Explosive Torcs

Few of Hell's Own's recruits had flinched when the Colonel had the explosive torcs, locally known as the blesser, demonstrated. The muddy floor of the shack was now bloodily strewn with the remains of the various demonstrations the Colonel had sanctioned for the education of his new officers, amongst them Hammerhand, and to reinforce obedience amongst the recruits and the existing penal legion troopers. A fatigue squad of abhumans from Hammerhand's company had been assigned to remove the headless corpses, explosively detached limbs, heads without torsos, slippery guts, livers, hearts and lungs that were the product of the close discipliner's art. Hammerhand suspected that the rat-form abhumans assigned to the task might be dining well tonight. He had 13 squads of these Emperor Cursed creatures amongst the 25 assigned to his company. Hammerhand had buried his liking for these abhumans. In the Imperial creed they were an abomination, a corruption of mankind due to the warp. Any explict liking could be expected to create a taint of heresy. That would make his job here harder. As far as Hammerhand could discern they were extremely obedient, indifferent to hardships and casualties, capable of living off the land on any scraps of nourishment to be found, and coping with extreme conditions better than any human. No resentment was expressed for their race's enslavement in the Imperial Penal Legion system or for the orders they were given. In short they were ideal soldiers.  Their one weakness was their matter of factly literal interpretation of any orders. To get the best out of them a commander must be extremely precise in constructing all his orders. Hammerhand made a mental note to ensure that his servant prepared his evening meal from Hammerhand's own supplies.

That this latest consignment of criminals had appeared unimpressed by the torcs was a worring sign thought Hammerhand. That the Colonel made such profligate use of the torc was also a concern. If the troopers had no hope whatsoever of survival beyond the moment then the fear of the torc was completely devalued. Instead of acting as an immediate and unrecindable extension of military discipline and custom it became degraded to a way of ensuring that a few of the officers might survive a revolt.

Penal Legion Troopers

Hell's Own, Hammerhand's briefing had described it as a classic hardcore penal legion. The criminals conscripted were described as typically deserving of their fate. They were recidivistly violent criminals, psychopathic murderers, revolutionaries, traitors, corrupt officials, psychotics, weak but controllable psykers, Imperial Guard troopers convicted of the crimes of cowardice, dereliction of duty, and other transgressions of regular military law. In addition chaos adherents that had been caught before the corruption of chaos had insinuated too deeply were often also recruited and used as cannon fodder. These latter and the psykers were often a concern for the Inquisition. Infrequently but, given the chronic Imperial manpower and logistics problems, all too often the taints of chaos had corrupted squads, platoons, companies and even complete penal regiments causing revolts or setbacks and even defeats during Imperial campaigns. Hence Hammerhand's allocation to Hell's Own. He hoped that the name was not intended to insinuate inevitable corruption,  was simply ill omened but more likely simply ill considered.

The actual criminal composition of the Imperial penal legions varied from system to system, governor to governor and year to year. Due to the endless demands for manpower  to underwrite the Imperial Guard's incessant casualty lists the level of criminality required for recruitment was often markely reduced. Endemically in some systems and in any and every system if the conditions were correct expressions of  blasphemy , defeatism,  and fear were enough. In other desperate or corrupt Imperial systems failure to deliver production targets, spitting, wealth, property, or having sons or daughters desired by powerful Imperial Officials were usually sufficient.

As a consequence every officer in a Penal Legion had to watch their back every waking hour and minute. They also needed to find someone they could trust to watch their back when they were asleep.