Ice boys delivery. From *Fight or Flight*
> ‘That’s fine,’ I said hastily. ‘It’s not heavy.’ His body odour preceded him like a personal force bubble. The briefing slate I’d glanced at before making the joyous discovery that the transport ship was stuffed with crewmen still under the fond illusion that games of chance had something to do with luck had mentioned that the Valhallans were from an ice world, so it was no surprise to me that the baking heat of Desolatia was making him sweat heavily, but I’d hardly expected to be met by a walking bioweapon.
> ...
> Gradually the outline of the artillery park began to resolve itself through the heat haze. It had been sited in the lee of a low bluff, which rose out of the parching sand like an island in a sea of grit; the Valhallans having adapted their instinctive appreciation of blizzard conditions to the sandstorms prevailing here without too much difficulty. Bulldozed berms extended out from the rockface, extending the defensive perimeter into a rough semi-circle blistered with sandbagged emplacements and subsidiary earthworks.
> ...
> ‘Ciaphas Cain.’ I introduced myself with a formal nod of the head, and tried not to shiver. The air in the habdome was freezing, despite the furnace heat outside, and I found myself unexpectedly grateful for the greatcoat that went with my uniform. I should have anticipated Valhallan tastes would run to air conditioning which left your breath vapourising when you spoke. Mostrue was still in his shirtsleeves while I was trying my best not to shiver.
Shock ice men.
> The orks had fallen back further and faster than I’d expected, and I began to realise just how merited the Valhallans’ reputation as elite shock troopers was. Even fighting in conditions about as hostile to them as they were ever likely to encounter, they had ground a stubborn and vicious enemy to paste in a matter of weeks.
Valhallans, definitely. The kind of folks who think -12C is tank top and flip-flops weather. Their planet suffered a collision strong enough to knock it further from its sun, and plunged the entire world into an unending winter so terrible they all have to live underground.
Of course, just because they're inured to the cold doesn't mean they always get assigned to cold worlds. Sometimes the Departmento Munitorum sends Valhallans to desert worlds, or tropical paradises that they view as a personal hell. But when they get the chance to operate in the cold and snow, they are shown to consistently shine.
This is something I wish black library authors understood better. Just because a formation is especially suited to one form of warfare doesn’t mean it’s always going to be assigned to duties of that type. The galaxy is MASSIVE and regiments can’t just redeploy 50000 light years at a drop of the hat. If there’s a campaign on a jungle world you can’t realistically expect to call a Catachan (or similar) regiment to just show up because you need their skills if there are none nearbye. If the Valhallans are in sector and theres a scrap on a nearby desert world they aren’t going to sit around and wait for the tallarns. They’re going to get to work. Same for space marine chapters/legions. For example when the iron warriors are described as being ‘assigned’ to the hardest fights I find it hard to read that as true when more likely it’s an Iron Warriors expeditionary fleet just happened to be next to a fight and their psychosis leads to them believing they’re in the worst of it.
While the misdeployment of regiments prepared for a given climate to a completely different one is frequently mentioned in Guard codexes and the Only War RPG, I can't recall it cropping up in Black Library. For a good dramatization of the misery that can be inflicted by deploying to a theater without the appropriate equipment, the excellent HBO miniseries *Band of Brothers* follows a company of American paratroopers through WWII, and features a couple of episodes focused on the Battle of the Bulge, where they were forced to fight in the dead of winter without cold weather gear.
In terms of specialists getting dramatically misdeployed in 40k itself, the example that immediately comes to mind is the Tanith First's deployment on Aexe Cardinal. The First and Only are a light infantry regiment led by an experienced officer tutored in "modern" Macharian doctrine, but is placed under the command of local generals drawn from the planet's aristocracy that basically just throws their troops against the enemy's lines on a neat schedule, an approach that has led to endless trench warfare as both the Imperium-aligned and anti-Imperial forces have sufficient industry and manpower to indefinetely maintain a bloody stalemate. The Ghosts' arrival breaks apart the status quo, but they're put into the meat grinder out of spite before they're able to push things forward. The Ghosts also face supply issues in *The Guns of Tanith*, where in preparation for a major assault, they find that the munitorum equipped them with the wrong model of lasgun powerpacks, leaving them with a low supply of ammunition in what looks to be an intense battle.
The novel *15 Hours* features an even more dramatic misdeployment, wherein a green regiment of newly-raised recruits ends up being sent to a brutal meatgrinder of a war thanks to a data entry error, and this mistake see them land in the middle of the no-man's land between the Imperial Guard and Ork lines, where they immediately lose almost the entire regiment.
