text
stringlengths 27
208k
|
|---|
Damnos - Damnos: Damnos, an Imperial Mining World located in the Ultima Segmentum, was first colonised by the Humans of the Imperium of Man during the Great Crusade, though in fact it was actually already an ancient Necron Tomb World.The Necron presence was first discovered in the north by the Imperials after their awakening in 973.M41, whilst the city of Mandos Prime's geothermic fusion stations were under repair following severe seismic activity. The Adeptus Mechanicus Tech-priests rapidly claimed the right to the xenos artefacts and extradited several specimens to the nearby Forge World of Goethe Majoris for closer study.Soon after, under waves of atmospheric interference that clouded the entire northern hemisphere of the planet, the Necrons emerged from their tombs.The planet went on alert, but the threat was incomprehensible, no warning had been received from the fallen hive cities, and any reconnaissance units deployed never returned. As more hive cities toppled to the unknown invaders, word of the assault finally got through to the planetary governor, who deployed every regiment under his command.Within six solar months almost all of Damnos' vast manufactorum hive cities were in ruins, and the planetary capital of Kellenport finally fell to the Necron forces in 974.M41.The 2nd Company of the Ultramarines answered the planet's distress call in 974.M41 and helped to evacuate the remaining Imperial survivors before the Imperial Navy unleashed an Exterminatus-level orbital bombardment upon the planet's surface at the request of the Adeptus Astartes that was erroneously believed to have eliminated the Necron threat.This campaign became known as the Damnos Incident in Imperial records.In the wake of the failure to clear Damnos of its Necron presence, the Ultramarines 2nd Company under the command of Captain Cato Sicarius returned to the world in 999.M41 to eliminate the xenos once and for all. This campaign, the Second Battle of Damnos, proved successful after the Imperial forces successfully destroyed a Tesseract Vault containing a C'tan Shard of Yggra'nya, the World Shaper. The liberated but enraged star god proceeded to assault Imperial and Necron forces alike until Cato Sicarius banished the entity into the Warp using a Vortex Grenade.In the wake of the Second Battle of Damnos, the battered world's remaining Necron tomb complexes were cleared of all remaining resistance by the Ultramarines and allied Astra Militarum troops. The citizens of Damnos whom Sicarius had rescued solar decades before were restored to the world and allowed to begin to redevelop it into a productive Imperial colony.Unfortunately, at some time in the Era Indomitus, the world was assaulted by the Necrons of the Szarekhan Dynasty who were determined to avenge the Necrons' prior loss to Humanity. Though the Ultramarines were heavily engaged in other conflicts of that era, they still managed to send a strike force comprised of a small number of Ultramarines reinforcements aided by regiments of the Ultramar Auxilia. These forces initiated what was later called the Third War for Damnos. They were joined by Astartes reinforcements sent by the Iron Hounds, Brazen Consuls and Libators Successor Chapters of the Ultramarines and further warriors from the Salamanders and White Scars who arrived in the system once battle had already been joined.
|
Damnos - Damnos Incident: The Necron presence was first discovered in the north of Damnos' landmass by the Imperials after their tomb complex inexplicably began its awakening protocols in 973.M41, whilst the hive city of Mandos Prime's geothermic fusion stations were undergoinf repair as a result of the severe seismic activity that may have been caused by the tomb's activation. The Adeptus Mechanicus Tech-priests rapidly claimed the right to the xenos artefacts discovered during the repairs and extradited several specimens to the nearby Forge World of Goethe Majoris for closer study.Soon after, under waves of atmospheric interference that clouded the entire northern hemisphere of the planet, the Necrons emerged from their tombs. The planet went on alert, but the threat was incomprehensible, no warning had been received from the fallen hive cities, and any reconnaissance units deployed never returned. As more of Damnos' hive cities toppled to the unknown invaders, word of the assault finally got through to the planetary governor, who deployed every regiment under his command.Yet, despite valiant Human resistance, after six solar months of warfare almost all of Damnos' vast manufactorum hive cities were in ruins, and the planetary capital of Kellenport finally fell to the Necron forces in 974.M41.The strike cruiser Valin's Revenge with the Ultramarines 2nd Company aboard arrived just as the final Necron assault on Damnos' capital city of Kellenport had begun. Captain Cato Sicarius ordered the cruiser to move into low orbit above Kellenport to begin a ground assault. The 2nd Company launched in three groups of Drop Pods.The first with Captain Sicarius struck the Necron forces in the very heart of their siege lines, scouring the machine warriors from the capital city's outer walls. The second group of Ultramarines under the command of Chief Librarian Varro Tigurius hit home amidst the Necron Gauss Cannon and Gauss Pylons whose fire was raining down upon the remaining Imperial defenders of the capital.The third wave of Ultramarines, consisting entirely of unmanned Deathwind Drop Pods, slammed into the broken rubble outside the besieged capitolis administratum, firing waves of missiles into the Necrons' ranks. The first strike force advanced against a Necron command node.Their target was the Necron Lord commanding the assault. Captain Sicarius assaulted his position with his most experienced battle-brothers and the Dreadnought Agrippan. Sicarius was badly wounded in the assault and for a moment it looked like the Necrons would earn the victory, but the Dreadnought Agrippan attacked the Necron Lord and with a single blow he destroyed that nefarious enemy commander.With their leader, the only truly sentient Necron, destroyed, the Necrons reverted to their secondary command protocols and began to retreat. Captain Sicarius was taken to the Strike Cruiser's medical bay and Tigurius took command over the remaining Ultramarines.Later Tigurius and Agrippan were forced to acknowledge that Damnos was lost to the enemy. They initiated an evacuation of as many of the planet's inhabitants as possible. When the new Necron assault began most of the planet's inhabitants were already gone, and only the Ultramarines and the Kellenport-based regiment of the Astra Militarum were still on the ground.The Ultramarines defended the city valiantly, slowly falling back to the spaceport. As the last Thunderhawk gunships landed to evacuate the survivors, only forty Space Marines and twenty Guardsmen were still alive. In the final moments of the battle, the Dreadnought Agrippan fell, pinned between a dozen streams of Gauss Cannon fire.As the Thunderhawks sped Tigurius and the last of the Imperial defenders to the safety of the Valin's Revenge, Agrippan's internal Plasma Reactor went critical and the resulting explosion destroyed Damnos' capital city and every Necron within it. Later, Damnos was bombarded by the vessels of the Imperial Navy from orbit, destroying the planet's surface and ending the Necron threat on Damnos -- at least as far as the Imperium was aware.Since Sicarius and his men were able to evacuate large swathes of the world's population from certain death, the mission was not a complete failure. However, the Ultramarines failed in their primary objective of destroying the Necron threat that had emerged on Damnos.Sicarius was determined to not let such a slight go unanswered for long. For the first time, he had tasted bitter defeat in battle and it was a black mark that would twist within his heart for the next twenty-five standard years. In future battles, his violent displays of courage became reckless to the point of unnecessarily endangering the lives of his men and every victory after Damnos rang hollow to him.In the aftermath of Damnos, as Sicarius recovered from the wounds he had suffered, Sergeant Chronus was by unanimous assent honoured with the title of "Spear of Macragge", a title rarely bestowed in the history of the Chapter and only given to an Astartes who was considered a great hero of the Ultramarines. Some say this was a move by Sicarius' detractors to lessen his influence.
|
Damnos - Second Battle of Damnos: Despite the Inquisition's efforts to suppress all knowledge of the Necrons' reemergence into the galaxy, the Imperium's faith in its military supremacy was shaken by the news that spread across the galaxy after 974.M41 that these xenos had overcome both the Imperial Guard and the Ultramarines at Damnos.Eventually, reports of the loss of Damnos made their way to Terra, where both the Fabricator-General of the Adeptus Mechanicus and the High Lords of Terra decreed that the Ultramarines must return to Damnos and eradicate the Necron threat once and for all.Twenty-five standard years after the Damnos Incident, in 999.M41, this Imperial order was brought to Macragge by the experienced Deathwatch strike team led by Squad Lazarius. Chapter Master Marneus Calgar was not pleased with the Imperium's decree, for he knew that his 2nd Company had faced only a fraction of the awakened Necrons on Damnos a quarter of a Terran century before. Once they returned to Damnos, the Ultramarines would face the entire strength of a Necron Tomb World and risk the deaths of hundreds of the Chapter's Astartes.Yet, Calgar knew that the High Lords of Terra were right and that the Necrons on Damnos must be defeated if the Imperium was ever to know peace in the face of the growing Necron threat. With the record of the Ultramarines stained by the action on Damnos, it was their duty to banish the ghosts of the past. Upon hearing Calgar's announcement that the Ultramarines' 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 5th, and 6th Companies, accompanied by elements of the 10th, would return to reclaim Damnos for the Emperor, Cato Sicarius smiled for the first time in solar decades.It is said that during the preparation for the assault, Sicarius trained so hard that he fought with the fury of a man possessed and even slept in the cage-vault. Before the solar month was out, Calgar's armies and fleets had been assembled and over 500 Space Marines stood ready for war. In addition, Sicarius was granted a Vortex Grenade by the Deathwatch Sergeant Davian Imocles, who was rumoured to be an old friend and former squad mate.The journey to Damnos was a perilous one, with Calgar relying on various ruses and distractions to get his warriors safely to the planet's surface. By the time the Necrons had spotted the true location of the Ultramarine warships, the Astartes fleet was in a position to launch their Drop Pods.The first wave consisted of unmanned variants designed to draw the fire of the Gauss Pylons. The second wave, however, represented the true assault, which brought hundreds of Space Marines as well as a number of vengeful Imperial Guard regiments to the heart of the Necrons' subterranean tomb complex.Their objective was to destroy the pyramidal complexes that controlled the Necron power grid and to do it before the Imperial forces were overwhelmed. However, one factor that they did not account for was the physical incarnation of a C'tan, a C'tan Shard of Yggra'nya, the World Shaper, held within a Tesseract Vault. It was determined that this vault was the true source of the Necrons' power and must be neutralized if the Imperial forces were to have any hope of victory.Despite the power brought to bear by the Imperial assault on Damnos, Marneus Calgar felt like a duelist being taken apart by a superior foe in the battle-cage. The xenos' battle logic proved impeccable, with its master intelligence anticipating the Ultramarines' every move and neutralizing each tactic they employed.Thanks to an energy shield emitting from the vault, every plasma volley and melta blast employed against the Necron Monoliths dissipated harmlessly or detonated prematurely before it could harm the constructs.Since the xenos had managed to analyze the Ultramarines' battle doctrine, Calgar realized he must attempt a completely unexpected strategem. Assaulting the ranks of the Necron Immortals, the Chapter Master jumped onto the metallic base of a malfunctioning Gauss Pylon and slowly pushed the war engine's crescent back until its viridian beam hit the energy shield of the floating necropolis. With a blinding flash of light, the energy shield protecting the tomb complex collapsed and the Tesseract Vault was broken wide open to reveal the enraged demigod imprisoned within.A giant cruciform of pure light rose above the Necron army, the remnants of the C'tan's energy cage still crackling around it. Roaring in exultation at its newfound freedom, the booming sound threw Ultramarines and Necrons alike to the icy ground and cracked the planet's crust. Its first victim would be the Necron Overlord, the Undying, which the star god crushed with ease by transforming the earth around his metallic form into an oversized fist.The Overlord phased out of reality, seeking to escape back to his subterranean lair. But deep underground, the surviving members of the Deathwatch's Squad Lazarius had reached their own objective. The Undying teleported back to his cabled sarcophagus right in front of the Deathwatch's eyes. Unfortunately for the Necron, the crack team of Astartes had replaced his revivification engines with melta charges and entropic destabilisers and proceeded to blast the Necron Overlord into atoms.Back on the surface, the xenos reeled from the loss of their leader and the artificially intelligent command programs that had governed their warriors' every action. Meanwhile, the unleashed C'tan lashed out in fury at both its Necron enslavers and the Ultramarines as Captain Sicarius duelled a Flayed Ones lord. After ramming his Power Sword into the powerful Flayed One's torso, Sicarius summoned twenty-five Terran years of anger and frustration into a final burst of strength.He unclipped the Vortex Grenade that had been given to him earlier and activated the weapon before throwing it at the enraged demigod hovering overhead. The grenade detonated and formed a spiralling orb of nothingness as its unstoppable force sucked the C'tan into the Warp before collapsing and winking out of existence. Sicarius felt a great weight lift in that moment, as he realised both he and the Ultramarines had been redeemed for their original failure on Damnos in the sight of the Emperor.Over the next few solar days, the Imperials eliminated the surviving Necrons with grim efficiency. Empty tomb complexes were collapsed or detonated under the guidance of the Deathwatch and the citizens of Damnos whom Sicarius had rescued solar decades before were restored to the world to reclaim it for their own.
|
Damnos - Third War for Damnos: The Third War for Damnos began when an invasion force of the Necron Szarekhan Dynasty descended upon Damnos during the Era Indomitus.The world sent out a plea for aid once more to the Ultramarines, who at that time were engaged in a number of major conflicts of the era, including the Indomitus Crusade, the Plague Wars and the War of Beasts. With most of their strength utilised elsewhere, the Chapter had few Astartes to spare to help the besieged world.Nonetheless, the Chapter had given too much previously in Damnos' defence to abandon it and a small strike force of Ultramarines and several regiments of the Ultramar Auxilia were sent to aid it.The Chapter knew that the forces that had been deployed to Damnos would be insufficient to defeat the Necrons and so requested aid from their allies in different Chapters. Their requests were answered and when the Ultramarines arrived at Damnos they were joined by contingents from several Successor Chapters, including the Iron Hounds, Brazen Consuls and Libators.The combined might of these Adeptus Astartes, however, was not enough to defeat the invading Szarekhan Dynasty, whose forces were numberless. This was due to the undying xenos arriving in their thousands by Tomb Ships and through a Dolmen Gate to ensure they reconquered Damnos.When the Mandeville Point for the Damnos System once again flared as it opened to the Warp, the Ultramarines feared that another foe was about to join the conflict, but instead it marked the arrival of reinforcements sent by the Salamanders and White Scars Chapters. They had received the Ultramarines' request for aid and proceeded to join the battle to retake Damnos once more for the Emperor from the Szarekhan Dynasty.
|
Damocles Command Rhino - Damocles Command Rhino: The Damocles Command Rhino is a variant of the standard Rhino used by all Space Marine Chapters. The Damocles is used as a command vehicle during large-scale military operations, and acts as the main communications link between all Space Marine ground forces and the orbiting Astartes fleet assets.The Damocles is a good example of the kinds of advanced Imperial technology that the Space Marines are given access to, and it is equipped with unusually sophisticated communications and tracking equipment.The Damocles is primarily deployed only during large-scale planetary assault operations that involve either entire companies or multiple companies of Space Marines serving alongside other Imperial forces.
|
Damocles Command Rhino - History: During the Great Crusade era, the Ultramarines Legion armoured forces included a wide range of vehicle classes, patterns and types, including the very earliest patterns of war machines which were subsequently deployed in large numbers across the entire Legiones Astartes. Some of these had been kept operational by constant field repair and had not received the attentions of the Legion Forge for many solar decades.Conversely, the Legion's forces included vehicles only just beginning to see use, one of which was the Damocles pattern command Rhino, a Deimos pattern armoured carrier modified by replacing most of its troop carrying capacity with a suite of sophisticated communications equipment.Designed to the specifications of the ever-expanding Ultramarines Legion, the Damocles was easier both to manufacture and deploy than the venerable Proteus-Explorator Land Raider variants, which commonly fulfilled this role during the Great Crusade's early years, and less resource-intensive to forge and less marked upon the battlefield than the powerful Spartan Hermetika siege command vehicles which were entering service during the latter days before the horror of civil war encroached upon the Imperium.The Damocles was just as able in its task, but unfortunately far less durable than either of its counterparts, being based on various patterns of the ubiquitous Rhino chassis. Following the Ultramarines' example, this command and control platform was beginning to enter service across the Legions by the close of the Great Crusade, the sons of Guilliman leading by example and sharing their hard-won battle doctrines with their brother Legions.Equipped with sophisticated communication, cognis-analysis and tracking equipment, including a powerful orbital-interface secure vox-transceiver, the Damocles Command Rhino was designed principally as a command and control vehicle to serve as a direct and all but unbreakable link between a Space Marine Legion formation in the field and its brethren elsewhere within the war zone and in high orbit above during planetary operations.Using these systems, skilled Techmarine crew were able to read the ebb and flow of battle, call in reinforcements and supporting fire, and ward off enemy forces through interdiction targeting.
|
Damocles Command Rhino - Armament: The Damocles is not a combat vehicle and is usually unarmed. It is almost always found near the rear of any advancing force.Each and every Damocles is crewed permanently by a driver and a two-man command team, which are part of the Chapter Master's headquarters staff. One of these Astartes is a communications controller and the other is an operations controller who monitors all squads, tracks their positions, and the enemy's movements.Each of these brothers, including the driver, is a full Space Marine in his own right, but they all receive additional training by the Chapter's Techmarines to use the sophisticated equipment.There is also a seat inside the vehicle for the Space Marine Force Commander, alongside the driver, and while many commanders prefer to lead from the front they are able to make use of the Damocles between battles in order to keep up to date with the developing strategic situation.
|
Damocles Command Rhino - Unit Composition: 1 Damocles Command Rhino
|
Damocles Command Rhino - Wargear: A standard Damocles Command Rhino is armed and equipped with:pintle-mounted Storm BolterSmoke LaunchersSearchlightTeleport Homer BeaconThe Damocles Command Rhino may also have a variety of vehicle equipment such as:Dozer BladeExtra Armour PlatingHunter-Killer Missile Launcher (hull mounted)
|
Damocles Command Rhino - Features: The Damocles is full of special command, control and communications technologies, such as:A company or battlegroup command and control hub, Vox signal boosters, squad-to-squad, ground-to-air, and ground-to-orbit Vox-links.A special multi-band information channel for co-ordinating with other Imperial military forces during a campaign, such as the Imperial Guard, Adepta Sororitas, Adeptus Arbites, Adeptus Mechanicus, and the Imperial Navy.A multi-spectral ground surveillance Auspex for locating enemy units.A Chapter-wide squad and vehicle tracking system, which supplies information via orbital relay.A powerful Teleport Homer Beacon that provides a strong global positioning signal for teleporting troops to lock-on to, which allows for safer and more accurate teleportation.A transmission monitoring system for intercepting enemy communications and a decryption engine for breaking enemy codes and cyphers. This system is also capable of scrambling enemy communications so they cannot be understood.The Damocles is equipped with a bio-status readout for every single Space Marine engaged in combat that is relayed directly from each Astartes' Power Armour.The Damocles can use its vox and augury arrays to call down precision strikes from Astartes warships in orbit.The Damocles can also be outfitted with several upgrades that are common to the Rhino chassis, such as a Dozer Blade, Extra Armour Plating, a Pintle-mounted Storm Bolter, a Hunter-Killer Missile Launcher, a Searchlight, and Smoke Launchers.
