The Gaujur Archipelago (Third World Banana Republic): Balls and Bayonets Brigade (Military Volunteers and a few Well Trained Draftees)

Your people have gotten the short end of the stick for a long long time. You were one of the last areas of the world to be conquered by the Imperium, except that you Weren't Conquered! The tribal leaders of the Archapelago saw the writing on the wall when their neighbors were overtaken, and met the Imperial forces with a flag of parlay and asked to give terms for surrender: the sons and daughters of the tribal chiefs would marry Imperial nobles and they would welcome missionaries to make a translation of the Conclave Bible into their trade language, if only the Imperium would allow them to live in peace and respect their limited sovereignty as a member state within the planetary government. They agreed, your people blended their religion with that of the Imperium and lived long and happy lives in peace for the next 70 years, and that was one of the LAST things that really went right for your people.

For starters, while three generations of Gaujur lived on their islands as they had always done, much of the rest of the world modernized and industrialized, and you and yours were left behind. This meant that when Tithes were first instituted for the planet on the 100th anniversary of the last pocket of resistance being quelled and the Conquest declared completed; you had little to give except foodstuffs and people, which crippled your population and led to mass starvation. But you adapted: you're culture changed to focus on providing these things while you tried desperately to secure supplies to increase your industrial capabilities.

No one would help you.

Rival houses worked tirelessly to keep you and your mostly native, in attitudes if not blood, 'Nobles' the poor cousins who had little clout in the planetary senate and could be used as pawns and cut-outs in their games of succession and alliance.

Things got worse, the rival great houses started backing rival claimants to various titles among your nobility when an inheritance was in question, fostering blood feuds and vendettas that could last for decades, and nearly fragmenting the archipelago completely.

In the end though your people realized what was going on and shut out the rest of the world. Part of your limited sovereignty was that you could close your territorial lands and waters to outsiders other than the Governor's Troops and Agents and those of the Greater Imperium, and this you did, leaving open only specific points of contact along the edges of the archipelago where you turned over Psykers, foodstuffs, troops, and trade goods for the Tithe, or made trade deals with other states, and then politely but firmly told the foreigners to leave again. However slowly your people grew inbred, and you realized you had to open up again or face a purge for dangerous mutation.

When you opened your borders there was a wave of visitors, and you quietly encouraged liaisons with their menfolk to get new blood into your gene-pool. This finally set you on a path to stability, you became a tourist destination, and then stumbled on 'off-shore' banking as a means to stimulate your economy further, allowing you to industrialize at last.

Your nation has remained a poor, out of the way, backwater, but you have all you need to survive and thrive, and you are no longer anyone's pawns, though neither are you players; rather you rank somewhere between, more like a rook or bishop, perhaps even queen, on a regicide board; a piece that can be played and sacrificed, if you have to, but you would really rather not.

This, after much meandering, brings us to your unit, the 'Balls and Bayonets Brigade'.

This 5,000 strong formation of men takes it's name from a unit of great antiquity in the history of your world, the first 'Balls and Bayonets Brigade' having been raised not for the first Tithe but during 'The Reconquest' as the war that returned your world to the Imperium is locally known. There have been 12 'Balls and Bayonets' Brigades before your own, each of which has served with distinction before ultimately being savaged to the point that their battle standard had to be returned to Calimshan and a new formation raised to take it's place, most of them having their handful of survivors being given settlement rights along with what was left of their respective legions. The Gaujur Archipelago played heavy politics to be allowed the honor to take up the standard of this storied formation for it's 13th incarnation and was only granted it because it WAS the 13th version of the 'B&BB', an unlucky number. The 'B&BB' will be the only formation the Archapelago is raising for the 42nd Legion during this founding draw, 5 regiments of 1000 men, mostly volunteers from among the population and their PDF units, but some drafted individuals to make up the difference: each and every one of them sent through an intense 6 month training regimen. You and yours intend to do right by the name you bear.

The 'Balls and Bayonets' are and always have been an infantry formation. Sure you will be backed up by the 42nd Legion's armored companies, grenadiers, sentinels and the like, but for yourselves you are infantry to the core, believing in the right and duty of the common soldier to fight and kill for the Emperor. This also means you are probably going to die horribly and very quickly when your legion reaches it's first war zone: infantry formations suffer the most hideous casualties in the initial landings of most new legions...