The Huntsmarshal's Expedition

"Civilisation shall triumph over the wilderness. Man shall triumph over beast." For two and a half millennia, the Empire has formed a bulwark against the encroaching forces of Destruction. Lying at the heart of the Old World, it is the greatest and most powerful of all the nations forged by men. Yet across its lands, evil always lurks in its shadiest corners and darkest depths. Mutant monsters prowl its dark forests, malevolent ratmen plot beneath its cities, and the living dead rise from its graveyards. Monstrous enemies gaze belligerently across its borders, with the threat of invasion from any number of murderous abominations an ever-present danger. Yet it endures, for mankind has a steely determination not merely to live, but to thrive. Ever since the legendary warrior Sigmar first united the primitive man-tribes against their common enemies, the longevity of the Empire has been assured by great men hailing from across its provinces. Out of the forests of Middenland emerged Markus Wulfhart, who rose to prominence to become the finest scout in all the Empire. Once a lowly huntsman, his life was irrevocably shattered when a one-eyed Bonegrinder Giant razed his hometown of Drakenburg to the ground, slaughtering its inhabitants. Burning with the desire for revenge, the young hunter tracked the monster to its lair and skilfully blinded it with a single shot from his bow, before severing its rope-like hamstrings with his blade. Closing in on the crippled giant, he hacked at its neck repeatedly with manic determination and decapitated it. Markus had slain the beast that had murdered his kin, but in suffering the tragedy of losing his entire village he had been set on a new, death-strewn path. He swore that as long as he still lived, no other settlement would suffer the fate of Drakenburg, and he set out to hunt the various monsters that preyed on the Empire. Only when every last one of them was slain would he rest. In recognition of his deeds, Markus was offered a knighthood and a nobleman’s estate by Karl Franz himself. Wulfhart declined, wishing only to be allowed to continue with his self-imposed quest. Impressed with his grim fortitude, the Emperor bestowed unto Markus the title of Huntsmarshal – the Emperor’s Captain of Scouts. Answering only to the Emperor himself, Markus leads an elite, hand-picked regiment of scouts and hunters from across the land – a disparate group in which city-born men rub shoulders with those raised in rural backwaters. One thing is certain, however – Wulfhart’s hunters are the most accomplished group of monster-slayers in the Empire.