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Black Templars Crusade Fleet - Era Indomitus Black Templars Crusade Organisation: Below is the order of battle of the Aurilla Crusade, launched after the passing of the Warp Storms that enveloped the Caton Sub-sector after the Great Rift opened in the Era Indomitus.One of the first Black Templars crusades to incorporate Primaris Space Marines and their new war machines, it is otherwise typical of its type, numbering hundreds of Battle-Brothers, war machines and support elements prepared to campaign across the system's multiple Shrine Worlds.Marshal's HouseholdMarshal Armond MontfortEmperor's ChampionChaplainsCrusade Banner BearerHousehold Banner BearerTechmarinesServitorsApothecariesSword BrethrenTerminatorsDreadnoughtsLand RaidersRhinosRepulsorsPredator AnnihilatorsPredator DestructorsHuntersStalkersWhirlwindsStormravensStormtalonsFighting Company Brocas, "The Righteous"Commanded by: Castellan BrocasBanner BearerTechmarinesApothecariesInitiatesNeophytesIntercessorsDreadnoughtsLand RaidersPredator DestructorsRepulsorsRazorbacksRhinosFighting Company Bardolph, "Bearers of the Sacred Bones"Commanded by: Castellan BardolphBanner Bearer (Banner of Sacred Bones)TechmarinesApothecariesInitiatesNeophytesTerminatorsLand RaidersCenturion WarsuitsAggressorsFighting Company Stebach, "The Emperor's Justice"Commanded by: Castellan StebachBanner BearerTechmarinesApothecariesInitiatesNeophytesBikesScout BikesAttack BikesLand SpeedersJump PacksVanguard MarinesReiversFighting Company Darras, "Bringers of the True Word"Commanded by: Castellan DarrasBanner BearerTechmarinesApoothecariesInitiatesNeophytesInceptorsVindicatorsLand RaidersPredator DestructorsPredator AnnihilatorsRhinos |
Black Vipers - Black Vipers: The Black Vipers is a Loyalist Space Marine Chapter and a successor of the Salamanders.It is a Chapter composed wholly of Primaris Space Marines and was raised during the Ultima Founding of ca. 999.M41 by Archmagos Dominus Belisarius Cawl. |
Black Vipers - Chapter History: The Salamanders were kept largely unaware of what new Successor Chapters were created from their gene-seed by Belisarius Cawl, and once they learned of their existence, they were always quick to dispatch a Chaplain to the Chapter to teach them the ways of the Promethean Cult.The Salamanders accidentally learned of the existence of the Black Vipers many standard years after they learned of their other Ultima Foundingsuccessors. Sur Kgosi, the Chaplain sent to the Chapter by the Salamanders, disappeared without trace.The Black Vipers appear to claim no world for their own, and spurn contact with allies on the rare occasion where they are seen at war.Wherever the Chapter has been identified, agents of Belisarius Cawl have never been far away... |
Black Vipers - Chapter Colours: The Black Vipers wear black power armour with a red backpack, red knee plates and red shoulder plate trim. The Aquila or Imperialis on the chest plate is red.The Chapter badge is worn on the left shoulder plate, and the red squad tactical specialty symbol -- battleline, close support, fire support, Veteran or command -- is on the right.A red Low Gothic numeral inscribed onto the squad specialty symbol on the right shoulder plate indicates squad number.A black Low Gothic numeral placed on the left knee plate indicates company number. |
Black Vipers - Chapter Badge: The Black Vipers' Chapter badge is a red viper's head in profile, mouth open, centred on a field of black. |
Black Vultures - Black Vultures: The Black Vultures is a Loyalist Space Marine Chapter of unknown genetic lineage, comprised entirely of Primaris Space Marines. It was raised during the Ultima Founding of 999.M41.The Black Vultures are known to be highly-skilled, long-range marksmen. This is in part because the Black Vultures are meticulous mission planners, waiting patiently until the time is right to attack in order to ensure victory.This penchant has led to some heated interactions with more physically direct Chapters like the Space Wolves who have at times claimed that the Black Vultures are cowardly. |
Black Vultures - Chapter History: The Black Vultures have unusually close ties with the Adeptus Mechanicus for a Chapter of the Adeptus Astartes. They often undertake operations suggested by the Tech-priests, during which the Mechanicus retrieves some key archeotech relic while the Black Vultures secure assets to benefit the Chapter and receive preferential technical support from one of the Mechanicus' Forge Worlds.The Black Vulture's Chapter Master has been inspired by the teachings of Roboute Guilliman as the resurrected lord commander of the Imperium and Imperial Regent -- not just strategically in battle but also as a statesman. He has intentionally stationed the Chapter's fortress-monastery close to an established Imperial world.The Chapter interacts with the people much like the Ultramarines in their Realm of Ultramar and, through their proximity, provide some protection for these citizens, allowing their star system to develop as an Imperial trade hub. |
Black Vultures - Chapter Colours: The Black Vultures wear grey power armour with black helmets, pauldrons and knee plates. |
Black Vultures - Chapter Badge: The Black Vultures' Chapter badge is a white vulture on a black field. |
Black Vultures - Trivia: In August 2019, the Black Vultures were revealed as a Chapter created by Martin Morrin, a Games Workshop Warhammer Community video manager that was showcased in an online Warhammer Community article and a YouTube video, as seen above. |
Black Vultures - Sources: Warhammer Community - Successor Chapter Showcase: Martin Morrin's Black Vultures (14 Aug 2019) |
Black Wings - Black Wings: The Black Wings is a Loyalist Codex Astartes-compliant Space Marine Chapter of unknown genetic origins and Founding.In 700.M35, for unknown reasons, half the Chapter renounced their vows to the Emperor and turned upon their former brethren. In the ensuing internecine conflict, much of the Black Wings' fortress-monastery was devastated and a number of their fleet vessels were destroyed until their traitorous kin were driven off-world.Swearing an eternal oath of vendetta, the Black Wings changed their livery to a halved-pattern of crimson and black, until justice is finally visited upon their erstwhile kin and the Chapter's soul is fully healed.The Chapter's Renegade brethren are known to hunt down Loyalist Astartes Chapters that possess Contemptor Dreadnoughts and fight to win them as spoils of war. The Renegade Black Wings now field at least 12 Contemptor Dreadnoughts of their own, one of which is occupied by the Heretic Astartes who was the instigator of their original betrayal. |
Black Wings - Notable Campaigns: The Sorrowful Pursuit (ca.118-418.M33) - Chapter Master Khardin Gol of the Black Wings Chapter and numerous lords of the Imperium were brutally murdered during the infamous Hour of Shadow, which plunged the world of Lorin Alpha into riot and madness. In the aftermath, the Black Wings pursued the Chaos Renegades known as The Tenebrae into the Veiled Region beyond the edge of Imperial space seeking revenge. Three standard centuries later, a single damaged strike cruiser returned from the outer void bearing a handful of survivors. They would speak of what they had endured to none save the agents of the Ordo Malleus of the Inquisition. The Chapter was slowly rebuilt to full strength from its reserve stocks of gene-seed over several solar decades and swore an eternal oath of vendetta against The Tenebrae and its nightmarish works.Cleaving of the Black Wings (700.M35) - Five entire companies of the Black Wings Chapter renounced their vows of service to the Emperor, turning upon their brethren at the height of the Chapter's centennial Ritual of Remembrance. The battle that followed saw hundreds slain and several strike cruisers destroyed, and much of the Chapter's fortress-monastery laid to waste before the Renegades were finally driven off. The cause of this base treachery was never fully ascertained, although some came to suspect a deep-seated Warp taint that took root in the Chapter's soul centuries before, slowly twisting the Chapter's rituals and doctrines. The Black Wings Chapter changed its livery in the wake of this shameful betrayal, painting half of its crimson armour black until such time as their Renegade brethren are hunted down and made to pay for their heinous crime.The Martyred Sons (416.M37) - Inquisitor Lord Antonius Coil of the Ordo Malleus discovered the current location of the nomadic Hell-Forge of Sarum while conducting Exterminatus against the Warp-tainted Hive World of Golconda IX, and moved to see it destroyed at last. Along with warships commandeered from Battlefleet Reductas and several Militarum Tempestus regiments, he mobilised the aid of three entire Space Marine Chapters: the Brazen Claws, the Sons of the Raven and the Celestial Guard, to strike deep into the perilous Golgotha Wastes against this nightmarish thorn in the Imperium's side. Within sight of the baleful world, the Imperial fleet was ambushed on all sides by the pale warships of the Warp Ghosts and Renegade Black Wings Chaos Space Marines, and the horrific Daemon Engines of their Dark Mechanicus allies of Sarum. In the brutal seventeen-solar-hour void battle which followed, the Imperial fleet was encircled and slowly torn to pieces both from without and from within as Daemons ripped open passageways into realspace deep onboard the stalwart vessels. Only the Chapter fleet of the Brazen Claws broke free from the trap without crippling losses, while the Human contingent of the Imperium's strike force was annihilated to the last. The ravaged Celestial Guard would take nearly a standard century to rebuild from its grievous losses from its stores of gene-seed, swearing bitter vengeance against the Warp Ghosts. The fleet-based Sons of the Raven Chapter, not one of whom escaped the deadly trap, was declared martyred and the great Bell of Lost Souls in the Imperial Palace's Tower of Heroes on Terra tolled to mourn their passing.Garanhir Rebellion (649.M40) - A World Eaters warband, under the command of the notorious murderer Dhalahk, launched a mass incursion against the world of Garanhir, intent upon spilling the blood of the Emperor's faithful in an unprecedented act of veneration of the Blood God. Expecting to find Garanhir unprepared for attack and ripe for the slaughter, what the Khornate Berzerkers actually encountered as they charged from the assault ramps of their drop craft was a world already claimed by war, the populace armed and led by the famously militant Inquisitor Malphas Kroh. Kroh had employed a precognitive-coven of psykers to predict the World Eaters' assault, his punitive intervention sparking a general uprising which he put down a mere solar day before the Berserkers' attack. The World Eaters found the Inquisitor and a large force of Grey Knights, as well as Dark Swords and Black Wings Space Marines, waiting for them. Battle was joined without delay, and while the warriors of Dhalahk made a lethal account of themselves, they were ultimately slain, the entire warband cut down by the defenders, though not without significant cost to the Imperium's forces. |
Black Wings - Notable Black Wings: Chapter Master Khardin Gol - Chapter Master Gol of the Black Wings Chapter and numerous lords of the Imperium were brutally murdered during the infamous Hour of Shadow by the Heretic Astartes known as The Tenebrae, which plunged the world of Lorin Alpha into riot and madness. The entire Black Wings Chapter pursued the Renegades into the Veiled Region and three centuries later only a handful of Black Wings returned and would explain what had happened to them beyond the boundaries of Imperial space only to the Inquisition's Ordo Malleus. The Chapter took many solar decades to rebuild its full strength afterwards.Brother Sevastin - Sevastin was a battle-brother of the Black Wings who served with the Deathwatch as a Terminator of Kill-team Sabatine. The kill-team was sent to the Hive World of Sarastus to hunt down a rogue Adeptus Mechanicus tech-priest who had absconded with several samples of dangerous xenos biological material. |
Black Wings - Chapter Colours: The Black Wings once wore pure crimson power armour. After the treachery of some of their brethren in the late 35th Millennium, the Black Wings changed their livery, painting half of their armour black, until such time as all their wayward former brethren are captured or killed.The Aquila or Imperialis on the chest is silver.The white squad tactical specialty icon -- battleline, close support, fire support, Veteran or command -- is indicated on the right shoulder guard.A black Low Gothic numeral is stenciled in the centre of the squad specialist symbol, indicating the squad number.The shoulder plate trim displays the company colour in accordance to the Codex Astartes -- i.e. white (1st Company), yellow (2nd Company), red (3rd Company), etc. Veterans of the elite 1st Company are also identified by their white helmets. |
Black Wings - Chapter Badge: The Black Wing's Chapter badge is a single, black, leathery bat wing stretched outward to the right, centred on a field of red. |
Black Wings - Notes: The "Divided we endure!" war cry listed above is not formally confirmed to be the Black Wings' battle cry but was suspected as such by the Terminator Garran Branatar of the Salamanders Chapter, who served alongside the Black Wings Terminator Sevastin on the Deathwatch's Kill-team Sabatine. |
Black Wings - Canon Conflict: Although past miniatures display the Black Wings' colours as halved dark blue and crimson, later sources describe or depict them wearing haved black and crimson armour. |
Black Wings - Sources: Adeptus Astartes: Successor Chapters (Limited Release Booklet), pg. 18Imperial Armour Volume Two, Second Edition - War Machines of the Adeptus Astartes, pp. 17, 19Imperial Armour Volume Thirteen - War Machines of the Lost & The Damned by Andy Hoare with additional material by Alan Bligh & Neil Wylie, pp. 22, 23, 47, 105Insignium Astartes, pp. 54, 56Deathwatch 9: The Walker in Fire (Short Story) by Peter Fehervari |
Blackmane - Blackmane: Blackmane, also called the "Howler of the Night," is a legendary Fenrisian Wolf who was an important character in the myths and legends of the barbarian tribes of the Death World of Fenris. Said to be large even for a Fenrisian Wolf, Blackmane possessed supernatural powers and was a fell lieutenant of Morkai, the Deathwolf, the two-headed wolf-god of the dead in Fenrisian myth.Blackmane was said to possess the ability to raise the dead from their graves with the power of his mournful calls. After the Primarch Leman Russ, the Wolf King of Fenrisian legend, defeated Morkai in battle and tamed the wolf-god, he slew Blackmane and turned the great wolf's pelt into a magical cloak that allowed him to pass without harm through the Gates of Death and return when his people needed him. Morkai now guards those portals, waiting for his master's return.At present, one of the largest and most ferocious breeds of Fenrisian Wolf, the Blackmaned Wolf, is named after the mythological Blackmane. One of these creatures was slain by the young Space Wolves aspirant Ragnar Thunderfist, a deed which was commemorated in his new by-name of "Blackmane," and later, became his Great Company's totem and title -- the Blackmanes -- when he rose to become the youngest Wolf Lord in that Chapter's history. |
Blackshield - Blackshield: This article concerns the Blackshields of the Horus Heresy era; for Black Shields of the xenos-hunting Deathwatch, see Deathwatch Black Shield.The term "Blackshield" came to be used during the Horus Heresy in the early 31st Millennium to cover a wide range of Space Marine outcasts, marauders and those Legiones Astartes units of uncertain allegiances or origin.Mystery and suspicion attached themselves to such warriors regardless of their true loyalties or intentions, and while some did deliberately scour their old heraldry from their armour or replace it with some false device or heraldry of their own, their name of Blackshield was often a literal description for armour over-masked or simply scorched black.Though never existing in numbers so great as the Space Marine Legions from which they had no doubt sprang -- far from it -- each faction and band, from the dozen survivors of a deadly betrayal by their own kind who cast aside the past, to the cohort of rapidly-indoctrinated Initiates thrust into battle for a cause they barely understood in power armour empty of livery, had their own place in the tapestry of galaxy-wide destruction that was the Horus Heresy. |
Blackshield - The Sundered and the Black: Almost from the outset, the war of the Horus Heresy was a vast cataclysm and one whose events moved with such quicksilver pace that mystery, supposition, lies and simple ignorance cloaked much of the bloodshed even as it occurred, casting a veil over much that would never be lifted.Though the roll call of Space Marine Legions, Titan Legions, Auxilia regiments and Mechanicum Taghmata that sided with the Arch-traitor Horus and those who remained loyal to the Emperor is largely known and accepted, the full truth is far more complex and far more mysterious than commonly believed.Of those who fell at Isstvan V during the Drop Site Massacre, there were survivors, remnants and fleeing fragments shorn of command and driven half-mad by treachery; from that point onwards they were isolated, alone.These were the Shattered Legions and, while some swiftly returned to the Imperial fold, some did not or would not. Some would go on to wage a bitter war of vengeance alone, some would simply disappear, their fates unknown, their stories untold. But there were others of a darker hue.Despite the paucity of records, accounts of small warbands that were once part of the known Traitor Legions fighting independently persisted throughout the war. In some cases, outcast forces proudly bore their original colours and may have regarded themselves as the true inheritors of their Legions.This can perhaps be explained, at least in part, by persistent stories and evidence long since suppressed of midnight clad warriors in defaced Night Lords heraldry savagely attacking Traitor forces at the liberation of Isstvan III, or of recurring reports of multiple Space Marine strike forces seemingly in the resurrected livery of the Dusk Raiders thwarting the Iron Warriors at Kibron and Malinche's Fall.Another example would be the 34th Millennial of the Emperor's Children, the "Death Eagles", bearing the purple and gold of their parent Legion with pride, refusing to abandon their original heraldry. It is thought that the Death Eagles Millennial clashed with their Traitor kin at Lethe and at Revorthe Keep in the Coronid Deeps, but their ultimate fate, like that of so many others, remains unknown.Likewise also should be considered the long-denied evidence of a Great Company of the Space Wolves Legion bearing the symbol of the Serpent's Eye slaughtering millions at Neo Cadiz in 008.M31, or of a company of Astartes present at the Siege of Mezoa bearing the hybrid arms and panoply of the Iron Hands and Sons of Horus Legions both.These were merely a handful of still-infamous cases, but there are many more unsubstantiated or simply now-forgotten which paint a more complex and uncertain picture of this great civil war than is normally accounted.Further to this, and perhaps an even more sinister enigma, are the persistent reports of Space Marine forces appearing bearing no sign or seal of heraldry or origin at all, or stranger yet, heraldry which bears no mark known during the Great Crusade. A handful of extant accounts, now sealed beyond all retrieval, makes reference to a loosely-termed and non-formal class of Astartes warrior known as the "Blackshields."The majority of Blackshields appear to have been of the Legiones Astartes, though some may once have belonged to other factions. In some cases the term was a literal description, the warriors having obscured the livery of their parent Legion, painting some or all of their armour's panels black to hide all former associations.Although whether the "black" Legionaries were merely turncoats or, as some have whispered, perhaps raised by the Traitors from the chimeric gene-seed of the Isstvan V dead for their own terrible purposes, none can now say for certain. |
