Destroyer
GUTS AND GEARS — THE BEASTS AND MACHINES OF THE IRON KINGDOMS
Traditionally, warjacks have followed the trends of human armies in regards to equipping and outfitting them for war. For centuries, they wielded massive swords and spears, crushing hammers, and wicked axes as if as if they were heavier and he avier infantry. They carried plating layered like human armor or hefted oversized versions of a human warrior’s shield. The evolution of increasingly effective firearms, however, increased destructive potential to ranged combat and forced the makers of warjacks to adapt. Designers
spent decades, even centuries, competing in an arms race to most effectively combine the armor and speed of a warjack with the fearsome power of artillery. From its first major battles, the Destroyer set a standard by which to measure other ranged-capable warjacks. Like few other war machines before or since, the Destroyer truly marked a turning point in western Immoren’s capability to wage war. In the decades since its introduction, the armies of Khador have become more and more balanced between terrific melee combats and truly devastating long-ranged firepower.
Few forces inspire genius quite like rivalry, and history has seen few rivalries as enduring or bitter as that between Khador and Cygnar and its ally-states. Engines East’s creation of the Mule threw down the gauntlet. The men of the Khadoran Mechaniks Assembly could ill afford to let their southern enemies maintain ranged superiority and raced to invent something grander, more potent, more maneuverable, and more practical. The minds of the Mechaniks Assembly considered the Mule’s steam lobber technology a dead end, and the lack of mobility required for a full-range shot disgusted them. They answered
the mobile artillery problem with reliable, potent, blasting powder. Spurred on by Queen Ayn VI and the continuing tensions between Khador and their Ordic and Cygnaran rivals, the Mechaniks Assembly leapt ahead of their time with the invention of the bombard.
44th Assault Battalion, 1st Border Legion — “Avalanche of the 1st”
Fighting alongside the Unbreakable 111th Infantry Battalion and providing heavy assault capabilities, the “Avalanche of the 1st” most often forms the vanguard for the 1st Border Legion. The 44th Assault Battalion uses the same white and red color scheme as the other battalions in the 1st. A well-rounded force, the 44th includes Iron Fangs, Man-O-War, Winter Guard, and a number of Juggernauts, Marauders, and Spriggan warjacks, but it makes particular use of the Destroyers’ combination of ranged and melee power to support steady advances.
The first models used tried and trusted pinlock technology on a grander scale than ever seen before. The revolutionary element of the weapon lay in the introduction of a huge, self-contained metal cartridge. Rather than a simple pin, this shell required a massive pneumatic wedge to mix the copious amounts of red and black powder in each pre-crafted cartridge.
The shell, itself packed full of the same powders to assure a secondary explosion upon impact, hurtles from the barrel in much the same way a standard weapon would fire, but the rate of fire and reliability of the machine comes from what happens next. The spent shell simply ejects automatically using pressure from the blast and a fresh cartridge loads into place from the weapon’s underslung magazine. This removed the need for vulnerable infantry loaders to ready the next shot, eliminated the requirement to harness the steam power necessary for the warjack to move, and exemplified the simple reliability of sturdy Khadoran craftsmanship writ larger than ever before.
The Mechaniks Assembly now had to ensure that the rest of the machine matched the impressive nature of the Destroyer’s bombard before they could consider suggesting the warjack for military use. The Volvningrad men working on designing the Destroyer looked to the then-new Juggernaut, not the aged Berserker, for inspiration. They made few changes to that impressive chassis beyond the inclusion of their mighty new bombards, but many within the Mechaniks Assembly feared that the lack of a close combat weapon (or even the massive fist of the Juggernaut) would leave the Destroyer too vulnerable in melee combat. To compensate, they made the weapon it did possess — its fearsome axe — all the mightier.