|
Damocles Command Rhino - Notable Users of the Damocles Command Rhino: Ultramarines - The Ultramarines Legion were responsible for the development of the Damocles Command Rhino and were one of the first to utilise it in battle during the Great Crusade. In the 41st Millenium, the Ultramarines Space Marine Chapter were known to have utilised a Damocles Command Rhino during the Defence of Ichar IV from the Tyranids of Hive Fleet Kraken.Disciples of the Flame - A surviving fragment of the Salamanders Legion during the dark days of the Horus Heresy after the Drop Site Massacre, the Disciples of the Flame had become stranded on the Forge World of Mezoa, which was one of the first Forge Worlds allowed to produce this new variant of the commonplace Rhino. The commander of the Disciples of the Flame, Lieutenant-Chaplain Xiaphas Jurr, conducted much of the Mezoan Campaign from the interior of his own Damocles Command Rhino, the Guiding Light.Raptors - The Raptors Space Marine Chapter used a Damocles during the Angelis Campaign and also during the Taros Campaign against the TauRed Scorpions - The Red Scorpions Space Marine Chapter used a Damocles during the Badab War against the Secessionist Forces of the Tyrant of Badab, Lufgt Huron, and the Astral Claws Space Marine ChapterSilver Skulls - The Silver Skulls Space Marine Chapter used a Damocles as part of the Beta-Garmon IV Expeditionary Force
|
Damocles Command Rhino - Adeptus Mechanicus Technical Specifications: Damocles Command RhinoVehicle Name:DamoclesMain Armament:N/AForge World of Origin:MacraggeSecondary Armament:N/AKnown Patterns:I - IXTraverse:N/ACrew:1 Driver, 2 ControllersElevation:N/APowerplant:Quad MkII Adaptable Thermic Combustor ReactorMain Ammunition:N/AWeight:30 TonnesSecondary Ammunition:N/ALength:6.6 metresArmour:Width:4.5 metresHeight:5.1 metresSuperstructure:60 millimetresGround Clearance:0.44 metresHull:60 millimetresMax Speed On-Road:70 kilometres per hourGun Mantlet:N/AMax Speed Off-Road:55 kilometres per hourVehicle Designation:0120-766-0765-RH 935Transport Capacity:N/AFiring Ports:N/AAccess Points:N/ATurret:N/A
|
Damocles Command Rhino - Also See: Deimos Pattern Damocles Command RhinoImperial Vehicles
|
Damocles Command Rhino - Sources: Imperial Armour Volume Two - Space Marines and Forces of the Inquisition, pp. 77-78, 80, 82Imperial Armour Volume Two - War Machines of the Adeptus Astartes, pp. 24, 185-186, 195-197Imperial Armour Volume Three - The Taros Campaign, pp. 54, 122, 131Imperial Armour Volume Nine - The Badab War - Part One, pg. 92Imperial Armour Volume Ten - The Badab War - Part Two, pp. 160-162Imperial Armour Volume Twelve - The Fall of Orpheus, pp. 55, 148Imperial Armour Apocalypse, pg. 30Imperial Armour Index: Forces of the Adeptus Astartes (8th Edition), pg. 42The Horus Heresy - Book Five: Tempest (Forge World Series) by Alan Bligh, pp. 64, 100, 237
|
Damocles Gulf - Damocles Gulf: The Damocles Gulf is a territory of the galaxy that contains a series of worlds belonging to the T'au Empire in the Eastern Fringe. The region is officially a part of the Imperium of Man's Lithesh Sector, but contact between the distant region and the rest of the Imperium is quite limited.The Damocles Gulf itself was a vast region of relatively empty interstellar space that cut off a region of the Eastern Fringe, including the heart of the T'au Empire, from the rest of the Eastern Fringe and the broader galaxy.It was this isolation which allowed the T'au species to advance and flourish to the point that the xenos eventually created a small stellar empire of their own in the region without interference from the Imperium of Man.The Damocles Gulf Crusade was fought between the T'au Empire and the Imperium in this region between 742.M41 and 745.M41, and was the first time the two species had met militarily. Previous to this conflict, the T'au had been unaware of the true size of the Human Imperium.Despite the Ethereals' later instructions that the Damocles Gulf was to be off-limits to the T'au, the T'au Fire Caste's Commander Farsight established colonies there, known as the Farsight Enclaves, which have severed contact with the rest of the T'au Empire for unknown reasons.
|
Damocles Gulf - Sources: Codex: Tau Empire (6th Edition), pp. 13, 28-29, 34, 41, 52Codex: Tau (3rd Edition), pp. 58-60Apocalypse War Zone: Damocles (7th Edition), pp. 6, 8
|
Damocles Gulf Crusade - Damocles Gulf Crusade: The Damocles Gulf Crusade, also called the Damocles Crusade, was the first military conflict fought between the Imperium of Man and the rapidly expanding T'au Empire in the Lithesh Sector of the galaxy's Eastern Fringes between 742 and 745.M41.The conflict essentially ended in a stalemate in late 745.M41, as the Imperium was forced to conclude its military offensive early to deal with the encroaching Tyranid threat while the T'au sought to begin diplomatic negotiations with the Imperium to show humanity the benefits to be had by accepting the Greater Good.Members of the T'au Water Caste had established trade agreements with Imperial worlds on the frontier of the T'au Empire, near the Damocles Gulf region of the Ultima Segmentum in the galactic east, and exchanges of goods and technology were common.Alarmed by the threat of alien contamination, the Administratum readied a suitable response and almost a century later, the Damocles Crusade smashed into T'au space, destroying several outlying settlements and pushing deep into the T'au Empire.When the Imperial fleet reached the T'au Sept World of Dal'yth Prime, however, the crusade ground to a bloody stalemate as the formidable numbers and high technology of the T'au and their Kroot allies thwarted every attempt to capture the world or its star system.Many solar months of terrible fighting ensued with nothing gained on either side. By late 745.M41 the crusade's commanders eventually agreed to requests from the T'au Water Caste for peace talks.The negotiations were successful and the Imperial fleet withdrew from T'au space unmolested, primarily due to the impending approach of the Tyranid Hive Fleet Behemoth.
|
Damocles Gulf Crusade - T'au and Humanity: Exactly when the T'au Empire and the Imperium of Man first made contact with one another is unknown, for each was slow to recognise the nature of the other. For the T'au's part, it was fringe, dissident or overtly Renegade elements of Humanity that they first encountered, in the form of free captains and pirates across the coreward borders of the region called the Damocles Gulf in the Eastern Fringe to the galactic east of Terra.The initial contacts ranged from friendly negotiations and trade to outright hostility. It was some time before the T'au Water Caste diplomats understood the fact that the Humans they had encountered were merely the forgotten outcasts of an incomprehensibly vast interstellar empire that stretched across the entirety of the Milky Way Galaxy.This empire was so vast that any overt aggression on the T'au's part might lead to the outright destruction of their nascent empire and the extinction of their species. Though many of the more passionate leaders of the T'au Fire Caste called for a war of conquest against the Imperium, the Ethereals issued their instructions for the integration of the Imperium of Man into the T'au Empire.The Water Caste were to align themselves with nearby dissident Human factions and over the course of several solar decades of patient negotiations insinuate themselves into the courts of several dozen Imperial Commanders (planetary governors).The influence of the T'au thus spread further and more rapidly into the Imperium than any amount of military conquest could have taken it, until a swathe of Human worlds were trading with the T'au Empire in preference to the Imperium's own merchant trade cartels and Rogue Traders.Alien goods and technology flowed through the markets of these border worlds in blatant contradiction of the laws of the Imperium. The second phase of the Ethereals' instructions were thus ready to be initiated.Upon a score of Imperial worlds, Water Caste envoys whispered long-rehearsed words into willing ears. The seeds of rebellion had long been cultivated by the T'au and now bore traitorous fruit as each Imperial governor declared themselves free of the shackles of the Imperium's rule.In the ensuing power vacuum, the T'au Empire expanded, claiming for themselves those Human worlds that later came to be known as the Farsight Enclaves.The Imperium's response was unusually swift but characteristically brutal. War was declared and the Damocles Gulf Crusade was launched by the Ultima Segmentum Command, involving units of the Astra Militarum, the Imperial Navy and several Chapters of Space Marines.Within a short period of time, the T'au's influence was pushed back across the Damocles Gulf, but only at great cost to the human armies. In time, the momentum of the Imperium' armies was spent and more pressing concerns, such as the first Tyranid invasion of the galaxy, called for their more immediate deployment.An uneasy peace ultimately descended across the war-torn border sectors of the Imperium and the T'au Empire. The Imperium had demonstrated but the smallest fraction of its size and power, yet the T'au had gained invaluable insight into its methods, strategies and tactics.More importantly, the T'au had learned that those Humans who were disenfranchised or rejected by the Imperium could be manipulated. Surely, the T'au Ethereals reasoned, no matter its size, no power so given to devouring its own people could ultimately stand before the manifest destiny of the T'au to expand the Greater Good across the galaxy.
|
Damocles Gulf Crusade - Prelude to Conflict: The Second Sphere Expansion of the T'au Empire culminated in the T'au crossing the Damocles Gulf and making contact with the frontier worlds of the Imperium in the Timbra Sub-sector of the Lithesh Sector. These worlds were known by the Administratum to harbour rebellious tendencies and when they did flare up in rebellion following their contact with emissaries of the T'au Empire the Inquisition knew exactly who to blame.The T'au were quickly condemned as a potentially dangerous xeno species and the Imperium's Ultima Segmentum Command launched an Imperial Crusade to expel them from the region.The Damocles Crusade was an Imperial military action typical of the Eastern Fringe of the galaxy before the arrival of the Tyranid hive fleets. Wherever possible, when challenges to the authority of the Imperium of Man were discovered, war followed to exterminate the threat.In 742.M41 another such crusade was unleashed in the Lithesh Sector. A string of Imperial sub-sectors stretching out between the Damocles Gulf and the Perdus Rift Anomaly had suffered extensive disruption due to Aeldari pirate raids and Warp Storm activity.As the Imperium sought to restore its grip on the region, it was discovered that a previously unknown intelligent alien race called the T'au was allying themselves with rebel Imperial factions. The peril of these local alliances was evident in the number of alien trade goods and artefacts appearing in the nearby Imperial star systems.Inquisitorial investigation of the dissident worlds by the Ordo Hereticus revealed evidence of T'au activity in adjoining sectors. The conclusion was that they represented a major threat and Cardinal Esau Gurney of the world of Brimlock called for an Imperial Crusade to be dispatched to purge the aliens.The crusade was based around a dozen capital starships of the Imperial Navy, 5 provisional companies of Space Marines made up of contingents supplied by almost a dozen different Chapters and 19 regiments of Astra Militarum, seven of them from Brimlock. The first move was towards the Timbra Sub-sector where Human colonists had long coexisted with the aliens.The crusade first reasserted Imperial rule in the rebellious Garrus and Kleist colonies. Individuals implicated in dealing with the T'au were seized and punished at a special assize held before the furious crusaders.The Imperial colonies secured, the crusade forces moved on and engaged the T'au for the first time on their own territory in the uninhabited Hydass System.
|
Damocles Gulf Crusade - First Contact: The Battle of Hydass: Seven T'au warships of approximately cruiser displacement were detected on the edge of the Hydass System. The crusade fleet attacked immediately, but found the T'au starships to be capable of launching powerful torpedo salvos at long range, breaking up the Imperial formation. Bomber waves were launched but these were countered by T'au escorts launched from their capital ships.A Space Marine Strike Cruiser supported by a squadron of Sword-class Frigates made the decisive attack. Getting inside the T'au formation, they inflicted heavy damage and discovered that T'au starships lacked broadside firepower.The T'au launched more escorts as a screen while they disengaged. One T'au starship was unable to withdraw and exploded while the crew was in the process of abandoning ship. The Imperial Crusade fleet then moved deeper into T'au Empire space.
|
Damocles Gulf Crusade - Ground War: The Battle of Sy'l'kell: The Sy'l'kell System contained an apparently fertile Agri-world with a population estimated at 7 million T'au. It was defended by an orbital space station, a number of system ships and the remnants of the T'au fleet encountered at Hydass.The crusade's council of war appointed Captain Rumann of the Iron Hands Chapter to take overall command of the planetary assault. The Imperial fleet closed quickly, pounding the orbital station as they approached. Its armaments were not as extensive as had been believed at first and the Iron Hands Space Marines in the fleet boarded it.The T'au fleet disengaged almost immediately and was not seriously damaged. It was conjectured by the Imperials that the T'au were evacuating their key personnel from the planet rather than bothering to defend it. The Iron Hands quickly overwhelmed the orbital station's defenders and dutifully cleansed it of xenos taint with flame. It was to serve as the Imperial forward base for the ground campaign on the world.Astartes from the Scythes of the Emperor Chapter established a landing zone and the 17th Brimlock Dragoons Regiment of the Astra Militarum were landed to provide heavy support. The T'au response was swift and consisted of an extremely well-armed mechanised infantry formation with armoured support. The T'au grav-tank called the Hammerhead appeared to be a close match for the Astra Militarum's Leman Russ main battle tank and the T'au proved very adept at supporting their armour with Fire Warrior and battlesuited infantry.The Dragoons suffered heavy losses when enemy infantry wearing battlesuits ambushed them in rolling ground. Only swift intervention by the Ordo Tempestus' 4th Storm Trooper Company and the Scythes of the Emperor Space Marines prevented an out-and-out massacre.While the crusade pushed ever nearer Sy'l'kell's main population centers, the T'au evacuated the most qualified Earth Caste workers and dismantled any of their advanced technology.When the 9th Brimlock Fusiliers were landed, the T'au resistance crumbled and all Imperial objectives were quickly attained. The planet was duly cleansed of xenos taint and claimed for the Imperium.
|
Damocles Gulf Crusade - The Purging of Viss'el: While logistical arrangements were made to cross the Damocles Gulf to the Imperial designated sub-sector of Kendral, an expeditionary force was sent from the main crusade fleet to deal with the T'au presence in the nearby Viss'el System to remove a potential threat in the crusade's rear.Early Imperial reconnaissance had revealed that Viss'el VI was an Ice World on which the T'au had established fishery colonies. As no great strategic benefit was to be had from conquering the world, it was subjected to orbital bombardment, melting the ice around the T'au colonies and destroying them in flash floods.
|
Damocles Gulf Crusade - The Battle of Pra'yen: After a 5-month-long journey across the Damocles Gulf, the Imperial Crusade fleet arrived in the Dal'yth System within the Kendral Sub-sector. The outermost planet in the system, Pra'yen, was protected by a T'au orbital space station and was clearly intended to provide the first line of a layered system defence.The fleet's approach proved too casual, as the Imperials assumed the station to be no more dangerous than the T'au station already encountered in the Hydass System. It proved to be much more formidable, mounting an array of heavy Railguns whose first volley crippled the Honour of Damlass. The Imperial fleet broke formation just as 11 T'au starships emerged from behind the bulk of Pra'yen.The Imperial fleet escorts attacked the orbital station while the main battlefleet swung towards the T'au vessels. The T'au fleet concentrated its torpedo salvos against the Regent Lakshimbai, a Dauntless-class Light Cruiser, which resisted heroically until a lucky T'au shot caused a massive bulkhead collapse which then triggered a Plasma Drive overload, destroying the vessel with all hands aboard.Arriving piecemeal, the Imperial starships gradually won the advantage, although on this occasion the T'au continued to fight despite taking a terrible pounding.The Imperial escorts suffered heavy losses fighting the T'au orbital station. As soon as they were closely engaged, though, the last piece of the T'au trap was sprung. Appearing seemingly out of nowhere after suddenly powering up their main systems, a Kroot Warsphere headed directly for the Imperial troop transports. The transport flotilla had no choice but to scatter.The huge Kroot hulk was slow and its weapons were short-ranged, but its sheer size seemed certain to eradicate the crusade's ground troops. Salvation came in the form of Admiral Jallaque's flagship, the Blade of Woe, a Retribution-class Battleship. Leaving the rest of the Imperial fleet to finish off the T'au warships, the admiral had turned his vessel about, planning to help the escorts when the Kroot Warsphere arrived.Accelerating to maximum power, the great starship overtook the lumbering warsphere and turned across its path. From the first exchange of weapons it was clear that the Blade of Woe carried the greater weight of fire and its Lance salvos quickly ripped the warsphere to metallic shreds.Yet the crusade fleet had won only a pyrrhic victory. Although the warsphere, T'au fleet and the orbital station were destroyed, it was at the cost of 4 Imperial capital ships and 14 Escorts. The T'au ambush had come very close to succeeding and brought a new respect for the T'au as combatants to the Imperial fleet.
|
Damocles Gulf Crusade - The Battle of Dal'yth Prime: Although some members of the crusade's command council now advocated turning back, the lure of an assault against a major T'au world proved too tempting. Dal'yth Prime was protected by three T'au orbital stations and, following the recent combat, these were approached much more cautiously. None proved to be as heavily defended as Pra'yen, however, and were destroyed at leisure by the Imperial fleet.Expecting a new T'au fleet at any time, the Imperial ground assault quickly commenced. The eastern seaboard of Dal'yth's largest continent was selected as the target for the landing. Protected to the north by mountains and to the east by the sea, a short advance southwest put the Imperial invasion force before the first of a number of major T'au cities along the coast.The drop was contested by large numbers of T'au aircraft but eventually proved successful. The full force of the crusade was finally deployed and the invasion began. The local road network was excellent and the Imperial advance soon neared the T'au city of Gel'bryn before the aliens were able to form a stable defensive line. With Titans and armoured formations as the spearhead, the crusade ploughed relentlessly toward the T'au city.As it advanced, enemy missiles, fired from beyond hills and woods, started to inflict heavy losses. Units had to be detached to drive back the T'au spotters, but these were in turn engaged by T'au jump troops equipped with cloaking fields. Gradually the coherency of the attacking Imperial wedge was broken up until, by the time it reached the outskirts of Gel'bryn, there were three spearheads pushing forward of the main force.One of these was made up of Titans from the Legio Thanataris. This was countered by T'au Manta missile destroyers, the same craft that had been launched in the earlier space battles from the T'au warships. The second spearhead was predominantly veteran light infantry of the Rakarshan Rifles Regiment of the Astra Militarum, whose intelligent use of cover had kept them out of harm's way. They were countered by the emergence of a host of Kroot warriors on the rooftops and within the buildings of Gel'bryn.The third was a detachment of crusading Space Marines consisting of battle-brothers from the Iron Hands, the Ultramarines and the Scythes of the Emperor Chapters. These the T'au countered with their own finest soldiers -- their heavy jump troops. The timely T'au counterattacks stalled the momentum of the Imperial offensive and the front stabilised on the line of a broad river some 20 kilometres north of Gel'bryn.
|
Damocles Gulf Crusade - Operation Hydra: Their advance halted, the Imperial forces, commanded in this operation by General Wendall Gauge of the Astra Militarum, had to dig in to avoid the worst of the T'au firepower. The T'au possessed superior night-fighting capabilities which they exploited, moving up to extreme range and opening fire, only to withdraw at dawn. Space Marine combat patrols with their genetically-enhanced senses helped to stem this problem, but the Imperial losses continued to mount.This was compounded by the constant worry of the crusade's officers that a new T'au fleet would arrive; the crusade fleet was badly damaged and could barely protect its troop transports, let alone provide air cover for the ground forces on Dal'yth. As the siege wore on, more T'au arrived at the front from elsewhere in the world each local day.General Gauge concluded that the crusade had stumbled onto a major T'au population center within their empire and that his resources were insufficient for the task before him. Plentiful reinforcements had been promised at the outset of the crusade but none had arrived. Inquisitor Grand of the Ordo Xenos was all for evacuation of the world followed by an Exterminatus order, as the T'au were clearly too dangerous a species to be allowed to continue to exist.Yet the Imperials had found the T'au to be honourable adversaries and there was marked opposition to such an extreme course of action within the crusade's high command, especially from the Astartes. While the crusade's council of war was paralysed by this internal debate, General Gauge acted.He formed his Titans up with the Brimlock Regiments and attempted to force the river line of defence down the right flank, trapping the T'au against the sea. As preparation his artillery pounded other sectors of the front and Imperial Navy fighters began an offensive against T'au airfields that was costly to the Imperial pilots but kept T'au aircraft from the front.The Imperial strike force took their primary objective in the first few solar hours of the offensive -- a town containing a bridge across the river to Gel'bryn -- and achieved complete tactical surprise. As the assault continued, it was countered by ultra-mobile T'au units deployed from the ubiquitous Manta missile destroyers.For the rest of the local day, a running battle was fought through the Dal'yth suburbs that ended with the Imperium's troops a mere five kilometres away from trapping tens of thousands of T'au between the city and the sea. Overnight, the T'au troops disengaged and fell back to a new defensive line beyond Gel'bryn.By the morning the T'au were gone and while the city itself was infested with lurking Kroot, the starport on the outskirts of Gel'bryn was quickly secured by Imperial troops.The starport, combined with the distance from the city which the T'au defenders had retreated, provided an excellent opportunity for the successful evacuation of Imperial forces from Dal'yth Prime, and General Gauge took it.Resistance from the Inquisition and Adeptus Astartes to this course of action was overruled by the arrival of an express astropathic order in late 745.M41 from Inquisitor Fidus Kryptman to return to Brimlock with all available forces as quickly as possible.The T'au sensibly realised that getting in the way of the Imperial evacuation would serve no sane purpose and parleys held under flags of truce were honoured by both sides. The first seeds of cooperation between the Imperium and the T'au Empire were sown, though these would take time to bloom in the aftermath of such a brutal conflict.In the course of the Damocles Gulf Crusade the Imperium had learned to respect the T'au skills of war and the T'au had discovered the true scale and bitterness of a galaxy they had previously thought to just be theirs for the taking.The message from Inquisitor Kryptman had informed the crusade command of the first Tyranid attacks upon the Imperium and within the Segmentum Command all hope of a quick victory over the T'au had already faded. It is conceivable that the T'au might have blockaded the crusade and trapped its remaining forces on Dal'yth Prime, but as an enlightened species, the T'au saw more advantage at that time in opening a diplomatic dialogue with the Imperium.The crusade forces were allowed to withdraw back into Imperial space unmolested, allowing the Fire Caste to swiftly reclaim those T'au Sept worlds it had lost to the Imperium's offensive at the outset of the conflict.But the Damocles Gulf Crusade simply marked the start of over two hundred standard years of brutal warfare between the Imperium of Man and a T'au Empire determined to spread the Greater Good across the galaxy.
