Vostroyan Firstborn

Astra Militarum Portal

Uniform	Basic Data	Miniature
	- Vostroyan Firstborn - Homeworld: Vostroya[1] Regiment Name: Vostroyan Firstborn Specialities: Urban & Winter Warfare[1]

The Vostroyan Firstborn are Imperial Guard Regiments from Vostroya, formed from the firstborn sons^[5a] and daughters^[32] of every family on the planet.^[5a]

Overview

Vostroyan soldier^[13]

Vostroya is a world in the Halo Zone beyond the Eye of Terror, which swore allegiance to Mars during the Age of Strife. It is now ruled by a committee of Techtriarchs, a mix of Mechanicus Magi and more traditional Imperial planetary government. During the Horus Heresy, Vostroya refused to provide regiments to the Emperor, preferring instead to reserve the population in the manufactoria blanketing the world. After the Heresy, the Vostroyans, out of guilt, agreed to supply every family's firstborn son to service with the Imperial Guard.^[5a]

According to Vostroya's Offering of the First Born, the eldest son of every family must enlist in the Regiments. This is to atone to their sin for failing to provide troops to the armies of the Emperor during the Horus Heresy. There are no exceptions to this law, which applies even to the Techtriarchs and the most noble families.^[5a][12a] For most Vostroyans, it is an honour to join the Firstborn, as great importance is attached to the payment of the debt owed to the Emperor millennia ago.^[5a][11] For this reason, having no male firstborn is regarded as a major issue for noble Vostroyans, as many old noble houses put great importance in their family's military service.^[11] Their devotion is such that when Vostroya was cut off from the rest of the Imperium by the Great Rift in M42, more Vostroyan Firstborn regiments were raised and sent into the void mostly blind, hoping to reach war zones as to assist other Imperials who were calling for help. Many of these expeditions were lost due to the Astronomican being dimmed in the Imperium Nihilus, yet the Vostroyans have vowed to never again wait when they are called to war, so they still send their forces into the void.^[12a]

Unlike other Imperial Guard regiments that are raised en-masse, the Firstborn get a steady flow of new recruits from their homeworld. As a result, the Firstborn regiments have existed unbroken since they were first created.^[5a] This is not always easy to organise, but ensures that Vostroyan regiments maintain their highest potential, as well as ensuring there is a core of veteran warriors. One consequence of this method is that the Firstborn are considered a brotherhood of warriors and are proud to train the recruits according to their own exacting standards. Few Imperial Guard regiments have a stronger brotherly bond than the Vostroyans. The Firstborn are trained in very difficult conditions among the ruined industrial areas of their homeworld. On the other side, it is even rarer for Vostroyans to survive their service and return to their homeworld than for other regiments; in fact, ten thousand years passed between the foundation of the Vostroyan Firstborn and the first time a lowborn Vostroyan officer, namely Colonel Gregorious Sebastev, survived his service to see his birth planet again.^[11]

Vostroyan Firstborn^[28]

Vostroyans are disdainful of Imperial Guard regiments which they consider to be less devoted than themselves. They are strictly disciplined and act as a warrior brotherhood when in the field. They specialize in urban and winter style combat. As a result of their elite status and strong sense of tradition, the Vostroyan Firstborn tend to be classist and exclusivist: The officers are almost exclusively recruited from the noble class, and lowborn Vostroyans are usually regarded by the nobles as being unfit for officer status. The Vostroyan Firstborn have also held a very unfavourable view of the recruitment of women into their ranks, and very few female Vostroyans were ever accepted for training, let alone deployed.^[11]

Recently, however, this has been changed so that if a family's eldest child is female, she will be required to join the Firstborn as well. Now the sons and daughters of Vostroya, be they noble or impoverished, will forge a new family with their Regiment and be bound together through courage and stubborn tenacity.^[14]

Appearance & Uniform

Vostroyan Veteran, Zealot, Psyker, and Ogryn.

