1st Division (Word of Blake)

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The first and most elite Word of Blake Militia unit, the 1st Division was the key to the Word's takeover of Terra. It primarily operated in the Word of Blake Protectorate's Protectorate Theater after the Terran takeover. The unit was noted as the only Word of Blake Division that still "prayed" to their machines. [1] [2]

History

Pre-Jihad

The first of the original five "Blake Guards" divisions formed, the 1st received the most experienced Com Guard refugees who joined the Word in the wake of the ComStar Schism. As of 3055, the 1st was stationed at Camp Sims on Gibson alongside the 4th Division.[3] The 1st would first see action during the unrest against the Word on Gibson in 3055, where the 1st Division was the primary unit the Blakists committed to combat the Gibson guerrillas in Narn. [2] It was during this period that 1st's Fall of Night III-alpha served as the Free Worlds League's 4th Free Worlds Legionnaires fourth Battalion to assist with the Legionnaires role as a cadre unit for Word. [1]

The unit was next deployed during Operation Odysseus, where they masqueraded as the 21st Centauri Lancers. [2] The First and Sixth Division had landed sometime before on the Lancer's homeworld of Nestor. There they quickly took the Lancers' families hostage. Precentor Suzanne Mulvanery then told the Lancers to keep a low profile and not interfere with the Word of Blake's mission or their families would be killed. Then the First Division reorganized itself to mimic the Lancers' organization. In 3058 these so called "Shadow Lancers" then landed at Bowling Green, Kentucky and began a series of wargames and familiarization exercises with ComStar's 201st Division. [4] In February, harsh weather confined many Terran Defense units to their barracks and the First Division struck. [5] Deploying quickly, the Shadow Lancer's armor element attempted to take control of ComStar's headquarters on Hilton Head island. They encountered heavy resistance, however, and settled in for a siege. [6] The rest of the First Division surrounded Salina, the headquarters of the 201st Division. After holding the Blakists off for several hours, the badly-outnumbered Com Guard unit broke free from the Shadow Lancers and escaped into a blizzard. Shadow Lancer AeroSpace Fighters struck Com Guard bases, barracks, armories, and other key targets, killing many Com Guard troops before they could reach their machines. These strikes, coupled with the destruction of ROM headquarters and the actions of Blakist sympathizers, paralyzed the Terran Defense Force.

Shortly thereafter, two lances of Shadow Lancers drove the Com Guards out of their Hilton Head facility, but lost many troops to booby traps left behind by the Com Guards. The remaining First Division units pursued the remains of the 201st Division into the Rocky Mountains. Eventually the First Division coordinated their movements with Blakist reinforcements from Washington state, trapping the 201st Division between the two Blakist forces. [7]

After retaking Terra from ComStar, the unit took over the 201st homebase of Salina, Kansas. The large volume of praise heaped upon the division for its role during Odysseus and its reputation as the Militia's premier unit led the other divisions to label them insufferably arrogant, but wargames staged to try and teach the 1st a lesson only proved True Devotion's reputation again and again. While the Fall of Night Level-III remained with the 4th Legionnaires, the 1st expanded in the wake of the selection of Victor Steiner-Davion as the secular ComStar's Precentor Martial, with an entire Level-III's worth of defectors joining the division as the Ring of Fire III-beta. [1]

In the mid-3060s, the unit was spread out, providing protection to the Chaos March worlds of Keid, Ingress, Bryant, Caph, and Epsilon Eridani which had forged defense agreements with the Word of Blake. The sight of the 1st fending off raids by unmarked Com Guard units against these worlds only aligned their population even more closely to the Word. In 3061 Precentor Suzanne Mulvanery was killed along with former Precentor Martial Trent Arian by an assassin's bomb in Terra.

To assist with this expanded role the Fall of Night Level-III rejoined the 1st [8] in 3065, having sown the seeds that would lead the League unit to eventually join the Blakists. [9] During their time on Epsilon Eridani they faced Wolf's Dragoons Beta Regiment and forced the mercenaries to withdraw after destroying approximately thirty percent of their equipment.[10]

Jihad

In 3069, taking advantage of the Hyper Pulse Generator Network's White-Out, the Division struck Tikonov and conquered the world for the Word of Blake. The world was not wholly secured after its conquest however.[citation needed]

In 3070, a Level III of the Division was dispatched to Caph to train its newly forming Caph Protectorate Militia Division. [11] While the majority of the Division is based on Tikonov, it deploys its Level IIIs on roving patrol through the theater as rapid-response unit.

The 1st Division is recorded as having been destroyed on Tikonov in 3077.[12]

Officers

Rank Name Command
Commanding Officers of the 1st Division
Precentor Suzanne Mulvanery 3055 - 3061
Precentor XV Shin-Ichi Yoshizumi 3067

Tactics

While quite competent at most offensive and defensive operations, the 1st Division excelled most with surprise on its side, via false flag operations and ambushes. The unit's posting to Salina, Kansas gave it the opportunity to practice these in a wide range of environments, putting it in good stead once the 1st was posted to a variety of worlds in the Protectorate.[1] [2]

Composition History

3062

  • Long Night III-Alpha (CO: Precentor XV Shin-Ichi Yoshizumi)
  • Ring of Fire III-beta (CO: Precentor X Debra Hale)
  • Signs and Portents-alpha (CO: Precentor X James Lundergain)
  • Quality of Mercy III-delta (CO: Adept (Demi-Precentor XVII) Masayuki Hoshi)
  • Hunter and Prey III-epislon (CO: Precentor XII Alexey Kotov)
  • Fall of Night III-alpha (CO: Precentor IX Alex Nash)

Notes

  • The Division's insignia shows an Exterminator kneeling as if in prayer. [1]

Errata Note: In Total Chaos sourcebook, changes the lists the what Word of Blake Divisions that were deployed to Outreach as part of the Word's effort in Counter-attacking the Wolf's Dragoons. When asked if the older materials published in Dawn of the Jihad, Blake Ascending and later the Jihad Secrets: The Blake Documents on the official Forums of Catalyst Game Labs Line, BattleTech Developer Herb A. Beas II notes the following: You may be right that this is one case where newer doesn't trump older. That should have been the Sixth and Tenth at the Outreach counterattack.

Stating the Total Chaos information regarding deployment of the 1st Division & 4th Divisions in place of the 6th Division and the 10th were, in fact, errant.[13]

Reference

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Field Manual: ComStar, p. 51 - "True Devotion unit profile".
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Era Report: 3062, p. 41 "1st Division (True Devotion IV-beta)"
  3. ↑ Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named CS
  4. ↑ The Fall of Terra (scenariobook), p. 8
  5. ↑ The Fall of Terra (scenariobook), p. 9
  6. ↑ The Fall of Terra (scenariobook), p. 9
  7. ↑ The Fall of Terra (scenariobook), p. 10
  8. ↑ Field Manual: Updates, p. 90, "1st Division (True Devotion IV-Beta)"
  9. ↑ Field Manual: Updates, p. 145, "4th Free Worlds Legionnaires"
  10. ↑ Field Manual: Mercenaries, Revised, p. 115
  11. ↑ Jihad Secrets: Blake Documents, p. 103 - "Protectorate Militia Forces" - Designations & Deployments
  12. ↑ Jihad: Final Reckoning, p. 126, "Word Of Blake Militia"
  13. ↑ Quote from CGL Forums June 18, 2013 regarding errant in Total Chaos

Bibliography

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