|
Damocles Gulf Crusade - Imperial Guard: 17th Brimlock Dragoons Regiment19th Brimlock Dragoons Regiment9th Brimlock FusiliersRakarshan Rifles Regiment4th Storm Troopers Company
|
Damocles Gulf Crusade - Imperial Navy: Blade of Woe (Retribution-class Battleship)Dutchess McIntyreHonour of DamlassLord CedalionNiobe (Overlord-class Battlecruiser)Regent Lakshimbai (Dauntless-class Light Cruiser)
|
Damocles Gulf Crusade - Adeptus Astartes Chapters: Black TemplarsIron HandsNovamarinesRaven GuardScythes of the EmperorSubjugatorsUltramarinesWhite Scars
|
Damocles Gulf Crusade - Rogue Traders: Lucian Gerrit of the ArcadiusKorvane Arcadius Gerrit (Lucian's son)Brielle Arcadius Gerrit (Lucian's daughter)Oceanid (Rogue Trader Vessel)Fairlight (Rogue Trader Vessel)Rosetta (Rogue Trader Vessel)
|
Damocles Gulf Crusade - Titan Legions: Legio Thanataris
|
Damocles Gulf Crusade - T'au Forces: T'au Fire Caste Dal'yth Sept Army
|
Dan Abnett - Dan Abnett: Dan Abnett (born October 12, 1965) is a British writer of comic books and gaming fiction. Abnett has worked primarily for 2000 AD and Marvel Comics (including their UK imprint) since the early 1990s, although he has also contributed to DC Comics titles.His Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 novels and graphic novels for Games Workshop's Black Library now run to several dozen titles and he is one of the most prolific and beloved of all Warhammer 40,000 writers.
|
Dan Abnett - Biography: As one of the more prolific 2000AD writers, Abnett was responsible for the creation of one of the comic's better known, and longest-running, strips, Sinister Dexter. Other original stories include Black Light, Badlands, Avatar, Downlode Tales, Sancho Panzer, Roadkill and Wardog, based on the game of the same name. Abnett has also contributed to some of the comic's major ongoing series, including Judge Dredd, Durham Red and Rogue Trooper.His work for Marvel includes runs on Death's Head 2, Battletide, Knights of Pendragon (all of which he co-created), The Punisher, War Machine, Annihilation: Nova and various X-Men titles. At DC he is probably best-known for his 2000 relaunch of Legion of Super-Heroes. His work for DC is usually co-written with Andy Lanning and they are often referred to as DnA. For Dark Horse Comics he co-wrote Planet of the Apes: Blood Lines with Ian Edginton, as well as penning Lords of Misrule and HyperSonic.He has written novels set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe. They include the Gaunt's Ghosts series, the Eisenhorn trilogy and Ravenor spin-off and more recently, the first book of the Horus Heresy series, the SF bestseller Horus Rising. He has also written three Warhammer Fantasy novels. He also wrote a novel for the Doctor Who spin-off Torchwood called Border Princes in 2007.In 1994, he wrote a promotional comic to promote the opening of the Nemesis roller coaster at Alton Towers. [1]More recently he has finished the final book of The V.C.s and started Black Atlantic in the Judge Dredd Megazine, which was be drawn by Steve Roberts (seen working on Bec and Kawl) in black and white.Most recently it has been announced that he will be writing The Authority with co-author Andy Lanning, as part of the World's End relaunch of the core Wildstorm titles.[2]In addition DnA have done a lot of work on Marvel's "cosmic" characters. They expanded on their work in Annihilation: Nova[3] and Nova,[4] [5] and piloted the next big event Annihilation: Conquest. They said "we were approached by Andy Schmidt, who edited the first 'Annihilation' event, and asked to pilot the next event, which Bill Rosemann is editing." They ended up writing the Prologue, the Nova series crossover and the main Annihilation: Conquest limited series.[6] The characters then became the core of a new Guardians of the Galaxy.[7]It was announced at Wizard World Chicago in June 2008, that Abnett and Lanning had signed an exclusive deal with Marvel, which they hope will give them time to work on the "cosmic" characters they have been dealing with, as well as more earth-based ones. The contract allows them to finish existing commitments, so they will be able to finish their fifteen issue run on The Authority.[8] In addition Marvel has allowed the contract to include "a couple of exceptions that are not direct competition, for example, Dan's 2000AD work in the UK and his GamesWorkshop novels."[9] The first major work to emerge after this deal will be War of Kings, a crossover storyline, emerging from Secret Invasion, that will pitch Black Bolt (and the Inhumans) against Gabriel Summers (and the Shi'aar Empire) but will also draw in other teams and characters, including Nova, the Guardians of the Galaxy and the Starjammers.[10]
|
Dan Abnett - Warhammer 40,000 Comics: Titan: God-Machine (Black Library, 256 pages, 2004, ISBN 1-84416-123-4) collects:Titan I (with Andy Lanning, Anthony Williams, and Marc Gascoigne, 64 pages, 1999, ISBN 1-84154-109-5)Titan II: Vivaporius (with Andy Lanning, Anthony Williams, and Marc Gascoigne, 96 pages, 2001, ISBN 1-84154-144-3)Titan III (with Anthony Williams, 2003, ISBN 1-84154-242-3)Darkblade: Reign of Blood (with Kevin Hopgood, Black Library, 256 pages, 2005, ISBN 1-84416-206-0) includes:Darkblade, Book One: Born of Blood (64 pages, 2000, ISBN 1-84154-124-9)Darkblade, Book Two: World of Blood (96 pages, 2001, ISBN 1-84154-147-8)Darkblade, Book Three: Throne of Blood (96 pages, 2003, ISBN 1-84154-241-5)Imperial Gothic (Black Library, 208 pages, 2006, ISBN 1-84416-330-X) collects:Inquisitor Ascendant (with Simon Coleby, 84 pages, 2001, ISBN 1-84154-143-5)Inquisitor Ascendant II (with Simon Coleby, 80 pages, 2002, ISBN 1-84154-238-5)Lone Wolves (with Karl Richardson, 96 pages, hardcover, 2003, ISBN 1-84416-056-4, paperback, 2004, ISBN 1-84416-101-3)Warhammer 40,000 (with co-author Ian Edginton):Damnation Crusade (with art by Lui Antonio and JM Ringuet, 6-issue mini-series, Boom! Studios, December 2006-2007, trade paperback, 144 pages, July 2007, ISBN 142760679X)[11]Blood and Thunder (with art by Daniel Lapham, 4-issue mini-series, Boom! Studios, December 2007, tpb, 128 pages, April 2008, ISBN 1934506311)[12]Warhammer (with co-author Ian Edginton):Forge of War (with art by Tommy Castillo, 6-issue mini-series, Boom! Studios, 2007-2008, tpb, 128 pages, April 2008, ISBN 1934506362)[13]Condemned by Fire (with art by Rahsan Ekedal, 5-issue mini-series, Boom! Studios, forthcoming)[14]
|
Dan Abnett - Adepta Sororitas: The Invitation (Short Story) (Collected in Tales From the Dark Millennium (Anthology))
|
Dan Abnett - The Beast Arises: I Am Slaughter (2015, ISBN 1-78496-067-5)
|
Dan Abnett - Gaunt's Ghosts: The Founding (Omnibus) (2003, ISBN 1-84416-066-1, 2006, ISBN 1-84416-369-5] collects the following:First And Only (1999, ISBN 1-84416-164-1)Ghostmaker (2000, ISBN 0-671-78410-2)Necropolis (2000, ISBN 0-7434-1159-5)In Remembrance (Short Story)Of Their Lives in the Ruins of Their Cities (Short Story) (2010, collected in Sabbat Worlds (Anthology) and The Hammer and the Eagle: Icons of Warhammer (Anthology))A Ghost Return (Short Story) (Also collected in Sabbat Crusade (Anthology))The Saint (Omnibus) (Hardcover, 2004, ISBN 1-84416-125-0, paperback, 2007, ISBN 1-84416-479-9) collects the following:Honour Guard (2001, ISBN 1-84154-151-6)The Guns of Tanith (2002, ISBN 1-84154-232-6)Straight Silver (2002, ISBN 1-84154-262-8)Sabbat Martyr (2003, ISBN 0-7434-4360-8)The Lost (Omnibus) (2010, ISBN 1784966746) collects the following:Traitor General (2004, ISBN 1-84416-113-7)His Last Command (2005, ISBN 1-84416-238-9)The Armour of Contempt (2006, ISBN 1-84416-400-4)Only In Death (2007)The Victory (Omnibus) (2018, ISBN 1-78496-815-3) collects the following:Blood Pact (2009, ISBN 1-84416-693-7)Salvation's Reach (2011, ISBN 1-84416-821-2)Family (Short Story) (Also collected in Sabbat Crusade (Anthology))You Never Know (Short Story) (Also collected in Sabbat Crusade (Anthology))Ghosts and Bad Shadows (Short Story) (Also collected in Sabbat Crusade (Anthology))Killbox (Short Story)Double Eagle (Gaunt's Ghosts spinoff, hardcover, 2004, ISBN 1-84416-089-0, paperback, 2005, ISBN 1-84416-090-4)Titanicus (2008, ISBN 1-84416-586-8)The Anarch (2019, ISBN 1-78496-851-X)The Vincula Insurgency (2021, ISBN 1-80026-135-7)Sabbat Worlds (Anthology) (As editor, 2010, ISBN 1-84970-009-5)The Iron Star (Short Story) (Collected in Sabbat Worlds (Anthology))Sabbat Crusade (Anthology) (As editor, 2014, ISBN 1-84970-955-6)Sabbat War (Anthology) (As editor, 2021, ISBN 1-80026-028-8)This is What Victory Feels Like (Forever the Same) (Short Story) (Collected in Sabbat War (Anthology))From There to Here (Short Story) (Collected in Sabbat War (Anthology))The Sabbat Worlds Crusade (Gaunt's Ghosts background book, 96 pages, 2005, ISBN 1-84416-249-4)
|
Dan Abnett - The Horus Heresy: Horus Rising (2006, ISBN 1-84416-294-X)Horus Heresy Chapbook (Anthology) (with Graham McNeill, 2007)The Lightning Tower (Short Story) (Collected in Horus Heresy Chapbook (Anthology), Shadows of Treachery (Anthology), and Crusade + Other Stories (Anthology))Legion (2008, ISBN 1-84416-536-1)Blood Games (Short Story) (Collected in Tales of Heresy (Anthology))Prospero Burns (2010, ISBN 1-84416-776-3)Know No Fear (2012, ISBN 1-84970-134-2)The Unremembered Empire (2014, ISBN 1-84970-573-9)Little Horus (Short Story) (Collected in Age of Darkness (Anthology))Unmarked (Short Story) (Collected in Mark of Calth (Anthology))Meduson (Short Story) (Collected in Meduson (Anthology))Saturnine (2020, ISBN 1-78999-134-X)The End and the DeathVolume I (2023, ISBN 1-80407-337-7)Volume II (2023, ISBN 1-80026-878-5)Volume III (TBD)
|
Dan Abnett - Imperial Guard: The Fall of Malvolion (Short Story) (Collected in Let the Galaxy Burn (Anthology))
|
Dan Abnett - The Inquisitor: Eisenhorn Trilogy (Omnibus) (2004, ISBN 1-84416-156-0), collects the following:Xenos (2001, ISBN 1-84154-146-X)Malleus (2001, ISBN 0-74341-176-5)Hereticus (2002, ISBN 1-84154-236-9)Missing in Action (Short Story) (2002, also collected in Words of Blood (Anthology))Backcloth For A Crown Additional (Short Story) (Also collected in Crucible of War (Anthology))Ravenor: The Omnibus (Eisenhorn trilogy spinoff Omnibus) (2019, ISBN 978-1-78496-993-6) , collects the following:Ravenor (hardcover, 2004, ISBN 1-84416-072-6, paperback, 2005, ISBN 1-84416-073-4)Thorn Wishes Talon (Short Story) (2004, also collected in What Price Victory (Anthology) and The Hammer and the Eagle: Icons of Warhammer (Anthology))Ravenor Returned (hardcover, 2005, ISBN 1-84416-184-6, paperback, 2006, ISBN 1-84416-185-4)Playing Patience (Short Story) (2006, also collected in Let the Galaxy Burn (Anthology))Ravenor Rogue (2007, ISBN 1-84416-460-8)Perihelion (Short Story) (2018)Bequin TrilogyPariah (2012, ISBN 1-84970-201-2)Penitent (2021, ISBN 1-78999-851-4)The Magos (Short story collection) (2018, ISBN 1-78496-702-5)
|
Dan Abnett - Iron Snakes: Brothers of the Snake (2007, ISBN 1-84416-475-6)
|
Dan Abnett - Others: Master Imus's Transgression (Short Story) (Collected in There is Only War (Anthology))Pestilence (Short Story) (1999, collected in Deathwing (Anthology), Let the Galaxy Burn (Anthology), and There is Only War (Anthology))Playing Patience (Short Story) (Collected in There is Only War (Anthology))Ork Hunter (Short Story) (2002, collected in Words of Blood (Anthology) and Let the Galaxy Burn (Anthology))The Curiosity (Short Story) (Collected in Crucible of War (Anthology))Gardens of Tycho (Short Story) (Collected in Fear the Alien (Anthology))Tactica Imperialis: A History of the Later Imperial Crusades (Warhammer 40,000 background book, with Andy Hoare, 2007, ISBN 1-84416-423-3)Lord of the Dark Millennium: The Dan Abnett Collection (Anthology) (2020, ISBN 1-78999-138-2)
|
Dan Abnett - Tales of Malus Darkblade (all with Mike Lee): The Daemon's Curse (2005, ISBN 1-84416-191-9)Bloodstorm (2005, ISBN 1-84416-192-7)Reaper of Souls (2006, ISBN 1-84416-193-5)Warpsword (2007, ISBN 1-84416-194-3)Lord of Ruin (2007, ISBN 1-84416-195-1)
|
Dan Abnett - Others: Gilead's Blood (with Nik Vincent, 2000)Hammers of Ulric (with Nik Vincent and James Wallis, 2001)Riders of the Dead (2003)Fell Cargo (2006)
|
Dan Abnett - Interviews: New DnA, Sequential Tart, December 20012004 interview with 2000ADReviewInterview: Dan Abnett on The Real Ghostbusters, Proton Charging, December 17, 2005Dan Abnett talks Boomâs âWarhammer 40Kâ Comic, Comic Book Resources, September 11, 2006Bringing The Warhammer Down: Dan Abnett on Warhammer 40K: The Damnation Crusade, Newsarama, December 22, 2006
|
Danial Tan Draconis - Danial Tan Draconis: Danial Tan Draconis is both the current leader of House Draconis and the high king of the Knight World of Adrastapol, an elected position which carries with it dominion over the entire Majestis System.Gaining the title of high king under the difficult circumstances of the Donatos War, where his father, the previous high king, was cut down by those he once called friends, the young Danial Tan Draconis quickly grew into a seasoned leader and a fine tactician. He saved the campaign from ultimate disaster and reclaimed the Industrial World of Donatos Primus in the name of the God-Emperor.Whereas most rulers of a Knight World are fierce traditionalists, High King Danial can be considered exceptionally progressive for a man of his culture and upbringing.On Adrastapol, he is the instigator of several profound changes in Adrastapolian society, such as rapid industrialization of the economy and the creation of a true Planetary Defence Force, better housing and living conditions for the serf classes and the institution of true political and social equality between male and female Knights.While many of these measures proved unpopular with the conservative traditionalists of House Minotos, others, like the Nobles of House Pegasson, approved of it.In hindsight, it is clear that without the reform measures enacted by High King Danial Tan Draconis, Adrastapol would have fallen to the savage Orks of WAAAGH! Killfist, which very nearly conquered Adrastapol during its Second Ork War.
|
Danial Tan Draconis - Donatos War: The Donatos War holds a special place within the chronicles of House Draconis both for the heavy toll it took upon the Adrastapolian Knights and for the glory they gained in bringing this rebellious world back to loyalty to the Emperor. Through the laxity of its rulers, Chaos Cults had taken power on the Industrial World of Donatos Primus, overthrowing the Imperial planetary government in place and killing the local planetary governor with the help of Chaos' most dangerous warriors: a warband of Chaos Space Marines.Seeking to further his own goals, the enemy leader -- the Word Bearers Dark Apostle Varakh'Lorr -- led his Word Bearers to fight the remaining Loyalist regiments of the Donatosian Planetary Defence Forces and the incorruptible Adeptus Arbites. While vastly outnumbered, the Loyalists were able to hold some cities and to issue a general call for aid before astrotelepathic communication broke off.The Imperium acted with uncustomary swiftness, despatching a sizeable army of Astra Militarum regiments under the general command of High King Tolwyn Tan Draconis of Adrastapol. Hailing from such different worlds as Cadia, Mubraxis and Tanhollis, these regiments of the Imperial Guard would support the gathered might of no less than six houses of Imperial Knights: the high king's own household, House Draconis, and its allies from Houses Minotos, Chimaeros, Pegasson, Wyvorn and Manticos.After initial success that left the Imperial forces ready to strike at the very heart of the enemy's strength, the Imperial reconquest of Donatos Primus was put in jeopardy when fully half the contingent of Imperial Knights turned Renegade and followed Viscount Gerraint Tan Chimaeros into secession.Visibly in league with the Word Bearers, the Renegade Knights of Houses Chimaeros, Wyvorn and Manticos turned their guns upon their former allies who only escaped total destruction by the heroic sacrifice and tactical accumen of High King Tolwyn.To oppose Gerraint's claim to the throne, the Loyalist survivors chose Tolwyn's son and designated heir, Danial Tan Draconis, as their new king. Danial was a young Knight many saw as unfit for the task ahead. With barely 50 Knights remaining out of several hundred, the remaining Imperial Knights could not assault their enemies head-on but needed to tread carefully.A limited counterattack turned into another disaster as House Chimaeros succeeded through duplicity and Chaos sorcery in leading the remaining survivors into another ambush that proved equally murderous. Left with little more than two dozen Knights, High King Danial finally assumed the true mantle of the high king of Adrastapol and led his Knights in a desperate but ultimately successful second assault on the Valle Electrum which eliminated all the enemy commanders and paved the way for ultimate Imperial victory.