Blackshield - Ancient Traditions: The term "Blackshield" refers not to a single military body or even a class of warriors as such, but to a phenomenon that came into being in the early to middle years of the Horus Heresy and which very much had its roots in the most ancient of martial codes. According to those codes, a warrior might, for any one of a myriad reasons, choose or be forced to cast off or conceal his allegiance.In ancient times on Terra, when a warrior bore the icon of his house, master or nation upon his shield, he might have cause to cover it with cloth or to paint over it entirely. He might very literally paint his shield black, deliberately making it impossible for strangers to know where his true loyalties -- if any remained at all -- might lie.While such practice might have obvious utility amongst the warring clans and states of Ancient Terra or on any number of worlds cast down to barbarism throughout the long Age of Strife, it had no place at all in the Imperium of Mankind due to the Unity and the Imperial Truth the Emperor had brought to the scattered and benighted worlds of Humanity.The hosts of Mankind that swept out from Terra during the Great Crusade of the late 30th Millennium were bonded by seemingly unbreakable chains of fealty, blood and honour, and so to break oath with a line officer was in effect to break oath with the Emperor and those He had saved from Old Night. With the outbreak of the Horus Heresy, however, it was proven beyond doubt that the chain was only as strong as its weakest link.It cannot be known when the first Blackshields appeared upon the battlefields of the Horus Heresy, and in truth the definition is so broad that some may not have been noted as such at the time. Certainly, a small force of Astartes warriors clad in black and bearing the Terran Aquila in the stead of any Legion icon was sighted at the climax of the Liberation of Numinal during the war for the Coronid Deeps in 008.M31.As the veil of Dark Compliance fell across the northern Imperium and beleaguered Loyalist armies fell back en masse before the Traitors' inexorable advance towards distant Terra, Blackshields similarly clad were counted amongst the defenders who mustered upon the walls of Fort Stranivar, giving their lives for the Loyalist cause alongside the dutiful and stoic servants of the Emperor.These incidents were but the first of many that would be reported across the entire Imperium as the Horus Heresy progressed, although in most instances such reports would only be collated into a meaningful whole much later on, long after the fate of most such warriors was either settled or irrelevant.Warbands of Blackshields appeared in war zones the length and breadth of the sundered Imperium, evidence not of one overarching will or cause, but of the resurrection of that ancient code that called for a warrior to obscure his colours upon the renunciation of his oaths of allegiance to his master.While many groups of Blackshields were identified, no two were exactly the same in origin or constitution. While the term invariably describes a warrior of the Astartes, even this is not universal as the origins and nature of some Blackshields simply cannot be ascertained, while others were accompanied by mortal auxiliaries in a manner similar to the Legions' employment of bonded auxiliary units.Likewise, the true allegiance of many Blackshields bands was often far from clear. Even when their deeds spoke clearly of their cause, they rarely fought alongside the conventional forces of either side in Mankind's great civil war or when they did, they refused to integrate themselves into established chains of command.Many Blackshield bands simply fought for their own cause -- often that of simple survival in a galaxy consumed by insanity and chaos. Some, however, had clearly abandoned themselves to the very madness that had birthed them. Gripped by an insanity that knew no distinction between Traitor or Loyalist, they ravaged across the stars throughout the Horus Heresy and in many cases well into the current age.Some have compared the Blackshields to the Shattered Legions, thus putting truth to the observation that the two occupied different points in a spectrum of irregular or non-conventional Legiones Astartes forces.The disparate elements of the Shattered Legions, however, maintained a definite sense of Legion identity and inheritance, while the Blackshields invariably went to great lengths to reject, denounce or obscure their origins, or in some cases may even have been ignorant of them.Indeed, while the Shattered Legions were constituted of units from several different parent Legions, they ever sought to uphold and maintain their own traditions even as they acknowledged those of their compatriots. This was not the case in most Blackshield bands, and it is likely that even individual squads were made up of warriors born of different Legions, the identity of which might remain unknown even to their brothers.While the term "Blackshield" is fitting, it was not always a literal description of the warriors in question. Some groups were observed clad in highly idiosyncratic, personalised heraldry, no two Legionaries bearing the same colours. Some applied camouflage patterns to their armour, a practice only rarely observed amongst the Astartes.At least one group was observed to wear composite battle-plate, each part scavenged from other Legions and mixed together with no rhyme or reason, a sea-green vambrace taken from a slain Legionary of the Sons of Horus worn alongside a bone-white gorget torn from the corpse of a defeated World Eater, for example. |
Blackshield - The Steadfast, the Turncoat & The Renegade: The most difficult class of Blackshield to define or identify with any certainty were those who were constituted en masse from the ranks of a parent Legion having refused to align themselves with the declared allegiance of their primarch.Though their true numbers remain unknown, they cannot have been great for most of the Traitor primarchs proved horrifyingly willing and able to purge their Legions of those genetic sons they suspected would not stand alongside them against the Emperor.It is well known to Imperial scholars now that the Sons of Horus, Death Guard, World Eaters and Emperor's Children were all purged by the hands of their own genetic fathers at Isstvan III, while it appears that Lorgar rid his Word Bearers Legion of such elements at a much earlier point.Of the other Traitor Legions, it can only be assumed that similar fratricides were enacted, although none appear to have been carried out with complete effectiveness for there were ever detached units serving far afield or beyond communications range.What trauma such warriors experienced upon learning of their master's treachery can only be imagined and the bloodshed that ensued between brother Legionaries must have been every bit as terrible as the slaughter at Isstvan III.Many of those warriors who escaped the betrayal of their kin fled into the darkness and were never seen again, while others embarked upon short-lived campaigns of bloody vengeance, determining to sell their lives dearly and consumed by hatred for a galaxy in which they no longer had a place. |
Blackshield - The Disavowed: It is a truth that sits ill with many who are party to such knowledge that not all Blackshields were the sons of Traitor primarchs. The warrior lodges had spread their pernicious philosophies far and wide in the years prior to the events on Isstvan III, and few indeed were the Legions entirely unaffected by their hidden workings.Indeed, it is notable that in some bands of Blackshields, adherence to the tenets of the various warrior lodges remained strong and some were even accompanied by small covens of Davinite lodge priests.How many Blackshield bands were in fact Renegade elements of otherwise Loyalist Legions, or how many individual Blackshield warriors in the ranks of a Marauder Squad were secretly Traitor sons of Guilliman, Dorn or Russ or any other loyal son of the Emperor is a matter that even now has yet to be fully accounted. |
Blackshield - The Damned: Despite their rejection of visible Legion heritage, most Blackshields remained nonetheless recognisable as Space Marines. A small number, however, stretched such a definition to a point where onlookers may not have taken them for the product of the Emperor's vision at all.Throughout the Horus Heresy and beyond, accounts of Astartes fallen to physical mutation persisted, hinting at a creeping instability in gene-seed purity, corruption of the implantation process, exposure to certain influences or even deliberate tampering with the Astartes genetic template.At first sight these warriors might appear blessed of superior strength, speed or resilience, but invariably they proved unstable in other ways. Some were prone to physical or mental collapse in the heat of battle, while others experienced spontaneous and uncontrolled mutation under stress, their limbs distending into horrific forms as bones re-knit and muscles distorted, battle-plate splitting apart in the process.Some were indistinguishable in appearance from any other Astartes, yet possessed of such an unnatural mien or aura that others could not stand their presence, and with prolonged exposure would be driven by an inexplicable urge to strike them down.It has been suggested by some Imperial scholars that not every band of such genetic aberrations classified as Blackshields were truly outcasts from the other Legions. Some may actually have been deliberately created in secret within one of the Legions and then released into the war-torn galaxy as living weapons of mass destruction.Created ignorant of their heritage, such forces would have reaved across the stars in pursuit of some implanted imperative, burning fiercely, albeit briefly, in the depths of the Horus Heresy's Age of Darkness. |
Blackshield - The Forms of Madness: Many individual Blackshields warbands would be identified over the course of the Horus Heresy, yet no two were exactly the same in constitution. Most would in fact bear almost no similarities to either standard Space Marine formations or other Blackshields bands, each a bewildering array of mismatched warriors and doctrines forced together by fate and dire circumstance.Observed strengths among these Blackshields warbands varied from as few as two dozen Astartes warriors to as many as 2,000, with a few hundred warriors being the most common force size. The strength of these warbands was almost always concentrated in its core infantry elements, for, divorced from conventional Legion logistical chains, stocks of heavy equipment very quickly dwindled in battle. It was rare indeed for such groups to utilise the heaviest vehicles and weapons once available to the Legions, and they relied upon the lighter, more commonplace combat assets. Indeed it is likely that many Blackshields raids were motivated more by the need to acquire arms and munitions than any interest in the wider war.The exact nature of their panoply varied, some equipped in the manner of a standard Legiones Astartes infantry company and others wielding weapons of alien provenance and dire power. Likewise, their methods of organisation were in some cases quite ordinary, with units forming ordered companies, while others defied all sane military logic.Given that some Blackshield warbands may have come into being as a result of accelerated gene-seed organ implantation regimes or unsanctioned gene-seed replication protocols, their unsanctioned and often dangerous orders of battle have their root in desperation and madness as much as any rejection of past traditions. However, despite these vast differences, scholars of the Horus Heresy would later separate these unconventional warriors into several loose categories, as explored below:Renegades - The most common warbands of Blackshields were those that chose to forsake their own primarch's choice of side in the civil war and fight against them on the battlefield. Some were the outcast sons of the Traitor Legions, true to their oaths to the Emperor but forever seen as tainted by those who ought to be their brothers, while others were those among the Loyalist Legions that were fool enough to declare for Horus and seek power among the damned. What separated these warriors from more common turncoats was their complete rejection of their old identity. They did not see themselves as Loyalist World Eaters or Traitor White Scars, but rather as something other, often viscerally removing the signs and symbols of their old selves. In battle they were single-minded in their pursuit of their former brothers and gene-father, often forsaking rational tactics in order to engage in suicidal assaults. In the eyes of such warriors even a single wound inflicted upon their old master was worth any number of lives, for bitter hatred and rage had long since replaced the sense of duty that had once governed them. Few of these warbands would survive the Horus Heresy, most driven to destruction by the new oaths they had sworn or overtaken by despair when all their efforts proved futile.Marauders - Shorn of honour and duty by the actions of their primarch and Warmaster Horus, some of the Legiones Astartes found a new truth in their own strength. For if the Warmaster might claim for himself an empire, then the mighty Space Marines could claim petty stellar kingdoms of their own. Pledged to no faction but their own greed and self-interest, these Astartes marauders raised dark and terrible fiefdoms among the forgotten shards of the Imperium. The noble truth of the Imperium was quickly forgotten and replaced with the rule of might, that the strong take for themselves what they saw as their due and the weak languish in servitude and suffering. Operating as pirates and raiders, these forces could not stand against a true army in open battle, but proved a persistent thorn in the side of those warlords fighting the great conflicts of the Horus Heresy. Preying on isolated outposts and vulnerable supply convoys, these warriors struck only where they perceived weakness before fleeing to their hidden domains, leaving behind them only ruin and destruction. Indeed many of these petty kingdoms would persist into the campaigns of the Great Scouring and beyond, as Blackshield warbands plunged remote sectors into a nightmare from which they could not escape, cut off and lost to the Imperium for centuries in the wake of the Horus Heresy.Atavists - Among the strangest of those phenomena that would be labelled "Blackshields" were those Space Marine warbands who, when faced with the bitter truth of the Imperium's collapse, chose denial over rage. Such warriors returned to the nameless storm-grey armour of the Great Crusade's first days, the time before any of the primarchs were reunited with the Space Marine Legions when all the Legions had been as one. Abandoning the insanity of the Horus Heresy, they turned once more to the task of conquest, seeking out the last empty corners of the galaxy to spread the Emperor's Imperial Truth. They fought only for their own delusional goals, heeding no emissary of the Warmaster or Emperor, and indeed would turn their blades upon any that dared hinder their private crusades. Unlike many other Blackshield warbands, these groups often retained the forms and titles of the Great Crusade, even if they had not the numbers or the panoply to match. In battle they fought in the old style, in rank and square, as they had during the Great Crusade, and eschewed all the modern trappings of the Imperium. Of all their kind, these warriors found little favour among the factions of the Horus Heresy, save as fodder for the guns of their enemies. Most would be lost, yet, in the last days of the Scouring, there exist scattered records of new realms incorporated into the Imperium, their conquerors clad in blank grey armour not used by the armies of the Imperium in centuriesDamned - The most terrible of all those that wore the title of Blackshield were those that chose to embrace that which the Emperor had once forbidden. Many heinous technologies and fearsome psychic abominations had been sealed away by the Emperor, kept safe by the threat of His wrath should any be foolish enough to unleash them. Yet, with the outbreak of Horus' rebellion, there remained none to ensure such terrors remained lost. Whether driven by desperation, self-consuming hatred or simple madness, some warriors took up these forbidden tools to destroy their enemies. Even the worst fanatics of the Traitor Legions and the most ardent defenders of the Emperor would not countenance the use of such deviant tools, and those who would turn to them were cast out, lest they drag down others in their madness. These abominations included weapons capable of terrible destruction to both friend or foe, as well as the corruption of body and soul. They were weapons, not of last resort, but of mutual annihilation, those that would serve only to see the Imperium dragged down into ruin and madness, with nothing left for the victors to rule over. From xenos arms of maddening construction to psychic powers long forbidden, and even the horrific techno-heresy of mutagenic cloning or the Silica Animus, some branded Blackshields would turn to any means to press their grudges. These bitter experiments would all end in disaster, some swiftly consuming those foolish enough to awaken them, while the most unfortunate would linger in torment for standard years laying waste to many isolated worlds before finally being annihilated. |
Blackshield - Notable Blackshield Campaigns: The histories of the Horus Heresy present far more mysteries and enigmas than reliable or complete accounts, and so entire armies of historator-scribes labour to piece together something of the truth from uncounted fragments of hearsay.In the examination, many such fragments reveal still more perplexing or troubling elements. Each of these battles served in their own way to influence the course of the war not just at the local level, but at the strategic one.Even though the specifics of cause and effect were hidden at the time and are only barely perceivable to us now, many Imperial historators now believe that when considered as a whole, they amount to a significant contribution towards the ultimate ending of the great civil war:The Ash-Blind of Euros - At the twinned gas giants of Euros, for example, ashen-skinned, black-eyed warriors bearing the eye of the Warmaster Horus upon otherwise featureless Mark VI Corvus Power Armour, who could only have been Renegade sons of Corax, sent the vast macro-bastions plunging through the crust, in so doing causing the fiery deaths of over twenty million Loyalist colonists.The Vaults of Ytterbia - At Gamma-Dvalin, a force of warriors, each one wearing armour of discordantly mismatched heraldry and patterns torn from numerous dead foes, breached the Vaults of Ytterbia and plundered the forbidden stasis arsenals quantum-locked within. A solar month later, the stolen n-dimensional weapons were unleashed upon the 38th Company of the Sons of Horus Legion at Iantana Minor, consuming both armies and tearing an entire continent apart in the process. Fragmented pict-thief captures show several Blackshields bereft of their helms, each of them bearing an identical Cthonian gang rune tattooed across their scalp.Assault on Taracanis - A Blackshield force is known to have launched attacks against Sons of Horus and Death Guard Legionaries at Taracanis, culminating in the boarding action against the Death Guard Heavy Cruiser Morbid Revelation and the spiking of its mighty Nova Cannon. The extent of the damage was not discovered until the weapon was next fired in anger, ten solar days later, against the Mechanicum Explorator Barque Radiant Precept, resulting in the Revelation being crippled in the ensuing back-blast and its forced withdrawal from the war.Battle of the Ultinian Rings - At the Battle of the Ultinian Rings, Sons of Horus hunter-slayers under Tybalt Marr, tracking down survivors fleeing Isstvan V, were ambushed by a Blackshields force led by an individual later identified as the Raven Guard Strike-Centurion Morkan Sayle. In the ensuring battle, a sky-hive housing 100,000 colonists was destabilised and brought plummeting into the lyotropic crystal seas of Ultinia 7. Centurion Morkan was presumed dead in that operation, along with over half of his force, but contrary claims continued to emerge even solar decades later. |
Blackshield - Command Hierarchy: If the Shattered Legions were irregular in their command structure, the myriad bands of Blackshields were downright idiosyncratic. Many appear to have been ruled by sheer brute strength or force of will with no apparent reference to any formal rank their leaders may once have held.What qualified a leader to rule a Blackshield warband can only be guessed at, but it has been observed that the fates of many such bands were intrinsically linked to their master's own goals.Aside from the reaver lords, most Blackshield bands exhibited a comparatively flat organisational hierarchy. The reaver lords invariably led their warriors from the front and because overall strengths were rarely more than a single Legiones Astartes company equivalent, the line officers, specialised sub-ranks, command cadres and equerries utilised across the Legions were largely superfluous and therefore rarely seen among Blackshields. |
Blackshield - Materiel Strength: Observed strengths among Blackshield warbands varied from as few as two dozen to as many as 2,000 with around 500 being the most commonly encountered level. No recognisable order of battle dominated and each force was constituted according to the demeanour of its commander, its warriors and the logistical limitations imposed upon them by fate.While recognisable Legiones Astartes squad types were encountered, it was common for the core squads of Blackshield groups to carry a wide range of equipment, often with no two warriors being armed in the same manner. This phenomenon set the warriors of the Blackshields far apart from their Astartes roots and such squads came to be known as "Marauders" as the Horus Heresy progressed.The strength of most Blackshield warbands was very much concentrated in its core infantry elements, for, divorced form conventional Legion logistical chains, stocks of heavy equipment very quickly dwindled. It was rare indeed for such groups to utilise disposable equipment such as Drop Pods, for recovering such items for re-use generally called for support assets the Blackshields did not have ready access to.Instead of Drop Pods, most Blackshield warbands relied upon the lighter patterns of Astartes gunships to transport forces to a planet's surface and to provide them with fire support, Storm Eagles and Fire Raptors being commonly encountered, and it is likely that many Blackshield bands prioritised the capture of these aircraft from enemy forces.Given the circumstance of their creation and the manner in which they operated, it has proved impossible to assay the total number of Astartes warriors-turned-Blackshield who fought throughout the Heresy.Given that some may have come into being as a result of accelerated Astartes-organ implantation regimes or unsanctioned replication protocols and therefore never entered on the official roles of the later Great Crusade, the numbers may be far higher than any could imagine, albeit spread across the unimaginably vast reaches of the galaxy over which Mankind sought dominion. |
