Trench Pilgrims Faction Overview

by Sammie Dae

This ragged body has walked a thousand miles to the Holy Land, and, by His name, it will not cease for mere lead and steel. Every wound is a blessing. His glorious words ring in my ear. His light burns to my core. His grace guides my vision. I will be ripped to shreds until He has seen that my duty is done. I am an instrument of His will, a sword in flesh and blood, and no sword worth its weight in iron goes unblemished.

Trench Pilgrims

No Man’s Land isn’t just a battlefield, it’s a blessed land for the damned, the penitent, and the glory-seekers. It was once the Holy Land, after all, though it might not feel so much anymore. Its mere existence has drawn the world’s gaze for nearly nine centuries, and it will continue to do so for nine more, should this war never see an end. And with each year the battle rages on, the Trench Pilgrims will gather their meagre supplies and walk. From Iberia to Suomi to Lalibela, priests and prophets lead the disorganised, God-touched masses in miles-long processions directly into the mouth of the beast. The beast, ever spiteful, will bite down, but the Pilgrim, ever zealous, will be ready with sword in hand. On the table, the Trench Pilgrims are an aggressive rabble that don their Iron Capirotes and fearlessly throw body after body at their problems. They prefer to be directly in the action, chopping up heretics with scavenged swords or turning armoured enemies into canned soup with Anti-Tank Hammers – fancy directional explosives on a stick.

God’s Chosen

Each procession of Trench Pilgrims is led by charismatic and powerful ELITES, God’s Chosen. Bearing a bit more charm and a knack for catastrophising, the War Prophet is the leader of a Trench Pilgrim Warband’s righteous cause. To the congregation, a War Prophet is the beginning, the end, and everything between. When a Pilgrim needs a little pep in their step, War Prophets use their personal Loudspeaker and a severe case of tinnitus to deliver a 100 decibel sermon, a kick in the pants that reminds their adherents that the heretic over yonder just needs to die. When a poor Pilgrim’s bones are crushed by a Sin Eater’s Tenderiser, the Prophet will be there to Lay on Hands and recover those BLOOD MARKERS. Even when a War Prophet is surely meant to die, they press on by ignoring the first Out of Action result – a poetic twist on Memento Mori so powerful it rivals the weird skull in Holbein’s The Ambassadors. In addition to the two aforementioned ability actions, they’re also blessed with +2 DICE in Ranged and Melee combat, making them some of the most dynamic units in all of Trench Crusade. Clever players can string together truly impressive combinations of actions, like Dash > Laying on Hands > Shoot > Loudspeaker > Fight > Medi-kit > Charge. Writer’s Note: I cannot tell you how smug I felt after taking out two enemies with that Activation.

On the beefy end of God’s Chosen are the Christo-chemically enhanced, black market superhumans known as Communicants. In the masses of the Trench Pilgrims, these aren’t your average, everyday Communicants you can pull from stock in the Mendelist labs. These chosen few enjoy the raw, unfettered power of Meta-Christ communion. They’re simple folks. They have a cross for a face, and they have huge muscles to hit hard and be hit. The former is literal; turns out you can just nail a cross through your eyes if you rely on blind faith. The latter allows a Communicant to brawl with the best of them, shrugging off BLOOD MARKERS every activation while dishing out attacks that could make a heretic wish they could unsee the Gate. They’re STRONG, TOUGH and certainly aren’t using a gun; give them the biggest melee weapon you can and send them to the Fallen trenches.

Castigators have a dreaded but necessary role in a Trench Pilgrim warband. Some Pilgrims will walk for hundreds of miles to see the glory of No Man’s Land, only to get cold feet the moment they see some silly demon like a Praetor or Pit Locust. Sure, they’re big and wreathed in fire and have more teeth than normal, but God is scarier! Charge, Pilgrim! Castigators exist to be that instrument of reason, taking the form of Enforced Orthodoxy, a gentle encouragement to get Faithful standing up; or in the form of the Whip of God, a not-so-gentle example of what happens to those who cower from His mission. Castigators can also take the Zealot Strength upgrade, giving them the STRONG Keyword and making them the righteous bearer of a bullet-spitting Machine Gun or shot-spraying Punt Gun.

