Vresh is a heavily urbanised Imperial world located in the Segmentum Obscurus which is the homeworld of the Astra Militarum's Vresh Grenadiers.
The Grenadier regiments hail from the violence-torn tech-slums of Vresh where a strong and violent gang culture pervades its shifting worldscape of rust and metal, and its warriors quickly learn to be cunning in combat and to follow the orders of their leaders.
The Flak Armour they wear is typically fashioned from metal scrap plates, which are beaten into shape to wear during the running slum battles. Once drafted into the Astra Militarum this same armour is often retained and given regimental markings, though many of the lurid gang emblems of the Grenadiers' former lives are retained on helmets and breastplates.
Like some other regiments raised from the disreputable bowels of Imperial urban society where gang warfare is rife -- such as those from Necromunda, Jhal Sak III and certain elements of Armageddon's soldiery -- the Vesh Grenadiers evince a sectarian hierarchy. This makes reinforcement and integration of new troops difficult, with rival elements from their former lives liable to turn on each other when placed in the same unit.
Before every muster of new Grenadiers regiments on Vresh, vicious wars break out between rival tech-slum warlords. Painted to the Departmento Munitorum as a ritual tradition by Vresh's planetary governor, in truth this violence ensures that only one Vreshian gang culture is singled out for each tithe of new regiments to the Astra Militarum, so that rivalry between the slums is not carried into the newly raised regiments, degrading their performance.
Sources[]
- Codex: Astra Militarum (8th Edition), pp. 16-17, 29
- Codex: Astra Militarum (9th Edition), pg. 30