Hechtor Dravere

Lord Militant Hechtor Dravere was one of the senior Imperial commanders that served under Warmaster Slaydo during the Sabbat Worlds Crusade.

History
Hechtor Dravere was a lauded, traditionalist commander, and for long time the most heavily decorated and commended officer within the Segmentum Pacificus. Prior to his involvement with the Sabbat Worlds Crusade, Dravere had achieved numerous victories with the aid of his favoured Imperial Guard regiment, the Jantine Patricians. Characterised as a boastful and self-important egomaniac, Warmaster Slaydo believed that Draver's competency in command was spotty at best, and that many of his numerous decorations were undeserved. Like his contempory Cybon, Dravere was known to be a brutal man, being predisposed to use the regular infantry as gun fodder to achieve his strategic objectives. But one cannot overlook the string of achievements over his long career as a commander of men; he won Parfelis from the Orks in 730, subjugated the Frateris Uprising on Skolnik in 737, orchestrated the Balance Wars in the Kartheope System in 740-743, and was one of the first commanders to encounter and survive the menace of the Tyranids.

Dravere's main failing as a commanding officer was his rigidity and lack of motility in command. He notoriously wasted men's lives and his self-righteous attitude made him few friends within the ranks of High Command. He participated during the Khulan Campaign (752-754), though only in a supporting role, and fully expected to rise to the esteemed rank of Warmaster, and was dismayed when Slaydo was appointed instead. Slaydo loathed the man, though the Warmaster had sense enough to treat Dravere with apparent respect. Even a great man such as Slaydo was not infallible, as he once rejected Ambold Eleven as a primary assault target simply because Dravere had championed it. Ambold Eleven simply did not fit neatly into the Warmaster's long term plans for the reconquest of the Sabbat Territories, and Slaydo did not want to embellish Dravere with any credit whatsoever for the opening assault. During Operation Redrake the Warmaster charged Dravere (along with General Akkensor) with an easily achievable objective at Long Halent.

Notoriously ambitious, Dravere needled Slaydo right up to his death in 765, and then bitterly fought other potential contenders, such as Cybon, for the position of Warmaster in Slaydo's absence. It is even rumoured that Dravere became involved in some sort of conspiracy to overthrow Macaroth after his appointment to Warmaster as Slaydo's successor. Though there is no evidence to prove such fanciful tales, evidence of such a conspiracy would have most likely been supressed by the Commissariat. A bitter man, Dravere met his ultimate during the assault on Menazoid Episolon in late 765, less than eight months after Slaydo's death.