The Faithful

The Trench Pilgrims are, at their core, the common men and women of Christendom who have found purpose in themselves – in God – and banded with a tribe who share a common goal. They have no lords or commanders, just a divine drive to travel from battlefield to battlefield with little more than their Iron Capirote and whatever weapons they could procure on their journey. Trench Pilgrims (the unit) are the standard infantry of the Trench Pilgrims (the Faction), frontline fighters with unrivaled zeal. They are cheap, reliable and expendable. In fact, they welcome a glorious death in the hopes that the Seventh Meta-Christ deems their service particularly worthy for a second round in the ring. These Pilgrims are known as Martyr Penitents: walking weapons of God that aren’t quite on Earth nor Heaven. Like the Castigator, one Trench Pilgrim can have Zealot Strength, making the blowback of a Punt Gun far easier to weather.

Trench Pilgrims are prone to suffering, and Stigmatic Nuns truly can’t get enough of it. These sisters find power in pain, drawing from each bullet wound, bayonet thrust and BLOOD MARKER to fuel their unending devotion. It’s an ode to the wounded Third Meta-Christ relived time and time again, rewarded in those elusive BLESSING MARKERS. The holy order of Stigmatic Nuns prefers to show heretics the consequences of sin up close, advancing through the battlefield with incredible agility and speed, unloading pistols and sword fighting with skill a Trench Pilgrim can only pray for.

Not all pilgrims have found No Man’s Land so willingly. Ecclesiastic Prisoners are the wretched of the Faithful. They’re damned, fools, murderers, usurers, thieves, cowards, slanderers, apostates, or worse – just unlucky. In the hands of the Trench Pilgrims, however, they will atone. Prisoners are bound, manacled and brought to the trenches for a few uses. Castigators use them as examples, a real morale booster. Clever War Prophets will sit them on objectives like fleshy sand bags that might eat a bullet or two before said bullets hit something important. A merciful warband will offer the Ecclesiastic Prisoners a chance for grand redemption: the Martyrdom Device. While these Prisoners make their desperate Mad Dash across the battlefield, they have several moments to reflect on their wrongs and this opportunity to make it right. If they succeed, the Prisoner and their enemy will both go up in a red mist. If they fail, they were probably shot dead in No Man’s Land. Tough break.

I’ve mentioned how little resources the Trench Pilgrims have about two or three times now, but they do have one Big Guy. On occasion, the Trench Pilgrims can come together to engineer God’s answer to the big heretic monsters: the Anchorite Shrine. Maintaining the “Suffering is Cool” trend of this Faction, these massive war machines are fueled by diesel, holy oil and raw human anguish to remind the Fallen that Christendom can also make some freaky contraptions. The pilot-monk hangs out inside what can best be described as the thorn chamber, projecting prayers to comrades and anointing the battlefield with the blood of devotion. From the perspective of an adversary of an Anchorite Shrine, you might describe it as “unkillable” or “a cruel and unusual way to treat prisoners” or “going to crush me”. Particularly pious Pilgrims may offer themselves to the Catherine Wheel, an already-effective shield-weapon that can take on extra human-shaped padding, giving the Shrine an effective “double TOUGH”. Alternatively, the Anchorite Shrine can just slam its massive weapons onto enemies, usually resulting in a reddish-brown mix of meat and mud on the battlefield. 

Pilgrims of Another Path

Trench Pilgrims are “disorganised” in the sense that they lack the rank and structure of New Antioch, for example, but they will flock to their tribes. As there are many denominations of Christendom, there are many denominations of warfare on No Man’s Land. The 1.0.2 Trench Crusade Warband Rules feature three paths of pilgrimage: the Procession of the Sacred Affliction, the War Pilgrimage of Saint Methodius and the Cavalcade of the Tenth Plague.