Blackshield - Blackshield Warlord Traits: The Blackshield warbands were led by leaders who possessed different personalities and motivations for their actions. Among the most common were the following:Bloody Tyrant - Many of those Space Marines that abandoned their old Legions during the Horus Heresy, did not do so for high-minded ideals or lofty ambition, but for their own gain. These warriors sought to forge their own petty stellar kingdoms and to build their own armies, to benefit from the destruction that had been unleashed upon the Imperium. They cared little for the side they fought on, but only for what they might gain for the sacrifice of their followers' lives.Forgotten Hero - To some of the heroes of the Great Crusade, the actions of their Legion during the Horus Heresy were anathema. Unable to endure such dishonour, they chose to abandon their brethren and forge a new path, gathering like-minded Astartes warriors and seeking out battles that fit their ideals. Those that chose to fight at their side did so not out of duty or fear, but admiration, and willingly followed them into the most terrible battles of the war.Twisted Strategist - Among the leaders of Blackshield warbands, the most dangerous were those that sought to guide the bloody course of the war from the shadows. Such warriors cared little for the lives of their followers or for the ephemeral benefit of glory and riches, but instead sought to fulfil some plot or prophecy that would change the course of the war. Such opponents were impossible to predict or anticipate by Traitors and Loyalists alike, and proved a constant peril to the plans of the great and the wise. |
Blackshield - Blackshield Commander Personality Types: Death Seekers - These Blackshields were motivated by an all-consuming drive to offer up their own lives upon the altars of war. Psychologically-unstable, either as a result of what they had witnessed or endured or through brutally enforced and accelerated psycho-indoctrination, death had become the centre of their being, either as a blessed release, sought-for atonement or programmed obsession, but they did not meet death vainly and without taking as many of the foe with them as they could. Through sheer force of will or other more malign influence, such as prohibited gene-seed experimentation, they were able to shrug off otherwise debilitating injury as they abandoned themselves to the anarchy of battle.Orphans of War - Having seen betrayal, atrocity and unthinkable carnage at the behest of distant and uncaring masters, these warriors were hardened veterans who had survived against all odds and trusted only in the warrior next to them in the line of battle. For brothers they would fight and die and strive to see another dawn, but for great cause or primarch, and the lies and whispers of lords and potentates alike, they had nothing but scorn.Outlanders - These Space Marines had seen the depths to which both sides in Mankind's civil war sank in order to destroy the other, and they washed their hands of either side and sought to pursue their own goals, having turned towards the path of the marauder and void corsair to determine their fate. For some who had previously served in the nomad-predation fleets and the flotillas of Rogue Traders at the forefront of the Great Crusade's darkest frontiers, this was merely a reversion to a path well-travelled in the past, although with themselves as master, while others were forced into exile by the wrath of enemy and one-time ally alike.Chymeriae - As the Horus Heresy progressed so there came into being Astartes who simply should not have existed. Some were the by-blows of failed rapid Astartes-organ implantation and psycho-indoctrination programs, others the product of prohibited experimentation on gene-seed stock or the influence of malign forces from beyond. Most often the cause for such "Chymeriae" creation was to create a breakthrough that would see their faction, Loyalist or Traitor, gain a decisive edge in the war: a goal which for some was worth breaking any taboo or stricture. All, be they primarch or Master Apothecary, who accepted this soon learned the folly of their error. Such warriors were at best invariably unstable or unpredictable when compared to those Astartes brought into being by conventional means, while others succumbed to insane madness or cancerous mutation as terrifying to behold as it was ultimately fatal. |
Blackshield - Blackshield Motivations: The motivations of Blackshield warbands were diverse and no two were alike. Among the most common were the following:Eternal Vendetta - One Legion of the Space Marines had earned the undying enmity of this warband's warriors; they were pledged to its downfall and utter ruin, and fought without regard for their own lives to bring them pain. Yet, against other foes, they are loath to spend lives that could otherwise be dedicated to the downfall of their chosen nemesis.Panoply of Old - While they had abandoned loyalty to their old masters, this warband maintained some of the trappings of their old lives, and sought new meaning and honour on the battlefield.Only in Death Does Duty End - In order to atone for some sin or failure, be it real or only perceived, the warriors of the Blackshield warband were sworn to die to the last. Rather than some simple death pact, this end had to come in battle for the sins they bore to finally be erased and their last, bloody victory seized.Spoils of Victory - Some Blackshield warbands, having abandoned their oaths of loyalty, fought only for their own gain. They descended on the weak to loot and pillage, marauders and pirates in a galaxy of ruin where no hand enforced any law save that of the blade.An Eternity of War - Battle madness took many of those that forsook their oaths, leaving them as blood-soaked madmen who sought only to fight and kill without regard for who their enemy might be. For these crazed warriors it mattered not from where the blood flowed, only that it flowed, and so they eventually found their way to the service of the Blood God Khorne.The Flesh is Weak - Freed from the laws of the Emperor and the Warmaster alike, many Blackshield warbands turned to technology long forbidden to enhance their fighting ability. As their lonely new war ground on they replaced weak flesh with uncaring metal, until little of what they had once been remained.Legacy of Nikaea - Some Blackshields embraced the psychic powers that had once been forbidden at the Council of Nikaea -- such warbands were dangerous in battle but prone to self-destruction as they abused their power.The Broken Helix - Unable to claim recruits from their Legions' fiefdoms of old, some warbands of Blackshields turned to fouler means to fill their dwindling ranks -- the old sin of gene-cloning or crude replication of the Progenoid Glands. Denied the training camps of Terra or the complex hypno-indoctrination forced upon the recruits of the later Legions, the warriors they produced had none of the discipline that had once been the pride of the Space Marine Legions, but instead bore terrible mutations and scars as the mark of their forbidden origins.In Disgrace All Are Equal - Many Blackshields warbands were little more than disparate associations of the lost and the fallen, with little direction or leadership other than war and battle. Composed of dozens of petty warlords, such forces were powerful but divided, for each fellowship followed only the commands of their own leader and cared not for any greater strategy.Pride Is Our Armour - Whether Terran recruits from the original Great Crusade expeditionary fleets, battle-scarred survivors of the Great Crusade or elite warriors from the far-flung Legion homeworlds, some Blackshield bands were composed only of the most renowned veterans of their Legion.Taint of the Xenos - There existed many terrifyingly powerful xenos technology weapons encountered during the Great Crusade, which, though incredibly effective, had been declared prohibited by the ancient Mechanicum and the Emperor alike for their detrimental effects on the body and mind of a Human wielder. The desperation of certain Blackshield forces, however, overcame such concerns.Weapons of Desperation - A band of Blackshield Legiones Astartes warriors of this persuasion made no use of the common weapons of their brethren, whether having purposefully cast them aside as tainted by the sins of their fellows or having been imprisoned and forcefully deprived of them. Returned to the fight, they were forced to make use of lesser weaponry, wielding mortal longarms as though they were but pistols and making desperation into a virtue. For amid the ceaseless carnage of the Horus Heresy, even the least of weapons fed the slaughter taking place on battlefields across the galaxy. |
Blackshield - Notable Blackshield Units: Blackshield Reaver Lord - Once an officer in one of the Emperor's Space Marine Legions, treachery and fate caused this warrior to obscure his erstwhile heraldry and to pursue another path entirely. It is around such warriors that bands of Blackshields invariably coalesced, for they were possessed of a fiery mien and fate visibly rested upon their shoulders. While many appeared to fight because they knew no other existence, a few were said to be following some far grander strategy that only they were able to perceive. There existed no standard type among Reaver Lords, for each was an individual uniquely shaped by the circumstance that caused him to renounce whichever of the Legions had sired him. They ruled their bands with the utmost authority, either through brute force or charisma. All were fearsome and accomplished warriors, peerless leaders and strategists, and the skills they once brought to bear in service to the Great Crusade were now turned towards the cause of caring for their own fates in a galaxy drowning in the blood of its ending.Blackshield Marauder Squad - Most Blackshield warbands were able to field a core of certain Space Marine Legion unit types, and the squad configuration for which they were most well known was the iconic Marauder Squad. These units were equipped according to the proclivities of their leaders or the tastes and expertise of the individual Blackshields, and no two were likely to be identically constituted. While many Marauder Squads carried similar Legiones Astartes weapons, others wielded an idiosyncratic array of firearms and melee weapons pried from the cold, dead hands of their foes or plundered from the holds of captured freighters. Many Blackhsields carried out field modifications to their arms, armour and equipment that would never be sanctioned within the parent Legions from which they were drawn, sometimes to improve performance and in other times simply to keep them in service for one battle more. Varying widely in demeanour even within a single squad, Blackshields ranged in character from taciturn veterans intent upon delivering justice upon those who had wronged them, to murderous pirates who cared only to reave across the stars, carving out their own domains in defiance of Terra and the Warmaster Horus alike.Dark Herald - As the wars of the Horus Heresy spread to consume the galaxy, billions fought and died under the banners of warlords they had never seen or heard firsthand, and even amongst those such as the Legiones Astartes, near-religious fervour became common for those artefacts touched by primarch, the Warmaster Horus or the Regent of Terra Malcador the Sigillite, and given to a chosen emissary as a sign of authority and favour. The Blackshields, having obscured their heraldry or cast aside former masters were no different, their strange sigils or blackened flags becoming totems of destruction and the foresworn. Amongst the Blackshields, these emissaries were know as Dark Heralds. |
Blackshield - Notable Blackshield Warbands: Ashen Claws - The Ashen Claws were a large, notorious Blackshield force that formerly comprised the 18th Chapter of the Raven Guard Legion. Comprised of several thousand Astartes, near every one was a Terran-born Veteran of the old XIX Legion, before their reunification with their primarch Corvus Corax. Following the Battle of Gate 42 during the campaign in the Akum-sothos Cluster, those that survived the crucible of that deadly near-suicidal assault were gathered together and despatched by Corax into the northeastern reaches of the Ghoul Stars to bring the light of the Emperor to the outer darkness. The Ashen Claws believed themselves to be continuing the work of the Great Crusade, carving a swathe of blood and ash across the void in memory of a dream which had turned to nightmare with the Warmaster Horus' betrayal at Isstvan III. Their ultimate fate remains unknown, though they may have survived into the 41st Millennium as a Renegade Astartes warband.Company of the Sundered - The Company of the Sundered were a Blackshield warband during the Horus Heresy who were later declared by edict of the Terran Council to be murderers and pirates concerned only with claiming their own domains beyond the sight of Emperor or the Warmaster.The Brotherhood of Set - A Blackshield force that took part in the Solar War.The Burnt Word - A Blackshield force that took part in the Solar War.The Dark Brotherhood - The Dark Brotherhood was a large and notorious Blackshield force that carved out its own corsair empire on the edge of the Pale Stars and began a long war against an Alpha Legion hunter-killer force tasked with crushing resistance to the Warmaster's Dark Compliance campaigns. They formed around a warrior known as the "Nemean Reaver", or simply "the Nemean," a title likely referring to the impenetrable Artificer Armour he was said to wear in battle or to suggestions that he was preternaturally strong and impossible to slay. Of the origins of this war leader very little is certain, though some accounts claim he was a Terran scion of the Ist Legion and a veteran of the Third Rangdan Xenocide, a notion at least partially borne out by elements of the sparse personal heraldy he wore and by the terrible scars that marred his features.Death Eagles - The Death Eagles were the former 34th Millenial of the Emperor's Children Legion that clashed with their Traitor kin at Lethe and at Revorthe Keep in the Coronid Deeps.Desolation Hounds - The Desolation Hounds were a Blackshield warband during the Horus Heresy. There is very little official information on this particular Blackshield force.Fangs of the Emperor - The Fangs of the Emperor are one of the largest Blackshield forces known to have been continuously active for much of the Horus Heresy. The five line companies of the Fangs of the Emperor formed the bulk of the host at Force Commander Endryd Haar's disposal. Each was capable of extended independent action, but also able to act in concert with its peers when employed as part of a larger grouping of forces. At their peak, the Fangs numbered more than a thousand warriors with both starships and super-heavy vehicles as part of their Armoury, and are rumoured to have received support and intelligence from senior figures within the Divisio Militaris. Indeed, the Fangs of the Emperor were on occasion joined by figures of import, often at the orders of Malcador the Sigillite on Terra in order to aid with specific Loyalist missions. The most well-known of these figures was the assassin operating under the persona of Unvacar Noon. Given their high casualty rate, the Fangs of the Emperor maintained a limited pool of field officers. Many of these were not traditional Legion officers, but simply the most efficient killers granted authority by Haar over their battle-brothers. They also maintained a limited pool of armour, as damaged tanks were difficult for the nomadic force to repair, limiting their use to key engagements only. Conversely, they are the only known Blackshield force to field Ordinatus war engines, though these are only recorded as taking the field on three known occasions.Gerasene Host - A little-known Blackshield warband, the Gerasene Host appeared to be the result of rapid, unsanctioned gene-seed hybridisation processes first encountered in the middle period of the Heresy. The source of the Gerasene Host's gene-seed is unknown and the warriors themselves appeared unaware of their true lineage. Some strategio-savants have posited that the Host were created as a living terror weapon, wrought by an unknown hand and released into the galaxy to sow death and destruction in the ultimate furtherance of the Traitors' cause. They are known to have taken part in the infamous Treab's World campaign, a conflict that burned for four long standard years and which ultimately drew in and defeated a large contingent of the Salamanders Legion. While the Host operated independently, its strategies were in retrospect clearly co-aligned with those of the Death Guard and Emperor's Children forces also deployed to Treab's World. Most of these warriors wore Mark V Heresy Power Armour, its source unknown. Their battle-plate had never borne the heraldry of any Legion and beneath the accrued weathering of a long campaign displayed the bare metallic grey of unadorned ceramite. Each bearer applied markings that appeared to be arcane and idiosyncratic glyphs of unknown provenance. The "L" sigil on the right shoulder pauldron was worn by most warriors of the Gerasene Host, its significance unclear to Imperial scholars.Mind-blade - The Mind-blade were a Blackshield warband active during the Horus Heresy. There is very little official information on this particular Blackshield force.The Nine Blades - The Nine Blades were a Blackshield warband active during the Horus Heresy. Blackshield warbands such as the Nine Blades were declared as murderers and pirates by the Council of Terra. Many of these were only concerned with carving out their own petty stellar empire and enslaving those mortals who were too weak to oppose them, as occurred in the Truan System at the hands of the Nine Blades.The Third Covenant - The Third Covenant was a Blackshield group that operated across several sectors to the galactic north of the Great Core, into which they ultimately vanished towards the end of the Horus Heresy. Several studies have been made of the Third Covenant in an effort to identify its members, but most have proven unsuccessful as each Blackshield went to great lengths to conceal their origins. They even renounced their own given names and used instead terms derived from other, more esoteric sources. The group is of particular interest to later generations of Imperial agents because, having rejected the teachings of their own gene-sires (Traitor and Loyalist alike), they turned to other, more shrouded doctrines. Ostensibly, the Third Covenant fought for the Warmaster Horus' cause, but in truth it pursued its own goals often only tangentially co-aligned with those of Horus and his allies. Blackshields of this group wore a typically heterogeneous mix of elements taken from defeated foes. In places the ubiquitous black heraldry would be worn away to reveal the colours of the original owner. Of particular note was the mythological hippocampus worn upon the right shoulder as the icon of the Third Covenant. The many esoteric sigils betrayed the Covenant's true allegiances -- to powers other than Terra or even the Warmaster Horus.True Flame - Scant few accounts of the actions of the Blackshield warband known as the True Flame exist and indeed only from retrospective is it possible to piece together any evidence of a campaign of actions conducted by them. Many such accounts occurred in the war for the Garmon Cluster where it is thought that the organisation first rose to prominence during the Battle of Beta-Garmon.The Twelfth Truth - A Blackshield force that took part in the Solar War.Umbral Hundred - The Umbral Hundred were a Blackshield warband that enthusiastically embraced their vagabond existence and relished the chance to prey upon those weaker than themselves and to take by force that which they considered their rightful due, as was the case when they brutally scoured twelve entire star systems in the southern marches of the Chonma Sector throughout 011.M31. |
