30K: Legions Had Cops!
Yup, it’s confirmed. The space marines had police to keep them in line. Take a look.
Once upon a time in 1987 Space Marines were young. GW was roughing out their basic concepts, chapters and background. Rogue Trader had this seminal image that kicked off the whole thing:
Most of the original chapters who would go down through the ages like the Dark Angels and Space Wolves were there. Some became evolutionary dead ends like the Rainbow Warriors, rarely heard of again. Still there was a lot of 1980s weirdness on this page like this:
Field Police? WTF? Space Marines are utterly loyal super soldiers with iron discipline. Why on Terra would they need MPs? In any case remember that logo up there.
Fast forward 30 years to the latest Forge World book – INFERNO. Feast your eyes on this:
Recognise that shoulderpad symbol? “Field Overseer Militant Authority” sounds a whole lot like Field Police to me. Even more interesting is the tale of the Molorian Revolt which tells a story very much at odds with the cold professional killers mystique we associate with marines. It appears that at least at the very early origin of the Legions, marines were still very much individuals and could get carried away in the field – hence the Field Police. It is noted that the two legions with the most of these personnel were the VIth (Space Wolves) and the XIIth (World Eaters).
It’s another very cool little asterisk to the tale of marines and maybe a cool way to mark out a single model in your 30K army – if you think your force represents the type of soliders who might get carried away from time to time.
~Cool!