|
Danial Tan Draconis - Second Ork War: Barely five standard years after the successful conclusion of the Donatos War, Adrastapol was invaded by the hordes of WAAAGH! Killfist, unleashing what became known as the Second Ork War. The Ork Warlord Gorgrok Killfist of the Deathskulls klan was a far cry from the savage Skarjaw responsible for the First Ork War. Great Ork combat walkers, from Gorkanauts and Morkanauts to Stompaz and even Gargants, marched behind hordes of Orks in blue warpaint; whole squadrons of captured Imperial tanks kicked up dust alongside the Orks' own ramshackle creations.Where before the Knights of Adrastapol had stood united, they were now divided, for the wounds of Donatos had been left to fester and while the relations between House Draconis and House Pegasson remained cordial, House Minotos had become increasingly reclusive and only reluctantly accepted the high king's progressive ideas in which new technology and ways of life had been introduced to Adrastapol during his reign.While High King Danial Tan Draconis' attempt to modernise the planetary defences and infrastructure of Adrastapol during his short reign had considerably bolstered his world's defences, the reluctance of House Minotos to comply with these initiatives left the Knight World vulnerable. With the Minotane portion of the new planetary defence network far from complete, the Orks of WAAAGH! Killfist had easily gained a foothold on Adrastapol. Given fair warning of the Orks' arrival by the unexpected appearance of Inquisitor Tane Massata of the Ordo Malleus, the defenders mustered themselves for war and evacuated the countryside. While their actions inflicted significant casualties on the Orks, the Knight houses of Adrastapol soon found themselves cut off from each other and beleaguered in their primary fortresses.Swarmed by the Greenskins' sheer numbers and defeated on the field of battle, House Minotos was forced to fall back to its mightiest strongholds and fortresses, abandoning the countryside to the xenos. Further to the north, House Draconis had initial success at countering the Orks' orbital landings. Draconis forces succeeded in destroying several Rokz in surgical strikes and annihilated several smaller warbands before they could coalesce into the unstoppable green tide of a characteristic Ork assault. But soon even House Draconis was forced to retreat in face of the enemy's numerical superiority.As the Greenskins landed in ever greater numbers, the Knights' secondary fortresses either had to be evacuated or were overrun. First House Minotos, then House Draconis were forced to fall back to the safety of their ancestral keeps, the Iron Maze and the Draconspire, respectively, both of which quickly came under siege. Defending the highlands and the mountainous plateaus of the Adraspotine Mountains, House Pegasson fared little better.Those townships that had not heeded the high king's order for evacuation were invariably razed to the ground and their population slaughtered by the bloodthirsty Orks -- and several fortresses suffered the same fate. With House Draconis and House Minotos pinned inside their ancestral keeps and the Orks closing on the territories of House Pegasson, a lone Imperial vessel braved the guns of the Ork armada to deposit a small relief force of Imperial Knights on Adrastapol, a band of Freeblades calling themselves "the Exiles." Their leader was none other than Luk Tan Chimaeros, the famed Knight of Ashes. Making planetfall on the edge of the Pegassine lands, the Exiles were able to establish a short-lived communication with besieged High King Danial Tan Draconis who tasked them to gather what forces they could and hurry to the relief of House Minotos. Together they might stand a chance of breaking the siege of the Draconspire which had entered its third solar day.The communication was abruptly cut short on the high king's end, leaving the Exiles to fear for the worst. As they would later determine, Warlord Gogrok Killfist's personal Gargant had unleashed some kind of weapon upon the Draconspire which caused all electric devices to stop functioning, leaving the defenders to fight the Orks with blades, autoguns and antique crossbows. Tasked with lifting the siege of the Draconspire, the Knight of Ashes and his small army of Exiles travelled to the seat of House Pegasson, the Eyrie, where they were received by Marchioness Lauret Tan Pegasson.Quelling the dissension within her own Exalted Court, the marchioness agreed to personally accompany the Knight of Ashes and pledged the support of her 50 Imperial Knights and the entire Pegasson Air Force, reputedly the finest pilots on Adrastapol. Filled with a great sense of urgency, the Exiles first rallied the Eyrie -- the principal fortress of House Pegasson -- where their small band was strengthened by several lances of Pegassine Knights. Thanks to the impressive numbers of the Pegassine air force the small army was transported by macro-landers to the plains of Minosaal. There the Imperial reinforcements reached House Minotos principal fortress, the Iron Maze, just as the Orks penetrated its outer defences. Disembarking on Heroes' Ridge, a tall hill overlooking the Ironfields, Marchioness Lauret led her Knights in a daring shock-assault, trapping the Orks between her force and the walls of the Iron Maze whilst her household air force made sure the Orks could not escape this hammer and anvil tactic. Despite heavy casualties, by the end of the afternoon the siege of the Iron Maze was lifted and the victorious Knights of House Minotos, humbled by the support of House Pegasson and the determination of the Knight of Ashes, joined the counterattack.Joined by the surviving Knights of House Minotos, the army quickly redeployed with the aid of the Pegassine air force and pressed north to break the siege of the Draconspire which was entering its last desperate stage, as the survivors of House Draconis had been pressed back to a handful of key locations. The Exiles, Minotane and Pegassine forces attacked Killfist's great horde as it lay siege to the Draconspire where Imperial resistance was on the verge of collapse. Just as the Knight of Ashes and the Adrastapolian Knights launched their attacks, Killfist's personal retinue of Meganobz broke through the final ring of fortifications.As High King Danial Tan Draconis duelled Warlord Killfist in the ruins of his throne room, the relief force launched their attack on the unsuspecting Orks, the din of their battle-horns momentarily outmatching the clamor of combat. While Danial ultimately killed the Ork warlord, this was only possible because the Knight of Ashes had broken through and routed the Orks in the throne room. Facing a fresh army and destabilised by the news of their warlord's demise, the Ork resistance began to crumble.Seeking to rout the enemy, High King Danial -- still bleeding from the wounds suffered in the battle with Killfist -- led a mounted sortie of House Draconis Knights from the Draconspire, for in the shadow of Killfist's towering Gargant the Orks were beginning to rally. Worse, the Gargant's energy-stealing weapon was being readied to fire again.With pinpoint accuracy, the Marchioness Lauret Tan Pegasson coordinated her house's firepower on the Gargant's weapon arm, annihilating it. With their mightiest weapon destroyed, the Orks finally fled the battlefield, pursued by the vengeful Knights of the gathered Knight houses of Adrastapol. Though the fighting would continue for many solar months to come, the Orks' hold on Adrastapol had been broken, and a new unity of purpose was forged between the three victorious Knight houses.For her part, Adrastapol's other great hero of the Donatos War, First Knight Jennika Tan Draconis, played little part in the fighting but proved to be no less a saviour of her world than her brother the high king and the Knight of Ashes. When the Orks of WAAAGH! Killfist had fallen upon her homeworld, Jennika Tan Draconis reluctantly decided not to fight the invaders, instead attaching herself to Inquisitor Tane Massata who had arrived on the eve of this Second Ork War.This decision ultimately saved Adrastapol from destruction, for her exemplary conduct during the Inquisitor's mission made him reconsider his judgement of Adrastapol as a world hopelessly corrupted by Chaos and abort the Exterminatus action he had already ordered unleashed upon the Knight World.
|
Danial Tan Draconis - Wargear: Oath of Flame (Knight Errant) - One of the eldest suits of Knight armour still in service within House Draconis, Oath of Flame was built from original STC data during Adrastapol's colonisation by Mankind in the Age of Technology. Oath of Flame is a venerable Knight Errant that was presented to Danial Tan Draconis on the day of his elevation to Knighthood. Originally equipped with a Reaper Chainsword and a Thermal Cannon, a configuration it featured throughout the entire Donatos War, it is believed that as the personal armour of the ruling High King of Adrastapol, Oath of Flame now might bear the ancestral Tempest Blade of the high king's office in lieu of its Reaper Chainsword, the very same blade that was retrieved from the fallen Knight of the usurper, Gerraint Kar Adrastapol on Donatos Primus. Gerraint himself had stolen it from the mangled remains of Fyreheart, High King Tolwyn Tan Draconis' Knight. To better protect their liege, the Sacristans of House Draconis fitted Oath of Flame with an enhanced Ion Shield generator which is vastly more powerful than that of a standard Knight.
|
Danie Ware - Danie Ware: Danie Ware is an author for Games Workshop's Black Library imprint.
|
Danie Ware - Adepta Sororitas: The Triumph of Saint Katherine (Novel) (2022)The Rose at War (Anthology) (2022, ISBN 1-78999-467-5) collects the following:Forsaken (Short Story) (2019)The Crystal Cathedral (Short Story) (2019, also collected in Nexus & Other Stories (Anthology))Mercy (Short Story) (2018, also collected in Inferno! Vol.1 (Anthology), The Hammer and the Eagle: Icons of Warhammer (Anthology), and Inferno! A Warhammer 40,000 Collection (Anthology))The Bloodied Rose (Novella) (2018, also collected in Servants of the Imperium (Anthology))Wreck and Ruin (Novella) (2019)The Rose in Anger (Novella) (2020, ISBN 978-1-78999-393-6)Da Big Mouf (Short Story) (2020) (Also collected in Last Night At The Resplendent And Other Stories (Anthology))The Sisters of Death (Short Story) (2021)
|
Dante - Dante: Dante, born Luis Dante, sometimes called the "Lord of Angels" and "Bringer of Sanguinius' Light," is the current commander and Chapter Master of the Blood Angels Chapter of Space Marines as well as the lord regent of the Imperium Nihilus, and has served as Chapter Master for approximately 1,100 standard years.Commander Dante's power armour incorporates a highly ornate golden death mask beneath his Iron Halo, called the Death Mask of Sanguinius, which is said to have been worn by and shaped to match the fear-inspiring features of Sanguinius, the Blood Angels' primarch, at the moment of his death at the hands of the Arch-traitor Horus.He is believed to be the oldest living Loyalist Space Marine as he is currently over 1,500 standard years old, with the exception of those Space Marines sustained by the cybernetic technology of Dreadnoughts, the use of temporal stasis or other technological means of extending Human life. Commander Dante is approximately 1,552 Terran years old as of ca. 999.M41, as records indicate he was born in 447.M40.In the wake of the victory of the Blood Angels Chapter and their successors in the Tyranid Hive Fleet Leviathan's assault upon their homeworld of Baal, the Primarch Roboute Guilliman, the lord commander of the Imperium and Imperial Regent, declared Dante to be the lord regent of the Imperium Nihilus. This made Dante the effective ruler of the half of the Imperium cut off from Terra on the other side of the Great Rift.Following the Devastation of Baal in the Era Indomitus, Dante chose to undergo the agonising surgery required to cross the Rubicon Primaris and become a Primaris Space Marine. His armour and wargear were then modified as required to fit his increased stature, muscle mass and physical strength.
|
Dante - History: To many worlds within the Imperium's borders, the Adeptus Astartes are nothing more than a myth. Among those planetary populations enlightened enough to be aware of the existence of the Space Marines, many of those only come into their knowledge through the unwelcome brutalities of war. When their world falls to invasion or rises up in rebellion, it is the God-Emperor's Angels of Death that answer the Imperium's call. In this way, knowledge is too often bought with blood. But there are always names that drift through the dark regions between isolated worlds. The names of great heroes of Humanity, spoken in whispers. The names of Mankind's guardians; those warriors who walk the line between fact and fiction, prayer and myth. Few are spoken by as many voices, and with greater reverence, than Dante, Lord of Angels. The Bringer of Light. The Bane of Daemons.Lord Commander Dante, Lord of the Host and Bringer of Sanguinius' Light, holds the bleak honour of leading the Blood Angels Space Marine Chapter in the swansong days of the Imperium. He is the embodiment of every virtue in his Chapter's long and glorious history, renowned as a paragon of the Blood Angels' noble ideals. And yet, beneath his golden facemask lies a shadowed contrast, for the Lord of Angels bears the heavy weight of his Chapter's secret melancholies. Dante is noted in many of the Adeptus Terra's archives as the oldest Space Marine warrior still alive in the Dark Millennium. According to Imperial histories, Dante has reigned for over a thousand standard years as Chapter Master, and served the Blood Angels in other capacities for several hundred standard years before ascending to the rank of Commander. Even Captain Lysander of the Imperial Fists, who was lost in the eddies and tides of Warpspace for a thousand standard years, cannot recall a time when Dante did not reign supreme over the Blood Angels.Dante lays claim to a Record of Triumph longer than the entire honour rolls of several Chapters founded in the twilight centuries of the 41st Millennium. Somehow, this isn't enough. As with all of its heroes, the Imperium's official archives blend legend and truth with impunity. Facts become distorted by time, flawed retellings, and authorial myth-making. In a stellar empire of a million worlds and a million different human cultures, there is no such thing as objective truth. Perhaps, in his humility, Dante lets his legend grow even beyond its truly heroic boundaries because he knows Humanity needs heroes at the dawn of the End Times. Or perhaps he is simply too focused and dutiful to pay heed to the words of mortal men and women. His charge is to defend the Imperium, not worry as to how history will remember his name.
|
Dante - The First Omen: The warrior who would become Dante began life as any other Blood Angel. He was born a mortal, name Luis, to a man called Arreas, on Baal's second moon in 447.M40. Luis grew to adolescence roaming the Great Salt Waste, far beyond any settlements on Baal Secundus. That moon is an unkind home to those that claw out an existence on its back, with the assault of constant radiation and attacks by vicious, mutated lifeforms common occurrences. At seven Terran-standard years of age, the boy lost his mother. Emboldened by the loss, in a few years time, he in turn abandoned his father to make the perilous journey to become an Angel. Due to life roaming the Salt Wastes, Luis' growth was stunted by malnutrition even more so than his peers. His skin shared the same pocked-mark disfigurement that all Baalites bore, due to exposure to the rad-deserts of his homeworld. The Great Salt Waste, which Luis called home, was far removed from Angel's Fall. No Salt Roamer who attempted the journey survived to make the leap. Yet the boy showed resolve, resolve that would serve him well in the years to come, and attempted the journey. Alas, like so many before him, Luis failed when thirst gripped him and deprived him of will. When all hope seemed lost, the boy spied a winged, golden figure, and with it, precious water. This was the first of four encounters with what Luis would come to know as the Sanguinor.It is said that Luis showed no special promise among the tribesmen that finally reached the Place of Choosing. Sheer luck allowed him and the other 500 boys to pass the first Winnowing. Yet it was Luis' resolve, not chance, that afforded the approval of his peers in the trials that followed. Throughout the trials, Luis remained unremarkable -- he was neither the most athletic, nor the strongest. But he survived, and was taken to the Place of Challenge. It was there that the boy faced his first true test -- the Trial of War. With a clear mind and confidence Luis led his force to victory, yet the senseless bloodshed and deaths of the other Aspirants disgusted him. This disgust served him well in his final trial -- the Trial of Horus. Adhering resolutely to his morals, Luis refused to kill a fellow Aspirant, thus sealing his place as a Blood Angel. Through this act he earned his place amongst the Aspirants taken from their tribes and transported to the Blood Angels' fortress-monastery on Baal itself. It was there that he faced his final challenge -- the Winnowing of Weariness. For three solar days Luis remained awake, and on the final day, as sleep threatened to overtake him, he received aid once more from the mysterious Sanguinor and passed his final test. In the Chapter's vast, armoured cathedral, beneath the glowering marble gazes of the Blood Angels who had been the Chapter's champions throughout the Age of the Imperium, Luis was presented with the Sanguinary Chalice, and drank the synthesised blood of the Ninth Primarch. He fell into the ritual year-long slumber necessary for the process of gene-seed implantation, and was entombed within a sanctified sarcophagus.It was during this time that the boy first drew notice from the Sanguinary Priests. While all somnolent Aspirants would dream visions of the Primarch's life and death, the child Luis cried out endlessly over the course of his year-long internment, shouting the names of fallen Primarchs, dark gods, and long-banished daemons, while drifting between consciousness and slumber, never truly rising to one or falling into the other. So violent was his slumber that it is said he lifted the lid of his sarcophagus. Many Aspirants die in their sarcophagi -- it is simply the way of things for those who would become Blood Angels. The weak will always fail, even at the first step. But no Aspirant had ever shown such torment, and lived to be freed. Upon emerging, with the cancerous flaws of Baal Secundus shriven clean from his remade, angelic form, none of the Sanguinary Priests failed to note the marks left by the desperate clawing at the inside of his coffin lid. And yet, there he stood among them, Luis no longer. Dante was perfectly whole, perfectly composed, ready to begin his true training. Some among the Sanguinary Priesthood believed this first omen signalled a swift descent into the maddened depths of the Red Thirst and Black Rage. Others pointed to Dante's perfection after enduring what seemed like greater pain than any other Aspirant, and argued that it heralded only greatness.
|
Dante - A Son of Sanguinius: A rarely-spoken truth, known only to the Blood Angels and their closest Successor Chapters, is that Dante was never destined to rise to the rank of Lord Commander. This warrior, who now stands astride the Imperium in the burnished armour of a living legend, was a line officer who ascended to the highest position during one of the Blood Angels' bleakest eras. More than once, the Blood Angels have been threatened with destruction. In the final decades of the 37th Millennium, they were a broken Chapter, ravaged by the Black Legion on the world of Mackan during the tumultuous years of the Ghost War. Although the Angels restored their strength over the following standard centuries, for the first time it introduced the threat of mortality upon one of the proudest and noblest First Founding Chapters.Nearly three thousand standard years later, in an event that would come to be known as the Kallius Insurrection, the Blood Angels would again taste the risk of annihilation, losing nine out of every ten Space Marines, and almost the entire Chapter Council. Three full companies, including the young Brother-Captain Dante and his 5th Company, launched a devastating assault on Kallius' Landing and its dependency worlds, in support of their overwhelmed Successor Chapter, the Angels Numinous. The Blood Angels found themselves tied up in protracted conflicts and trench wars, caught in a cobweb of a much wider heresy. When the Blood Angels finally withdrew from the conflict, they were struck the most bitter of blows. As the remnants of their fleet mustered above Kallius' Landing itself, a Traitor armada broke from the Warp, eager to wipe the Scions of Sanguinius from the Imperium forever.The vicious void war and boarding actions that followed lasted for three solar days. Dante and his warriors were responsible for the taking and scuttling of seven capital-class vessels. When at last the Blood Angels emerged victorious and took stock of their losses, fewer than 200 Blood Angels remained. Coming together in communion, the last surviving Sanguinary Priests and Chaplains elected the last-living Captain of the Chapter, Dante, as their next Chapter Master. Accepting the mantle of Lord of the Angelic Host, he would forever after be clad in Artificer Armour of sacred gold. Though such an inauspicious beginning should have heralded a bleak reign as Chapter Master, Dante's fate unfolded much differently.