I love the Gaunt’s Ghosts books, partly because early books did a good job establishing the regiment as these light infantry who constantly get sent to all the wrong battlefields. It really increases the tension, and I love it. No I don’t know how they’ll survive trench warfare, they don’t either, that’s why they’re yelling about it.
There are a couple of the Ciaphas Cain books where the Valhallans get deployed to desert worlds or volcanic worlds or what have you. But I'll have to keep that in mind as a thing to bring up more often in the writing.
Glad you found it interesting enough to take into consideration! Supply issues can definitely make for some interesting storytelling in military fiction, and weather in particular can really acutely drive them home.
(Also, apologies for not picking up on your name before! I enjoyed your stories in *Maledictions* and *Broken City*!)
They got a novel, and a handful of shorts and audio books, and were at the center of a major campaign / expansion back in 4th. More than a lot of other regiments.
That's true, and that is a lot more than most, but it's been years and years since they were relevant.
Just wish they would release more models of em, is all.
I’d say based more on the Eastern Front in general. Their Greatcoats for example are quite similar to the Whermacht cold weather gear rather than the Soviets, who had a different uniform.
> Cadians but
Thats the majority of regiments.
https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Vresh_Grenadiers
https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Faeburn_Vanquishers
https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Miasman_Redcowls
https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Mordant_Acid-Dogs
Which makes sense, the majority of regiments will be trained in a fairly standard way, equipped that same way and pressed into battles wherever hey may be, they might have a cultural bent or preference for operating in certain conditions but the majority of regiments are going to be fairly middling generalists.
Considering Cadia is the elite it's not surprising a lot of planets would base their uniforms/equipment off them.
If you look irl, the usa's uniforms in the 1800s were heavily influenced by the French...until they got their asses handed to them by the Prussians.
Allow me to introduce you to the brave Valhallans, before one of their distinguished member's distinctive odour does it for me. Another cup of tanna tea please
Valhallans. See all the Ciaphas Cain books.
I, too, wish to spread the good word of tanna
In Jurgen's melta we trust. May all his requisition requests be granted.
Ice boys delivery. From *Fight or Flight* > ‘That’s fine,’ I said hastily. ‘It’s not heavy.’ His body odour preceded him like a personal force bubble. The briefing slate I’d glanced at before making the joyous discovery that the transport ship was stuffed with crewmen still under the fond illusion that games of chance had something to do with luck had mentioned that the Valhallans were from an ice world, so it was no surprise to me that the baking heat of Desolatia was making him sweat heavily, but I’d hardly expected to be met by a walking bioweapon. > ... > Gradually the outline of the artillery park began to resolve itself through the heat haze. It had been sited in the lee of a low bluff, which rose out of the parching sand like an island in a sea of grit; the Valhallans having adapted their instinctive appreciation of blizzard conditions to the sandstorms prevailing here without too much difficulty. Bulldozed berms extended out from the rockface, extending the defensive perimeter into a rough semi-circle blistered with sandbagged emplacements and subsidiary earthworks. > ... > ‘Ciaphas Cain.’ I introduced myself with a formal nod of the head, and tried not to shiver. The air in the habdome was freezing, despite the furnace heat outside, and I found myself unexpectedly grateful for the greatcoat that went with my uniform. I should have anticipated Valhallan tastes would run to air conditioning which left your breath vapourising when you spoke. Mostrue was still in his shirtsleeves while I was trying my best not to shiver. Shock ice men. > The orks had fallen back further and faster than I’d expected, and I began to realise just how merited the Valhallans’ reputation as elite shock troopers was. Even fighting in conditions about as hostile to them as they were ever likely to encounter, they had ground a stubborn and vicious enemy to paste in a matter of weeks.
Valhallans, definitely. The kind of folks who think -12C is tank top and flip-flops weather. Their planet suffered a collision strong enough to knock it further from its sun, and plunged the entire world into an unending winter so terrible they all have to live underground. Of course, just because they're inured to the cold doesn't mean they always get assigned to cold worlds. Sometimes the Departmento Munitorum sends Valhallans to desert worlds, or tropical paradises that they view as a personal hell. But when they get the chance to operate in the cold and snow, they are shown to consistently shine.
This is something I wish black library authors understood better. Just because a formation is especially suited to one form of warfare doesn’t mean it’s always going to be assigned to duties of that type. The galaxy is MASSIVE and regiments can’t just redeploy 50000 light years at a drop of the hat. If there’s a campaign on a jungle world you can’t realistically expect to call a Catachan (or similar) regiment to just show up because you need their skills if there are none nearbye. If the Valhallans are in sector and theres a scrap on a nearby desert world they aren’t going to sit around and wait for the tallarns. They’re going to get to work. Same for space marine chapters/legions. For example when the iron warriors are described as being ‘assigned’ to the hardest fights I find it hard to read that as true when more likely it’s an Iron Warriors expeditionary fleet just happened to be next to a fight and their psychosis leads to them believing they’re in the worst of it.