Blackshield - Notable Blackshields: Endryd Haar - Known as the "Riven Hound," Haar was once a World Eater. Both he and his command were believed long lost on-Crusade when his brethren cast in their lot with the Traitors. Endryd was driven to cold madness by the revelation of his Legion's betrayal when he returned to find the Imperium riven by civil war, and he cast off all traces of his Legion's insignia and honours and swore a Death Oath to atone for the XII Legion's crimes. Leading a Blackshield unit known as "The Fangs of the Emperor," Endryd Haar fought alongside the Loyalists as a field commander in the dark days before the Siege of Terra, accepting any mission -- whatever the odds of survival -- so long as in doing so he could spill the blood of the Traitor enemy.Legionary Artal Heloc - Artal Heloc bears the heraldry of the Ashen Claws upon the armour plating of the Contemptor pattern dreadnought chassis within which he is interred. The history and circumstances that befell the warrior prior to the implantation of his physical body within the dreadnought are unknown, as are the details of the Legion with which he fought. Despite the mystery shrouding the warrior's life, the Contemptor dreadnought was pict-captured in no fewer than seven separate engagements with Loyalist forces deep within the Traitor-held territory to the galactic east of the Garmon Cluster. A prolific campaign of traitorous fratricide was put to an end by the neutron laser blasts of a squadron of White Scars Sabre tanks on the scorched wastes of Dellar IX.Support Legionary Kell Dray - Kel Dray was part of a disparate Blackshield band of warriors known as the "True Flame" encountered within the defences of 116 Minoris-Garmon as Loyalist forces swept through to eliminate Traitor resistance. Although no hostility was shown towards the Imperial forces, the True Flame Blackshields declined to join the Reprisal Fleet and instead were given permission by Sanguinius himself to garrison the system. Hails to ascertain their status several solar weeks later went unanswered, leaving Loyalist commanders to assume that they had abandoned their post.Khorak - Khorak was a former Veteran sergeant and member of the Death Guard Legion, serving within the ranks of the elite Deathshroud, Primarch Mortarion's personal honour guard. Though he initially followed his Legion into rebellion against the Emperor, taking part in the slaughter of the Loyalists upon Isstvan III and in the Drop Site Massacre on Isstvan V, he eventually grew disillusioned following the Battle of Molech after witnessing Mortarion utilising witchcraft. Disgusted, Khorak gathered a group of like-minded individuals and broke away from the Death Guard, fleeing upon the vessel Ghogolla. Khorak's group vowed to eventually kill their primarch for his betrayal of their ideals. Regarding themselves as the only "true" remnants of the XIV Legion, Khorak and his followers continued to proudly bear the original colours and heraldry of their Legion. After several battles, the Ghogolla encountered an unknown Blackshield fleet which began to pursue them, until they reached the world of Agarvian in the Leops System. Khorak and his four surviving fellow Legionaries (Hesch, Urgain, Turgalla and Lyphas) escaped their ship and fled to the planet's surface aboard a Stormbird as the Blackshield fleet destroyed the Ghogolla. Khorak and his followers were gradually hunted down by the pursuing Blackshields until only he and his lieutenant, Hesch, remained. The former Deathshroud challenged the hunters which prompted them to halt their barrage. The Blackshield commander stepped forth and revealed himself as Crysos Morturg, a former Death Guard and survivor of the events upon Isstvan III. He declared that no active Deathshroud would be allowed to speak. However, in response, Khorak admitted that he had also broken his vows and turned against their primarch, though he considered Morturg part of the "disloyal dregs of a disloyal muster." Khorak realised that they shared the same goal of killing their gene-sire, though for different reasons. However, before an accord could be reached between the two former brothers, a mortally wounded and confused Hesch fired upon Morturg, revealing that the Blackshield leader was not truly there. Suspecting witchcraft, Khorak concluded that none of the Death Guard Loyalists had survived Isstvan III and that Morturg's presence could only be explained through unnatural means. The Blackshield commander did not deny his accusations, though he cautioned that his current form had been forced upon him and reminded the ex-Deathshroud that Mortarion -- the one who had explicitly forbade the use of witchcraft -- had betrayed both of them. However, Khorak declared his defiance and would not accept a potential ally who dabbled in forbidden dark arts. He then attacked but was shot by Morturg's followers. As he died, the former Deathshroud accused the Blackshield commander of being a ghost, to which Morturge replied, "As are you, brother. As are we all."Crysos Morturg - Section Leader Crysos Morturg was a bitter warrior, morbid and given to introspection. He was disliked by his battle-brothers despite his evident talents as a warrior and field commander. He was neither Terran nor Barbaran by birth, having been inducted into the Death Guard Legion during an emergency influx of recruits from the induction pool of the 18th Expeditionary Fleet after the Death Guard suffered near-catastrophic losses during the Rangdan Xenocides campaign of the Great Crusade. Years after his induction, after he rose to the rank of lieutenant, his latent psychic abilities manifested. This only served to further isolate him from his fellow Astartes, and he had barely begun his training within the Legion Librarius when Mortarion had it disbanded and ordered such "witchcraft" suppressed. Morturg was reassigned to the Legion's Destroyer Corps and was often given Legionaries judged to be fractious or unstable, and his unit was tasked with the brunt of the worst fighting the Death Guard endured. During the campaign against the Traitor Legions' Loyalists on Isstvan III at the start of the Horus Heresy, he was marked for death as a Loyalist and sent to the surface on the doomed world. But Morturg did not die and instead endured, rising to become one of the most deadly commanders of the Loyalist resistance. Despite all the odds, Morturg survived the atrocity on Isstvan III and he and the few remnants of the slaughtered Loyalists he had gathered to him would live to avenge themselves upon their former brethren.Moritat-Prime Kaedes Nex - A dark figure of gruesome repute amongst the tightly knit survivors of Deliverance, Kaedes was seen as an ill-omen by his brothers in the Raven Guard Legion. On Kiavahr in his youth he was known as the "Blood Crow," an infamous murderer condemned to rot on the moon prison. There he remained, until Corvus Corax offered him freedom and a pardon if he fought alongside the other rebels and limited his targets to those chosen by his new master. After enduring the painful late transformation to a Space Marine, it was only by the continued favour shown to him by Corax that he remained within the ranks of the Raven Guard, with few of his brothers willing to tolerate his macabre obsession with the hunt. Yet, in the grim shadow wars fought by the Raven Guard in furtherance of the Emperor's grand plan, his murder-honed skills were employed with grim regularity. When the Raven Guard came to Isstvan V, Kaedes came with them, vanishing into the wastes to stalk the Traitors on his own terms. Nothing is recorded of his role in either the retreat from the massacre or the days that followed, and some maintain that not all of the Traitor craft to later leave Isstvan V carried only the followers of Horus, and that Kaedes continued his private war in the shadows of the Horus Heresy.The Nemean Reaver - This unknown Blackshield Reaver Lord fought throughout the middle years of the Horus Heresy, leading the Blackshield band known as the Dark Brotherhood against numerous foes as he sought to carve out a haven within the Eridayn Cataract. He garnered a reputation throughout the Pale Stars, and was often referred to simply as "the Nemean." It is generally believed that he was once an officer of the Ist Legion -- the Dark Angels -- though even this was far from certain. Unconfirmed rumours circulated that he was a survivor of the Rangdan Xenocides, the apocalyptic conflict during the Great Crusade that saw the nascent Imperium threatened with destruction, and he had already entered into the legends of the Legiones Astartes long before the Horus Heresy. At the Conclave of Optera, he renounced his position and departed with Nathaniel Garro, Knight-Errant of Malcador the Sigillite, for Terra, leaving his lieutenants to take command of the Dark Brotherhood and lead it as they saw fit. It is believed his duty to the Sigillite culminated at the Siege of Terra upon the walls of the Imperial Palace during the very climax of the Horus Heresy.Warsmith Kyr Vhalen - Warsmith of the Iron Warriors 77th Grand Battalion during the Great Crusade and Horus Heresy, Khr Vhalen was a name of relative obscurity before the events of the Great Betrayal were to thrust upon him the mantle of greatness. He was neither Terran nor Olympian by birth, having been recruited as an adolescent from the formerly xenos-enslaved world of Meru at the edge of the Yetzirah Abyss. Initiated into the 77th Grand Battalion, he fought his way up through its ranks by dint of excellence and sheer bloody will to survive, gaining the epithet of "Shatterblade" after fighting through a nine-solar-hour-long battle with the broken remains of a Xenarch sabre impaled through his chest. The 77th, like a number of Iron Warriors detachments dispersed across the Imperium and all but forgotten, had become almost completely self-sustaining by the end of the Great Crusade, and when the Horus Heresy came, he and his forces were utterly ignorant of their Legion's betrayal. At the First Battle of Paramar, he and his Legionaries would take bitter pride in their stubborn loyalty to the Great Crusade as brother turned against brother.Forge Tyrant Erud Vahn - Erud Vahn had once been counted amongst the foremost Forge-Tyrants of the Death Guard. Acknowledged grudgingly by the grim master of his Legion, Mortarion, as a master of the esoteric disciplines of alkemic warfare, Vahn had spent long Terran years in study with the Tech-adepts of Mars. With the outbreak of the Horus Heresy, Vahn found his loyalty to the Mechanicum outweighed that to his distant primarch and he declared for the Loyalist cause. Seconded to the command of Endryd Haar for his knowledge of the more esoteric mysteries of the Machine Cult, Erud Vahn led the infiltration force upon the Forge World of Xana II during the Xana Incursion, that boarded and later seized control of the Ordinatus Ulator Ashurax. Of the twelve Techmarines of the Loyalist Legions who entered the sanctum at the heart of the Ashurax, only five would survive the attempt. To accomplish this feat, Erud Vahn's heavily modified Mark III Iron Power Armour was stripped back to bare metal before having a crude approximation of the Sons of Horus heraldry applied to it. The markings used to mask Vahn's true allegiance were in fact those of a Sons of Horus mechanised assault detachment, rather than the emblems actually employed by the Techmarines of that Legion. Fortunately for the infiltrating force, the magi of Xana had little experience with the heraldry of the Warmaster's Legion, having had little contact with much of the Imperium other than the tithe fleets of Terra.Redemption - This unknown Legionary, referred to in some records by the post-event designation "Redemption," his armour scorched and blackened, was present with one of the small ad hoc formations of Loyalist Legiones Astartes, known as "Battlegroup Revenant," that fought at the counterinvasion of Numinal. He is credited with the killing of over fifty Tech-adepts, Thallaxii and other lesser combat-automata during a solitary assault targeting one of the immense flesh-processing crawlers. The self-applied Loyalist icons that adorned the Legionary's armour conformed to no known pre-civil war pattern or scheme, but served to mark him as present at numerous other engagements, both major and minor, across what became known as the Horus Heresy.Legionary Zhinnon - Legionary Zhinnon was recruited into the IV Legion in 849.M30, the very same year that Primarch Perturabo took control. Though untested in battle at that time, Zhinnon's native martial bearing saved him from being swept up in Perturabo's purge of the IV Legion. Zhinnon saw extensive service throughout the five solar decades of the Great Crusade preceding the Triumph of Ullanor, and at the time of the Warmaster Horus' great betrayal was serving under Warsmith Vhalen in in the 77th Grand Battalion, 5th Counter-Armour Wing, 30th Squad, and is known to be one of the few Loyalist survivors of the First Battle of Paramar.Morkan Sayle - A former member of the Raven Guard who turned to his own allegiance.Nuhmarak ("The Crippled King of the Void") - Nuhmarak was a Blackshield of the Horus Heresy. |
Blackshield - Blackshield Rapid Assault Force: Blackshield forces were a heterogeneous mix of Astartes elements, and in theory had access to the full arsenal of weaponry and equipment the Space Marines were granted at the outset of the Great Crusade.In practice however, most Blackshield groups abandoned the use of heavier war machines such as super-heavy tanks, as well as static defences and heavy equipment that required support or recovery units to retrieve after battle, in particular the range of Drop Pods used throughout the Legiones Astartes.Instead, most Blackshield forces favoured lighter, multi-purpose vehicles that complemented their particular mode of warfare -- rapid orbital insertion followed by highly mission-focused assaults, quickly backed up by the exfiltration of all attack elements.To this end, although no two Blackshield forces were exactly alike, most made extensive use of Storm Eagle gunships, while most also had access to at least a handful of Thunderhawk gunships. The most fortunate could call upon the lighter patterns of Stormbird lander, the most prized being the Sokar Pattern.In general, most Blackshield forces deployed only those ground units that could be rapidly set down onto a planet's surface from orbit, limiting ground vehicles to Rhino and Land Raider variants that could be carried by a Thunderhawk Transporter or within the hold of a Sokar Pattern Stormbird.Nevertheless, there were several known exceptions and not every Blackshield force operated in this manner; the group known as the Gerasene Host, for example, deployed without warning into the northern sulphur deserts of Treab's World and fought for many solar months before departing just as suddenly using voidcraft they are thought to have secreted in hidden caverns near the planet's northern pole.In common with the Blackshield warriors themselves, most vehicles had their original Legion heraldry deliberately obscured. As the Horus Heresy ground on, many individual Blackshield groups developed their own unique heraldic identifiers or came to use their own often highly idiosyncratic sigils and identifiers.The Dark Brotherhood, for example, came to be known for the use of a ragged, skeletal version of the Imperial Aquila, rendered in ghostly white or pale gold.It was by such symbols of death and doom that many Blackshield groups would become known, making for a spectacle as terrifying as any Legion force deployed in the armies of Loyalist or Traitor alike. |
Blackshield - Blackshield Wargear: The nature of the Blackshield forces and their often erratic and unorthodox lines of supply forced many into the adoption of ragged and modified equipment and weapons in order to maintain an effective fighting force. Among some of this wargear could be found the following:"Pariah" Wargear - Various Blackshield groups were observed throughout the Horus Heresy to wield arms and armour obviously field-modified in a variety of ways, sometimes simply to keep it functioning in the isolated conditions under which such forces operated, but often to improve its performance in some manner. Such modifications were not authorised by Legiones Astartes battle doctrine and were often in flagrant contradiction of the laws of the Cult of the Machine. Such weaponry came to be known as "Pariah" wargear, a term indicative of the outcast status of those who implemented such modifications.Pariah Power Armour - Some Blackshield forces were observed to modify their power armour in a manner not proscribed by any doctrine of the Legiones Astartes. By stripping back reactor casings, re-routing power couplings and foregoing components such as gauntlets, motive stabilisers, vambraces, pauldrons or helm, the wearer was afforded a combination of power and dexterity not provided by standard patterns, albeit at the expense of some protection against heavy weapons fire.Pariah Bolter - Though it grieves those inducted into the mysteries of the machine, some Blackshields had learned to strip the iconic bolter of its casing and any extraneous fittings in order to make it easier to handle during the fury of a charge or the tumult of a Zone Mortalis engagement.Pariah Flamer - These weapons, produced from battle-damaged and field-repaired units, had been modified by their bearers to remove safety cut-offs, allowing a greater volume of promethium fuel to be fired, albeit at risk and with less regularity of pressure than standard-issue Imperial flamers. Such protocols were not approved by the battle doctrines of the Legiones Astartes and were in contravention of the laws of the Cult Mechanicus.Xenos Deathlock - There existed many terrifyingly powerful xenos technology weapons encountered during the Great Crusade, which, through incredibly effective, had been declared prohibited by the Mechanicum and the Emperor alike for their detrimental effects on the body and mind of a Human wielder. The desperation of certain Blackshield forces, however, had overcome such concerns. Those weapons sought out by certain groups of Blackshields were prized for the trauma they inflicted upon the foe -- enemies not torn apart by their horrifying effect were assailed by a storm of soul-wrenching alien horror. Such weapons had been encountered in a range of classes, such as the Extinction Carbines of the Khrave or the psycho-mobius claw-guns of the Kala Sistrum being the most commonly sought-after amongst Blackshield forces. |
Blackshield - Heraldry of the Blackshields: The various Blackshield forces known to have operated during the Horus Heresy had no fixed pattern of heraldry like their Astartes' parent Legions. Each used a unique set of icons and colours, often intentionally chosen to obscure or deride their origins and making identification of their true loyalty difficult in combat conditions.While no "standard" form exists, to the right can be found a selection of the more well-known insignia that demonstrates the lengths to which such heraldry deviated from the original Legion armourials. |
Blackshield - Sources: The Horus Heresy Book One: Betrayal (Forge World Series) by Alan Bligh, pp. 38, 47, 54, 58, 266The Horus Heresy Book Two: Massacre (Forge World Series) by Alan Bligh, pg. 49The Horus Heresy Book Three: Extermination (Forge World Series) by Alan Bligh, pp. 22, 24, 30, 122, 255The Horus Heresy Book Four: Conquest (Forge World Series) by Alan Bligh with Andy Hoare & Neil Wylie, pp. 19, 158, 216The Horus Heresy Book Six: Retribution (Forge World Series) by Alan Bligh, pp. 18-19, 29, 132-147, 218-228, 234, 246-247Warhammer The Horus Heresy Second Edition: Campaigns of the Age of Darkness - The Battle for Beta-Garmon: Shadow Wars (Specialist Game), pp. 84-89, 150-163, 198-199, 206-207The Solar War (Novel) by John French, Ch. 14Blackshield (Short Story) by Chris Wraight |
Blackshield (Short Story) - Blackshield (Short Story): Blackshield is the twenty-ninth short story published in the Horus Heresy Series that was not originally part of an anthology novel. Blackshield was first published in e-book format as Day 1 of the 2016 "Summer of Reading". |
Blackshield (Short Story) - Synopsis: Even within the dread annals of the Horus Heresy, few events have provoked as much horror as the Drop Site Massacre on Isstvan V, when the Space Marines turned on their brothers in an orgy of slaughter. The Legions were torn apart, the civil war spiralling outwards to all corners of the Imperium, shattering the trust that once bound them together. Along with a handful of other Renegade Death Guard Legionaries, ex-Deathshroud Terminator Sergeant Khorak has begun to raid the fringes of the Imperium -- until they are cornered by mysterious warriors in crudely painted black armour, led by another fallen son of Mortarion, the Blackshield Crysos Morturg. Can the two gene-brothers set aside their differences, or is history deemed to repeat itself? |
Blackshield Marauder Squad - Blackshield Marauder Squad: A Blackshield Marauder Squad was the average line unit of a Blackshield force during the Horus Heresy in the 31st Millennium. These ad hoc forces were comprised of a wide range of Space Marine outcasts, marauders and those Legiones Astartes of uncertain allegiances or origin. The arms and armour, obviously field modified in a variety of ways, were employed by the often idiosyncratic Blackshields. The nature of the Blackshield forces and their often erratic and unorthodox lines of supply forced many into the adoption of ragged and modified equipment and weapons in order ot maintain an effective fighting force. |
Blackshield Marauder Squad - History: Most Blackshield warbands were able to field a core of certain Legiones Astartes unit types, and the squad configuration for which they were most well known was the iconic Marauder Squad. These units were equipped according to the proclivities of their leaders or the tastes and expertise of the individual Blackshields, and no two were likely to be identically constituted. While many Marauder squads carried similar Legiones Astartes weapons, others wielded an idiosyncratic array of fire arms and melee weapons pried from the cold, dead hands of their foes or plundered from the holds of captured freighters. Many Blackhsields carried out field modifications to their arms, armour and equipment that would never be sanctioned within the parent Legions from which they were drawn, sometimes to improve performance and in other times simply to keep them in service for one battle more. Varying widely in demeanour even within a single squad, Blackshields ranged in character from taciturn veterans intent upon delivering justice upon those who had wronged them, to murderous pirates who cared only to reave across the stars, carving out their own domains in defiance of Terra and Warmaster alike. |
Blackshield Marauder Squad - Unit Composition: 1 Marauder Chief4-15 Marauders |
Blackshield Marauder Squad - Wargear: Bolt PistolChainsword, Chain Axe or Combat BladePower ArmourFrag & Krak Grenades |
Blackshield Marauder Squad - Optional Wargear: Lascarbine or AutogunAstartes ShotgunLaslockSecond Bolt PistolBolter or Pariah BolterHeavy ChainswordLascutterRather than taking an option from the previous list, one in five Marauders may take one of the following options:Sniper RifleXenos DeathlockFlamer or Pariah FlamerRotor CannonGrenade Launcher (Frag & Krak)Heavy FlamerMeltagunPlasma GunHeavy BolterAutocannonMissile Launcher (with Frag & Krak Missiles)Multi-MeltaExchange Bolt Pistol for a Plasma PistolExchange Bolt Pistol for a Hand FlamerExchange Chainsword/Combat Blade for a Power WeaponOne Blackshield Marauder may take:Nuncio-Vox |
Blackshield Marauder Squad - Optional Wargear (Marauder Chief Only): Power FistSingle Lightning ClawThunder HammerCombi-WeaponPlasma PistolMelta BombsEntire squad may exchange its power armour for:Pariah Power Armour |
Blackshield Marauder Squad - Dedicated Transport: Rhino Armoured TransportAnvillus Pattern DreadclawProteus Pattern Land Raider |
