Colonel Graf András Petr von Böhbenmann is the Count of Grevéberg, Honorary Pfamp of the Golden Order of Saint Günther and the legitimate contender to the disputed title of Arch-Earl of Spritzenhaufen. A fun-loving Astro-Ungarian servant of the Emperor, von Böhbenmann has found his soulmate in Gräfin Liběna Mila Moroznich von Lamberg, to whom he is engaged. This couple can always be relied upon to be the life of the party. Ding-dong! Touch the tralalalala!
Graf András is the favourite drinking buddy of Herzog Victorianus Friederererenrich “Gamen” Neumann, and their drunken orations are infamous across three continents at home for their meandering speech and overblown arrogance. When drunk on amasec, ale, imported machpagne or the finest of wine, the two noble friends will frequently begin spitting on the underclass, both figuratively and literally. Indeed, their liveried bodyguards and junior staff members have often had to work hard to prevent a mob lynching of the two jolly drunkards after their esteemed saliva has landed upon the heads of lowborn scum.
The drunken escapades of von Böhbenmann do not stop there, for indeed they have become legendary far and wide upon fair Astro-Ungaria and beyond. Even distant voidholmers close to the Ghoul Stars have heard of how the Drunken Count smashed out his teeth while riding wildly on a dirtbike through the streets of Pfraag-Schlossburg, which led to Graf András installing a most golden garniture of false teeth and exotic ivory for that shining smile under the festive lumens.
Drunk like a lord, many other anecdotes can be told about the joy and merrymaking of Count von Böhbenmann and Countess von Lamberg. Tales are told by high and low alike of the times when the Drunk Count danced on palatial roofs, hunted by his retainers and bodyguards, who had to jump from gargoyles to buttresses as they chased the singing nobleman across domes and gable roofs. The stories about von Böhbenmann are legion in number. For instance, the blue-blooded party animals of Astro-Ungaria will often joke about that one time when an intoxicated Graf András tried to eat five cheese-dripping grox sandwiches by chewing around the hidden location of a slice of salty cucumber laced with a mild poison. For each sandwich, this cherished suicide cucumber managed to show up in new locations every time, and every bite into the toxic vegetable slice sent the good Count into a fit of vomiting. Much amusement was thus had in highborn company, as the Emperor intended.
The high spirits of civilian festivities has translated well to military service, for the easy-going aristocrats that make up the officer class of loyal Astro-Ungaria would rather waltz than brood. The sloppy schlamperei culture of the Astro-Ungarian armed forces leave plenty of time for fun and games, and so Colonel Graf András Petr von Böhbenmann has found that the hardships of starship travel and campaigning out in the field on strange worlds has been compensated by the merry atmosphere and generous drink that is to be found in the staff of General Hanz-Konrad von Dorfenhötz.
Graf András carries an artificier-crafted dagger and prized plasma pistol while in uniform, both of which he won at card games. The pompous Count von Böhbenmann’s heirloom power fist carries the ancient mark of the Moon Wolf, symbol of Astro-Ungaria’s patron saint the Divine Horus, who according to the fair world’s legends faced down the Devil Lorgar side-by-side with the Emperor Himself. For some reason this treasured ur-myth of the Astro-Ungarians meet with frowning disapproval or much worse from offworlders such as Ecclesiarchal priests or members of the Imperial Inquisition. Yet somehow this quaint belief of Astro-Ungaria has so far managed to escape a bloodthirsty purging and suppression, probably because the critical orders got lost in Astropathic transmission or disappeared due to some misfiling by an Administratum clerk. And so the sclerotic mess of the inept Imperium ensures that heretical beliefs of yore survive in pockets across the Milky Way galaxy, akin to a sprinkle of living time capsules.