|
Dante - The Archangel's Mantle: Since taking the role of Chapter Master, Dante has led the Blood Angels into their most glorious and triumphant millennia since the time of the Scouring. The Great Wolf Logan Grimnar of the Space Wolves is perhaps beloved by the people of the Imperium above any other Space Marine commander, and Marneus Calgar of the Ultramarines is often considered the most respected by the other Chapters of the Adeptus Astartes. Lord Commander Dante of the Blood Angels bears a reputation similar to theirs, but where the Great Wolf is celebrated by the populace for his wisdom as well as his warfare, the Lord of Angels is a distant, golden saviour -- a hero of myth come to life. Where the Lord Macragge is a composed, ruthlessly efficient frontline general admired for his acumen as much as his battle prowess, the Bringer of Light is an avenging angel, falling from the sky ahead of his brothers to strike the first blow. No loyal soul would ever compare such exalted heroes -- all are equal beneath the gaze of the God-Emperor -- but over 1,500 standard years of supreme service speaks for itself.Dante's deeds are already stained with the patina of mythic storytelling. Each fall of his axe ends the reign of a Daemon Lord. Each descent from above, flying on contrails of fire, spells the end of another rebellion. Much of it may be myth, but much more of it is true. Skarbrand, the Prince of Rage, the Exiled Son of the Blood God Khorne, fell to Dante at the Gates of Pandemonium. With the daemon's banishment, the creature's armies soon lost their hold on reality and were cast back into the foulness of the Warp with their defeated master. The world of Terion, at the dawn of the 41st Millennium, saw Dante lead his Angels against an unholy alliance of the Night Lords and the Traitor warband known to Imperial records as the Brotherhood of Darkness. Centuries later, Terion has been rebuilt into a paradise; all that remains of the war's legacy is a monument to Dante, sculpted in marble and standing as a colossus in the capital city, with the statue's outstretched hand reaching to the horizon, offering mercy to the citizens' forefathers.None can deny the scope of Dante's campaign experience. He has fought battles uncounted, orchestrated innumerable major campaigns and seized bloody victory on worlds as far-flung as Ultima Macharia and star-swept Jonol, homeworld of the Honoured Sons Astartes. It is said that no man has visited as many of the Imperium's million worlds as Dante, and he has come to each in full raiment of war, at the head of a glorious and vengeful host. The cursed war-world of Armageddon remains the site of his most famous victory. During the Second War for Armageddon the Blood Angels rallied the defenders of the besieged hive cities Acheron and Tartarus, and Dante's leadership was instrumental in devastating the Greenskin hordes sweeping across the planet's principal landmass. Dante and his Blood Angels led the Space Marine reinforcements to Acheron Hive, where he routed the attacking Orks and captured the heretical Planetary Governor Herman von Strab. Without the Blood Angels' reinforcements, Acheron Hive might well have fallen to the Orks, and with it, the Imperium's remaining chances of victory and the retention of its grip on this crucial strategic world. A generation later, his name is still spoken with reverent awe, and one of the Armageddon System's deep space monitoring installations was named in his honour. When the Third War for Armageddon started, Dante was too far away to fulfil his prior pledge to defend the planet from any further attempts by the Orks to seize it. In his stead, he sent Captain Erasmus Tycho and his 3rd Company of the Blood Angels to aid the world's defence.Dante has held the Blood Angels together during the tempestuous years of a civil war unknown to the wider Imperium of Man, and set whole fleets of Traitor vessels aflame with the wrath of his fleet's cannons. Alone, he has taken the helms of hundreds of Champions of the Dark Gods, keeping their tainted relics in stasis when they could not be destroyed, so that no others would rise as heirs to the blasphemous fallen.To his fellow Chapter Masters, Dante is an exemplar of the fearlessness, dedication and strategic genius that speak to the heart of the Space Marines' never-ending mission. To the hard-pressed generals and marshals of the Imperial Guard he is a thrice-welcomed and honoured ally who stands at the forefront of Mankind's defence. To the common soldiers and citizens of the Imperium, Dante is nothing less than a saviour, a golden god who descends from the heavens on wings of fire.
|
Dante - The Time of Ending: With his face shrouded by Sanguinius' golden visage, Dante is the Bringer of Light, commanding some of the most loyal and mighty warriors ever to raise weapons in the defence of Mankind. In every battle, Dante is the lance's thrust; the spear's tip -- he leads his Angels in a wrathful descent, their blades bared and thirsting for enemy blood. Though he is forever to be found where the fighting is thickest, Dante has never been too proud to cede honour to Battle-Brothers and other Imperial commanders, if his skyborne warriors are best used elsewhere, hunting particular prey or taking a specific objective. In every battle, he will be seen at the head of his praetorians, the Blood Angels of the Sanguinary Guard, whose golden armour matches his own. Each of these champions of the Chapter are heroes in their own right, forgoing their chance at personal rank to remain by their master's side. Each has served him for Terran centuries; they are his weapons as surely as the Axe Mortalis and Perdition Pistol that he bears into battle. On the rare occasions he takes to the field of battle without his closest kindred, Dante will lead a Company Captain's Honour Guard, or even take temporary command of a Sergeant's Assault Marines. The squads seconded to Dante never forget the privilege of being chosen to serve the Lord Commander, and most adorn their armour in some way to acknowledge the honour.In his millennia of humble service, the Blood Angels have cleansed entire sub-sectors, destroyed whole Renegade Chapters, and stood fast against the encroaching doom of the End Times. And through it all, the Imperium sees nothing but the unmoving, beauteous death mask covering Dante's features. However, what they see is a lie. Without the mask, Dante's face is a monument to one and a half thousand standard years of bloodshed and battle. He retains his angelic beauty, a gift of his Primarch's genetic coding, but the inhuman serenity of his visage is lined by tracks of weariness and ennui unknown to any other mortal. His hair, once gold, has turned as white as the marble statues cast in his image. He is old now -- and it shows. The Blood Angels are a soulful breed, and their master exemplifies it above any other. Pale eyes stare out at a galaxy that holds nothing but war, populated by beasts and aliens that spill into Mankind's domain in a never-ending tide. Dante knows there will be no final victory for the Imperium, yet defeat and surrender are anathema to his warrior spirit. The Lord of Angels is simply pragmatic in his infinite experience -- he fights to survive, so that the candle of Humanity may light the darkness for a little while longer.
|
Dante - Devastation of Baal: After sacrificing the Shieldworlds of the Cryptus System to fend off the xenos' earliest advance on the Baal System, the planet of Baal itself came under intense attack by Hive Fleet Leviathan. The Tyranid hive fleet was of such mass, even after its considerable losses, that it blotted the stars from the skies. Dante bolstered the formidable defences of the Blood Angels' homeworld and its moons like never before. Not one to await attack, he also sent forth scores of preemptive strike forces to delay, mislead, and whittle down the living armada. Hundreds of splinter fleets were thus defeated. Dante's call, beseeching the Blood Angels' successors to send immediate aid to their parent Chapter, did not go unheeded. The Flesh Tearers were the first to arrive, and ultimately all the Successor Chapters save the Lamenters answered the call. Even the Knights of Blood, who had been declared Excommunicate Traitoris by the High Lords of Terra, arrived to bolster the defences. It was still not enough.Learning at an exponential rate, Hive Fleet Leviathan could not be thwarted by the same strategy twice. Advancing steadily, their superior numbers cleared the entire surrounding sector of life before the xenos made planetfall upon Baal and her twin moons. The first nineteen waves, each larger than the last, were driven off at great loss to the Blood Angels and their Successor allies. Five Chapter Masters fell in that bitter fighting, three in the Battle at the Dome of Angels alone. The Tyranids began the process of absorbing all biomass from Baal and its moons, absorbing even the radiation-poisoned deserts of Baal Secundus. With their defences in ruin and Baal's moons stripped and broken, the remaining Space Marines retreated back to the rubble of the Blood Angels' sprawling fortress-monastery. There, they prepared for a last stand as the next wave swept downwards. Doom, it seemed, had at last come to the Sons of Sanguinius.It was then that the Great Rift cracked open the galaxy in the wake of the fall of Cadia to the 13th Black Crusade, and the withered Baal System was blasted by the aetheric storms. Although no further attack waves came from the Leviathan hive fleet, not a single Imperial defender remained alive upon the last moon, Baal Prime. On Baal itself there were already enough Tyranids there to destroy the Imperial troops many times over. Even with no chance of victory, Commander Dante led his troops, each fighting retreat seemingly more hopeless than the last. As the final perimeter was broken, the stars reappeared. Looking skywards, the Tyranids on the surface of Baal sought contact with their Hive Fleet, but it was gone, replaced by a newly arrived Imperial fleet.Like an angel of vengeance came the Primarch Roboute Guilliman, now the Lord Commander of the Imperium and his Indomitus Crusade. After many more battles, Baal was finally cleared of the xenos threat. A great rebuilding of both world and Chapter was undertaken, for the Blood Angels and their successors were sorely needed elsewhere in the beleaguered Imperium. What became of the Leviathan is a mystery, although a clue was found upon the now-barren moon of Baal Prime. Xenos skulls were piled impossibly high in the much-reviled, eight-pillared symbol of one of the Blood Angels' most terrible and ancient nemeses: the Bloodthirster Ka'Bandha and his army of Khornate daemons.In the wake of the Leviathan's defeat, the Blood Angels began to rebuild. Their gene-seed stocks were recalled, taking their rightful place beneath the rising arches of the restored Arx Angelicum. The several thousand grizzled Aspirants who survived the siege were all inducted, and those who endured were funnelled into the outsized Scout Companies authorised by Commander Dante for his Chapter and their successors. The ranks were further bolstered by a huge influx of Primaris Space Marines, unfrozen from the vaults of Belisarius Cawl's Ark Mechanicus Zar-Quaesitor or produced upon Baal itself using the newly installed mechanisms brought by Archmagos Dominus Cawl. With Commander Dante declared lord regent of the Imperium Nihilus by Guilliman, the Blood Angels and their successors were soon ready to rejoin the war for the Emperor's realm. It is well that they are, for the fight has become more desperate than ever before.
|
Dante - Dante's Final Duty: Lord Commander Dante has grown weary of his burdens despite all of his success, or perhaps because of it. He has lived far longer than he should, and the burden of Terran centuries grows ever more cumbersome. Only one thing prevents Dante succumbing to ennui. Recorded in the Scrolls of Sanguinius are the primarch's visions of a great battle to overshadow all others. This vision was predicted before his death at the hands of Horus, that a lone "Golden Warrior" would ultimately stand between the Emperor of Mankind and His destruction. Many Imperial scholars have assumed this prophecy refers to Sanguinius' own stand against Horus aboard his flagship, the Vengeful Spirit, during the Battle of Terra at the end of the Horus Heresy. Through some inherent instinct, perhaps a lingering trace of his Primarch's fabled far-seeing eye, Dante believes otherwise. One day, perhaps one day soon, the defence of the now-helpless Emperor, who resides trapped on His Golden Throne, will rest in Dante's hands, and he aims to fulfil this final duty before the darkness claims him.Commander Dante never expected to see his Chapter's final days, yet he faced them unbowed. He never expected to see a Primarch returned, yet he knelt before Roboute Guilliman with thankful hearts. When Guilliman named Dante as his Regent of the Imperium Nihilus, the Lord of Baal felt the hand of fate land heavy upon his shoulder. With the fury of the Great Rift unleashed, a darkness looms more terrible than any in the Imperium's history. The Blood Angels now stand before that darkness with the throne of Terra at their backs, and will have to fight like never before.Coupled with the revitalising purpose of this new duty is the fresh hope brought by the Primaris Space Marines, the possibility that perhaps the Sons of Sanguinius will not burn out like a guttering candle. It is said amongst the Blood Angels that Commander Dante has never stood taller, even as he does so in the face of such terrible adversity. The Regent of the Imperium Nihilus has sworn to purge his dark new realm of the taint of Chaos, even should it take another thousand Terran years and more. After all, it is amidst the darkest night that such golden angels shine the brightest.
|
Dante - Angel's Halo Campaign: Following his ascension to become the lord regent of the Imperium Nihilus, Dante used his new authority over the Imperial forces in his half of galaxy to organise an Imperial counter-offensive to retake the Red Scar region from tendrils of the Tyranids' Hive Fleet Leviathan. This campaign was known as the Angel's Halo.At some point following the Devastation of Baal, Dante elected to undergo the brutal surgery required to cross the Rubicon Primaris and ascend to become a Primaris Space Marine.
|
Dante - Notable Campaigns: Kallius Insurrection (Unknown Date.M40) - The Blood Angels, once again, tasted the risk of annihilation, losing nine out of every ten Space Marines, and almost the entire Chapter Council. Three full Companies -- including the young Brother-Captain Dante and his 8th Assault Company -- launched a devastating assault on Kallius' Landing and its dependency worlds, in support of their overwhelmed Successor brethren, the Angels Numinous (more commonly known, because of their symbol, as the "Blood Eagles"). World after world rose up in rebellion, insurrections spreading across the region and blanketing the sub-sector. Entire populations and ragtag fleets were led into battle by chanting Traitor Marines, clad in a panoply of colours, drawn from countless warbands. The Blood Angels found themselves tied up in protracted conflicts and trench wars, caught in a cobweb of a much wider heresy. As the solar weeks became months and the solar months became standard years, more and more of the Chapter arrived to punish, cleanse, and reclaim the rebellious worlds. The Rolls of Honour run black with the ink of millions of enemies slain, but the Blood Angels suffered casualties beyond their ability to sustain a fighting front. With dozens of Imperial Guard regiments arriving alongside several relief Chapters, the Blood Angels withdrew from the conflict with their heads held high. Yet the bitterest blow was yet to be struck: it came as the remnants of their fleet mustered above Kallius' Landing itself, when a Traitor armada broke from the Warp, hungry for the chance to wipe the Angels from the face of the Imperium. The battle that followed lasted for three solar days of void war and vicious boarding actions, during which Dante and his warriors were responsible for the taking and scuttling of seven capital-class vessels. When the Blood Angels at last stood victorious and took stock of their losses, fewer than two hundred Space Marines clad in red still drew breath. The last surviving Sanguinary Priests and Chaplains came together in communion, electing the last-living Captain as the next Chapter Master. Dante accepted the mantle of Lord of the Angelic Host, while still wearing his bloodstained, broken armour. It would be the last day he ever wore red, forever after to be clad in sacred gold. Not because he was the best or the brightest, but purely because he was the last man standing. Such an ascension should have heralded a grim rule, but fate would tell a different tale.Scouring of Ultramar (746.M41) - Recognising that the Tyranid invasion of Ultramar is but the first of many yet to occur, Lord Commander Dante sends three companies of Blood Angels to assist the Ultramarines in scouring the remaining beasts from the eastern sectors. Upon their return three standard years later, the three companies are much reduced in number, but wealthy in invaluable Tyranid-hunting doctrines that are swiftly passed on to the rest of the Chapter.The Assault on Baal (798.M41) - Three colossal space hulks drop out of Warp in the Baal system, signalling the arrival of WAAAGH! Big Skorcha. Dante orders the deployment of two companies to each of Baal's moons. The remaining companies are assigned to strike forces and ordered to board and destroy the Space Hulks. Two of the Space Hulks are destroyed with much of the WAAAGH! still on board. Before it too is destroyed, the final Space Hulk disgorges thousands of Orks, the Warlord Big Skorcha among them, onto the surface of Baal. Knowing the bulk of the Blood Angels forces to still be in orbit or on the two moons, Big Skorcha aims to breach and ransack the Chapter's fortress-monastery. However, the Blood Angels are not to be so easily outmanoeuvred, as the Chapter's Dreadnoughts led the defence of the fortress-monastery long enough for reinforcements to arrive from orbit.The Axonar Spirewar (830.M41) - Dante sends the 3rd and 4th Companies to quell rebellion on the Hive World of Axonar. Deeming the defences at the base of the hive cities to be too formidable for a direct assault, Captain Metraen orders a series of low-orbit Jump Pack insertions onto the upper spires of the hives. Trapped behind their own defences, the rebels are swiftly crushed.The Battle of Stonehaven (901.M41) - Lord Commander Dante leads the Stormraven drop assault that finally breaks WAAAGH! Bludcrumpa's solar decade-long siege on Forge World Ironhelm.Second War for Armageddon (941.M41) - WAAAGH! Ghazghkull descends upon the Hive World of Armageddon during the Second War for Armageddon. The Blood Angels are one of three Space Marine Chapters to respond. Such is Lord Commander Dante's reputation that Tu'Shan of the Salamanders and Marneus Calgar of the Ultramarines cede overall command to him. The tactical manoeuvrability of the Blood Angels proves to be crucial in the later stages of the campaign. The 3rd Company, under the command of the newly promoted Captain Erasmus Tycho, forms the heart of an armoured spearhead that cripples the chief Ork supply lines, leaving the WAAAGH!'s Mekboyz without the necessary gubbins and gears to keep the massive Skullhammas and Stompas fully operational. With its heavy guns thus neutralised, the WAAAGH! is finally broken before the towering walls of Tartarus Hive, where Dante and Tu'Shan famously fight side by side against Ghazghkull's bodyguard.Gehenna Campaign (955.M41) - Lord Commander Dante and the 3rd Company battle against the Necron Legions of the Silent King amidst the dusty wastes of Gehenna. For three solar weeks, neither side can seize the upper hand, with Dante's tactical brilliance stretched to its limits in countering the time-space manipulations of the Silent King. The stalemate is broken only when a Tyranid splinter fleet enters orbit, forcing the two armies to break off hostilities and fight the common foe. The impromptu alliance proves to be the Tyranids' undoing. Following the final battle at Devil's Crag, Dante and the Silent King go their separate ways, both forces now too battleworn to guarantee victory over the other, and, at least for the Blood Angels, the idea of turning on those they had so recently fought alongside, a rather distasteful one.The Blackfang Crusade (994.M41) - Judging that the Ork strongholds in the Blackfang System have defied the Imperium for too long, Dante mobilises the entire Chapter in a standard year-long campaign that not only drives the Orks from the twelve worlds of Blackfang, but also from two neighbouring star systems.Shield of Baal (998.M41) - News reaches Baal that the Cryptan Shield, intended to hold back the might of Hive Fleet Leviathan, has collapsed. Already Lord Commander Dante has put plans in motion to defend the Blood Angels' homeworld, strike forces fighting hit-and-run battles with Leviathan's smaller splinter-fleets throughout the Red Scar. Meanwhile, the defences of Baal and her moons have been bolstered like never before; indomitable fortresses rise above the sweltering sands, and the might of the Blood Angels' successor Chapters gathers from across the galaxy. Yet still it may not be enough, for the Tyranids are seemingly without number, and Hive Fleet Leviathan is learning the weaknesses of its prey at an exponential rate. Knowing that the consumption of the Cryptus System would open the floodgates for an unstoppable Tyranid invasion of Baal, Commander Dante takes action. At the head of a mighty strike force that comprises the 1st and 2nd Companies of the Blood Angels, Brother Corbulo, First Captain Arenos Karlaen, Chief Librarian Mephiston and the bulk of Gabriel Seth's Flesh Tearers, Dante strikes out for the Cryptus System. He will see the defences shored up if such a thing is still possible, and if not will do battle with the Cryptoid Tendril directly in a desperate bid for the salvation of Baal.Scions of Sanguinius Conclave (999.M41) - Teetering on the brink of oblivion following the events on the Shrine World of Sabien, the fate of the Blood Angels Chapter now required the magnanimity of their Successor Chapters. Lord Commander Dante summoned all of the Blood Angels' Successor Chapters for a conclave on Baal following the near-disastrous Chapter civil war that nearly tore the Blood Angels apart. Dante called for the support of the Blood Angels successors to help aid the Chapter in the protection of their common Primarch's homeworld and his remains from the attack of both the Tyranids and the Forces of Chaos. While Dante lead the discussion at the conclave, the Apothecaria was working on a radical new procedure to replenish the ranks of the Blood Angels in one swift stroke: the lost art of replicae. Caecus was the Chief Apothecary or Apothecae Majoris of the Blood Angels. Disturbed by the dwindling numbers of his Chapter, and dreading its extinction, he was involved in fruitless experiments, which Lord Commander Dante ordered stopped, to clone Space Marines, thus eliminating the need to go through the arduous process of the maturation and implantation of the gene-seed in an Aspirant. However, Caecus disobeyed the order and secretly continued the experiments, prodded by an agent of the vile Chaos Space Marine Apothecary Fabius Bile. He was tricked into bringing Bile, who was disguised as a well-known Adeptus Mechanicus Magos Biologis, to Baal, mistakenly thinking the false "Magos" would help in cloning Space Marines to increase the Blood Angels' numbers. Through Bile's manipulations, Caecus was duped, and only managed to create monstrous, mutant clone-Astartes known as "Bloodfiends" who were consumed by the Red Thirst. These creatures were a shattered mirror reformed in the image of a Blood Angel, but lacked any of the qualities that could be thought of as human. The mutations that cursed the gene-seed of the Blood Angels had been enhanced by the machinations and Chaotic tech-heresy of Fabius Bile, and with each drop of blood they consumed, the thirst that dominated the Bloodfiends grew stronger. The mutants broke free from the confines of Caecus' laboratorium and began to run rampant through the sacred halls of the fortress-monastery of the Blood Angels. During their rampage, Bile managed to steal a glass vial that Caeucus had carried back from the Chapel of the Red Grail -- a measure of the mingled blood of a hundred standard centuries of Sanguinary Priests and the Primarch himself, the raw vitae of the Chapter. During the Bloodfiends' rampage, a small group of the bloodthirsty mutants assaulted the sacred Chapel of the Chapter's fortress-monastery. Brother Corbulo raced to the Chapel to confront the vile creatures. He knew exactly what it was the beasts wanted, and he bellowed out a denial, charging in a headlong rush to meet such embodiments of corruption. The creatures swarmed Corbulo as the Sanguinary Priest carved into them with his chainsword Heaven's Teeth. But the largest of the Bloodfiends, a massive brute easily the size of an Astartes in Terminator Armour, threw itself towards its target -- the Red Grail and the precious blood of the Primarch it contained. The Bloodfiend seized the holy relic and then tipped the contents of the cup into its open mouth and drained it to the dregs. Now that the beasts had tasted the blood of the Primarch, they only craved more. In the aftermath of this desecration, Bile had achieved his goal and escaped from the Blood Angels' homeworld with a sample of the precious vitae of their Primarch. The Blood Angels and their successors successfully defended their most sacred of sites on Baal -- the Golden Sarcophagus of Sanguinius within the sacred sepulchre where the body of the Great Angel lay for all time, sleeping in light, forever preserved. The Sons of Sanguinius destroyed the horde of mutants and erased the stain of Chaos from their midst. They had paid for the continued sanctity of the Great Angel with their blood, and in the aftermath of this misery, Lord Commander Dante took responsibility for what had happened and he accepted it without complaint. Dante believed that it was his hubris that had brought the Chapter to this dark place. The Successor Chapters took this into consideration as well as Lord Commander Dante's original request for the successors to grant the Blood Angels a small tithe of their Chapter's Initiates in order to replenish the ranks of the Chapter. The Successor Chapters unanimously agreed to hand over to the Blood Angels some of their own neophytes to help their ancestral Chapter rebuild its strength in the wake of the Chaos assault -- and in preparation for the oncoming assault by the Tyranids of Hive Fleet Leviathan and the Forces of Chaos of the 13th Black Crusade.Devastation of Baal (ca.999.M41) - With the arrival of Roboute Guilliman's Indomitus Crusade in the midst of the massive temporal distortions caused by the birth of the Great Rift, the Blood Angels and their Successor Chapters are successful in fending off the great assault of Hive Fleet Leviathan upon their homeworld of Baal. The remainder of the Leviathan is largely consumed by a Warp storm and a great assault of Khornate Daemons led by the Blood Angels' most ancient foe, the Bloodthirster Ka'bandha.
