Name: Matthias L Battlemont
Callsign/Nickname: "Snipes, Sniping101, Doinysus, Bard, Bill, Phax, Sepins, and more..."
Age:
29
Species:
Human Male
Place of Birth:
Unknown
Planet of Origin:
Dantooine
Height:
6' 3"
Weight:
 204lbs
Hair:
Brown
Eyes:
Bluish Green-Grey
Scars:
A few small scars
Ranks: First Sergeant - SC
Reason for Joining the Empire:  Although drunk at the time he's fairly sure it was to hide from the New Republic or an ex-girlfriend.

Personality:

Snipes is easily described by his peers as simply being 'Snipes'. He's generally boisterous, good natured and always in need of a stiff drink. He's more often than not very carefree, worrying none about past, present or future. He doesn't speak of future plans often, or when he does they're so vague or ridiculous that people tend to shrug them off. He enjoys telling wild tales about things he's done and places he's been in the past, but the real specifics of his life before the empire or when he's not on duty always remain vague. This isn't helped any by the way his stories will frequently contradict each other or simply defy all logic.

In battle however Snipes seems to change. His true self pokes it's head out and he becomes ruthless and single minded. He's well known for killing anything that could get in his way. He usually seems mirthful, though, and excited. It's the one place he loses his cool and becomes completely engrossed in the ending of lives, sometimes to the point where he'll get tunnel vision and forget about objectives and obligations, distracted with the rapture of battle.

Lady Luck either loves or hates Snipes, it's completely unclear which. He has been known to flip coins and have them land on their side. He seems to always be able to get himself out of the horrible messes he creates, but luck always decides to give him the strange opportunities. It's almost like there's someone up above just putting him in the weird situations.

History:

It's generally accepted that Sniping101 is not truly Matthias L. Battlemont, but it is the name he uses. Matthias L. Battlemont grew up as the son of a wealthy vinyard owner and clone wars veteran. Matthias went to almost every school in the surrounding area at some point or another, each of which he was kicked out of eventually. It's known that somehow he became a member of the Corellian Defense Fleet, serving on several different ships as an engineer. He was equally as wild in this role, however after being assigned to a DP-20 gunship he was taken under the wing of it's captain, a man known as Unheil. When Unheil was reassigned to an expirimental CR-90 Matthias L. Battlemont, aswell as several other crew members were transferred with him. Matthias L. Battlemont is said to have died, along with most of the ships crew, during a training accident on board this ship when the expirimental engines malfunctioned and essentially tore the ship apart. There were only a handful of survivors, none of them were Matthias L. Battlemont or Unheil.

Some also believe that Sniping101 having been the pirate referred to as 'Sam Vane'. This pirate was of no small success, his wealth and his organization grew and grew. It is said that the more wealth acquired, the more prizes taken, the more people flocking to him the moodier and more jaded he became. Over the course of several years he was said to have outbursts of rage more and more often, and while at first he had been relatively benevolent to those he assaulted as the years passed Sam Vane began to take even them as part of his cargo, selling them as slaves or simply killing them, depending on how the mood struck him. A ruthlessness took him near the end as he became more brazen and less subtle. He'd attack convoys, assault stations and even attack military vessels. He no longer focused his rage on simply the merchant and freighter ships anymore, he attacked and destroyed everything that crossed his path.

In the end this became his undoing. Several large corporations had bounties on his head, as well as more than a few criminal syndicates. A coalition of mercenaries and other pirates finally banded together long enough to push Vane back. They didn't stop there, though, they continued to assault and destroy his bases and vessels until finally they forced him itno a corner. Outside of the Ord Mantel system they caught up with him, with the help of a stolen interdictor they were able to keep him from jumping out of the system. Fourteen Mercenary vessels faced off against Vanes CR-90 The Broken Wing and the three last ships of his fleet. The battle lasted far longer than many, at twelve hours the mercenaries were down to just eights ships, whiles vane still had three counting his own. This is attributed to the experience of the crews and the modifications they were able to do with the wealth acquired. In the end, however, the two remaining vessels on Vanes side gave up, content to simply run as fast as they could while the mercenaries were concentrating on The Broken Wing, finally boarding the ship and taking the body assumed to be Sam Vanes back with them. Their payout after all interested parties had been contacted was said to be high in the millions. This also lead to the dissolution of the coalition, as each of the formerly independent groups fought over the money, none of them believing their share was enough.

The primary problem with this theory however is that Sam Vane's dead body was recovered by the mercenaries. Some hold out the belief that the mercenaries actually had no idea what Sam Vane looked like, so they chose the body that looked most like a captian. The body, combined with the destroyed ship and the nav-computers to back up the information would usually be enough to recieve payment for such a job. One would think however that a job of such high monetary value would be evaluated more thoroughly. That combined with the fact that no 'Sam Vane' was ever heard from again make this story highly improbable.

In the academy he excelled, although he was frequently in one sort of trouble or another he was still asked into the Stormtrooper Corps. He accepted merrily and became Sniping101 (AKA Snipes), he moved out of drill squad quickly. Then he was accepted into RAIDERS squad, who’s current Squad Leader was Rizzit. There Snipes met many of his future friends and built himself a reputation as a capable soldier. However it wasn’t until he was moved out of this squad after some leadership changes that he picked up momentum.

He was moved into Wraith squad, special operations. Here he met Kuroishi, from whom he learned some bits of psychological warfare and even more importantly the art of pranking. However the squad quickly began dissolving after they were permitted to commence privateer work by the Prefect Fury. Then after Kuroishi was taken out of action in the Devaron campaign Snipes assumed leadership until his drinking partner and good friend Slick was given command.