Blackshield Reaver Lord - Blackshield Reaver Lord: A Blackshield Reaver Lord was a commander and de facto lord of a Blackshield warband during the Horus Heresy in the 31st Millennium.These ad hoc groups were composed of a wide range of Space Marine outcasts, marauders and those members of the Legiones Astartes of uncertain allegiances or origin. They were invariably led by individuals possessed of a fierce presence, the drive to forge their own destiny and the ability to sweep others along with them in their quest.Some were darkly brooding and malign warriors, resentful of the dark fate that had befallen the galaxy. Others enthusiastically embraced their new existence and relished the chance to prey upon those weaker than themselves and to take by force that which they considered their rightful due. Many such Blackshield groups would often adopt entirely new heraldry of their own invention or created by a strong-willed leader imposing his vision on the entire band. |
Blackshield Reaver Lord - History: Once an officer in one of the Emperor's Space Marine Legions, treachery and fate have caused this warrior to obscure his erstwhile heraldry and to pursue another path entirely. It is around such men that bands of Blackshields invariably coalesced, for they were possessed of a fiery mien and fate visibly rested upon their shoulders.While many appeared to fight because they knew no other existence than the pursuit of war, a few were said to be following some far grander strategy that only they were able to perceive. There existed no standard type among Reaver Lords, for each was an individual uniquely shaped by the circumstance that caused him to renounce whichever of the Legions had sired him.They ruled their bands with the utmost authority, either through brute force or charisma. All were fearsome and accomplished warriors, peerless leaders and strategists, and the skills they once brought to bear in service to the Great Crusade were now turned towards the cause of caring for their own fates in a galaxy drowning in the blood of its ending. |
Blackshield Reaver Lord - Notable Blackshield Reaver Lords: Endryd Haar - Known as the "Riven Hound," Haar was once a World Eater. Both he and his command were believed long-lost on Crusade when his brethren cast in their lot with the Traitors. Endryd was driven to cold madness by the revelation of his Legion's betrayal when he returned to find the Imperium riven by civil war, and he cast off all traces of his Legion's insignia and honours and swore a Death Oath to atone for the XIIth Legion's crimes. Leading a Blackshield unit known as "The Fangs of the Emperor," Endryd Haar fought alongside the Loyalists as a field commander in the dark days before the Siege of Terra, accepting any mission -- whatever the odds of survival -- so long as in doing so he could spill the blood of the enemy.Crysos Morturg - Section Leader Crysos Morturg was a bitter warrior, morbid and given to introspection. He was disliked by his Battle-Brothers despite his evident talents as a warrior and field commander. He was neither Terran nor Barbaran by birth, having been inducted into the Death Guard Legion during an emergency influx of recruits from the induction pool of the 18th Expeditionary Fleet after the Death Guard suffered near-catastrophic losses during the Rangdan Xenocides campaign of the Great Crusade. Years after his induction, after he rose to the rank of Lieutenant, his latent psychic abilities manifested. This only served to further isolate him from his fellow Astartes, and he had barely begun his training within the Legion Librarius when Mortarion had it disbanded and ordered such "witchcraft" suppressed. Morturg was reassigned to the Legion's Destroyer Corps and was often given Legionaries judged to be fractious or unstable, and his unit was tasked to the brunt of the worst fighting the Death Guard endured. During the campaign against the Traitor Legions' Loyalists on Istvaan III at the start of the Horus Heresy, he was marked for death as a Loyalist and sent to the surface on the doomed world. But Morturg did not die and instead endured, rising to become one of the most deadly commanders of the Loyalist resistance. Despite all the odds, Morturg survived the atrocity on Istvaan III and he and the few remnants of the slaughtered Loyalists he had gathered to him would live to avenge themselves upon their former brethren.The Nemean Reaver - This unknown Blackshield Reaver Lord fought throughout the middle years of the Horus Heresy, leading the Blackshield band known as the Dark Brotherhood against numerous foes as he sought to carve out a haven within the Eridayn Cataract. He garnered a reputation throughout the Pale Stars, and was often referred to simply as the Nemean. It is generally believed that he was once an officer of the Ist Legion -- the Dark Angels -- though even this was far from certain. Unconfirmed rumours circulated that he was a survivor of the Rangdan Xenocides, the apocalyptic conflict that saw the nascent Imperium threatened with destruction during the Great Crusade, and he had already entered into the legends of the Legiones Astartes long before the Horus Heresy. At the Conclave of Optera, he renounced his position and departed with Nathaniel Garro, Knight-Errant of Malcador the Sigillite, for Terra, leaving his lieutenants to take command of the Dark Brotherhood and lead it as they saw fit. It is believed his duty to the Sigillite culminated at the Battle of Terra upon the walls of the Imperial Palace during the very climax of the Horus Heresy.Nuhmarak - Nuhmarak, the so-called Crippled King of the Void, was a darkly brooding warrior-lord, bitterly resentful of the fate that had befallen the galaxy. |
Blackshield Reaver Lord - Wargear: Power ArmourBolt PistolChainsword or Combat BladeFrag GrenadesKrak Grenades |
Blackshield Reaver Lord - Wargear (Terminator Only): Terminator Armour (Tartaros or Cataphractii Patterns)Combi-BolterPower Weapon |
Blackshield Reaver Lord - Optional Wargear: Bolter or Pariah BolterCombi-WeaponVolkite ChargerXenos DeathlockA Blackshield Reaver Lord may exchange either their Bolt Pistol and/or Chainsword / Combat Blade for one of the following:Volkite SerpentaPlasma PistolArchaeotech PistolHeavy ChainswordCharnabal Sabre Power WeaponPower FistSingle Lightning ClawThunder HammerHalo BladeA Blackshield Reaver Lord may exchange both their Bolt Pistol and Chainsword / Combat Blade for a pair of Lightning ClawsA Blackshield Reaver Lord may take any of the following:Melta BombsDigital LasersCyber FamiliarRad GrenadesA Blackshield Reaver Lord may upgrade a single weapon to become:Master-CraftedA Blackshield Reaver Lord may exchange their Power Armour for:Pariah Power ArmourArtificer ArmourTerminator ArmourA Blackshield Reaver Lord may take one of the following:Combat ShieldRefractor FieldBoarding ShieldIron HaloA Blackshield Reaver Lord may take one of the following:Jump PackSpace Marine Bike with twin-linked BoltersLegion Scimitar Jetbike with Heavy Bolter |
Blackshield Titan Legion - Blackshield Titan Legion: A Blackshield Titan Legion, also known as a Blackshield Legio, was a Titan Legion of the Collegia Titanica that during the Horus Heresy refused to serve either the Emperor of Mankind or the Warmaster Horus.Such Legios pursued their own purposes, often no greater than to forge their own pocket stellar empire from amidst the chaos engulfing the galaxy. |
Blackshield Titan Legion - History: Many were the princeps of Titan Legions abandoned by the maelstrom of war during the Horus Heresy, left to defend a far-flung edge of the Imperium now superfluous in the face of the Warmaster Horus' advance on Terra, while others were presumed dead and thus stricken from the records of their Legio. These forsaken souls found themselves trapped between legacies, returning to find a galaxy riven by treachery and mistrust. All too often they were deemed foes of either side, presumed agents of the enemy and marked for death.Forced to accept destruction or seek their own path, many of these lost souls sought a new life upon the fringes of the war, ushering in the advent of the first Blackshield Legios. There lay no unifying purpose amongst those princeps devoid of a Legio and their past heritage offered little but a mark of shame. Varying in strength and disposition, and often forged by Titans drawn from multiple Titan Legions, these so-called "Blackshields" defined their own legacy.Some, like the Pretermitted Brotherhood, watched over the burned-out remains of their once-home, striking down all who dared sully its memory with their tread. Others, like the Cleansing Flame, sought more martial goals, descending upon worlds fresh from battle between Loyalist and Traitor to conquer such planets for their own purpose.Regardless of their objectives, the methods employed by a Blackshield Legio were reliant upon the nature of their supplies, for the attrition of war was a greater burden on those without the backing of greater powers.Accepting any who believed in their cause, it was not unheard of for a Blackshield Legio to favour a single pattern of Titan, adapting their tactics to overcome the deficiencies presented by a lack of reserves.Rarely able to reinforce or grow in number, many a Blackshield Legio burned bright but fell quickly, crushed upon the anvil of war and doomed to fall into obscurity. |
Blackshield Titan Legion - Notable Blackshield Legios: Legio Tritonis - The Legio Tritonis was the first of the Blackshield Legios to be recorded by the Imperium, born from the secessionist impulses of the Forge World of Arachnus. The secessionists made sure that the Loyalist elements of the already extant Legio Venator were off-world during the Horus Heresy campaign known as the Cataclysm of Iron before they declared their independence from the Imperium. The princeps of the Legio Tritonis sought nothing less than the reestablishment of the glories of the once-independent Forge Empire of Arachnus, free of the rule of the Emperor and Horus alike. They unleashed widespread destruction upon the region of space known as the Belt of Iron before they were finally purged from Arachnus by a Loyalist assault led by their own kin of the Legio Venator.Blood Hounds of Gryrut - Consisting of only a single maniple of Warhound-class Titans, this Blackshield Legio carved out an empire for themselves within the Segmentum Obscurus as the Heresy raged.Cleansing Flame - As the Heresy unfolded, this Blackshield Legio preyed upon and conquered worlds that had been recent battlegrounds between the Traitors and Loyalists for their own purposes.Hounds of Night - The Hounds of Night were a Loyalist faction of the Traitor Legio Audax, who during the Heresy dedicated themselves to hunting down Traitor Titans across the battlefields of Beta-Garmon.Protectorate of Unsubdued Steel - The Protectorate of Unsubdued Steel was a Blackshield Legio created during the Cataclysm of Iron in the region of the galaxy known as the Belt of Iron. It was composed of Titans from several different Legios, including the Legio Astorum and the Legio Damnatus. As the Loyalists and Traitors waged war on each other within the Belt of Iron, the Protectorate of Unsubdued Steel began building a pocket stellar empire of its own. Among the first worlds to fall to the Protectorate was the Forge World of Arl'yeth after it refused to peacefully join the Protectorate's empire. The conquered Forge World then joined a dozen other planets that the Blackshield Legio controlled at the time.Pretermitted Brotherhood - The Pretermitted Brotherhood was a Blackshield Legio that watched over the burned-out remains of their homeworld, striking down all who dared sully its memory with their blasphemous tread.Lords of Valour - The Lords of Valour was a small Blackshield Legio of Reaver and Dire Wolf-class Titans that was formed during the Horus Heresy. Its existence was unconfirmed by the Imperium. However, rumours claimed that the Lords of Valour were possibly Loyalists, who had somehow escaped the Legio Interfector's corruption and treachery. They were also rumoured to have operated within the star systems surrounding the Legio Interfector's Forge World of Valeous II. |
Blackshields: The False War (Audio Drama) - Blackshields: The False War (Audio Drama): Blackshields: The False War is the forty-forth audio drama for The Horus Heresy series that was not originally released as part of an anthology or other release. Blackshields: The False War was first released as an audio drama in September 2017. |
Blackshields: The False War (Audio Drama) - Official Synopsis: Renouncing fealty to all masters or driven mad by the rigours of war, the Blackshields are a stain upon any Legion they once served. Regarded as little better than pirates, their loyalty is only to themselves. Infamous among their mercenary ranks is Endryd Haar, a former World Eater, driven by hatred, his blade pledged to no banner but his own. But estranged from his Legion and surrounded by a battered warband of warriors, how long can Haar and his Blackshields hope to endure? |
Blackshields: The Red Fief (Audio Drama) - Blackshields: The Red Fief (Audio Drama): Blackshields: The Red Fief is the forty-fifth audio drama for The Horus Heresy series that was not originally released as part of an anthology or other release. Blackshields: The Red Fief was first released as an audio drama in September 2017. |
Blackshields: The Red Fief (Audio Drama) - Official Synopsis: As the forces of the Warmaster Horus close in on Terra, Endryd Haar leads his warband of Renegade Blackshields into battle once more. With his forces battered in the wake of their raid on Xana, Haar finds himself in desperate need of warriors. Answering a distress call from an old friend, Haar seeks out the tithe-world of Duat, intent on plunder. But when he discovers what is hidden there, Haar is faced with a decision that will determine his fate -- and perhaps that of Terra itself. |
Blackstone - Blackstone: Blackstone, known in High Gothic as noctilith, is a mysterious, black-hued, stone-like substance of unknown provenance that possesses the ability under certain conditions to outright nullify the psychic energies of the Immaterium or to absorb them and unleash them with spectacular force.Though relatively rare, it is found in concentrations on certain worlds across the galaxy, particularly those planets that are Tomb Worlds of the ancient Necron Empire.Blackstone was used by the Necrons during the War in Heaven to construct special, pylon-like devices on various worlds across the galaxy that were capable of creating tetrahedral regions of space-time immune to incursions from the Immaterium.Blackstone's true purpose and properties remained unknown throughout Imperial history, and only at the close of the 41st Millennium did its true import become clear. Perhaps, if the tech-priests of Mars had come to understand its significance earlier, the opening of the Great Rift could have been prevented, and the galaxy kept from plunging further toward utter calamity.Blackstone is mined from a smooth dark rock, similar to obsidian or onyx in appearance. It registers all manner of pecularities when surveyed by Omnispex or prognost wave, and has baffled every cryptogeologist and terrastitian who has examined it.The substance is found only on certain mineral-rich planets across the galaxy, though a close correlation has been found between worlds settled by the original Mechanicum -- the forerunners of the Adeptus Mechanicus -- and the "Quarry Worlds" upon which the mineral is present.Some of these worlds have clearly been mined specifically for this subtance, or possibly had large monoliths of blackstone conveyed to their surface and installed there by forgotten agents from before the dawn of recorded Human history.Since the opening of the Great Rift in the Era Indomitus, the tech-priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus have become aware of the true properties of blackstone and have sought to mine it in large quantities wherever possible. Under the direction of Archmagos Dominus Belisarius Cawl, the Mechanicus has begun blackstone mining operations across the galaxy.This is part of an attempt to gather enough of the material for the Imperium of Man to construct its own zones of realspace stability to contain the Chaos incursions facilitated by the Great Rift. However, this quest has brought the Mechanicus into conflict with the various dynasties of the Necrons, who are also seeking to gather the resource as they did in ancient days. Like Mankind, the Necrons intend to use the blackstone to close the Great Rift and retake the galaxy for their own. |
Blackstone - The Competition for Blackstone: The Adeptus Mechanicus has always sought to jealously protect those worlds that make up their empire within an empire. During the founding era of the Imperium, when the conquerors and lords of the Imperium sought to claim the largest and most strategically vital planets from those that could support life, the Tech-priests of the Machine God sought worlds with the most bounteous resources, such as mineral wealth, ore-rich substrates, geothermic power, or even rarer and more exotic assets.Unfortunately, they were not the first to recognise the potential of those worlds, and there were in many instances evidence of prior mining of blackstone there tens of millions of Terran years before.Cadia was perhaps the most famous of the worlds where blackstone was found in great measure. Before its fall, that Fortress World's wastelands were dotted with hundreds of "pylons" that had their lower portions buried below ground and their upper reaches jutting skywards.The Cadian Pylons had strange circular holes and other smooth apertures that led to a complex maze of tunnels within them. The wind of the Cadian moorlands whistled eerily through them, producing strange harmonics that could set one on edge. Whenever the Adeptus Mechanicus sent tiny probe-servitors to investigate and chart these tunnels, they would emerge disoriented and suffering from myriad glitches -- if they returned at all.Just as the forces of Chaos were preparing to invade the Cadian Gate in greater numbers than ever before in 999.M41, Archmagos Dominus Belisarius Cawl of Mars theorised that there was a connection between the presence of these structures and the targets of Abaddon the Despoiler's strikes against the Imperium, the so-called Black Crusades that had scarred Human history across ten Terran millennia.It was his belief that some inherent property of blackstone, when treated and shaped correctly, reinforced the structure of the material universe, metaphysically "bracing" it against the psychic energies of Chaos and the Warp.Blackstone structures could hold back the aetheric energy that spilled through whenever an untrained psyker was possessed by a Daemon, or that poured out in great system-wrecking cataclysms from the Warp Storms that plagued the stars.Cawl's leap of logic was a turning point for the agenda of the Martian Tech-priests. His discovery was profound -- blackstone structures could prevent empyric manifestations before they even occurred, or in other words, hold back the tides of daemons that sought to tear through the fabric of reality.Since that day, the Archmagos has obsessively sent his agents across the galaxy to retrieve as many noctilith structures as possible. First amongst them was Magos Dominus Dentrex Ologostion. His orders were to secure the material using any means necessary -- or at the very least protect it until word could reach the Martian Priesthood and it could be harvested by the proper processes.But there is another force in the galaxy that seeks to make use of this strange natural resource, working the stone and amplifying its inherent aura to the point it becomes a powerful shield against the intrusions of Chaos. The once-slumbering Necron Tomb Worlds, gradually awakening in the latter part of the 41st Millennium, are now populated with serried ranks of undying cybernetic warriors awakened by the Canoptek constructs that have long kept vigil over them.The conquests that the Necron dynasties are embarking upon are merciless and terrifyingly efficient. In every Segmentum they are scouring the life from their sovereign domain with the dispassion of an Extermination Servitor burning vermin from an orbital dockyard. These are not random attacks, but carefully-planned strikes against the foundations of the Adeptus Mechanicus' galactic realm.The Technomandrites of the ancient Necrontyr once understood how to manipulate the noctilith stone, fashioning obelisks and pylons that suppress Warp tempests and hold then back much as the Cadian Pylons once held back the Eye of Terror. Yet the Technomandrite Crypteks who pioneered this process as mortals of flesh are only now fully awakening, and many have badly damaged memory engrams -- even those relatively intact have neither the numbers nor the influence to effect works of galactic engineering.For their part, the tech-priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus do not yet fully understand how to utilise blackstone, but they do have an unparalleled mastery over the macro-industry of the Imperium of Man. With the teeming flock of the Machine God harnessed by the same masters, the mining and distribution of noctilith pylons and obelisks could be achieved on a galaxy-wide scale.Together, the two forces could perhaps restore order and logic to realspace. Yet though the Forge Worlds and the Necron dynasties have found common cause before, they are so consumed by their own sense of superiority that they would never truly work in concert. Instead the one concentrates on bringing about the demise of the other by the most violent and final methods that they can conceive.The arcane geniuses of the Necrons now lead phalanxes of metal warriors and insectoid Canoptek constructs against the scions of the Machine God on a hundred mineral-rich worlds. Soon after Magos Ologostion made his first play to gain blackstone upon the world of Amontep II, the Technomandrite Cryptek Agdahax of the Sautekh Dynasty rose to stop him.In the Necron Cryptek's eyes, Humanity unwittingly seeks the most valuable of resources in the galaxy, and it is high time such mortals learned their place in the true order of things. |