Being away from centralised control of the Imperium, Vostroyan soldiers and officers retain a very archaic appearance compared to the rest of the Imperial Guard. Their weapons are passed down from firstborn to firstborn and are usually worth more than the guardsmen who carry them.^[5a] Officers carry broad axe-bladed lasguns, never forsaking or abandoning the weapon for as long as they live. If the officer dies, and their men are forced to choose between retrieving the officer's body or their weapon, they will prioitise retrieving the weapon.^[30] Firstborn use long and very ornate rifles. Officers bear lasguns integrated with axes. Standard bearers bear ancient tribal sabres and daggers, and ritual scars on their upper torsos.^[1]

The iconic ursine-skin hats worn by Vostroyans can come in a variety of colours.^[29a] Different colors can include Mountain Snow (white), Rust Patches (brown), and Tundra Soil (black). White Vostroyan hats tend to be rarer. Some regiments give their officers white hats, while other regiments simply give out whichever coloured headwear as it is available.^[29b] Some Vostroyans add attach feathers to their hats as both decoration and lucky charms.^[29c] Vostroyan Ogryn are especially fond of their hats.^[29e] They tend to take care to avoid damaging their Vostroyan hats.^[29d]

Weapons & Equipment

Vostroyan Pattern Lasgun^[1]

The Vostroyan Firstborn prefer to use Plasma Guns and Heavy Bolters. Their pattern of Lasgun, produced on Vostroya, is known for its fine hand-crafted detail.^[1] Vostroyans sometimes refer to their lasguns as laslocks.^[30] It isn't uncommon for Vostroyan weaponry to have stocks or decoration aesthetically resemble wooden material.^{[29f][29g][29h]}

Notable Campaigns

• Nimbosa Crusade^[4]
• Spinward Front^[15b]
• Fall of Medusa V^[16]
• Battle of Eagle Gate^[17]
• Pandorax Campaign^[18]
• Fall of Shadowbrink^[19]
• Battle for Sularian Gate^[20]
• Fall of Karak Prime^[5a]
• Liberation of Kurkaris^[22]
• Eighteenth Great War of Vostroya^[23]
• Cryptus Campaign^[24]
• Obsus Prima Uprising^[25]
• Xenos War^[26]
• The War of Beasts^[27]
• Octarius War^[10]
• The Danik's World Campaign^[6]
• Season of Blood^[31]

Notable Vostroyan Firstborn Members

• Lord Marshal Graf Harazahn - The Fall of Medusa V^[2]
• Lord Marshal Graf Toschenko - Nimbosa Crusade^[4][5a][5b]
• Grand Marshal Durov^[9]
• Colonel Illyich Szradislav - The Fall of Medusa V^[3]
• Colonel Maxim Kabanov - Commander of the Vostroyan 68th Regiment on Danik's World.^[6]
• Colonel Gregorious Sebastev - Distinguished himself on Danik's World. First lowborn Vostroyan Firstborn who managed to both receive a field commission and return to Vostroya.^[6][11]
• Armour-Captain Grigory Maksim - fought on Nectavus VI.^[8]
• Lieutenant Ekaterina Idra^[11]
• Lieutenant Zhaebin, see also his quote^[7]
• Corporal Devakov - The Fall of Medusa V^[2]
• Tank Commander Dymetrin^[23]
• Tank Commander Astrov Yemenev - Tank ace.^[12b]

Images

• 

  Vostroyan Firstborn in combat with Orks

• 

  Vostroyan Medic^[15a]

• 

  Vostroyan Command Squad

Miniatures

• 

  Vostroyan Company Commander^[21]

• 

  Vostroyan Commander^[21]

• 

  Vostroyan Sergeant^[21]

• 

  Vostroyan with Regimental Standard^[21]

• 

  Vostroyan with Vox-caster^[21]

• 

  Vostroyan Medic^[21]

• 

  Vostroyan Firstborn squad^[21]

• 

  Vostroyan with Flamer^[21]

Trivia

The following information is not to be regarded as officially sanctioned and/ or is not written from an in-universe point of view. A detailed explanation of the term "Trivia" as used in the Lexicanum can be found here.