|
Dante - Wargear: Artificer Armour - Dante's power armour is a shining gold in colour, and it is said to be "like watching a flame of glory pass above the battlefield," when he uses his Jump Pack to swiftly move across the field of battle. Following his crossing of the Rubicon Primaris in the wake of the Devastation of Baal to become a Primaris Marine, Dante's Artificer Armour was replaced with a modified variant of Mark X Power Armour and upscaled to fit his now larger and more massive frame.Jump Pack - A Jump Pack is a bulky, vectored-thrust rocket engine fueled by promethium that can be worn as an attachment by a single soldier, designed to be attached to the backpacks of the Space Marines or the Sisters of Battle's suits of power armour. They are used to make powered jumps across the battlefield, allowing the warriors wearing them to cover ground quickly and unexpectedly drop into the midst of their foes to launch a close-combat assault. Like his Artificer Armour, Dante's Jump Pack following his crossing of the Rubicon Primaris is now based on the Jump Packs used on the suits of Mark X Power Armour by the Primaris Marines.Death Mask of Sanguinius - This ancient artefact is an incredibly lifelike golden mask that is said to have been modelled upon the features of the Blood Angels primarch after his death. The mask radiates Sanguinius' anger and disgust at Horus' betrayal, emitting waves of such potent hatred that enemies are paralysed or put to flight by its hollow, accusing stare. When Commander Dante enters battle the power of the Death Mask of Sanguinius swells and the visage itself seems almost to become invested with ghostly life. When Dante screams a battle cry, so too does the helm he wears, while its glower of hatred for Traitors and Heretics becomes Dante's own. Dante has never removed this golden death mask outside of the Blood Angels' fortress-monastery, so his actual physical appearance is unknown. When Dante is in battle, it appears to come to life. A nimbus of golden energy plays about his head that strikes terror into the hearts of the Chapter's enemies. This relic was upscaled following Dante's crossing of the Rubicon Primaris.Iron Halo - The Iron Halo is a revered part of the Armoury of the Chapters of the Adeptus Astartes and is also a common Astartes award for valour. The Iron Halo is a halo-shaped ring that is positioned above the head of the wielder, usually mounted on the backpack of Space Marine power armour but sometimes mounted in the gorget. The Iron Halo is a prestigious honour that is granted only to the most exceptional of the Astartes within a Space Marine Chapter as a reward for uncommon initiative and valour. It is most often worn by the Chapter's Captains and Chapter Master, though Veteran Astartes and Sergeants can also earn the right to add it to their armour in certain circumstances. The Iron Halo appears to share the same basic technological mechanisms as the Space Marine Chaplain's Rosarius, as they both produce a protective effect using gravitic and now poorly-understood Conversion Field technology. This artefact was upscaled to fit on Dante's new suit of Artificer Armour following his crossing of the Rubicon Primaris.Perdition Pistol - In battle, Dante also wields the Perdition Pistol, a unique Astartes-sized Infernus Pistol crafted using technical knowledge long since lost by the Adeptus Mechanicus, making it an extremely powerful ranged weapon. Only a warrior as great and as loyal to the Emperor of Mankind as Lord Commander Dante is permitted to wield such a potent and ancient weapon. The Perdition Pistol was upscaled to properly fit Dante's now much more massive frame following his crossing of the Rubicon Primaris to become a Primaris Marine.Axe Mortalis - Dante's other weapon is an immensely powerful Power Axe, the Axe Mortalis, forged in the days immediately after the end of the Horus Heresy. The Axe Mortalis was crafted by the famed Chapter Artificer Metriculus in the days following the Heresy. Deeply affected by the death of Sanguinius and the betrayal of the Traitor Legions, he sought to fashion a weapon that could slay the debased warlords of the Heretic Astartes like the dogs they were. The result of his labours was the Axe Mortalis, a weapon that crackles with barely suppressed killing power, and can scythe through even the thickest ceramite and plasteel like a sharp knife through silk. Perfectly balanced and said to bear the death curse of Sanguinius upon its skull-wrought haft, the Axe Mortalis became the ritual weapon of the Blood Angels Chapter Master and has reaped countless Heretic lives. Dante uses it to slice through the enemy ranks and cut down the enemies of the Imperium of Man during close quarters assaults. The Axe Mortalis was upscaled to properly fit Dante's now much more massive frame following his crossing of the Rubicon Primaris to become a Primaris Marine.Frag GrenadesKrak Grenades
|
Dante - Sources: Codex Adeptus Astartes - Blood Angels (7th Edition), pp. 15, 32-33, 51, 64, 66-67, 95, 99, 101, 103, 180-181Codex Adeptus Astartes - Blood Angels (8th Edition), pp. 22-23, 26-27, 76Codex: Blood Angels (4th Edition), pg. 6Codex: Blood Angels (5th Edition), pp. 9, 12, 14-17, 23, 29, 40-41, 51, 53, 66, 82, 180-181Codex: Angels of Death (2nd Edition)Dante (Novel) by Guy HaleyDevastation of Baal (Novel) by Guy Haley, Chs. 15, 29Deathwatch: First Founding (RPG), pg. 39Index Astartes II, "Angels of Death - The Blood Angels Space Marine Chapter"Shield of Baal: Exterminatus (Campaign Supplement) (Digital Edition), pp. 10-11, 17-19, 21-22, 26-28, 31-32, 36, 44-46, 49-50, 54, 64, 118-119, 121, 127-128, 130-132, 137-138, 150, 154-155, 157-158, 160, 164-165, 172, 179, 181, 206, 210, 213, 227-228, 231-232, 235, 238, 240, 242, 265-270, 275, 279, 292, 314, 316-317, 319, 322, 326, 328, 330, 332, 334-335, 337Warhammer 40,000 Rulebook (6th Edition), pg. 181Warlords of the Dark Millennium - Dante (Digital Edition), pp. 3-4, 6-12, 21-26White Dwarf 194 (US), "Lords of Baal: Blood Angels Characters", pp. 11–14White Dwarf 228 (US), "Codex Blood Angels - Angels of Death"White Dwarf 261 (US), "Index Astartes First Founding - Angels of Death, The Blood Angels Space Marine Chapter"White Dwarf 262 (AUS), "Index Astartes – Blood Angels"White Dwarf 299 (UK), "Angels of Death: Codex Space Marines Preview"White Dwarf 329 (US), "Sons of Sanguinius" and "Standard Bearer", pp. 74, 87White Dwarf 330 (UK), "Blood Angels Official Codex: Part IWhite Dwarf 331 (UK), "Blood Angels Official Codex: Part IIBloodquest II: Into the Eye of Terror by Gordon Rennie and illustrated by Colin MacNeilBloodquest III: The Daemon's Mark by Gordon Rennie and illustrated by Colin MacNeilThe Blood Angels Omnibus by James SwallowDeus Encarmine (Novel) by James SwallowDeus Sanguinius (Novel) by James SwallowRed Fury (Novel) by James SwallowBlack Tide (Novel) by James SwallowThe Word of the Silent King (Short Story) by Laurie GouldingDante's Canyon (Short Story) by Josh ReynoldsBlood Angel's Quick Reads Collection: The Angels of Death (Ebook Collection)Dante: Lord of the Host ((Short Story) by James SwallowPsychic Awakening: Blood of Baal (8th Edition), pp. 8-9Games Workshop Catalogue - Lord Commander DanteWarhammer Community - Artefacts of the Blood AngelsWarhammer Community - The Legendary Commander Dante Crosses the Rubicon Primaris
|
Dargonus - Dargonus: Dargonus is an Imperial Civilised World in the Mundus Valancius system of the Koronus Expanse in the Segmentum Obscurus that serves as the capital planet of the Rogue Trader House von Valancius' protectorate.In order to govern a Rogue Trader dynasty and the great many assets under its purview, there must be a guiding hand and central powerbase from which the Rogue Trader's presence might extend. A place for the Administratum to erect their bureaucratic monuments, for the glories of a dynasty's lineage to be arrayed, for politics to be played, galas to be held and raids to be repelled.Dargonus is the foremost jewel of the von Valancius dynasty, resplendent with the glories of past conquests and ventures undertaken by Lord Captain Theodora von Valancius and her predecessors. It hosted a vast conglomerate of noble families that hailed from the dynasty's supplicant worlds within its protectorate. Each had sworn an oath of fealty to the house long before Theodora's heir apparent rose to power as the new Lord Captain, but each with their own realm of influence within the von Valancius Protectorate. And each vassal family participates in an endless competition with their counterparts to jockey for the Lord Captain's efforts and attention, always seeking to curry their favor so the prosperity they find might spill out onto their family first and foremost.However, the eternal politicking and administrative efforts of Dargonus have ground to a halt while the von Valancius fleets idle in orbit of it. For, just like the rest, this twinkling gem of affluence is cut off from the wider Koronus Expanse in the wake of recent Warp storms.Without the overview of a Rogue Trader, a capital world such as Dargonus is left to its own devices in a manner worse than most. Its people are without material goods, without food and left with a fleet overhead too crowded to be maintained for a long period of time. But those left in the Lord Captain's stead as their regents are valiant, level-headed men and women who have immense experience in steering ships through tumultuous storms. Political jockeying can be set aside. Once bitter rivals might come together and work, albeit begrudgingly, toward a brighter horizon.It cannot last forever, though, so the Lord Captain must hurry home before something worse than isolation rears its head.
|
Darius Hinks - Darius Hinks: Darius Hinks is an author for Games Workshop's Black Library imprint.
|
Darius Hinks - Blackstone Fortress: Blackstone Fortress (2018, ISBN 1-78496-928-1)Talisman of Vaul (Short story) (2019, collected in Vaults of Obsidian (Anthology))The Beast Inside (Short story) (2019, collected in Vaults of Obsidian (Anthology))Blackstone Fortress: Ascension (2020, ISBN 1-78999-297-4)
|
Darius Hinks - The Horus Heresy: The Primarchs: The Sinew of War (Short Story) (Collected in Scions of the Emperor (Anthology))
|
Darius Hinks - Mephiston: Mephiston: Blood of Sanguinius (2017, ISBN 1-78496-570-7)Mephiston: Revenant Crusade (2018, ISBN 1-78496-853-6)Mephiston: City of Light (2019, ISBN 1-78999-131-5)
|
Darius Hinks - Necromunda: Redemption (Short Story) (Collected in Underhive (Anthology))Burned (Short Story) (Collected in Underhive (Anthology))
|
Darius Hinks - Space Marine Battles: Sanctus (Novella) (2012, collected in Architect of Fate (Anthology))
|
Darius Hinks - Warhammer Crime: Exit Wound (Short Story) (Collected in No Good Men (Anthology))
|
Darius Hinks - Warhammer Horror: A Threnody for Kolchev (Short Story) (2020, collected in Anathemas (Anthology))The Funeral (Short Story) (2020, collected in Anathemas (Anthology))
|
Darius Hinks - Others: Calculus Logi (Short Story) (Collected in What Price Victory (Anthology))
|
Darius Melk - Darius Melk: Darius Melk, whose formal title is Sire Darius Melk XIV, Lord of the Quartervest, Holder of the Endless March, Warden of the Crux Mortem, Thrice Decorated for Bravery by Lord Dolmar Martialis, is an unscupulous and greedy scion of House Straxamus, an Imperial noble house. He currently serves as an Acolyte of the Ordo Hereticus in the retinue of Inquisitor Grendyl. He is engaged with the rest of Grendyl's warband in scouring the Nurglish Chaos corruption from the lower levels of Hive Tertium of the Moebian world of Atoma Prime. He operates like the rest of the warband from the mobile headquarters they have set up upon the requisitioned Rogue Trader frigate Mourningstar.Melk is essentially an intelligence analyst for the warband. His responsibilities include collating and analysing reports from reconnaissance teams, Grendyl's Wyrmwood deep cover agents and loyal citizens of Hive Tertium who risk their lives to deliver vital intelligence about the plans and actions of the Cult of Admonition and the Traitoris Militarum of the Moebian 6th Regiment. Melk identifies priority targets, enemy supply lines and transitory weaknesses in the Heretics' growing forces.Melk also runs the Requisitorium aboard the Mourningstar, where other Acolytes can come to carry out contracts that usually obtain something useful for Melk in return for the right to purchase unusually powerful weapons and other wargear that Melk may have "acquired" elsewhere.
|
Darius Melk - History: Darius Melk is an unscupulous nobleman of the Imperium who did see combat as a younger man on Cymballa V. While he now serves the Inquisition, Melk is happy to use this position of power to better himself, particularly in the pursuit of profit. The Sanctioned Psyker Sefoni, for instance, knows that Melk uses the Acolyte teams of the warband who carry out combat missions in Hive Tertium against the Heretics to also spend some time searching for something valuable in the underhive, though she does not know what this is.Melk has an ascerbic personality and greatly dislikes any individuals who do not show him the proper deference he believes he is due as a nobleman. This includes some of his fellow senior Acolytes in Grendyl's retinue, including Sergeant Major Vincent Morrow and Flight Lieutenant Gillia Masozi, who he feels do not follow the proper "protocol" for dealing with their social superior. He also has a tendency to dismiss anyone he believes will not be useful to him in pursuing his own personal quest for private gain.One person on the Mourningstar he does seem to get along with, however, is Commodore Alice Hallowette, the Mourningstar's purser who also runs the Commodore's Vestures shop where she sells high-end vestments to Grendyl's Acolytes on the side. Both Melk and Hallowette seemed to be joined together by their shared love of shameless greed and desire to use the Inqusition's activities on Atoma Prime for their own profit.For instance, Melk often assists Hallowette in carrying out the various unauthorised missions she provides to Acolytes heading into Tertium's lower hive. She expects them to recover valuable technology from the Traitors which she can then sell for a profit on the black market. When Melk first found out about Hallowette's little side-scheme, he threatened to tell Grendyl about it until he was offered a bribe from the profits of the ventures to "look the other way." In truth, the side missions do not really disrupt the Inquisition's operations in Hive Tertium, as such for-profit activities are equally disruptive to the Heretics' goals.Sire Melk also wants to use his growing association with Hallowette to arrange an audience with the Rogue Trader who commands the Mourningstar, Shipmistress Emora Brahms, as House Brahms is a wealthy and influential Rogue Trader dynasty that Melk wants to forge a connection with. Hallowette attempted to make the introduction at Melk's request, but Brahms refused him in no uncertain terms, telling Hallowette that she "didn't have time for social climbers." However, Melk is not yet ready to take no for an answer.Melk appears to know the identity of the traitor amongst the major noble houses of Hive Tertium who has been assisting the Heretics in accessing classified data found in the Archivum Sycorax. This unknown traitor aided the Heretics in gaining access to the hive city's Throneside district's Archivum Comms-Plex 154/2f as well as deleting a portion of the records for Flow Control Hub Delta-12, both of which were intended to aid in the spread of the Walking Pox among the hive's lower levels before the authorities could do anything to stop it. He has hesitated to inform Grendyl of this information, claiming that he wanted to deal with the traitor in the "traditional honorable way."