Early Destroyer prototypes wielded massive axe heads, tempered and re-tempered in the Motherland’s hottest forges, to tremendous effect. The metallurgical processes pioneered by these craftsmen, when refined, would appear again centuries later in the forging of armor-piercing field gun ammunition. At the time, as the first such experimental blades sheared with horrific ease through any armor plate put before them, they earned the nickname Executioner axes. This combination of awesome firepower and trusty Khadoran strength made the Destroyer an instant favorite.
The first major battles in which these warjacks fought, despite this new technology, ended in defeat. The Thornwood War did not produce
a victory for Khador, but the Destroyer’s broad shoulders bore none of the blame; quite the opposite, in fact. Among the first military decisions made in the aftermath of the Battle of the Tongue mandated that Khadoran warcasters receive more Destroyers. Even using the shorter barrel and less powerful shell of the day, the bombards so impressed Khadoran commanders that Destroyers accounted for almost one in three of all new warjacks produced to replace those lost. Many of Khador’s greatest military minds, even the brilliant Irusk, feel to this day that had such numbers of Destroyers existed before that war, the maps of western Immoren would look very different today.
Not only the Khadorans respected this new self-contained cannon, however. Well aware of the high cost that came with facing Khadoran warjacks in melee, the inventors and mechaniks of the Cygnaran Armory worked diligently to unlock the design of these new guns and bring similar weapons to bear. This effort produced the Charger, which uses self-contained cartridges modified for an even higher rate of fire in exchange for smaller rounds. Khadorans consider this a pitifully weak, underpowered machine and an insult to the Destroyer’s creators’ innovation. The Defender, however, proved more worthy as a rival to the Destroyer’s fearsome power.
When word reached Khadoran High Kommand of a Cygnaran presence in Ord, including Defenders, sent to aid King Alvor Cathor IV in patrolling his border, the Khadorans considered it a challenge. They decided to pit their trusted design against the upstart Cygnaran contraption amidst the craggy hills of eastern Ord, not far from the Thornwood where the Destroyer had first made its name.
Historians would come to call this series of brutal skirmishes in 568 AR the Battle of Northwood. The nickname given it by an irreverent Ordic infantryman caught in the middle would stick with the survivors of either side: The Hard Rain. The nature of the skirmishes forced canny officers on both sides to pioneer new methods of combat. They fought constantly over the high ground in a cat and mouse game of ambush and counter. The mobile firepower of both sides — the Khadoran 3rd Border Patrol with their Destroyers against the newly painted Cygnaran Defenders — matched one another in a deadly competition.
From atop the knolls and high cliffs of the rough Ordic countryside, the rival war machines lay down intimidating amounts of firepower. The Destroyer swiftly emerged victorious in the eyes of the Khadoran High Command, though, with the twin advantages of its high arcing fire and its resilience. Executioner Axes brutally sheared off more than one Defender heavy barrel and shock hammer with a single swipe, and the satisfied Khadorans withdrew after a relatively short time. Explanations and condolences went to King Vinter Raelthorne III insisting that the Khadoran 3rd had thought themselves engaged with unchartered mercenaries using bodged-together secondhand Cygnaran machinery. The wording of the letters to Cygnar and Ord was never diplomatic enough to be considered apologies instead of insults. They averted all-out war nonetheless, and Khadoran military leaders and inventors alike remained certain of their machine’s dominance over its Cygnaran counterpart.
The High Kommand’s satisfaction with the Destroyer persists to this day. Well over a century since the machine first set metal foot on the field of battle, nearly seventy years since the last major modification to the design, the Destroyer still stands at the forefront of Khadoran armies as a broad and powerful cornerstone of their tactical doctrine, a central aspect of how field kommanders wage war. The Winter Guard and other masses of Khadoran infantry who trust their lives to its armored brawn and the covering fire of its mighty bombard see the Destroyer as a blessing from Morrow, Menoth, or both. The proud men and women of the Khadoran Mechaniks Assembly see it simply as perfection.
Fonte: No Quarter 18