Blackstone - Battle of Vorlese: The forces of Chaos also recognised the potential power of blackstone and arcane weapons derived from it. The Despoiler's seizure of Cadia during the 13th Black Crusade in 999.M41 had finally destroyed its great blackstone pylons, allowing the Eye of Terror to spill at last from its boundaries and infect half the galaxy as part of the Great Rift.Only splinters of those original sentinels were recovered, mere fragments of the occult nexus of pylons that had once existed to contain the tides of the Warp and create what had been the Cadian Gate.Those fragments of the original pylons were taken from the remains of Cadia by the minions of Chaos, tempered on dark forges, bound by fell sorceries and augmented in blood-soaked rites until their original power was twisted such that they became weapons capable of disrupting the flow of the Immaterium.Just one such shard was now capable of extinguishing the Warp's touch from an entire star system. And if that system lay at the centre of a Warp conduit, a passageway through the Warp used by starships for easy navigation, then the conduit was lost too. This ability allowed the servants of the Dark Gods to use these shards to direct the flows of voidship traffic through the Warp to where and when they desired.This was a potent new weapon in the post-Great Rift era, and was used to try and prevent Roboute Guilliman's Indomitus Crusade from reaching the wider galaxy from Terra by blocking all the Warp egress roots from the Imperial Throneworld. Only the actions of the Sisters of Silence and the Adeptus Custodes, soon to be free to go out into the galaxy once more, prevented the jaws of this trap from being sprung at the Battle of Vorlese. |
Blackstone - Obsidian Circlet: A dark, glassy substance was found by the Drukhari of Commorragh during raids on worlds held by both Necrons and the Adeptus Mechanicus. Within the Haemonculus covens of the undercity of Commorragh, it was not long before those ancient Drukhari discovered that this material could be used to repel daemonic entities.After more raids were launched against Necron and Adeptus Mechanicus planets, the plundered blackstone was arrayed around the ever-deepening Chasm of Woe in what became known as the "Obsidian Circlet." The Circlet helps to seal off the sunken sub-realm of the Dark City created following the eruption of daemonic legions into Commorragh from Khaine's Gate during the Dysjunction just before the birth of the Great Rift.The captives from these raids are also sent into the chasm, where their anguished deaths nourish the black souls of the Drukhari. |
Blackstone - Significance of Blackstone: Some amongst the higher orders of the tech-priests call noctilith the "Pariah Stone," believing the mineral is a physical incarnation of the Null gene that lends the Culexus Assassins and the Sisters of Silence their unsettling soulessness and potent anti-psyker abilities. Others maintain it is stone mined from within cosmic singularities, and that it originates from another dimension all together.The most abiding of the numerous theories concerning the nature of blackstone is that it somehow resonates with the psychic energies of the Immaterium and, if correctly machined, can even manipulate the raw energy of Chaos.Belisarius Cawl's Theory of Empyric Polarity posits that blackstone is not inherently possessed of Chaos energy, nor is it anathema to it. However, much like ferrite metal can be polarised to bear a magnetic charge, blackstone can be charged under the right circumstances to interact with the metaphysical energies of the Warp.The monoliths of blackstone that formed the Cadian Pylons, the obsidian slabs found inside the wreckage of the Gates of Kromarch, and the Eldritch Needles of Nemesis Tessera -- all these are thought to have been negatively charged, and hence able to hold back the the encroachment of the Warp upon their respective world's locations.The Blackstone Fortresses captured by Abaddon the Despoiler during the Gothic War are thought to be positively charged with empyric energy, and hence are extremely destructive machines of war that can discharge beams of Chaos essence if correctly weaponised by one who knows their secrets.Small wonder then that the Adeptus Mechanicus and the Crypteks of the Necron species both scour the galaxy for this material with every means at their disposal.If this theory has even a grain of truth to it, then blackstone could theoretically be used to shore up the invisible barriers between realspace and the nightmare realm of the Warp, quarantining the Cicatrix Maledictum that now cuts the galaxy in half and perhaps even sealing it forever. |
Blackstone - Blackstone Pylons: Where the agents of the Imperium have discovered worlds across the galaxy cursed with the presence of a blackstone pylon, there have been only a handful of these cyclopean structures, commonly only one.To the Imperium, each unique pylon bears a superficial resemblance to the pre-Imperial structures once found on Cadia but, since that planet's loss to the Warp in the 13th Black Crusade, any detailed comparison is now impossible.The Necrons have established a vast network of nodal and outlier star systems, even using arcane technology to force entire planets into precise alignment for their plan. The deployment of pylons on certain worlds has created a network of vast power in a non-Euclidean cryptal pattern beyond any sane comprehension.At its heart is the Xendu System, where an immense blackstone cage has been constructed to trammel its ferocious star, anchored by myriad Necron structures hanging around it in orbit.Somehow, these structures are channelling the star's power into the vast, maddening network of pylons -- a contra-immaterial nodal matrix as the Necrons' arcane architects refer to it. The pylons' purpose is to sustain and extend a field of negatively-charged, anti-empyric energies, and it was the interstice before this field that the forces of the Imperium encountered as a shimmering veil around the Pariah Nexus.The Pariah Nexus propagation is a star-spanning weapon of cosmic potency that the aeons-old minds behind its creation hope might forever end the threat of Chaos to the galaxy. That this great victory would come at the price of the soul-death of every living creature in the Milky Way, the Necrons simply view as providence.Yet not everything has so far followed the Necrons' labyrinthine plans. The Adeptus Mechanicus are already experimenting with blackstone, though their ability to use it is as yet childlike compared to the Necrons.Though the soul-dampening effects of the Pariah Nexus are limiting the Imperium's responses, Humanity is learning to harness faith and belief as a weapon to overcome the Nexus' effects. They also see something of the pylons' role in creating the anti-Immaterium field effect that stills the soul and destroys the will to live in its victims, and will stop at nothing to bring them down. |
Blackstone Fortress - Blackstone Fortress: A Blackstone Fortress, known to the Aeldari as a Talisman of Vaul, is a massive, alien-constructed starfort and Warp-based strategic weapon employed by both the Imperium of Man and the forces of Chaos during their more recent conflicts.According to some Imperial scholars, the Blackstone Fortresses were constructed and first used during the war between the Old Ones and the Necrons remembered in Aeldari legend as the War in Heaven. To capitalise on the Necrons' and their C'tan masters' vulnerability to Warp-based attacks during the War in Heaven, the fortresses were equipped with a Warp Cannon that could create a devastating rip in the fabric of realspace that would unleash an eruption of psychic energy from the Immaterium powerful enough to destroy entire star systems. This power can be linked with that of the other fortresses to create an even more powerful beam, as became clear when Abaddon the Despoiler used two of the fortresses to destroy the planet Fularis II, and three to cause the Tarantis star to go supernova during the Gothic War.The six Blackstone Fortresses were discovered early in the Imperium's history in the 33rd Millennium, scattered across the void. Seemingly ancient even at that time, the dormant structures were cyclopean in scale and utterly mysterious. No sign could be found of those who constructed them. Despite exhaustive attempts at analysis, none could determine the nature of the super-hardened, onyx-like metals from which they were constructed.The early Imperium ultimately claimed the Blackstone Fortresses for its own. Even dormant, the enormous battle stations made for exceptional deep-space naval bases. Towed into position by pilot craft, and encrusted with secondary Imperial structures, the Blackstone Fortresses became cornerstones of Imperial naval might.It was during the horrors of the Gothic War -- the twelfth of Abaddon the Despoiler's notorious Black Crusades -- that the Blackstone Fortresses were awoken and their hidden capabilities as weapons of mass destruction made manifest. None know how the Despoiler came by the fell lore required to bring the Blackstone Fortresses' systems to life, but as the Gothic War ground on, it became clear that Abaddon's primary objective was to seize as many of these titanic weapons platforms from the Imperium as he could.By the end of that tumultuous naval conflict, two of the fortresses were in the hands of the Black Legion, and at least one more had been destroyed. It was one of these legendary battle stations that was secretly given as a gift by the Despoiler to Huron Blackheart, the Chaos Lord of the Red Corsairs, in the wake of his rebellion against the Imperium during the Badab War.Such a kingly offering not only bought the loyalty of the Red Corsairs for Abaddon's great galactic endeavour to claim Terra in the 13th Black Crusade in ca. 999.M41, but also demonstrated the sheer incredible might of the Despoiler. After all, a warlord who could afford to give away even one such preeminent superweapon must be supremely confident in their own power.The Blackstone Fortresses also influenced the outcome of the most recent Black Crusade of Chaos against the Imperium. One of these massive battle stations, the Will of Eternity, was used by the Despoiler as an artificial meteor to destroy the defences of the Fortress World of Cadia in a massive kinetic strike at the height of the 13th Black Crusade. Its weapon systems had been previously disabled by the attack of the Imperial Fists' star fortress Phalanx, but Abaddon found another way to transform it into a terrible weapon of mass destruction. |
Blackstone Fortress - History: The Blackstone Fortresses were a collection of six massive and mysterious artefacts of pre-Imperial alien culture that were scattered across the Gothic Sector in the Segmentum Obscurus. Each was a vast installation whose mass was larger than even the mightiest Imperial starforts and Segmentum Fortresses.Some Imperial archaeo-historians place the construction of these ancient artefacts anywhere between 17,000 and 300,000 standard years before their discovery in the 33rd Millennium. Other Imperial scholars disagree, estimating them to be far older, dating back to the early years of sentient life in the galaxy many millions of Terran years ago.For as long as the Imperium was aware of their existence, the Blackstone Fortresses lay in a dormant state, with all but passive power systems shut down despite the best efforts to revive them. Although inactive, there was enough residual power in the fortresses' power grids to allow humans to live in them and turn them into powerful space-based, fortified hardpoints that were central to the stellar fortifications in the star systems they occupied.The Blackstone Fortresses became the foundation of the Imperial Navy's strategy and presence in the Gothic Sector. With the exception of Port Maw, each sub-sector was based upon the location of a Blackstone Fortress, which functioned as the primary naval base for the sub-sector.Although almost entirely dormant, a Blackstone Fortress was still open to exploitation by Imperial forces. The Adeptus Mechanicus linked numerous weapon systems to its alien and near-incomprehensible energy grid, opened up vast chambers to be used as attack craft launch bays and installed defence turrets over its surface. |
Blackstone Fortress - Gothic War (12th Black Crusade): Abaddon the Despoiler first learned of the existence of the Blackstone Fortresses and their potential power at some point in the 40th Millennium. Abaddon was guided by the visions of Zaraphiston to an Aeldari Crone World in the Eye of Terror.In the ruins of an ancient wraithbone city littered with skeletons, the sorcerer led the Warmaster of Chaos to a room where a tapestry of flayed skin covered the walls from floor to ceiling. Upon its surface Abaddon read a prophecy -- the Penumbra Prophecy -- that revealed the secrets of six weapons of immense power. He immediately set out to learn how to gain control of these weapons, the six Blackstone Fortresses.During the Gothic War, Abaddon was influenced by the crone Moriana, a former confidante of the Emperor Himself whose attempt to resurrect His physical form after the Horus Heresy had led her into damnation -- and who may have been a disguise of the C'tan known as the Deceiver -- to hunt down a pair of ancient alien artefacts. These devices, known as the Hand of Darkness and the Eye of Night, were present in the Gothic Sector and were capable of re-activating the massive xenos battle stations, bringing them under the Despoiler's control.Thought impregnable by the Imperial Navy, the Blackstone Fortresses were overcome by Abaddon using a previously undiscovered method of shutting down the power supply, thus rendering all the weapons and defence turrets useless. Deactivated, the Blackstone Fortresses proved defenceless against ranged attacks and vulnerable against a determined boarding action.Once under the Despoiler's control, the Blackstone Fortresses were able to shed their grafted-on Imperial equipment and glide slowly through space under their own power, using their original Warp Cannon in place of the turrets and fighter bays the Imperial Navy had built onto them as defensive measures.There is also a record of a boarding party comprised of Imperial Navy and Angels of Redemption personnel that made its way into one of the activated fortresses and described it as being like a living thing, pulsing with power.As the war progressed and Abaddon acquired three more of the fortresses, he was able to combine their Warp Cannon attacks to obliterate worlds and stars, including the use of two to destroy the planet Fularis II, and the entire Tarantis System when the combined power of three Blackstone Fortresses unleashing their Warp Cannons caused the Tarantis star to go supernova.At the end of the Gothic War, the fortresses were attacked by a vast fleet of Imperials and Aeldari over the world of Schindelgheist, and Abaddon retreated into the Eye of Terror with two activated Blackstones, while the remaining Blackstone Fortress in his possession was re-captured. When the aforementioned Imperial boarding party boarded the recaptured Blackstone Fortress, it and the remaining three in Imperial custody simultaneously disintegrated. |
Blackstone Fortress - 13th Black Crusade: The colossal Blackstone Fortresses represented a pinnacle of technology never since equalled by Mankind. Six such artefacts were discovered scattered across the Gothic Sector, and it was there that the Imperium pressed them into service.Though the Adeptus Mechanicus only unlocked a fraction of the Blackstones' potential, that fraction was more than sufficient to see them employed as naval fortifications of frightening power. During Abaddon's 12th Black Crusade, the Gothic War, four of the six Blackstones were destroyed, but not before the Imperium suffered first-hand the effects of the fortresses' innate Warp-fuelled weaponry.A single Blackstone had the power to obliterate a planet; three working in concert possessed the raw might to destroy a star. Thus perished the Taranis System, its defenders slaughtered just as surely as if by a blow from the Dark Gods themselves. The two remaining Blackstones were seized by the Despoiler and twisted to fulfill his own objectives.Indeed, surviving reports indicate that one of the Blackstones that appeared in the Cadia System during the initial phase of the 13th Black Crusade was inhabited and controlled by a daemonic presence of a magnitude far greater than anything yet encountered. Unreliable accounts state that that Blackstone Fortress was destroyed or driven off, while the Will of Eternity, the remaining Blackstone Fortress in Abaddon's hands at Cadia, was hurled down onto its surface, destroying that Fortress World and winning access to the Cadian Gate for the forces of Chaos. |
Blackstone Fortress - Terran Crusade: The Blackstone Fortress gifted by Abaddon the Despoiler to earn the support of the Red Corsairs of Huron Blackheart after the Gothic War was later used to imprison the resurrected Primarch Roboute Guilliman and his followers when they were captured by the forces of Kairos Fateweaver during the Terran Crusade.It became the site of fierce fighting between the Primarch's troops and the forces of Chaos when the Fallen Angel Cypher and the Harlequin Shadowseer Sylandri Veilwalker freed Guilliman and his remaining forces and led them into the interior of the fortress where a gate into the Webway allowed the Imperials to escape.Later, Harlequins of the Masque of the Shattered Mirage launched a surprise attack on this Blackstone Fortress, aided by a rogue faction of Craftworld Aeldari from Yme-Loc. The Aeldari sought to capture and control this ancient "Talisman of Vaul" for their own purposes. |
Blackstone Fortress - Seventh Blackstone Fortress: As mentioned above, during Abaddon's 12th Black Crusade, the Gothic War, all six known Blackstone Fortresses controlled by the Imperium were lost, with two captured by the servants of Chaos and four destroyed utterly.Both captured fortresses would prove devastating during the early engagements of the 13th Black Crusade -- one traded away by the Warmaster of Chaos to secure the services of the legendary Renegade Huron Blackheart, while the other was eventually hurled into the surface of Cadia, resulting in Warp Storms and physical devastation that utterly obliterated the planet.And for a time, that was the end of the story of the Blackstones.But the galaxy is a vast and lonely place. For every sector abuzz with life, there are countless more that are dead zones. Even as wars reach into every corner of the galaxy, great swathes still lie silent, untouched and empty.It was in one such silent sector in the galactic west that a new, Seventh Blackstone Fortress appeared. In the furthest reaches of the Segmentum Pacificus, it sits amid a graveyard of starships that stretches more than a million miles across. This latest Blackstone Fortress is a key tactical asset for any who might suborn it to their will. Even a single one of these star fortresses can turn the tide of the most apocalyptic space battles, armed with weapons of unparalleled power.The Blackstone Fortress is more than just a weapon, however, it is a cache of archeotech and artefacts from bygone ages. Relics of countless species lie abandoned in its halls -- a technological treasure trove that would prove utterly irresistible for any who seek to collect, study or leverage technology in their wars.It is for this reason that countless explorers of many different species and factions have gathered at the ramshackle void station called the Precipice. From there, they launch expeditions into the interior of the newfound Blackstone Fortress.But unlike any of the other Blackstone Fortresses found before, this citadel is not inert, but seems to act, and even react, of its own accord. What this means is one of the most puzzling aspects of this Blackstone Fortress.More mysterious still are the "hidden vaults." None can say what lies within -- but given the other secrets possessed by the fortress, the treasures inside must be priceless -- and many factions from across the galaxy have already begun to converge on the newest Blackstone in an attempt to seize its secrets. |
Blackstone Fortress - Appearance: Viewed from the top, the shape of an activated Blackstone Fortress has warped to resemble the eight-pointed Star of Chaos Undivided. |
