witnessed this, and their chemical compensators will suppress their rage, leaving them with pure determination. Through this determination, they become angels of death.

Legacy

The death angel corps are a symbol for the tremendous feats anyone is capable of if they apply themselves as much as they are a symbol for the unimaginable horrors of war. They serve not out of a wish to destroy the enemy but a loyalty to what's behind them: their family and friends that need to be protected and they do so at the risk of their psychological health, and their very life. From a nomadic tribe, to an organized force of bandit hunters to battle hardened ghosts of trench warfare that have been in use ever since the treaty had been signed some 1300 years ago. They stood the test of time and left their mark on jeslorian culture to the point where the immortals -the best warriors of their time - have a death angel looking after them as they train so they might one day save Jeslore. They're more than just a military unit, they're the continuation of the seraph's honor code.

Tactics & Deployment

The Death Angels are noted for being one of the few units capable of using UR-Ca weapons which is the ammo type that isn't stopped by anything (in fact the true extend and range of UR-Ca bullets is not exactly known). In a military climate where the focus often lays on power armour and moving vehicles, a unit that makes the use of either of those completely useless is an absurd advantage. When death angels are on the battlefield, power armour not only becomes less powerful because it offers no protection against them, it becomes an active detriment as the use is a larger target and power armour generally negatively affects speed.
Because the Death Angels basically ignore any amount of armour and anything they hit dies, they are an immensely flexible unit. Useful on the offence as they can shoot through fortifications and defenders easily fall prey to them, and on defense because of their immense area denial capabilities and training in melee combat. They are a very common sight when the galactic council and DECTA are actually serious about fighting a war and they are no longer interested in just skirmishes.

Into the fire through trenches and blood

Type

Military, Marine Corps

Alternative Names

Piercers

Training Level

Professional

Veterancy Level

Veteran

Parent Organization

The Peacemakers

Related Ranks & Titles

• Badasses