• The Firstborn are based in appearance on the real world Russian Cossacks and the Tsarist Russian army. This is in contrast to the Valhallan Ice Warriors, which are based on Russia's Soviet Red Army.

See also

• List of Astra Militarum regiments

Sources

• 1: White Dwarf 317 (UK), pgs. 44-53
• 2: The Fall of Medusa V (booklet), pgs. 32-33
• 3: Medusa V World wide Campaign
• 4: Warhammer 40,000: Cities of Death, pgs. 56-57
• 5: Codex: Imperial Guard (5th Edition)
  • 5a: pg. 18
  • 5b: pg. 22 — Notable Battles of the Imperial Guard: 790.M41
• 6: Rebel Winter (Novel), ^[Help]
• 7: FFG Teaser for "Jungles of Nectavus", supplement for Conquest Card Game (last accessed 03 March 2016)
• 8: FFG Teaser for "Slash and Burn", supplement for Conquest Card Game (last accessed 10 April 2016)
• 9: Warhammer 40,000: Escalation, pg. 8
• 10: War Zone Octarius - Book 1: Rising Tide, pgs. 30-31
• 11: The Firstborn Daughter (Short Story)
• 12: Codex: Astra Militarum (8th Edition):
  • 12a: pg. 23 — Vostroya
  • 12b: pg. 37
• 13: [1] (dead link)
• 14: Codex: Astra Militarum (9th Edition), pg. 137 — Crusade Relics
• 15: Only War Core Rulebook:
  • 15a: pg. 78
  • 15b: pgs. 330-352
• 16: The Fall of Medusa V (booklet)
• 17: Warhammer 40,000 6th Edition Rulebook, pgs. 385–399
• 18: Warhammer 40,000 7th Edition Rulebook — The Pandorax Incursion
• 19: Codex: Tyranids (6th Edition) (E-Book Edition) — The Fall of Shadowbrink
• 20: Codex: Dark Angels (4th Edition), pgs. 41-42
• 21: Coming Your Way This Christmas (posted 23/12/2018) (last accessed 26 June 2022)
• 22: [2] (dead link)
• 23: Shield of Baal: Leviathan — The Hammers of Ixoi
• 24: Shield of Baal: Exterminatus – Rising Leviathan
• 25: Warhammer 40,000: Escalation, pgs. 8-9 — Uprising on Obsus Prima
• 26: Codex: Genestealer Cults (7th Edition) — The Hidden Dynasties
• 27: Imperium Nihilus: Vigilus Defiant, pgs. 30-50
• 28: Magic the Gathering Card (last accessed 28 June 2024)
• 29: Warhammer 40,000: Darktide:
  • 29a: Darktide game launcher - Vostroyan premium cosmetics promotional image
  • 29b: Commodore's Vestures: Vostroyan Hat with Tox Guard Face Mask (Mountain Snow)
  • 29c: Commodore's Vestures: Vostroyan Hat with a Feather
  • 29d: Commodore's Vestures: Vostroyan Hat with a Chainmail Hood (Rust Patches, XXXXL)
  • 29e: Commodore's Vestures: Vostroyan Hat with a Chainmail Hood (Tundra Soil, XXXXL)
  • 29f: Commodore's Vestures: "Last Stand" Vostroyan Lasgun
  • 29g: Commodore's Vestures: "The Bastard" Vostroyan Flamer
  • 29h: Commodore's Vestures: "Plan A" Vostroyan Rippergun
• 30: Dominion Genesis (Novel), The Wastes, Chapter 2
• 31: Crusade: Armageddon, pg. 16
• 32: The Relentless Dead (Novel) (Hard Cover), Chapter II, pg. 24