Blackstone Fortress - Capabilities: In terms of capability and technology the Blackstone Fortresses beggared belief -- able to glide sedately through the void with no obvious means of Newtonian propulsion and seemingly able to ignore the laws of inertia, their shielding and armour several times more potent than that of the greatest battleship, while their weaponry, a vaunted Warp Cannon, harnessed Warp-based technology to unleash a beam of purest Immaterium with the power to obliterate any capital ship at extreme range in a single volley.Even more terrible, the capabilities of the Blackstone Fortresses could be combined with one another to produce more potent Warp-based effects. Two Blackstone Fortresses could strip a world of its biosphere in an eyeblink, and three could destabilise a star. At the heart of every Blackstone Fortress, as was discovered by the Primarch Roboute Guilliman during his capture and imprisonment aboard a fortress controlled by the Red Corsairs in the Maelstrom in 999.M41, was an ancient and massive portal to the Webway.The pathways it led into were huge arterial routes that even starships could navigate -- they could accommodate the Imperial war machines of the Terran Crusade with ease. The innermost chamber of a Blackstone Fortress was vast, easily a hundred Terran miles across. Both its ceiling and its floor were lost in shadow. A titanic black column rose at the chamber's centre.Out from that column, like the distorted branches of some dark arboreal deity, radiated hundreds of bridges, stairways, platforms and gantries. Countless dark doorways opened onto the Blackstone Fortress' heart, huge portals that seemed wrought for giants while the soaring bridges connecting the central column to the rest of the fortress were wide enough for Imperial Titans to cross.The Blackstone Fortresses possessed some form of innate artificial intelligence and an arcane sensor system. For instance, when danger threatened in the vicinity of a Blackstone Fortress, flashes of pale green luminescence danced along its darkened corridors, the ancient structure using this display of light to warn its denizens of the approaching danger.Though the identity of the builders of these technical marvels remains a mystery, it has been suggested by certain Imperial savants that they were constructed by the Old Ones or the Aeldari for use in their ancient war with the Necrons. Indeed they are obliquely mentioned in Aeldari Mythology as the "Talismans of Vaul," objects of great fear and revulsion.Yet the Blackstone Fortresses also exhibited advanced technology, such as void shielding and apparently inertia-less propulsion, that was very different from that used by the present-day Aeldari. The power of the Blackstone Fortresses' Warp Cannons far surpassed even that of the Aeldari, the acknowledged masters of Warp-based technology in the galaxy.Similarly, while the Blackstone Fortresses exhibit some aspects eerily similar to Necron technology in both function and appearance, they were also puzzlingly different in their use of potent Void Shields and their direct manipulation and utilisation of Warp energy, something that the Necrons' one-time C'tan masters regarded as anathema.Further detracting from this theory is the fact that there is some evidence that the manipulations of the enigmatic C'tan known as The Deceiver set the Gothic War in motion to ensure the scattering and/or destruction of these artefacts.It is also worth noting that whatever and whomever caused the destruction of four of the Blackstone Fortresses at the close of the Gothic War must have done so consciously and it was Inquisitor Lord Horst's belief that someone or something had deemed them too great a threat to continue to exist.Finally, the Blackstone Fortresses seem in most respects similar to the unspeakably ancient and mysterious Fortress Worlds of the Sabbat Worlds Sector, which are known to have been used by successive intelligent species as strategic military bases for eight million standard years in much the same way as the Blackstone Fortresses were used by the Imperium. Taken together, these facts suggest that the Blackstone Fortresses are but remnants of an ancient and technologically advanced species scattered across the galaxy.As the capabilities of the fortresses make them ideally suited to do battle with the Necrons, it is reasonable to suspect that they are yet another leftover from that primordial conflict between the Old Ones and the C'tan and their Necrontyr allies, although given the dates for construction that Imperial experts attached to them and similar structures, it is equally likely that such an apparent connection is merely illusory and their origins are not directly related to that conflict. If this is the case, it suggests the existence at some point of a vast and previously unknown empire of a very technologically-advanced species.If Imperial estimates are incorrect and the Blackstone Fortresses are in fact relics of that bygone age of conflict at the dawn of galactic history, then their most likely architects may be the Old Ones themselves, who were said to command the Warp in ways that their successors could only dream of. They may be the remnants of that species' defence against the original Necron advance during the War in Heaven. If the Aeldari myth-history of their gods is, in fact, a distortion and amalgamation of their race-memories of the Old Ones and the actions of the psychic beings which came into being through Aeldari faith, perhaps the Blackstone Fortresses are equated with the story of the 100 Swords of Vaul, the Aeldari smith god, forged for the bloody-handed god of war Khaine.This would mean that the actual weapons forged in ancient times by the Old Ones informed the subsequent myth of the Aeldari War in Heaven. |
Blackstone Fortress - Will of Eternity: The Will of Eternity was the Blackstone Fortress deployed by Abaddon the Despoiler during the final phase of the 13th Black Crusade against the Fortress World of Cadia. Destroyed by the Imperial Fists' mobile star fortress Phalanx before its Warp Cannon could be used to eliminate all life on Cadia, the Despoiler turned even the fortress' floating corpse into a weapon.Its massive remains were flung from orbit onto the surface of Cadia as an artificial meteor, its kinetic impact killing most of Cadia's remaining defenders and at last allowing the Eye of Terror to swallow the world. The geothermal stress caused by the fortress' impact ultimately caused Cadia to rip itself apart.With Cadia and its Warp-repelling blackstone pylons destroyed, the Eye of Terror began to expand across the galaxy even as Abaddon at last realised his dream of seizing the Cadian Gate for the forces of Chaos. With the first goal of the 13th Black Crusade achieved, Abaddon next turned to launching an assault upon Terra itself. |
Blackstone Fortress - Seventh Blackstone Fortress: Located in the Western Reaches region of the Segmentum Pacificus, this Seventh Blackstone Fortress was discovered shortly after the opening of the Great Rift in the Era Indomitus. The station was discovered when it began to emit strange signals following the opening of the Rift. Impossibly old, this Blackstone Fortress is surrounded by a debris field of ancient vessels spanning millions of kilometres in all directions. These wrecks orbit the fortress, which lies deep within the heart of the debris field. The wrecked starships are themselves a tempting prize for scavengers, as they contain ancient technologies and unknown weaponry.Reaching the fortress' location requires a small and highly maneuverable spacecraft. Located close to the fortress is a small void station known as Precipice, created from the hulls of ruined starships and inhabited by a ragtag population of explorers and scavengers from across the galaxy that consists of individuals drawn from many different starfaring races. An uneasy truce endures aboard Precipice, which is enforced by a small cadre of powerful and influential starship captains looking to maintain stability on the station to pursue their own interests.Precipice is the final destination for explorers before they make their assault on the Blackstone Fortress itself, and is thus home to many merchants and information providers who make their living from aiding the scavengers. From Precipice one goes into the nearest opening of the fortress which is known as the "Stygian Aperture."The interior of the fortress is a twisting labyrinth of corridors and chambers. Its halls are vast, arrayed with spire-like towers and deep chasms dropping away into rivulets of an unknown energy. The fortress is filled with mysterious technological wonders from every era of the galaxy's history and the corpses and remains of many past explorers and treasure hunters. Travel within the fortress can sometimes be achieved by the use of an internal maglev rail system. However, unlike the other six known Blackstone Fortresses, this variant reshapes its own interior regularly and thus makes consistent mapping of the labyrinth near-impossible.The fortress is fraught with a wide array of dangers, from savage Ur-Ghuls to Spindle Drones to the twisted creations of Chaos which seek to claim the fortress for their own. Thus, exploring the fortress' interior requires martial prowess or at least a suitable martial entourage. Some savants at Precipice believe that this Blackstone Fortress has traveled across space and time and collected these entities within itself, and that its unknown intelligence deliberately steers these hazards towards interlopers.Despite these dangers, many recent expeditions to explore the fortress and plunder its wonders or even finally gain control of its immense power have been attempted. Among those individuals currently on Precipice seeking their own destinies within the fortress are such notables as the Rogue Trader Janus Draik, the Navigator Agent Espern Locarno, the Ecclesiarchy Priest Taddeus the Purifier, the Aeldari Ranger Amallyn Shadowguide, the Kroot mercenary Dahyak Grekh, the ancient Man of Iron UR-025, the Chaos Lord Obsidius Mallex and the Ork Freebooter Skarburn Zapdakka. |
Blackstone Fortress - Eighth Blackstone Fortress: The Eighth Blackstone Fortress is a recently discovered Blackstone Fortress that lies within the Ultima Segmentum and is close to the territory held by the Nekthyst Dynasty of the Necrons. |
Blackstone Fortress - Ninth Blackstone Fortress: The Ninth Blackstone Fortress is another Blackstone Fortress discovered during the Era Indomitus that is located within the outer regions of the Ultima Segmentum. |
Blackstone Fortress - Theory of Empyric Polarity: The Blackstone Fortresses are believed to be composed of the mineral called blackstone, known in High Gothic as "noctilith." Some amongst the higher orders of the Tech-priests call the mineral noctilith the "Pariah Stone," believing the mineral is a physical incarnation of the Null gene that lends the Culexus Assassins and the Sisters of Silence their unsettling soulessness and potent anti-psyker abilities. Others maintain it is stone mined from within cosmic singularities, and that it originates from another dimension all together.The most abiding of the numerous theories concerning the nature of blackstone is that it somehow resonates with the psychic energies of the Immaterium and, if correctly machined, can even manipulate the raw energy of Chaos.Belisarius Cawl's Theory of Empyric Polarity posits that blackstone is not inherently possessed of Chaos energy, nor is it anathema to it. However, much like ferrite metal can be polarised to bear a magnetic charge, blackstone can be charged under the right circumstances to interact with the metaphysical energies of the Warp.The monoliths of blackstone that formed the Cadian Pylons, the obsidian slabs found inside the wreckage of the Gates of Kromarch, and the Eldritch Needles of Nemesis Tessera -- all these are thought to have been negatively charged, and hence able to hold back the the encroachment of the Warp upon their respective world's locations.The Blackstone Fortresses are thought to be positively charged with empyric energy, and hence are extremely destructive machines of war that can discharge beams of Chaos essence if correctly weaponised by one who knows their secrets. |
Blackstone Fortress - Canon Conflict: In the original 2003 version of the 13th Black Crusade, Abaddon the Despoiler used the two Blackstone Fortresses he had captured during the Gothic War against the Imperium of Man's defenders.One of these was used to attack the world of Cadia, obliterating Cadians and Chaos troops on the surface indiscriminately. This Blackstone Fortress was attacked by Aeldari and Imperial battlefleets, but both took heavy losses from the Chaos warfleet guarding the structure.The great Craftworld Aeldari Farseer Eldrad Ulthran boarded the fortress, attempting to remove the taint of Chaos and return the fortress to Aeldari control. As the fortress had been possessed by a portion of the mind of the Chaos God Slaanesh, Eldrad's body was destroyed, but his mind remained trapped within the construct.After Eldrad's assault, the fortress stopped attacking Cadia and concentrated on its own defence. It was later attacked by a Necron fleet, which was attempting to destroy the greatest weapon of their ancient enemies, the Old Ones. The Necron fleet failed in this effort and was destroyed, but it caused enough damage to the fortress that it finally retreated from Cadia and back into the Eye of Terror.There are unconfirmed reports from this time of the other Blackstone Fortress in the hands of the forces of Chaos being destroyed by similar Necron raiders. |
Blacksun Filter - Blacksun Filter: A Blacksun Filter is an advanced optical filtering suite employed by T'au military units that comprises of several unique sensors and lenses, similar in function to the Photo Visor of the Imperium.A Blacksun Filter boosts ambient light and makes certain frequencies of light visible to the wearer, magnifying a warrior's low-light vision. The filter is also designed to temporary block out extremely bright lights that could otherwise blind the user in battle. This is especially useful for Fire Warriors to avoid being blinded by their own Photon Grenades.With Blacksun Filters, target calibration systems sensors can also lock onto enemies with full efficiency and range even during night-fighting operations. This has proved to be a major advantage for T'au forces in many campaigns, where surprise night attacks can be conducted with full efficiency upon unsuspecting enemy forces.All T'au Battlesuit primary sensor clusters are fitted with Blacksun Filters as standard, and infantry helmets can also mount Blacksun Filters as part of their optical systems. Some Pathfinders have also been known to wear the filters independently, often taking the form of a set of elaborate goggles or visors.T'au skimmers and aircraft can also be upgraded with Blacksun Filter systems as necessary to meet the particular tactical demands of their intended mission. |
Blacksword Missile - Blacksword Missile: The Blacksword Missile is a deadly type of ordnance utilised exclusively by the Dark Angels Space Marine Chapter's elite 2nd Company, known as the Ravenwing and the Successor Chapters of the Unforgiven.The Blacksword Missile is designed to fit under the wings of the deadly aircraft known as the Nephilim Jetfighter. These missiles take their name from the ominous black contrails they leave in their wake, and are used primarily to bring down enemy flyers and light ground vehicles. |
Blade Champion - Blade Champion: A Blade Champion is a fearsome warrior-hero of the Adeptus Custodes dedicated to melee combat, revered as a paragon of martial skill even among the vaunted ranks of those transhuman champions. |
Blade Champion - Role: The Adeptus Custodes are the guardians of the God-Emperor Himself, each a magnificent warrior with martial skills renowned across the Imperium and rightly feared by their enemies. To join the ranks of the Blade Champions is an honour beyond measure -- one earned by defeating the mightiest foes in battle time and again.In recognition of their great deeds, the names of every Blade Champion are etched within the Tome Eternal, which sits in the Emperor's own Throne Room.Within the ranks of a Custodes Shield Host, a venerable Shield-Captain will often be joined by a number of senior warriors -- such as Blade Champions -- who act as his companions and who can also command forces in their own right. Indeed, Blade Champions often accrue unofficial bands of warriors from within the Custodes and the Sisters of Silence, leading them into combat.In battle, a Blade Champion is a living weapon in the Emperor's hand. His role is to identify the greatest battlefield threat -- be that a mighty leader, a host of killers or a deadly war engine -- then to employ his archeotech blades, known as Vaultswords, and specialised martial fighting styles to ensure their swift and absolute destruction. |
Blade Champion - Martial Ka'tahs: Unlike other members of the Adeptus Custodes, Blade Champions don't take part in the Blood Games that constantly test the matchless defences of the Imperial Palace -- their duty is to train relentlessly to perfect their skills as a warrior. The old adage that the best defence is a good offence is exemplified by the Blade Champions, for they protect the Master of Mankind through their ability to defeat any threat, no matter what form it takes.Once a Custodian ascends to the vaunted rank of Blade Champion, he will spend his years perfecting the Martial Ka'tahs of the Custodes -- their ancient systems of melee martial arts -- in the Colosseia Auris within the Imperial Palace.The Adeptus Custodes have developed many thousands of different martial ka'tahs -- unique fighting stances, martial arts and battlefield techniques. These they have evolved over millennia using ancient lore, paintings and statuary, as well as their experiences in war against all manner of Human and xenos peoples. The Custodes have developed many other ka'tahs in the same manner, such as the Politik, Oratorial and Philosophik ka'tahs, all of which have many hundreds of unique disciplines and styles within them.Some of these potent fighting styles are utilised only by the Blade Champions' order, making them capable of eliminating countless enemies with their deadly Vaultswords.Behemor - This ka'tah's clinical strikes prevent even the toughest hide or armored hull from withstanding the Blade Champions' blows.Calistus - Calistus is the art of keeping up relentless fire while advancing against the enemy.Conservi - Conservai emphasises seeing the bigger strategic picture over and above the slaughter of enemies.Dacatarai - This aggressive fighting style has been adapted by the Custodes to deal with hordes of foes who vastly outnumber them.DecapitasGoliatHurricanis - The ka'tah of Hurricanis lets the Blade Champions carve their way through enemy ranks in a blur of blade and blood.Kaptaris - Kaptaris is optimised to trap enemy units in close combat with the Custodes, where the elite warriors can eliminate them.Rendax - Masters of Rendax are superlative monster and war machine hunters.Salvus - Masters of Salvus are preternaturally skilled marksmen with any form of ranged weaponry.VanquisVictus - The execution techniques of the ka'tah of Victus have been used by Blade Champions to claim the lives of countless tyrants and warlords. |
Blade Champion - Notable Blade Champions: Aristothes Carvellan - Carvellan is a Blade Champion whose prodigious swordsmanship puts even his fellow Custodes to shame. He is currently leading a Custodes strike force against a vast Genestealer Cult that is active beneath the Imperial Palace, seeking to capture their Patriarch alive.Hayani Rimush - Rimush is a famed Blade Champion who killed so many xenos Hrud during a single battle that he was left standing upon a mound of their corpses over a hundred metres tall. It is also said that no Blade Champion before or since has demonstrated such perfection in the Martial Ka'tah of Rendax.Kambyses - A Blade Champion of the Custodians who often trained in the Colosseia Auris of the Imperial Palace and admired the depictions of the other great members of his order.Sabium Karindas - Karindas was a true master of the Martial Ka'tah of Decapitus. He felled the Iron Warriors warlord Kraabas Puzar.Nabonideion Seleukis - Seleukis was known among the Adeptus Custodes as the "Breaker of Beasts." The way he had combined the Goliat's third sequence, Conservi in Magnos form and pure Vanquis fighting movements was legendary among other Custodians. This great champion was depicted in the Colosseia Auris of the Imperial Palace standing on the back of a Tyranid Hierodule, driving his longsword into the back of its neck as it writhed and squirmed in a failed attempt to throw him off. |
Blade Champion - Wargear: Custodian ArmourVaultsword - A Vaultsword is a type of archeotech power sword that is used by the elite Blade Champions of the Adeptus Custodes. They can be wielded either as single greatswords, known as "Klaimors," or paired with a slightly smaller "Nemis," depending on what the fighting style of the Blade Champion's chosen Martial Ka'tah requires. |
Blade Encarmine - Blade Encarmine: The Blade Encarmine is a relic Power Sword of the Blood Angels Chapter of Space Marines that was once wielded by the Blood Angels Primarch Sanguinius during the Great Crusade and the Horus Heresy.Following the death of Sanguinius at the Siege of Terra, it was handed down to the Blood Angels' first post-Second Founding Chapter Master, Belarius, who received it from the hands of the primarch himself. The blade's powers are said to only be available to those who possess the genetic inheritance of Sanguinius. |
Blade Encarmine - History: Alongside the Spear of Telesto, Sanguinius wielded the Blade Encarmine as his primary weapon throughout his life, and used the blade in combats with the Bloodthirster Ka'Bandha, the Keeper of Secrets Kyriss and the Daemon of Chaos Undivided Madail.At some time in the 41st Millennium, the relic was lost to the Ork Warlord Garshul the Destroyer during a battle with a Blood Angels force under the command of Captain Leonatos. Leonatos was exiled from the Chapter by Commander Dante himself until he recovered the lost relic blade.In his quest to recover the Blade Encarmine, Leonatos and his group of fellow exiles tracked down the Ork warlord's fleet, only to discover the warlord himself had become a host for a Daemon of Tzeentch. Following the Daemon's Traitor Marine allies into the Eye of Terror, Leonatos once again searched for the sword across a Daemon World. He eventually recovered the blade, but at the cost of his own soul.The sword was returned to Baal by the two remaining Blood Angels exiles, who refused to rejoin their brothers. Instead, they themselves undertook a quest to rescue their commander from servitude to Tzeentch. |
Blade of Caliban - Blade of Caliban: A Blade of Caliban is an archaic sword, often but not always a Power Sword, commonly utilised by the Dark Angels Space Marine Chapter's elite Company Champions. Blades of Caliban are relics of the Chapter, and each has its own honourable heritage tracing back to the time of the Great Crusade when the I Legion rediscovered its Primarch, Lion El'Jonson, upon the now lost Death World of Caliban.Only the Champions of each company of the Dark Angels and their Unforgiven Successor Chapters, having performed a heroic and faultless duty, earn the right to wield one of these relic blades. |