The Procession of the Sacred Affliction decided that your typical Trench Pilgrim wasn’t strong enough and tied a millstone to their neck to atone. This warband variant is even more melee-focused, increasing the limit of Zealot Strength Trench Pilgrims to three, unlocking Anti-Tank Hammers to infantry, and utilizing the strategy of dropping millstones on Down enemies to make sure they stay down. A single Sacred Affliction Castigator or Trench Pilgrim can bear the Wrath of God, forgoing the safety of armour for the power of righteous hate to ignore all BLOOD MARKERS. However, the rest of the Warband can don the unique Holy Icon Armour, painted with saints and utterly impervious to blade and bullet alike. This variant is expanded into their own Warband list in the upcoming Carcass Front box set!

Hailing from high on Mount Athos, the War Pilgrimage of Saint Methodius is a holy order of engineers who think Anchorite Shrines are so cool they should make way more. The main draw to Saint Methodius is their access to up to two Anchorite Shrines that can be upgraded with their own unique armoury of ranged weapons like Trench Mortars and Gas Censers, as well as upgrades like Wrathful Cherub Faces and Piston Legs. Additionally, their rank-and-file pilgrims can purchase a few AUTOMATIC weapons for sustained faithfulness fired across the battlefield. The War Pilgrimage does mandate a few strict rules: no Communicants, don’t blow up the Ecclesiastic Prisoners, resurrection prevents you from going to heaven (don’t do it), and Stigmatic Nuns must dress in their best, modest armour. 

The Trench Pilgrims are usually covered in some mixture of mud and blood, but the Cavalcade of the Tenth Plague wear it like Sissy Spacek in Carrie. When the Cavalcade are on the battlefield, the lambs are the first victim, sacrificed in the name of the Lord, drained of their blood and ritually applied to ward pilgrims from the first BLOOD MARKER they would normally take. War Prophets of the Tenth Plague replace their healing hands with Day in His Wrath, a classic, armour-piercing smite. The Cavalcade of the Tenth Plague enjoy a single BLESSING MARKER each turn, but they don’t have the same fondness for Communicants or Ecclesiastic Prisoners that some of their cousin warbands do. 

The Righteous Path

In campaign play, Trench Pilgrims follow one of two Patrons: the Learned Saint (Patrick, Aquinas, etc.) and the Warrior Saint (George, Jeanne d’Arc, etc.). The Learned Saint offers a set of Skills that enhance the long-term strategic capabilities of the Trench Pilgrims. Pennies from Heaven and Favoured by God are an investment to a well-supplied future, while Knowledge of Sciences and Logistical Skills increases the capacity for Battlekit or certain units to be fielded. The Warrior Saint, as expected, offers a set of Skills that beefs up your Trench Pilgrims. David and Goliath and Dragonslayer turn a unit into a monster-killing machine, while Endure the Suffering and Blessings of the Warrior Saint ensure your ELITE stays in the battle longer. Recall the Trench Pilgrim ability Resurrection – a condition which may turn dead Trench Pilgrims into Martyr Penitents, an improved version of their former selves. Compared to other Factions, this ability encourages some additional forethought. First, you need to have the extra ducats required to resurrect a Pilgrim before you roll for Income. Then, in battle, you need to send Trench Pilgrims into battle and hope they’re taken Out of Action. However, you don’t want to lose too many and face unnecessary losses. Finally, one (and only one, hopefully) of the Out of Action Trench Pilgrims also needs to be killed, triggering the ability. If you can manage this strategy, your Trench Pilgrim Warband will be full of powerhouse holy warriors ready to fight again and again.

This is the second article of a series of Faction overviews to cover the very basics of each Faction! While this is a brief summary of what the Trench Pilgrims have to offer, you can find the full, in-depth rules for free on our Rules page.

Sammie Dae

Sammie Dae is a game designer for Trench Crusade. Her experience is grassroots: setting up weekly game nights, running campaigns and events for local clubs, writing silly scenarios and fun homebrew rules for her friends, and suffering the “forever GM” curse. She’s been a volunteer Observer since 2024 and has organised major Trench Crusade narrative events at AdeptiCon and NOVA Open. She’s dedicated to her community, supporting human creativity, and ensuring everyone has a place in the hobby.