To Astro-Ungaria’s noble castes, life is often a party, and Graf András has warmly embraced this jovial spirit. Occasionally, Colonel von Böhbenmann will even do some proper commanding of his regiment, the Astro-Ungarian 1993rd Infantry Regiment of His Divine Majesty’s Imperial Guard. He has carved out a reputation for himself as a sterling drillmaster of the Astra Militarum, making his Guardsmen perfect the art of marching for parade. Under von Böhbenmann’s command, the smell of freshly polished boots, picked flowers, frothing amasec and newly starched uniforms will never leave the unit while on garrison duty or when resting behind the lines. For all their glorious appearance, however, the soldiers of the Drunken Count’s Own regiment tend to be slaughtered like cattle once out on the frontline, as a bloody reminder that gallantry and offensive spirit do not make up for a lack of competent command and murderous firepower.
Fortunately, such a baleful fate has so far eluded von Böhbenmann, who prefers to stay one inch away from battle, since he believes there is a fifty percent chance to be killed in the field. For Colonel Graf András and his retinue is securely locked away inside a fortified command bunker. Here, the staff of General von Dorfenhötz will plot their overly ambitious plans and uphold their homeplanet’s finest traditions of revelry, as befit their highborn status. The Astro-Ungarian army has taken it to heart that alcohol best grease the wheels of Imperial high command, and no titled soldier is better suited to make other officers feel at ease than Colonel Graf András Petr von Böhbenmann, the Count of Grevéberg, Honorary Pfamp of the Golden Order of Saint Günther and the legitimate contender to the disputed title of Arch-Earl of Spritzenhaufen.
And so the Astro-Ungarians at war party on, to the clinking of crystal glasses and the frantic vox-calls of frontline units screaming for reinforcements and the urgent correction of friendly artillery fire landing in their own trenches. Cheers!
Ave Imperator.
This sculpt is a parody of a friend and his girlfriend. Cheers!
Astro-Ungarian Master of Ordnance
Master of Ordnance Boldizsár Vilim Sándor von Heinrichi-Andortopf is a Duarchal artillery officer and member of the lower nobility on Astro-Ungaria. A professional artilleryman married to exactitude and precision, Sándor is on paper an expert in his craft.
Just as his superior, General Hanz-Konrad von Dorfenhötz, is in theory a strategic mastermind excelling at aggressively breaking through the lines and surrounding the enemy with sweeping maneouvres. Just the same, Master of Ordnance Sándor is in theory an expert at synchronizing a rolling curtain of creeping barrages with infantry advancing close behind. In practice, however, both officers fall short of their brilliance on paper, and both have produced mountains of corpses to prove it.
It is not so much material flaws that hamper the performance of Astro-Ungarian artillery directed by the Master of Ordnance, for the gigantic Szköda works on the fair homeworld produce excellent artillery pieces, even when the preserved technology level is of low stature. The quality is brilliant. Indeed, von Dorfenhötz is rumoured to have commented: The army of Astro-Ungaria have ninetynine problems. Artillery is not one of them.
Instead, it is lacking communications and faulty doctrine that so often drags down the efficiency of Astro-Ungarian artillery, making it merely decent where it is well possible for the artillery to rise and be superb if optimized. For instance, Astro-Ungarian artillery is often placed as close to the front as possible to increase its range. This makes its capture by the enemy an easy feat during grand offensives of the vile foes of the Emperor, and especially so since Astro-Ungarian Guardsmen would rather make their shelters comfortable and homely with flowers and planking inside, than toil away at digging multiple lines of trenches for a strong defence in depth.
Other doctrinal and communication dysfunctionalities haunt the Astro-Ungarian forces when on the offensive. While a rafale, or storm of steel, is easy to execute by merely pouring in shells onto enemy lines for days on end in a hammering, dumb fashion, it is not a winning artillery technique, since most of the foe will survive the initial bombardment and take cover, while the shrapnel that so tears flesh is useless in destroying enemy fortfications and razorwire.