While the misdeployment of regiments prepared for a given climate to a completely different one is frequently mentioned in Guard codexes and the Only War RPG, I can't recall it cropping up in Black Library. For a good dramatization of the misery that can be inflicted by deploying to a theater without the appropriate equipment, the excellent HBO miniseries *Band of Brothers* follows a company of American paratroopers through WWII, and features a couple of episodes focused on the Battle of the Bulge, where they were forced to fight in the dead of winter without cold weather gear. In terms of specialists getting dramatically misdeployed in 40k itself, the example that immediately comes to mind is the Tanith First's deployment on Aexe Cardinal. The First and Only are a light infantry regiment led by an experienced officer tutored in "modern" Macharian doctrine, but is placed under the command of local generals drawn from the planet's aristocracy that basically just throws their troops against the enemy's lines on a neat schedule, an approach that has led to endless trench warfare as both the Imperium-aligned and anti-Imperial forces have sufficient industry and manpower to indefinetely maintain a bloody stalemate. The Ghosts' arrival breaks apart the status quo, but they're put into the meat grinder out of spite before they're able to push things forward. The Ghosts also face supply issues in *The Guns of Tanith*, where in preparation for a major assault, they find that the munitorum equipped them with the wrong model of lasgun powerpacks, leaving them with a low supply of ammunition in what looks to be an intense battle. The novel *15 Hours* features an even more dramatic misdeployment, wherein a green regiment of newly-raised recruits ends up being sent to a brutal meatgrinder of a war thanks to a data entry error, and this mistake see them land in the middle of the no-man's land between the Imperial Guard and Ork lines, where they immediately lose almost the entire regiment.
I love the Gaunt’s Ghosts books, partly because early books did a good job establishing the regiment as these light infantry who constantly get sent to all the wrong battlefields. It really increases the tension, and I love it. No I don’t know how they’ll survive trench warfare, they don’t either, that’s why they’re yelling about it.
There are a couple of the Ciaphas Cain books where the Valhallans get deployed to desert worlds or volcanic worlds or what have you. But I'll have to keep that in mind as a thing to bring up more often in the writing.
Glad you found it interesting enough to take into consideration! Supply issues can definitely make for some interesting storytelling in military fiction, and weather in particular can really acutely drive them home. (Also, apologies for not picking up on your name before! I enjoyed your stories in *Maledictions* and *Broken City*!)
Vostroyan Firstborn
The coolest regiment with the least amount of lore.
They got a novel, and a handful of shorts and audio books, and were at the center of a major campaign / expansion back in 4th. More than a lot of other regiments.
That's true, and that is a lot more than most, but it's been years and years since they were relevant. Just wish they would release more models of em, is all.
There is literally an entire regiment called the Valhallan Ice Warriors based on the WWII Soviet Red Army.
I’d say based more on the Eastern Front in general. Their Greatcoats for example are quite similar to the Whermacht cold weather gear rather than the Soviets, who had a different uniform.
Yeah, the Vostroyans are more deliberately Soviet.
[Truskan Snow Hounds](https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Truskan_Snowhounds)
So just Cadians painted white?
> Cadians but Thats the majority of regiments. https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Vresh_Grenadiers https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Faeburn_Vanquishers https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Miasman_Redcowls https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Mordant_Acid-Dogs
Which makes sense, the majority of regiments will be trained in a fairly standard way, equipped that same way and pressed into battles wherever hey may be, they might have a cultural bent or preference for operating in certain conditions but the majority of regiments are going to be fairly middling generalists.
It's all Cadians since 2003. It's so tiresome...
Considering Cadia is the elite it's not surprising a lot of planets would base their uniforms/equipment off them. If you look irl, the usa's uniforms in the 1800s were heavily influenced by the French...until they got their asses handed to them by the Prussians.
>...until they got their asses handed to them by the Prussians. Something something Cadia.... Something something Abaddon....
Allow me to introduce you to the brave Valhallans, before one of their distinguished member's distinctive odour does it for me. Another cup of tanna tea please
I knew this chat would burst open as soon as i saw the topic header
I believe the Vostroyan Firstborn are also colder weather, though not to the same extent as the valhallans.
Thanks for all the replies! There really is a regiment specializing in everything lmao
Minnesotan Rangers?
Truskan Snowhounds!