|
Dark Angels - Dark Angels: The Dark Angels are considered amongst the most powerful and secretive of the Loyalist Space Marine Chapters. They were the Ist Legion of the original 20 Space Marine Legions to be created during the First Founding of the 30th Millennium.Though they claim complete allegiance and service to the Emperor of Mankind, their actions and secret goals at times seem at odds with that professed loyalty, as the Dark Angels strive above all other things to atone for an ancient crime of betrayal committed over 10,000 standard years ago against the trust of the Emperor during the time of the Horus Heresy.The Dark Angels stand first amongst the Space Marine Chapters, as they have done since their very inception as the Ist Legion. They are a proud Chapter, with traditions and rituals that date back to the earliest days of the Imperium of Man.The origins of the Dark Angels remain shrouded in mystery. Few Imperial records of the Chapter's beginnings still exist, nor are there many mentions of the part it played in the Emperor's Great Crusade during the early 31st Millennium. Most references in the histories of the Imperium to its deeds during the accursed times of the Horus Heresy have actually been expunged.Yet a legend persists that at one point the Dark Angels teetered on the very brink of heresy and that an act of the most terrible betrayal dishonoured all of the Ist Legion's feats of valour, leaving an enduring stain upon all of its Successor Chapters' honour.Such is their shame that from that time onwards, the Dark Angels and their Unforgiven successors, of which there are more than 19 currently in Imperial service, strive for absolution from the sins of millennia past.The Dark Angels' terrible secret is this: during the Horus Heresy, some of their brethren were turned to the side of Chaos. The Renegades were defeated in a battle that destroyed the Dark Angels' Legion homeworld, Caliban, but many of the Traitor Dark Angels survived to be cast through space and time by the direct intervention of the Chaos Gods.These survivors are known to those few Dark Angels granted knowledge of their existence as the "Fallen Angels" or just "The Fallen." In the eyes of the Chapter's leaders, there is only one way that the Chapter can ever atone for its shame, restoring its honour and trust in the eyes of the Emperor -- all of the Fallen must be found and either made to repent their ancient sin, or slain.This story of treachery and betrayal is the Dark Angels' hidden shame, and their secret mission to destroy all of the Fallen is now their only hope of salvation. No one knows of this other than the Dark Angels, their Successor Chapters and, perhaps, the Emperor Himself, interred within His Golden Throne.The Chapter has been shaped by its dark past and is secretive and monastic in nature, with much time given over to worship and prayer. There are many different levels within the Chapter which individuals may gradually rise through. On attaining each new level, they are granted a little more knowledge of the truth behind the Dark Angels' origins, but only the highest-ranking members of the Chapter, the members of what is known as the "Inner Circle," know the terrible, shameful secret of what occurred 10,000 Terran years ago.The Dark Angels hold more battle honours than almost any other Chapter; its only equals are its own successors. The Chapter has fought the length and breadth of the Imperium and beyond; against every foe that has ever beset Mankind. Dark Angels have held Ork WAAAGH!s at bay, crushed planetary uprisings, and saved entire star systems from the incursions of the Ruinous Powers.They have fought across searing deserts, in the cold void of space, in dense carnivorous alien jungles, and in the depths of the wildest underhives. Yet, while Chapters such as the Blood Angels and the Ultramarines are lauded wherever they fight, the Dark Angels shun laurels and turn their backs upon adulation.Even though the Chapter has stood side by side with every major arm of the Imperium's military, it has always maintained a distance and aloofness that sets its brethren further apart from the bulk of Humanity, and even from other Space Marines. When the Dark Angels join a larger force to execute a great war or Imperial Crusade, they do so according to their own, unfathomable goals. When a Dark Angels force is committed to such a conflict, it invariably remains aloof.Its officers keep their own counsel on matters of tactics and strategy, and prefer to maintain their own lines of communication and supply sources. Even when dealing with the battle-brothers of other Astartes Chapters, the Dark Angels often remain sullenly quiet at the Space Marine command councils and tactical briefings, though that is not to suggest that they are any less effective on the battlefield.When the Dark Angels do undertake joint operations alongside other Chapters, it is quite common for them to do so with others amongst the so-called "Unforgiven" -- the Successor Chapters of the original Dark Angels Legion. The successors of the Ist Legion maintain especially close relations, their officers all being members of the Inner Circle.This mysterious body provides a ready-made command network that the Unforgiven Chapters can utilise to great effect when coordinating their activities. There is no presumption that the leaders of the Dark Angels have any inherent superiority over those of the other Unforgiven Chapters. Rather, the leaders work together closely, and if needed elect one of their number as nominal commander for the duration of the campaign.In one matter, however, the officers of the Dark Angels have superiority over those of the other Unforgiven Chapters, through the workings of the Inner Circle -- the Hunt for the Fallen. When hunting those turncoat Dark Angels who escaped the Fall of Caliban, the Unforgiven operate under the auspices of the highest-ranked of the Inner Circle, and the very highest of these is the Supreme Grand Master himself -- the Chapter Master of the Dark Angels.Through the machinations of the Unforgiven's Inner Circle, its members are eternally vigilant, never resting in the hunt for the Fallen. Even though knowledge of the Fallen is withheld from the majority of the brethren, the results of post-battle debriefings and psi-induced stress-purges are fed back to the Inner Circle and any sign of the presence of a Fallen analysed.In addition, the Dark Angels' Chaplains are permanently attached to a company, and this allows them to hear the confessions of their brothers and to keep a close watch for signs of the Fallen. When such traces are discovered, the Inner Circle moves without hesitation, redeploying Unforgiven forces wherever they happen to be and re-tasking them with their new target.In most cases, it is the Ravenwing that locates such activity and the Deathwing that delivers the killing blow, but on occasion, entire Dark Angels strike forces have been recalled from campaigns and committed to engage an enemy that only the highest-ranked of its officers have any true knowledge of.While a great deal of the Unforgiven's efforts and resources are committed to the Hunt for the Fallen, the majority of the brethren have no knowledge of the matter. Rather, the Dark Angels and their successors are constantly warned against the words of the Heretic and their Chapter dogma extols the virtues of the eternal hunt for those who would foreswear the most powerful of oaths.The company Chaplains preach sermons that tell of legendary figures betrayed by their own, often having fought in battles far from home. Numerous such tales exist, and each is revealed as part of a slow, deliberate pattern, the brethren monitored all the while for their reaction.Only upon his ascension to the Inner Circle is a battle-brother told anything approaching the truth, and even then, there are some secrets known only at the very highest tiers. How much of the shame of the Dark Angels a battle-brother knows depends upon his station within the Chapter and how far the agents of the Inner Circle trust him.He may have fought the Fallen unwittingly, believing his foe yet another vile Traitor worthy only of death. Perhaps his sergeant knew more, certainly his company master did, but he himself almost certainly would not.Conversely, there are some higher-ranked brethren who despite exemplary service are never inducted into the Inner Circle. Perhaps the company Chaplains harbour some small doubt or have reason to believe the individual would not be able to bear the terrible truth of what occurred during the Horus Heresy. Such Astartes are unlikely to progress much further, for at the highest levels of authority the Chapter is ever engaged upon the Hunt for the Fallen.
|
Dark Angels - Chapter History: The Dark Angels were the first of the Emperor's Space Marine Legions, and in their earliest incarnation fought as the personal army of the Master of Mankind in the dawning years of the Great Crusade and in the shadowed campaigns that had preceded it. As the prototype of what were to become the Legiones Astartes, they served in the final days of the Unification Wars and the early years of the Great Crusade both as the template for the more specialised Legions that were to come after them and a standard by which these successors would be measured. They were also among the best equipped of Imperial units, making use of large numbers of advanced archeotech and Plasma Weapons.In this period, the Dark Angels were not even known as the Ist Legion as no others existed yet, for the Emperor simply referred to them as His "Angels of Death" or the "Six Hosts." These transhuman troops dominated the final days of the Wars of Unification, easily defeating all their Terran opponents and forcing those among the Tech-priests of Mars who had intervened in the conflict on Terra in the hope of delaying the Emperor's final victory to sue for peace.From this point on, the Ist Legion ascended in power and the height of the Emperor's favour.But once the most numerous and powerful of the Space Marine Legions, the Ist Legion's numbers would be depleted and its primacy ended by the middle years of the Great Crusade due to solar decades of savage warfare, particularly in the wars of the Rangdan Xenocides, one of the most apocalyptic campaigns of the Great Crusade.The scars of these battles would change them, as would their reunification with their Primarch Lion El'Jonson and the introduction of fresh blood from his adopted homeworld of Caliban. A Death World dominated by a warlike, feudal society of techno-barbarians, Caliban's warrior orders provided fertile ground for the Legion's regeneration, and its martial codes and practices were extensively incorporated and adopted by the rebuilding Legion.
|
Dark Angels - Origins: Stark and uncompromising, the Dark Angels were the first of the Emperor's Space Marine Legions and the truest to the mould from which the Legiones Astartes had been struck. They were killers of the purest and most refined kind, for whom there could be no other destiny but a lifetime of war and death in the name of the Imperium and Humanity. They did not build empires, made no attempt to master the ways of peace or the subtle skills of the artist, craftsman or diplomat. They offered no excuses for their nature and made no compromises in the pursuit of their assigned duty, shirking neither the price they paid in blood nor the price paid in infamy and solitude.Their greatest battles are to be found in no catalogue of Imperial Compliance or roll of honour, no scholars or poets sing of these glories or remember those fallen in their prosecution, for they were fought against foes so monstrous that it was deemed necessary that all mention of them be erased from history. Such was the nature of their service, not only to be prosecutors of the Great Crusade, but also to serve as the Imperium's most potent bulwark against the unknown terrors that lurked in the dark between the stars.The heraldry of the Dark Angels proclaims their lineage, the first of the Emperor's Legiones Astartes, but other than that simple fact little is known of the origins of the Legion and its initial gene-stock. The genesis of the Legiones Astartes as a whole is a subject shrouded in much secrecy. It is perhaps the greatest and most enduring of the Emperor's many works and a subject scholars have been warned away from in the latter days of His Imperium. What is known with some certainty is that, of all the many breeds of these transhuman warriors, the Dark Angels were conceived by the Emperor as a template and prototype for those that would follow, distilled from the genetic code of the most stable of all His primarchs and without any attempt to foster specific traits or curb the eccentricities of the stock from which they sprang.Even so, the process by which these first samples were produced was long and laborious, initiated perhaps a standard century or more before the end of the Unification Wars of Terra and consuming a vast number of test subjects to produce but a handful of stable proto-Astartes. Of these initial creations, referenced in fragmentary records unearthed in the Imperial Archives as the "Primordial Strain," almost none are known to have survived initial combat trials and surgical testing, but they form the basis for the initial cultures of the Ist Legion and, by merit of the refined process formulated with their creation, the other Space Marine Legions as well.This grand experiment exacted a bloody toll upon those territories controlled by the Emperor, for its most critical components were untainted Human subjects, all within a specific range of age and physical fitness. Given the state of Terra in the wake of the wars of Old Night, its surface polluted by the twin scourges of atomic bombardment and genetic phage, such subjects were limited. The initial experiments were conducted with the youth of the Emperor's conquered foes and those purchased from the nomadic clans of slavers that abounded in the wastes of pre-Unity Terra, and later the toll was borne by flesh-tithes exacted on those territories brought, willingly or not, into the fold of the Imperium. As such, the Dark Angels did not bear the stamp of any single gene-stock, unlike some of the other Legions during their earliest years whosecharacter had been moulded by the nature of their initial intake.Their first recruits, selected from the best of the stock available to the Emperor, were diverse in origin and shared no single cultural heritage that would shape the way in which they made war. Indeed, the diversity of their origins brought a wealth of disparate martial traditions into the fledgling Legion. The dour infantry of the Francish plains and islands of Albia brought with them the brutal coda that had conquered half the ruined lands of the continent of Europa, the warriors of the far Anatolic steppes a skill at cavalry warfare, the berserkers of frozen Skandia a murderous efficiency, and from a dozen other Terran cultures yet more of the arts of war. The Ist Legion was the crucible in which all the savage lore of Old Night, all the bitter knowledge and red-handed wisdom accumulated in millennia of war was to be distilled and fashioned into a weapon of rare potency.In those first faltering years of the grand experiment that was the Legiones Astartes, the proto-warriors of the Ist Legion, barely a few hundred strong, were encouraged to eschew the names of their own people and embrace a new unity unmarked by old loyalties, often taking instead the names of heroes from the old tales that had survived the Age of Strife. In the first rolls of honour of the Legion can be found Gilgamesh, Heracles, Tarchon, Hengist and other names imbued by time with the power of legend. Combined with the grim aspect granted them by the gene-seed of the first primarch, these warriors quickly gained a reputation among the disparate throng that was at that time the army of the Emperor, for they seemed as a band of gods all cast from a singular and potent mould.Fighting at first as small groups within the ranks of the Emperor's host, plying both the skills of their origins and of the drill masters of the Imperial Laboratories of the Biotechnical Division, they would come to be known as the "Uncrowned Princes" or simply "Crowns." This was a homage both to their place in the line of battle and the destiny bestowed upon them by their creator; a title that would inspire both a sense of unity and a certain arrogance in the first Space Marines and spur them to lead the way amongst the growing brotherhood of the Legiones Astartes.This, in the Legion's earliest moments, was the genesis of the "hosts" of the Ist Legion, which would later be refined by their primarch, Lion El'Jonson, into the Hexagrammaton "wings" of his Dark Angels; a myriad of informal groups within the early companies of the Legion that worked to adapt the doctrines of battle brought from those disparate origins and create a coda of battle fit for the transhuman armies of the Emperor. The hosts were not bound by company or commander and existed throughout the Legion, at any given battle or engagement at least some small number of a given host would be present to advise and lead should their expertise be required. In the early years of the Ist Legion's existence there were many more hosts than would later exist under the Hexagrammaton organisation, with as many as 18 such formations noted by their distinct heraldry in the earliest records of the Unification Wars where the Astartes appear.The Third Siege of Antioch in 603.M30 saw the participation of nine distinct "hosts" across four separate companies of the Legion, though at this point they numbered less than 30 warriors each and displayed significant tactical overlap in the methods they employed to breach the walls of that ancient enclave.Time would see the many hosts of those chaotic years quickly resolved into a smaller number of more focused hosts, but in those early years, with their brother Legions still but handfuls of warriors newly-cast from a rough mould, the Ist Legion became the testbed for the various tactics and doctrines that would later become the Principia Bellicosa. As the other Legions grew to a size large enough to engage in small-scale combat actions, some of the more specialised hosts became obsolete, unnecessary in the face of warriors more adept at that style of warfare, while others were made extinct by the inadequacies of their methods and the brutal nature of war in the 30th Millennium.Far from harming the Legion, this process of bloody evolution left it strong; a weapon well-honed by the fighting on Terra. It also forged a bond between the disparate warriors who made up that early Legion; a bond based upon the sense of superiority and distinction instilled in them by the servants of the Emperor that trained them and the awe they inspired in those they fought beside.
|
Dark Angels - Fall of the Thunder Warriors: As with all the Legiones Astartes, the Ist Legion was intended as a replacement for the brigades of the Thunder Warriors, that unstable experiment in the creation of proto-Astartes which by the middle years of the Unification Wars had run its course. The Thunder Warrior regiments had been the tool needed for their time, an unrefined and savage weapon to match the grim tyrants and debauched potentates that had inherited Old Earth during the Age of Strife. Yet, in comparison to the Legiones Astartes they were a rough breed, powerful to be sure, perhaps even individually more so than their new transhuman kin, but unable to quell their fury to work in unison. They were a mob, a storm of fury and blades that rolled over its foes, while the Legiones Astartes were a true army and in their unity could withstand any onslaught.Tales and theories beyond count surround the Thunder Warriors and their sudden disappearance from the Imperium's history, most being fabrications and sophistry of the worst kind, though a few warrant further regard. One such tale is of note, a tale told among the nomadic tribes that inhabit the wastelands around Mount Ararat and speaks not only of Thunder Warriors but also of an army "clad all in gray, dark as the clouds of a storm and branded all as one."These warriors, so say the hill nomads, awaited the return of the few surviving Thunder Warriors, exhausted by their victory, and rather than giving salute to their valour cut them down in a thunderous volley of bolt and plasma. This tale is far different from the heroic tale told by Remembrancers to mark the end of the Unification Wars, but in keeping with the brutal necessities of the Emperor's far-reaching plans. It is possible that the warriors "branded all as one" could be the Ist Legion, who all bore the sigil of their numeration bold upon their battle-plate, for battles of that Legion were oft-removed from Imperial record, the details expunged and forgotten.Actual proof, however, does not exist, not even in the archives of the Imperial Palace. Yet, several anecdotes from the later years of the Great Crusade do seem to support the theory, all related to a near-obsessive preoccupation with the hunting down and destruction of those few renegade Thunder Warriors that survived and fled Terra, over and above the standing orders of the Imperial Court to suppress all such renegades.On at least three occasions, fleets of the Ist Legion altered course in order to engage and destroy Thunder Warrior survivors, often making wide detours based on simple rumours of such activity. Such an obsession is notable for what was an otherwise stoic Space Marine Legion and would seem to hint at a more personal interest in the resolution of any encounter with surviving Thunder Warriors, perhaps even a sense of shame in having allowed any to escape some previous engagement.Another ancient source claims that even before the Unification Wars had ended, the Thunder Warriors, already jealous of their replacements' long lives and near-immortality compared to their own inevitable descent into madness and death, at last realised that their creator had cursed them with short lifespans as a result of their imperfect genetic augmentations. In their rage and fear, they turned upon the Emperor for what they saw as His betrayal.It was a cadre of several hundred Custodians of the Legio Custodes, the Emperor's lifeguard, even then believed to have been led by the legendary Constantin Valdor, and accompanied by several thousand prototype Astartes of the Ist Legion of the newborn Space Marines, that stood in the Emperor's defence, carrying out a merciless culling of the obsolete and rebellious gene-soldiers.However, given the renowned secrecy of the Ist Legion and the frequency with which their campaigns and deeds were obfuscated by Imperial decree, it is unlikely that the truth of this matter will ever be known.
|
Dark Angels - The First: The Ist Legion was intended to demonstrate the true potential of the Astartes versus their predecessors among the Emperor's armies for they were a true Legion, numbering already 10,000 transhuman warriors while their early kin among the other nascent Legions were but a few hundred each. It was at Samerkend on Terra in 668.M30 during the Unification Wars that the Ist Legion took to the field en masse for the first time, assembled with the Emperor Himself at their head. Here, the Legiones Astartes faced their first true test, not a test of individual strength or genetic purity, but a test of their worth as an army. Ten thousand of the First, flanked by contingents of four other Legions, took the field against 200,000 gene-forged Udug Hul, the elite slave-soldiers of the king of Akkad. The Udug Hul, whose blood was poison and whose strength was greater than 10 un-enhanced warriors, were the terror of the Upper Asiatic Basin and a foe that had so far resisted the advance of the Emperor's armies.Ten solar hours after battle was joined Samerkend was in ruins, the Udug Hul scattered and broken and the Great King of Akkad's head a trophy on the belt of the newly-appointed Grandmaster of the Ist Legion. This warrior, Hector Thrane, was lauded by the princes of Terra for his victory and granted the title Sinestra of the Emperor, the left hand of the Warlord of Terra, His most fearsome instrument of conquest. By order of the Emperor, the Ist Legion left no stone upon stone, and almost every record of the terrors encountered in that battle was destroyed. In the wake of the victory the rate of recruitment and processing of the new Space Marine Legions was accelerated, their potential proven in triumph, and the Ist Legion gained a dark renown among the ranks of the armies of Unity. They had walked into the mouth of hell, and not only had they returned, but they had left hell shattered in their passage.This first victory was to set the pattern of the Ist Legion's battles during the wars for Old Earth and the Sol System, pitting them against the most horrific of foes with only one objective -- to eradicate them completely.From Fortress Thirty-one in the Thulean wastes of ancient Terra, to the Battle of Karnakon amid the cryo-volcanic mountains of Sedna, the Ist Legion would meet the worst threats that faced the armies of Unity and lay them low. So horrific were many of the threats they faced -- xenos terrors beyond the pale of sanity and psychic phenomena that threatened to tear reality asunder -- that little more than the battle honours remain, the details erased even from the data-stacks of the Emperor's library.To prosecute these impossible battles the Emperor would grant them access to the armoury vaults of the Imperial Palace, to every forbidden weapon entombed within, and they would be the only Legion trusted to wield the worst of Mankind's creations freely. The orders of Grandmaster Hector Thrane would see the obliteration of the warped cities of Khadun and Molay in the eastern reaches of Old Earth and the deployment of gene-phage munitions to purge Enceladus, one of the moons of Saturn, clean of Khrave infestation. These were victories that left an indelible stain on both the course of the war and the identity of the warriors who prosecuted them, forging Thrane's reputation as a ruthless and prideful warlord.Among the armies of Unification, the Ist Legion had become synonymous with death, for where they walked it seemed as though that pale rider followed after them with an inevitability that spawned many long-held superstitions regarding the reclusive warriors of the First. They were treated with an awe that sat somewhere between respect and terror by those who served alongside them, for it was said that to offend them was to bring the scrutiny of their patron, Death himself, upon the offender. Among the host gathered by the Emperor they were not heroes, but rather a breed of monster made loyal by the will of their master. They were not to be lauded for their bravery but rather placated to assuage their wrath. Despite the dictates of the Imperial Truth, the common soldiery of the Imperial armies often set small wards and charms at the edges of their camps when the Ist Legion arrived to avert the ill-luck that many felt followed the Emperor's firstborn Legion.Such superstition was not without cause, for of those Imperial formations attached to support the First Legion in combat most came to bloody ends. Some were savaged by the monsters that the newly-dubbed Angels of Death had come to slay, and others would simply vanish, purported to have been silenced by the Ist Legion themselves, lest word of some dread enemy return to the camps with the survivors. The warriors of the Ist Legion, ever of pragmatic mind, soon began to assume the guise in which they had been cast, adopting the skeletal icon of Death as their own and adorning their armour with funerary symbols. This self-imposed exile from the camaraderie of the Emperor's lesser servants was a point of pride among the Ist Legion. It was a sacrifice made to protect the mortal army from the terrors only the Ist Legion were fit to bear, though to some of those they fought beside, most especially the warriors of the other Legiones Astartes, it seemed more vainglory and arrogance than humble sacrifice.The Masters of the Ist Legion showed no interest in such slights, content to remain wreathed in malign rumour as they fought the battles that could never be lauded lest they break the minds of those who bore witness to the battle honours. For while the younger Legions were granted the lesser honour of standing triumphant at the mundane victories of conquest, the Ist Legion would be awarded the greater honour of acting as the Emperor's left hand; a brutally efficient weapon of grim aspect hidden behind the bright pageantry of the Imperial Army.