More advanced, a simultaneous barrage against the enemy trenches and against a line further back has the potential to both suppress the foe and prevent the frontline troops from emerging from cover, while also hindering reinforcements from approaching. It is not a brilliant technique, although creeping barrages moving in a shredding curtain ahead of advancing friendly infantry do hold some promise. Likewise, leaping barrages have some utility, for they jump between bombarding enemy trenches, to shelling targets further back, to once again pouring ordnance on the trenches.
Master of Ordnance Sándor is a master of the creeping barrage, but the artillerymen under his command is not always so skilled. Often, the creeping barrage will go too fast and rush ahead of the advancing infantry, allowing enemy survivors to pop out of cover and gun down the Astro-Ungarians in no-man’s land. Othertimes, the creeping barrage that should roll at marching speed ahead of friendly infantry, may go too slowly, and rip apart one’s own line of advancing foot soldiers. Othertimes, precision is lacking, or too many of the shells are hastily produced duds, some of which explode akin to landmines when friendly Guardsmen step on the duds.
Still, for all its failures, the Imperial and Royal artillery under Sándor’s command has achieved some notable success. The cannonstorm on Bucharia IX caught the cream of the separatist forces at their most vulnerable moment, as they amassed outside maglev stations for their offensive, and Sándor won a Bronze Orb of Ordnance as he directed dispersed clusters of artillery batteries to fire on the same location without warning. Thus a purple medal was won by turning seventythousand enemy assault infantry into mincemeat by a surprise bombardment, and von Dorfenhötz’ optimistic overconfidence in his Duarchal army’s combat power swelled further still.
One major dampener of the Astro-Ungarian artillery’s potential is a weakness in communications. All too often, it becomes impossible for units to contact each other or command staff once battle rages. Cables get torn by shelling, and wireless vox signals may likewise be disturbed, especially so by means of electromagnetic pulse kit. And if contact can be established at all, the messages will often be patchy and tinny, since the vox equipment and sonic membranes of the Duarchal forces of Astro-Ungaria is of a very shoddy quality, yet another victim of the deterioration of human technology in the Age of Imperium. Evidence of this poor state of tech can be found on the Master of Ordnance’s personal gilded vox-caster, which is equipped with a hand crank. This crank has frequently to be turned by sweating underlings to provide any signal whatsoever for the haughty artillery officer while Sándor commands the batteries from down in von Dorfenhötz’ fortified bunker.
Even if messages do come through without any important parts missing, the information itself will often be flawed, since artillery spotters with their rudimentary equipment and lackluste training will often provide faulty coordinates. One eternal problem that plagues the artillery forces of Astro-Ungaria is its primitive technology and doctrine of forward deployment to maximize range. This has resulted in high casualties among artillerymen and forward observers, which has prevented a virtuous cycle of accumulating experience from breeding better expertise in an upward spiral of improvement. After all, with so many trained veterans dead, Astro-Ungarian Astra Militarum forces must rely on freshly trained personnel to plug the gaps and do as best as they can, and often corners must be cut in training due to underfunding or for the sake of stressful front emergencies shouting for more men at once.
As to friendly fire casualties among infantry and armoured forces from ordnance, it is of no matter. For Sándor, it is obvious: The sky on Astro-Ungaria is blue. Gravity pulls you down to the ground. The air can be breathed. And you bomb your own men in war. It is nothing to fret about. Just reload and fire again.
And so, a grinding war there will be, wherever Sándor puts his foot down. Embrace the gruelling war of attrition, and let war be decided by logistics and industrial output. Let the shells be rationed and stored up, and then rained down like hellfire from the skies. Artillery is the king of battle, the great slayer of warriors, and its roar will never turn silent as long as Master of Ordnance Boldizsár Vilim Sándor von Heinrichi-Andortopf directs the big guns of the Duarchy on distant worlds and voidholms alike.
Ave Humanae Imperium!
This sculpt is a parody of a friend of @Jaberoo , one well versed in military history.
