Coruscoan Equites

The Coruscoan Equites are a pattern of armored formations within the Imperial Army that is native to the worlds of the namesake Corusco Clusters. They are complementary to the Coruscoan Velites, which makes up the bulk of the infantry forces that the Equites support as part of the greater Coruscoan Auxilia. The Equites are specialized in highly mobile warfare, including but not limited to skirmishing, hit and run attacks and mass encirclement maneuvers. Always audacious on the offensive, Coruscoan Equites continue to embody the brazen spirit of the Techno-Barbarians they evolved from.

History
Much like their Velite equivalents, the Equites find their origin in the reintegration of the world of Corusco Parva into the Imperium shortly following the First Curoscoan Incursion. Throughout the Long Night, Corusco Parva developed a warrior-caste that resembled Terran Techno-Barbarians to protect itself from Xeno attacks, and the most visible and glamorous of these warriors were the crews and pilots of tanks and strike crafts. Though the Warhosts of the volcanic planet managed to avoid destroying one another in jealous warfare over control, they did regularly compete with one another to see who could destroy would-be invaders in the most swift and flashy manner possible. This resulted in a deeply ingrained culture mixing speed, showmanship and overwhelming localized firepower that was somewhat unique to the Coruscoan Equites.

After the destruction of the Incursion and the arrival of the Gilded Fleet, great reforms swept over Corusco Parva and the Warlords' hosts which had fought and Xenos and raiders for thousands of years became the first of many regiments established in the Corusco Sector for the Imperial Army. Yet, these reforms affected the great companies of the Warhosts comparatively little, and outside of some degree of standardization in their equipment and organization, their overall doctrine, spirit and command structure saw very little change, remaining much has they had millennia prior.

As their infantry counterparts, the Coruscoan Equites would eventually raise formations a great many times their initial numbers to fight across the stars, but this process was delayed and slowed somewhat by the lack of streamlined designs of warmachines that could be ubiquitously produced across the worlds of the Cluster. Once these initial hurdles overcome, however, the Equites proved themselves to be highly successful armored formations and while they were primarily found among the expeditionary fleets of the Obsidian Wyrms, it was not uncommon to see other Legions request Equites reinforcement to complement their heavier but slower armored formations with more swift and mobile ones.

Doctrine
The doctrinal paradigm of the Coruscoan Equites is very different from that much more commonly encountered in the rest of the Excertus Imperialis. While the average regiment or cohort will focus on slow but heavily armed and armored heavy tanks like the Leman Russ or even more imposing super-heavy vehicles like the Baneblade, the Equites favor medium tanks which find a balance of mobility, firepower and protection. Support and artillery vehicles are expected to be able to follow these faster frontline elements as much as possible and particularly heavy vehicles are quite rare outside of dedicated Titan-Hunter units.

This divergence is doctrine is due to the fact that the Equites rarely engage in the type of head-on, frontal pitched battles across massed frontlines in which heavier tanks excel. Instead, they focus on highly mobile and proactive forms of warfare that aims to dismember an enemy force into smaller pieces and destroy it piecemeal with attacks from multiple different angles. On the strategic level, the Equites favor maneuvers such as pinning down an enemy frontline with sustained artillery barrage, concentrating their forces at several simultaneous speartips and cutting through the lines in order to wreck havoc among rear elements, destroying artillery support, logistic chains and supply depots or just simply circling back around to encircle enemy formations or attack them from the rear.

While in defensive operations, Coruscoan Equites rarely dig down for static gun lines and instead favors strategies of defense in depth or elastic defense, allowing foes to make thrusts into apparently weakly defended territory before cutting off their advances with simultaneous pincers and launching coordinated counter-attacks on the now-isolated force from multiple directions. On a more tactical level, the ability for firing on the move displayed by the Equites' workhorse battle tank allow them to excel at rearguard harassment tactics where they continuously bombard advancing foes in fighting withdrawals, especially when they step out of defensive positions to try and gain ground.

One of the main weaknesses of the Coruscoan Equites is the unfortunate corollary of the very same mindset that is their strength. The brazen showmanship prevalent among the Equites both at the command and rank-and-file level, while allowing them to perform truly audacious maneuvers, also incites recklessness, decentralized command based on personal initiative and stark competition. It is not uncommon for Equites sub-formation to unilaterally take the initiative of ordering localized assault when seeing perceived windows of opportunity that were never authorized by their commanding officers, or worse, for no other purpose than to try to one-up a rival sub-formation. These unsanctioned initiatives, often improperly supported or coordinated, are a double-edged sword which is as likely to lead to localized disaster as it is to provide an unexpected advantage, but they remain pervasive of the Equites as a double-standard punishes failed initiatives and rewards successful ones.

Vehicles

 * Musketeer Assault Tank - The Musketeer forms the backbone of all contemporary Equites formations ever since the initial standardization in the early years of the Imperial Compliance and was designed specifically to be a good match for their doctrinal preferences. A relatively fast skimmer, the Musketeer is able to make good speed and maintain that speed in most environments and most planets with little difficulty, while still being durable enough to see frontline service against credible threats. Highly accurate on the move thanks to its advanced Novaen tracking array, Musketeers allow the Equites to charge in at full speed from an unexpected direction, unloading concerted barrage of either anti-tank or anti-personel missiles throughout enemy ranks and to zip through the flaming wrecks and craters left in their wake without slowing down. Relatively quick to build and very cheap to keep supplied, Musketeers are a versatile medium tank, but they remains relatively fragile compared to heavier tanks such as the Leman Russ and have a nasty tendency for catastrophic explosion if their Hailstorm missile battery is hit.