Blade of Caliban - Sources: Codex: Dark Angels (6th Edition), pp. 33, 47, 62, 82 |
Blade of Perdition - Blade of Perdition: A Blade of Perdition was a master-crafted, two-handed Power Sword wielded by the elite Astartes units of the Blood Angels Legion during the Great Crusade and Horus Heresy eras.It generated a unique form of matter disruptor power field that was known as "Deathfire" that did more damage to its target than that of standard pattern Power Weapons. |
Blade of the Laer - Blade of the Laer: The Blade of the Laer, known also as the Silver Blade of Laer, was a Chaos Daemon Weapon recovered by Fulgrim, primarch of the Emperor's Children Legion, in the aftermath of the Imperial xenocide campaign known as the Cleansing of Laeran during the latter years of the Great Crusade.The Chaos Champion of Slaanesh, Lucius the Eternal, is the current wielder of this relic weapon from that bygone era. Millennia ago, following the Drop Site Massacre on Istvaan V, the Greater Daemon of Slaanesh who briefly possessed the body of the primarch at that time presented the Daemonsword Fulgrim had recovered from the homeworld of the serpentine xenos known as the Laer to Lucius as a sign of Slaanesh's favour.This alien, single-edged blade once contained the captured essence of the daemon that possessed Fulgrim, but lost much of its power once the daemon was freed from imprisonment within the sword to inhabit the unfortunate primarch's body for a short time.Now the blade is an ordinary power sword of an exquisitely curved, single-edged design, but in Lucius' hands it remains as lethal as any blade that has ever been forged. |
Blade of the Laer - Fulgrim's Fall: Fulgrim, Primarch of the Emperor's Children Space Marine Legion, was one of the first of his kind to fall from the Emperor's grace on the Xenos World named Laeran, officially designated as Twenty-Eight-Three, being the third world the 28th Expeditionary Fleet had brought into Imperial Compliance. Unbeknownst to the IIIrd Legion, the serpentine Laer species were corrupted xenos worshippers of the Chaos God of Pleasure, Slaanesh. Though the resource-rich Ocean World of Laeran would be of immeasurable value to the Great Crusade of the Emperor, its alien inhabitants did not wish to share what blind fortune had blessed them with. They had refused to see the manifest destiny that guided Mankind through the stars and had made it abundantly clear that they held the Imperium in nothing but contempt. The III Legion's advance had been rebuffed with violence, and honour demanded that they answer in kind.Fulgrim's 28th Expeditionary Fleet of the Great Crusade conquered Laeran for the Imperium, exterminating its hostile native reptilian species, the Laer. Laeran was a water world, its continents having sunk beneath its oceans' waves centuries before when all of its ice caps and glaciers melted. The oceanic world was home to a native sentient species known as the Laer who were reptilian and serpentine in form but also engaged in extensive genetic engineering to perfect their species, creating a multitude of different castes who were genetically designed to best serve their intended function in Laer society. Having no land area, the Laer, whose technology equalled or even exceeded that of the Imperium in certain areas, had moved their entire society onto hundreds of floating coral islands that circled a central nexus in the planet's atmosphere. Each coral island was held aloft by an anti-gravity generator.What Fulgrim and his Emperor's Children Legion did not know was that the Laer were also an entire civilisation that had been corrupted by Slaanesh, the Chaos God of Pleasure and Pain. The central nexus point that all of their coral islands orbited was actually a massive temple dedicated to the Prince of Pleasure at the heart of which lay a potent Chaos artefact, a beautifully crafted, single-edged Daemonblade, that served as the physical vessel for a Greater Daemon of the Prince of Chaos. The Laer evinced all the signs of what later generations of the Imperium would recognise as Slaaneshi corruption, including a need for constant extreme sensory inputs, such as riotous colours and constant sound, and the deriving of pleasure from only the most extreme of sensations, including their own deaths. Completely unaware of the real dangers he and his Astartes Legion faced on the Chaos-corrupted world, Fulgrim ordered the Emperor's Children and the other forces of the 28th Expeditionary Fleet to assault the planet and conquer it for the Imperium within a single Terran month, completely eradicating the Laer species in the process. The Council of Terra had decided that the subjugation of the Laer would cost too many Imperial lives and would take too long. Some estimates indicated that an attempted Imperial Compliance would take as long as ten standard years. There had even been talk of making Laeran a protectorate of the Imperium with its alien population intact. Primarch Fulgrim would not countenance such talk, for by refusing the Emperor's beneficence, the Laer had effectively sealed their doom.During the final slaughter of that serpentine xenos race, Fulgrim and his Astartes discovered the great temple dedicated to Slaanesh that lay on the central floating coral island of Laeran. The Imperium, ignorant of the existence of the Chaos Powers at this time and holding to the extreme rationalism and atheism of the Imperial Truth, did not realise the significance of such a find or what they had really discovered. The expedition led by Fulgrim began to be unwittingly corrupted by the temple's potent and malign influence. After defeating the temple's fanatical Laer defenders, Fulgrim discovered what the Laer were so fiercely protecting -- at the centre of the chamber of the unholy temple was a circular block of veined black stone, and embedded within was a tall silver sword with a gently-curved blade and a crude amethyst gem set in the pommel. This sword was not only a potent Slaaneshi artefact but also the physical vessel of a Greater Daemon of Slaanesh.Once Fulgrim had claimed the blade as his own, the daemon within it began whispering in his mind and corrupting his soul towards the service of Slaanesh. He began to wield the daemonblade more often than his prior weapon, the great sword Fireblade that had been forged for him on Terra by his fellow Primarch and most favoured brother, Ferrus Manus. Thinking the whispers in his mind was only his own subconscious speaking to him, Fulgrim began listening to what it offered. Eventually, he discovered these were actually the whispers of the daemon that existed within the blade. After a lot of persuasion from his brother Horus, himself already corrupted by the Ruinous Powers after his injury on the moon of Davin, Fulgrim gave himself over to Chaos, and found his particular patron in the Prince of Pleasure, who offered the Primarch a route to the ultimate perfection he so craved for himself and his Astartes, free of all morality and dependent upon the pursuit of ultimate self-obsession. |
Blade of the Laer - The Horus Heresy: The great dream and ideals of the Great Crusade died when the Warmaster Horus, Primarch of the Sons of Horus and most favoured son of the Emperor, was corrupted by the corrupting influence of the Ruinous Powers. He revealed his perfidy during the treacherous military campaign on the world of Istvaan III, that served both to amass those forces loyal to him without suspicion, and also cull those elements within the ranks of the Traitor Legions whose loyalties he suspected as remaining true to the Emperor of Mankind. After the news of the Istvaan III Atrocity was brought to the Emperor of Mankind by the Loyalists aboard the Death Guard Frigate Eisenstein, He ordered the combined forces of seven Space Marine Legions to assault the positions of Horus and his Traitor Legions in the Istvaan System. During that assault on the world of Istvaan V, three Loyalist Astartes Legions -- the Iron Hands, the Salamanders and the Raven Guard -- were betrayed by the 4 other Legions of the Loyalist second wave -- the Alpha Legion, Night Lords, Iron Warriors, and a large contingent of Word Bearers -- who they had believed were loyal to the Emperor of Mankind, but in fact had already betrayed the Imperium and secretly turned to the service of the rebellious Warmaster Horus and Chaos. As the Loyalists retreated back towards what they believed were friendly lines, the hidden Traitors revealed their allegiance by opening fire upon the Loyalists, catching them between a Traitor hammer and anvil and nearly destroying all three Loyalist Legions.During the height of this conflict, the daemon-corrupted Fulgrim was confronted by the enraged Iron Hands' Primarch Ferrus Manus. Ferrus Manus turned to face Fulgrim, his teeth bared with the volcanic fury of his homeworld. The two Primarchs leapt at one anther, Ferrus wielding the sword Fireblade and Fulgrim holding the warhammer Forgebreaker. Their weapons had been forged in brotherhood, but were now wielded in vengeance, meeting in a blazing plume of energy. The two Primarchs traded blows with their monstrously powerful weapons, Ferrus Manus wielded his flaming blade in fiery slashes, his every blow defeated by the ebony hafted warhammer he had borne in countless campaigns and which Fulgrim had stolen from him they day the Emperor's Children Primarch had sought to turn his brother unsuccessfully toward the service of Horus. Both warriors fought with the hatred only brothers divided could muster, their armour dented, torn and blackened by their fury.The two Primarchs traded terrible blows, wounding one another deeply during their fierce struggle. As Ferrus pushed himself to his feet and staggered towards the wounded Fulgrim, he cried out as he brought the flaming blade towards his brother's neck. But Fulgrim lashed out as he drew the single-edged, daemonically-possessed sword he had taken from the Laer temple and blocked the descending weapon. With the power of Chaos streaming from the blade, diabolical strength flooded Fulgrim's limbs as he pushed against the power of Ferrus Manus, feeling his brother's surprise at his resistance. Fulgrim managed to surge to his feet and lashed out, his silver blade biting deep into the breastplate of Ferrus' armour, and the Primarch of the Iron Hands cried out, falling to his knees once again. Fireblade slid from his grasp as he gasped in fierce agony. As Fulgrim raised the silver sword in preparation of delivering the deathblow to Ferrus Manus, he found that he did not possess the fortitude to deliver the killing blow. In an instant he saw what he had become and what monstrous betrayal he had allowed himself to be party to. He knew in that eternal moment that he had made a terrible mistake in drawing the sword from the Temple of the Laer, and he fought to release the damnable blade that had brought him so low.His grip was locked onto the weapon and even as he recognised how far he had fallen, he knew that he had come too far to stop, the realisation coupled with the knowledge that everything he had striven for had been a lie. As though moving in slow motion, Fulgrim saw Ferrus Manus reaching for his fallen sword, his fingers closing around the wire-wound grip, the flames leaping once more to the blade at its creator's touch. Fulgrim's blade seemed to move with a life of its own as he swung the blade of his own volition. Fulgrim tried desperately to pull the blow, but his muscles were no longer his own to control. The daemonic blade sliced through the genetically-enhanced flesh and bone of one of the Emperor's sons. The Iron Hands' Primarch fell to the ground, his head decapitated. Ferrus Manus was dead by his brother's own hand. And in that moment of maximum horror and terrible weakness, the daemon within the silver blade seized control of Fulgrim's body, relegating the corrupted Primarch's soul to a shadowed corner of his own mind.After the events of Istvaan V played out to their bloody, inevitable conclusion, the Astartes of the IIIrd Legion had no idea that their beloved leader was clawing ineffectually at the bondage of his own mind where he now found himself a prisoner. Only Lucius, Captain of the 13th Company, had appeared to realise that something was amiss with Fulgrim, but even he had said nothing. The Daemon-Fulgrim sensed the burgeoning Warp touch upon the swordsman and had presented him with the silver daemonblade within which the Laer had originally bound a fragment of the daemon's essence, as he now wielded the far more potent Kinebrach Anathame, a gift from Horus. Though the Blade of the Laer was now bereft of its animating daemonic spirit, there was still power within the Chaos blade, power that would strengthen Lucius in the years of death to come. |
Blade of the Laer - Sources: The Horus Heresy - Book One: Betrayal, by Alan Bligh, pg. 259Warlords of the Dark Millennium: Lucius the Eternal (Digital Edition), pp. 24-25Fulgrim (Novel) by Graham McNeillThe Primarchs (Anthology) edited by Christian Dunn, "The Reflection Crack'd" by Graham McNeillAngel Exterminatus (Novel) by Graham McNeill |
Bladed Cog - Bladed Cog: The Bladed Cog is a Genestealer Cult that began on the oppressed Imperial world of Feinminster Gamma after it came under the rule of elements of the Adeptus Mechanicus.The Cult of the Bladed Cog is born as much of metal as it is of raw Human stock, and is further augmented by the extra-galactic anatomies of the Tyranids. This great blend of Human flesh, xenos beast and war machine is a deadly threat to its Adeptus Mechanicus hosts.if every world within the Imperium can be viewed as a single component within a greater machine, then the Bladed Cog seek to weaponise those components one at a time, the better to destroy the entire edifice. Their masters leash iron and flesh alike to the cause, and their cybernetically-enhanced broods are as resilient as they are deadly.The Cult of the Bladed Cog proliferates amongst the disaffected labourers and brainwashed defence maniples of the Imperium's many Forge Worlds. In perverting the technological marvels of the Omnissiah, they not only gain access to a ready flow of esoteric weapons of war, but also the means by which to pursue their ultimate quest. The Bladed Cog seek to fashion the ultimate warrior-hybrid of brood-cursed flesh and engineered metal and care not how many of the luckless faithful must be mangled and slain to achieve their insane ends. |
Bladed Cog - History: Feinminster Gamma was once a humble Imperial planet, its people often referring to it as "a cog in the great machine." Since its oppressed masses embraced new rulers from beyond the stars, that mantra has been abandoned, and the metaphorical cog turned into a weapon. Feinminster Gamma is no longer an underappreciated component of a galaxy-spanning stellar empire, but instead the central hub of a new order -- one devoted to slaughter and destruction in the name of an uncaring xenos species.In the 41st Millennium, the macroclade army of Tech-priest Dominus Ovid Thrensiom -- who would become known as the "Great Miser" -- had arrived on Feinminster Gamma in force. To facilitate their mech-aquisitive crusade across the stars, and to refuel the Questor Mechanicus Knights that accompanied them, they sought resupply on a grand scale.Yet the planet, despite their Tech-priests' assumptions, proved to have a remarkably low energy yield -- since the opening of a major Warp storm in the neighbouring Vakadan System, many of Feinminster Gamma's meagre generatoriums had been running on emergency protocols simply to keep artificial lighting shining bright. The populace reasoned that if the baleful light of the empyric tempest was eclipsed by conventional lumen globes closer to home, none would stare too long at that celestial phenomenon, and hence countless citizens would be spared from madness and despair.When Ovid Thrensiom found the paltry generatorium districts struggling even to keep the cities lit around the clock, his hopes of securing a forward base deeper into space were dashed. In consultation with his Fulgurite advisors, Thrensiom decided to take a rich harvest of bio-electricity from the planet's living population instead. The techno-census that followed, ostensibly levelled to catalogue those who had bionic enhancement and those who did not, instead saw tens of thousands of citizens leaving the halls of the Adeptus Mechanicus as stumbling, near-comatose husks.Civil unrest fomented slowly, but bubbled to the surface as a powerful eruption that could not be denied. Using industrial tools, improvised weaponry and rudimentary guns purchased on the shadow markets, the slave workers of Feinminster Gamma rose up against the agents of the Cult Mechanicus who had sought to bleed them dry. They were hopelessly outmatched.Extermination servitor details and Skitarii macroclades were sent to eradicate the worst of the slave revolts, though in his insatiable greed for more energy, Thrensiom spared the lives of as many people as he could -- and hence let the seeds of a new rebellion grow amidst the ashes. For a while, the Adeptus Mechanicus regained control, but the atmosphere of oppression and paranoia that resulted was fertile ground for the spread of an underground religion.When in the midst of this political turmoil a Purestrain Genestealer was unwittingly borne to the planet's surface by the cargo freighter Redspark, a widespread cult of deliverance was soon to follow. The xenoform was seen as proof that there were other cultures, and even other intelligent species, beyond the clouds that were surely less cruel and tyrannical than the Adeptus Mechanicus. The crew of the Redspark were adamant that salvation could be found in the worship of their unusual cargo.Slowly at first, but with gathering speed, whispers of a "New Deliverance" movement spread throughout the populace. No longer would the cultists be content to be part of the same heartless and unceasing machine as their rulers -- instead, they would become a blade. The code-brands and electoos with which the planet's Tech-priest overseers had marked their citizen workers were in many cases altered in illicit inker-dens to jibe with the new imagery of the emergent cult.The Omnissiah's sacred Cog Mechanicum was adapted to better resemble the jag-spined emblem with which the creed marked out its faithful members. Slogan tattoos became common, worn across the collarbone or spine, each bearing a message that a believer in the Martian creed would consider shocking and blasphemous in the extreme. Every solar hour, the forge temples of Feinminster produced a new clutch of battle tanks and Servitor-pattern transports -- these too were taken by the cult and daubed with its rebellious insignia.The common populace were not the only ones to fall under the spell of the Cult of the Bladed Cog. Though it took the mental onslaught of the Genestealer Patriarch itself to achieve it, many Skitarii were brought into the embrace of the cult. Their electro-spoor signatures and noospheric auras gained them entry into many areas that should have been forbidden, and allowed the cult to spread unchecked.With these cyborg inductees gradually corrupting the brotherhood of their own clades, the seeds of the populace's grim salvation were sown. The day of ascension was triggered only when every parameter, run through exhaustive simulations by the former Skitarii Alpha who acted as the cult's Nexos, pointed towards victory. With mathematical precision, Thrensiom's electrophagic regime was overthrown, the Tech-priest himself slain by a Sanctus' biomutative bullet so the cult's nemesis could know the terrible glory of unbound flesh before he died.On that day the broodkin of the Bladed Cog swapped one set of cruel masters for another -- though they are yet to learn that their new overlords ultimately answer to a force that is infinitely worse than that of their former rulers.Where the Cult Mechanicus seeks to unite flesh with metal -- and in some cases, replace one with the other -- the Cult of the Bladed Cog seeks to blend the stuff of the alien with that of the machine. Cyborgised bodies are common in the varied ranks of the Bladed Cog, their tortured anatomies as much metal, wire and hydraulics as they are alien chitin and fused Human bone. The bionic creatures that form the vanguard of each of the cult's uprisings are blasphemies against the Omnissiah so shocking that they can stop one of Mars' faithful Tech-Adepts or Battle Servitors in their tracks.To truly blend one with another is an impossible goal, for the Tyranid is as alien and distant from the Holy Machine as it is possible to be. Yet that does not stop the Bladed Cog from pursuing their crazed agenda with the fervour of fanatics possessed of a new obsession. They depict their deity, the "Clawed Omnissiah," as having robotic pincers alongside the primary talon-limbs that would be familiar to any Ordo Xenos Inquisitor or Deathwatch Veteran.Some go so far as to join their armaments with their own bodies, undergoing painful cybernetic implant surgery until they become one with their weaponry. Others begin life as dull-witted servitors, given new direction by the hypnotic gaze of a Magus -- or even the Genestealer Patriarch itself -- until their single-mindedness is turned towards destruction in the name of the cult.Still others focus on defiling the mechanical bounty of the Omnissiah by employing it in the cult's name. The Machine Spirits of battle tanks and artillery platforms are forced into unwilling compliance, while blasphemous scavenging and wanton innovation see the machinery of oppression converted into deadly explosives and industrial-scale weapons to be borne to battle against the oppressive Cult Mechanicus. |
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