Knights of the Bell
The Knights of the Bell are a Vale Verdial armored regiment primarily used in a defensive role. Styled after a defunct Classical Verdial holy order dedicated to a now-deprecated god of valor and foresight, blows from the Knights' signature 'bellhammers' serve the dual purposes of exacting psychological warfare against opponents and warning Verdial settlements that danger is nearby. The Knights of the Bell are best known for their flashy and, some would argue, impractical style, but the truth is that their reputation is a fiction cultivated by the PVDoD to disguise their true specialities: counterintelligence and ambush.
Composition
Manpower
The Knights of the Bell constitute a brigade, their actual number floating somewhere around a thousand depending on the PVDoD's assessment of military risks to the homeland. Official documentation lists them as being separated into four brigades, but this is an intentional inflation to give Bards-Recursant pause when advising Voxelian adventurism in Vale-held territories. The brigade has 450 auto-armor operators, the remaining members consisting of infantry, dedicated service crews, and intelligence officers; because deception is such an important part of Knights of the Bell operations, the unit does not rely on external support if at all possible to minimize the potentiality of breaches in operational security.
Vehicles
In truth, the actual number of bellhammer-wielding Knights is only around 100. These are comparatively low-ranked, but physically agile, members wearing the specialized BMN-1 "Bellman" Fast Attack Auto-Armor. The Bellman operators are each equipped with bellhammers, assault rifles equipped with cones to amplify and direct their reports, and streamer grenades with especially loud and flashy pyrotechnics. Each Bellman is combined into a squad with three to four other operators in CB-1c "Brushaxe" Auto-Armor Destroyers.
Tactics
In combat, the Bellman operators draw fire while trying to shock the opponent into submission with aggressive, noisy attacks. Factually not as heavily-armed as their Brushaxe counterparts - but draped in an extra layer of armor and equipped with quick-firing pneumatics - everything about the Bellman loadout is designed to rattle the senses and soak up enemy attention. Sometimes, the Bellman contingent isn't even present on the battlefield, instead replaced with strategically-hidden noisemakers and decoys designed to fool enemy scouts. The overall goal is to convince an enemy that they face an unknown, but large, force of suicidally dedicated auto-armored warriors that will make a spectacle of every kill and spoil the concealment of any opponent they come across, hopefully causing a prospective force of aggressors to abandon trying to take Petalcap Vale territory.
Should an opponent not be dissuaded by the presence of the Knights of the Bell, then the work of the Brushaxe contingent begins. The Brushaxe operators are more circumspect, using the distraction provided by their more aggressive Bellman counterparts to prepare the ground. The Brushaxes lay mines and other traps and set up blinds so that, when the time is right, they can ambush the enemy. The Brushaxe operators are typically equipped with armor-piercing ordinance, magnetic mines, and suppressed weaponry with long range optics. The Brushaxe operators pick off opponents from long cover, then reposition while their fellows pick up fire so that the enemy does not have time to acquire them.
For the most part, however, as the Vale is not currently engaged in military conflict with any external power, the Knights of the Bell instead focus their efforts on developing various deception campaigns involving the perception of the Vale as a military power itself. These efforts include propaganda campaigns to improve (or inflate) recruitment numbers and other public morale-boosting programs; the Knights writ large are pop culture icons among patriotic Vale citizens for their distinctive aesthetic and courage in the rare cases where they have been forced into battle. Less well known among the public are the Knights' ongoing 'honeypot' operations designed to entrap foreign spies, especially the Bards-Recursant, operating in the fringes of Vale territory.
Future Events
During the Pale Hands Crisis, 3rd Platoon of the Knights of the Bell made a heroic sacrifice in attempting to protect the town of Prospect. The Knights happened to be engaged in a training exercise in their garrison near Prospect when mysterious, incorporeal tendrils intruded into the Manifold from the surrounding 5-space to kill whoever they touched instantly. 3rd Platoon made the discovery that something about the tolling of their bellhammers made them capable of striking the otherwise incorporeal tendrils as though they were solid objects. By drawing the attention of the alien tendrils and sounding their bellhammers with every strike, they awoke the citizens of Prospect and bought them precious time to get to higher ground where the tendrils had yet to reach. This incident resulted in the near-destruction of 3rd Platoon and cemented the ominous connotation of distant bell tolls in the Vale Verdial public conscience for decades to come.
Type
Mechanized
Overall training Level
Professional
Assumed Veterancy
Experienced
Parent Formation
Used by
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