17th Marik Militia

History

First Succession War

When Captain-General Kenyon Marik launched his famous "ten parsec-wide" invasion of the Capellan and Sarna Commonalities of the Capellan Confederation in February 2787, the Seventeenth were one of the ten regiments from the Marik Militia assigned to the invasion. One of the four systems to be targeted in the first wave of attacks was Vanra; the FWLM task force assigned to the invasion of Vanra consisted of three regiments from the Marik Militia - the Third, Seventeenth and Twenty-first Marik Militia regiments - escorted by a naval task force that included at least one battleship, the FWLS Agrippa, two destroyers, two squadrons of attack DropShips and three wings of aerospace fighters. The garrison at the time, the First Capellan Chargers, were heavily outnumbered, but had been in place on Vanra for almost twenty-five years, and Colonel Juliano Papadakis was determined to lead a fierce resistance against the invaders.

Papadakis made the most of the Chargers' familiarity with the terrain on Vanra; as the Marik Militia DropShips began landing, he had his combat air group engage, hammering at the Militia forces. By the time his aerospace fighters had withdrawn, the Militia had lost more than two squadrons of fighters, and an Overlord-class DropShip carrying a battalion from the Seventeenth Marik Militia had been crippled, crash-landing in the forests almost twenty kilometers south of Utrecht, the planetary capital city. Familiar with the dense forest and the networks of transient riverbeds in the area, Papadakis knew that the terrain would be confusing and difficult to negotiate for any forces sent to rescue the downed forces. Papadakis' prediction proved correct; he deployed the entire Third Battalion of the Chargers to converge on the site, whilst the remaining elements of the Seventeenth diverted away from their intended positions near Utrecht to try and rescue their comrades, weakening the enemy plan. With much of the forest floor concealed from view from the air, the Chargers' Third Battalion was able to pick off and kill the survivors from the DropShip crash that they found, as well as ambushing and destroying almost a full battalion of rescue forces from the Seventeenth.

Whilst the Third Battalion was tying up twice its own numbers in the forest, leaving the Seventeenth effectively out of the battle for Utrecht, Papadakis had his remaining forces disperse as lance and company sized formations and launch numerous ambushes and feints within Utrecht itself, the city's dense urban sprawl helping the heavier Chargers negate the speed advantage enjoyed by the generally lighter Marik Militia units. Papadakis' troops had destroyed another battalion of Marik Militia forces within Utrecht before the senior FWLM officer, Colonel Udel Melville, ordered the orbiting Agrippa to bombard regions of the city. Fires and huge explosions ensued, as one of the sectors targeted by the Agrippa contained a natural gas refinery, and the resulting refinery explosion engulfed half the city in flames due to the ongoing battle preventing efforts to contain the damage. Melville's forces were ultimately successful, but the Chargers fought to the last man before the planetary government finally surrendered, leaving Utrecht and the great forest to its south in ruins. Melville was forced to disband the remains of the Seventeenth Marik Militia, and use the survivors from the Seventeenth and a mix of salvaged Capellan and League equipment to rebuild the Third and Twenty-first Marik Militias.

Composition History

2765

Seventeenth Marik Militia (Regiment/Green/Reliable)

2786

Seventeenth Marik Militia (Green/Reliable)

- At this point in time the Seventeenth was a light-weight regiment operating at full strength and was stationed on Aitutaki.

Rules

Game Rules

Bibliography

• Field Report 2765: FWLM
• First Succession War