Flagellants

The Flagellants are the madmen and prophets of the Empire's end times: peasants, ruined merchants, and broken soldiers who have looked upon plague, war, and mutation and concluded that the world is in its final days. Renouncing home and reason, they wander the roads in ragged bands behind self-appointed preachers, scourging their own flesh and howling of doom, and they hurl themselves into battle with a ferocity no drill could ever instil. Armed with flails, morning stars, and lengths of chain studded with holy icons, they feel neither fear nor pain, for they crave death as a release and a final proof of faith. A band of Flagellants cannot be made to flee; they will fight until every last one is cut down, singing hymns as they die. Imperial generals loose them where the fighting will be hardest and the cause most desperate, trusting that men who wish to die will sell their lives very dearly indeed.