|
Dark Angels - The Emperor's Own Angels of Death: This was an honour they would bear throughout the war to unify the Sol System and beyond, a duty that kept them separate from the other Space Marine Legions created in their image. As the younger Legions slowly began to reach the nominal strength required for the beginning of the Emperor's Great Crusade, the Ist Legion conducted a lonely vigil far from the light of Sol, scouring clean the Oort Cloud and keeping watch along the heliopause border of the system for those terrors that sought to slip unnoticed into the Emperor's newly-claimed domain. This duty they accepted without complaint, taking pride in the role selected for them by the Emperor, for they were His "Angels of Death" -- a name which, at that time, belonged to them alone.For nearly a solar decade they would dwell in the lightless depths of Mankind's home star system, burning clean the frozen moons of the outer system and freeing the few lost outposts of Humanity that still survived at the very outermost edges of the Sol System. Here, the informal network of specialists within the Legion became the first of its formations called "Orders," dedicated to a singular focus of war beyond the wider scope of the Legion's existing hosts; their craft honed in the battles at the dark edge of Sol, and the complex ciphers and rituals by which they recorded it entrenched over the long years of isolation. It was by the hard-won knowledge of these warriors that the Legion would prevail again and again in the most gruelling and hazardous battlesfaced by the warriors of the Emperor, the weaknesses of each foe exposed by sacrifice and encoded in the traditions of the Orders and the secrets of war in any environment catalogued in their archives.The Legion would return to the inner worlds purged of weakness and hardened by adversity, their armour no longer the flat grey of the other Legions, but a deep and impassive black. There would be no fanfare on their return to the Emperor's side, no parades of victory, merely the silent approval of the Emperor of Mankind and a place at the vanguard of the host that mustered ready to make war upon a hostile galaxy to save Humanity from extinction. Despite the hardships that would await them and the mighty foes they would face, none could doubt victory having witnessed the grim resolve and stoic pride in the faces of the black-clad warriors as they took their place at the head of the host.There, amid the vast muster that took place around the shipyards of Saturn, the fleet granted to the Ist Legion stood out among the newly-built Saturnine pattern vessels and the ancient ships re-awakened from the macro-vaults of Mars, for the Ist Legion were granted the honour of a tithe of those few remaining Terran starships. These ancient voidcraft almost all dated back to the years before Old Night, relics of forgotten technologies and lost aspirations of grandeur. Among them were to be found massive Gloriana-class Battleships, Promethean-class Cruisers clad in dense layers of Void Shields and weapon-studded Tiamat-class Destroyers, all far surpassing more modern designs in potency and made available to few other than the Emperor's own guards. To each of His other Legions He bequeathed but a handful of such ships, while to the Ist Legion He granted a fleet.This gift was not a simple reward for the heroics they had displayed in the fighting on Old Earth and beyond, but rather a necessary tool for those actions yet to come. For as the armies of the Emperor set forth on the Great Crusade and pushed beyond the edges of those few star charts that had survived Old Night, they encountered such terrors that the battles on Terra were made to seem inconsequential by comparison. In these dark places among the stars, the Ist Legion would find the reason for their reward, for in order to fight the monsters the Emperor had foreseen in His path, they would need monstrous weapons. Alone among the Legiones Astartes, they would make common use of the forbidden weaponry of Old Night, of gene-phage and rad wave, employed to wipe clean the nests of those enemies deemed too terrible to be faced in open battle. The Ist Legion were the fulcrum of the Emperor's wrath, the agency of His hate, for they brought not simple destruction but the all-encompassing oblivion of utter annihilation.They were the Angels of Death, a title that would one day encompass all of the Emperor's Space Marines but, in those brutal early days of conquest and blood, it was theirs alone.Even as other Legions fought to bring those Human colonies discovered by the expeditionary fleets to Imperial Compliance, the Ist Legion fought to hold back the hate of a galaxy filled with terrors. They took war to the dens of monsters and legends without fear or hesitation, shattering the hold of nightmares on the future of Mankind; though only in the most secure vaults of the Imperial Archives do any records of these battles remain.They speak of Behtelgen IV, where the 3rd Chapter, formed mainly of warriors from the Hosts of Stone and Iron, assaulted a world whose mountains and crust had been hollowed out to form a fortress for a swarm-creature of protoplasmic and hyper-acidic slime, the nucleus of an infection that had spread through the void to infest a dozen worlds and seen millions rendered into little more than a nutrient slurry for the beasts.Scattered picts show the shattered husks of the once-verdant worlds of the Osiryne Cluster where the Ist Legion's 19th Expeditionary Fleet engaged a vast, sentient planet-killer -- a technological abomination spawned by some long-forgotten empire and left to wreak havoc upon an uncaring universe -- the records of the battle itself sealed by Grandmaster Hector Thrane. These horrors, and a thousand more, were exterminated by the warriors of the Ist Legion, and all trace of the campaigns erased from records to protect the sanity of those unprepared for the raw mindless hate of the universe laid bare.To those outside the ranks of the First, their record in the early years of the Great Crusade seems at best lacking in comparison to their brother Legions and at worst a fabrication. With many of their greatest triumphs shrouded in secrecy, they had less conventional triumphs to their name: merely a handful of worlds brought to Compliance where hundreds had burned in silence. What few knew was that it was in the sacrifice and valour of the Ist Legion that many of the Legiones Astartes' key doctrines were forged, with such tomes as the Principia Bellicosa formed, in part, from the strategies and tactics perfected by them as each of the Legion's hosts strove to refine their own brand of warfare upon the most vile battlefields of the Great Crusade.Those that thrived on the field of battle would grow and pass their knowledge on, not only to their battle-brothers within the Legion but to those without through the doctrines created in their wake. While those that struggled would fade from the rosterof the Legion, ground to extinction by the inexorable hunger of war.
|
Dark Angels - A Fortress of Pride: These trials would shape the Ist Legion into a fearsome weapon, the largest and most heavily armed of all of the Legiones Astartes during the early years of the Great Crusade. They fielded more warriors under arms, maintained a larger fleet and had access to weaponry more powerful than any of their brother Legions at that time, even those such as the Luna Wolves and Space Wolves which had already been reunited with their primarchs. The Grandmaster of the Ist Legion stood at the left hand of the Emperor, one of the most influential personages in the early Imperial Court whose counsel was second only to that of Malcador the Sigillite and Horus Lupercal.Despite the hidden nature of many of their triumphs, they were acknowledged by all as pre-eminent among their transhuman kin; the most powerful force-at-arms in the serried ranks of the Imperial armies. In those heady years of conquest and victory the Ist Legion stood true to their name at the apex of Imperial might, feared by those who stood against the Emperor and His dream of unity and respected by all those who fought at their side.Yet, as with all things, the glory of the Ist Legion would be a fragile thing and one that could endure only for a short time before becoming something less than it once was. For the Ist Legion, in those days before the return of their primarch, the great foe that would topple them from their place of honour would not be any terror from the outer dark, but rather their own hubris. For, though the black cruisers of the Legion were ever to be found at the edges of the map, hunting formonsters in the dark between the stars, they now took a perverse pride in pitting themselves against only the most powerful of foes, those that wielded a power equal to that of their own, those in whom they saw the possibility of defeat. Other threats -- deemed too insignificant for the Ist Legion, too weak to pose a real challenge, foes that would not test their strategies or mettle -- would often be bypassed and left to the Imperial Army regiments and other Legion fleets that followed in theirwake.Yet with each encounter they grew only stronger; no enemy, no matter how powerful or destructive, could stop them and each triumph only added to the shield of arrogance they had built about themselves. The stubborn pride that had sustained them through hardships unnumbered now became a double-edged blade. The Hexagrammaton, once an ever-shifting body of knowledge that changed to match each challenge, had become fixed in place; the warriors of the First assuming that they had reached the apex of skill and could learn no more. Recruitment from outside their ancient enclaves on Terra and a few other worlds slowed to but a trickle, with those from outside the traditional recruiting grounds considered less valuable.Each battle led them further down the path of wilful arrogance, each victory hailed as a triumph of their skill and each defeat dismissed as the folly of lesser breeds of warrior and leaders rightfully culled from the Legion by their failure. Tradition and ritual became more valued than innovation, with each order and host jealously guarding their own small fragments of the Legion's battle-lore, certain that it was this scrap of knowledge that was the true heart of the Legion's success.The Legion began to turn in upon itself, the openness and inquisitive nature of their early years slowly being replaced by a secretive and tradition-bound approach. They had begun the Great Crusade as mentors and guides for the other Legions, seeking out the stratagems and tactics through which the potential of the Legiones Astartes might be fully realised, but now came more and more to resent those they had once guided. The other Legions claimed world after world for the Emperor, easy victories in the eyes of the Ist Legion, trivial conquests against unworthy foes, yet ones for which they received laurels and praise equal to that of the First Legion's hard-won battles.Some also came to rival the power of the First: the Ultramarines, now re-united with their primarch, Roboute Guilliman, could claim more warriors under arms, and the Imperial Fists, under Rogal Dorn, boasted the firepower of immense relics such as the Phalanx in their fleets. To a Legion that had built its pride upon a sense of authority, some might say superiority, to find itself now merely one among many would shake its foundations.Perhaps the final blow to their fragile pride was to come at Canis-Balor, where simple conquest and stubborn complacency became ignominy and disaster. Here, in an otherwise insignificant star system home to a xenos breed as yet uncatalogued by the sage-brothers of the Legion's Orders of Extinction and Annihilation, the Ist Legion and its Grandmaster committed a small force to the assault, confident in their ability to prevail and secure in the tested strategies of the hosts and orders. Yet the xenos of Canis-Balor, their identity long-since purged from records, proved a threat unlike any faced before, fighting without regard for sane tactics and with a technology that defied rational explanation. The Ist Legion's initial attack was repulsed with heavy losses, an indignity that the Ist Legion had not known for solar decades.Defeat was a foe they thought they had conquered and pride began to cloud their wisdom. A second assault followed and then a third, each repulsed in turn with mounting losses.With his faultless record now tainted and his pride sorely wounded, Grandmaster Hector Thrane led one final assault himself, refusing to accept that any might equal his own warriors in skill and tenacity. This assault, even weakened by the losses already sustained, cut a swathe through the xenos forces defending the planet, but could not overcome the sheer numerical superiority of the foe. Overwhelmed, it teetered on the brink of annihilation.Grandmaster Thrane, realising the folly of pride that had driven him into battle, chose to remain behind with his lifeguard, sacrificing himself to allow the retrieval of valuable combat assets. The world of Canis-Balor was reduced to ashes from orbit, all trace of life on its surface incinerated in nucleonic fire, a measure that many argued should have been taken earlier had pride not forced their hand. All records of the alien foe the Legion had fought were sealed away, though they would later be recovered by the Order of Broken Claws before being sealed once again for reasons equally lost to history.The loss, both of the battle and of Grandmaster Thrane, proved a catalyst for turmoil among the ranks of the Legion. Each of the masters of its hosts and the preceptors of its orders were sure that had their doctrines been given primacy, they could have turned the tide of battle. A subtle struggle for power erupted among the complex tiers of authority within the Legion, a struggle that slowed the pace of their conquests and threatened to unseat the Legion from its pre-eminent position of honour once and for all.
|
Dark Angels - The Ill-Made Knight: This struggle was fought most fiercely upon the floor of the Ist Legion's great Hall of Council on the world of Gramarye, at the heart of the Legion. There, where once the masters and preceptors of the Legion had created much of the wisdom that now guided the Legiones Astartes as a whole, a storm of vitriol and admonition had erupted. Each of the masters of the Legion, unable or unwilling to see fault in their own wisdom, sought to attach it to that of their fellows so that it might be excised from the Ist Legion. Most contentious of all was the selection of a new Grandmaster, for few would countenance the selection of a warrior from a host of the First other than their own.As the pace of the Ist Legion's conquests slowed and the deliberations of the Council of Masters stagnated, it would be the intercession of Malcador the Sigillite, first among the Emperor's confidants, to break the deadlock. Rather than present some censure on behalf of the Emperor, he chose instead to sponsor a candidate of his own, seeking to stir the Legion from its doldrums and return them wholeheartedly to war. His words to the Council of Masters were carved upon the lintel of the chamber, such was their impact: "A fertress can be held upright by many pillars, alone they are nothing but together they are mighty. Yet, a fortress must have a master or else all its strength is for nothing."The warrior nominated by the Sigillite was elected by unanimous vote of the Council of Masters; he was neither a master of the hosts nor a preceptor of the orders, but a war-worn captain from among the vast ranks of the Ist Legion. Malcador's logic was impeccable, for such a candidate stood for no one branch of the Legion's arts alone, but rather for all as one. Where any of the venerable masters would find nothing but opposition from their peers, a simple warrior found acceptance from all. The warrior chosen was Urian Vendraig, once captain of the 14th Company of the 8th Chapter, a Terran taken into the Legion after the Emperor had united that war-tom world, and with a grand record of victory as his banner and as yet uninitiated into the inner mysteries of any one host or order.His was a legacy of bloodshed in battle, of rousing speeches and glorious last stands. He had stood shoulder-to-shoulder with his battle-brothers through all his service and spent but little time in rirual or doctrinal debate.His new task was to unify a divided Legion and return them to the Great Crusade and the purpose laid out for them by the Emperor unburdened by doubt and division. As a warrior first and foremost, Vendraig saw the value of bringing the Legion fully into the Emperor's Great Crusade, taking its rightful place at the head of their brothers rather than only serving at the fringes of history. For the first time in the Great Crusade, a small contingent of carefully-selected Remembrancers was allowed to join the Grandmaster's entourage, attached to his personal guard and given strictly limited access to the Legion's records, so that they might bear witness to the Ist Legion's ascension.All that remained was to find a challenge worthy of the Legion, some terrible foe to bind them once again in hatred of the enemy and, as though gifted to them by the Emperor, word arrived of a new terror encountered on the far rim of the Great Crusade: a race known to history as the Rangda.Encountered by the 105th Pioneer Company of the Vth Legion on an isolated world along the northern rim of the galaxy, the Rangda were considered a grave threat to the expanding Imperium. Though at that time their territory was thought to encompass only a single star system, they possessed a vile technology and fearsome aspect that warranted the most extreme of responses. Mustering a fleet numbering hundreds of capital class warships the new Grandmaster descended upon the isolated system of Advex-mors, where the Rangda had created a vast artificial war-moon, an immense engine of war that had cost millions of slave labourers from a hundred worlds their lives. This monstrous weapon was defended by a fleet of lumpen and ugly Rangdan war-barques, each bristling with weapons and crewed by slaves whose neural collars enforced their unflinching obedience.The battle that ensued would leave the system of Advex-mors as little more than ashes and rubble, all six worlds claimed by the Rangda were rendered uninhabitable, their fleets reduced to drifting fields of wreckage and their vast slave armies utterly annihilated. The campaign lasted for four solar months and cost the lives of some 5,000 of the Ist Legion, but as the banner of the Imperium was raised over those broken fragments of the Rangdan war-moon that had rained down upon the burned husk of Advex-mors beneath, the Imperium was reminded of the sheer power of the Ist Legion.
|
Dark Angels - First Rangdan Xenocide and the Battle of Advex-mors: Of all the campaigns waged by the Ist Legion, it is their battles against the Rangda that have most intrigued historitors and scholars, for the veil of secrecy cast over these engagements has served only to make the myths that have taken the place of truth all the more grand. There is little information to be found outside of the most carefully-guarded sections of the Imperial Archives and the records of the Dark Angels themselves, a Legion well known for rigorously maintaining its many secrets. However, for the first of the great wars against the Rangda there is another source of information available to us -- the data cores of the rebel Forge World of Xana II. Raided and burned by Loyalist forces during the Great Scouring, before its dark magi fled intoexile, much information was recovered from the Forge World that the Ist Legion could not seal away. It is from these meticulously-gathered scraps of knowledge that a true picture of the first battle between the Dark Angels and the Rangda can be formed.The Ist Legion gathered a mighty armada for the assault on the world of Advex-mors, some 50,000 warriors of the Ist Legion and another 100,000 support troops drawn from both Imperial Army regiments and Mechanicum Taghmata forces from nearby Xana, as well as near a full hundred capital class starships and many times that of smaller escort craft. At that time this was a fearsome force of arms, but one still reckoned lacking by many for the task they had set themselves. The initial reports from the Vth Legion fleet that had made the first charts of Advex-mors painted a grim picture for the assault force, for the six worlds of the Advex-mors System were heavily fortified and garrisoned, so much so that the strategos of the Divisio Militaris would initially believe this, erroneously, to be the seat of the Rangda's power in our galaxy rather than the isolated outpost it was later found to be.Vast legions of captured Humans and other more exotic breeds of slave awaited the Imperial attackers, slave-soldiers bound to their Rangdan masters by cruel neural collars that enforced absolute loyalty and reduced them to little more than savage drones to the xenos that commanded them. The Rangda themselves possessed many horrific weapons, the product of a vile technology created solely for destruction and subjugation, the ultimate expression of which was the vast war-moon that sat in orbit of Advex-mors Primus. This immense engine of war could match the firepower of a full fleet of starships and bore armour capable of shrugging off strikes from capital scale weaponry. It would prove the greatest obstacle to the invasion and the most terrible symbol of the Rangda's power and malevolent ingenuity.The Ist Legion, led by their new Grandmaster, Urian Vendraig, welcomed the challenge presented them. Indeed, to succeed in the face of overwhelming odds and prove the valour of his Legion was one of the core goals Grandmaster Vendraig had assigned the campaign, a return to glory for the Ist Legion. In honour of this goal, the fighting began in grand style as the assembled Imperial fleet tore an opening in the fabric of space to translate into Advex-mors as a single wedge of steel and guns. This feat of navigation, impressive in its own right, was overshadowed by the sheer might of the fleet assembled, with the leading squadron comprising no less than three Gloriana-class battleships: the Invincible Reason, Paradigm of Hate and Truth's Razor. Those few scattered squadrons of Rangdan warp-barques able to oppose the sudden appearance of the Imperium's fleet were quickly swept aside by the sheer strength of the Ist Legion's gathered ships. Even the foul weaponry of the Rangdan void craft and apathetic bravery of the neural thralls that crewed them could not slow the Imperium's advance, though the complex electromagnetic weapons employed by those ships -- often called "shadow blasters" by the naval crews for the ominous shadows left behind by their atomised victims -- left many crewmen crippled by radiation sickness.The invasion of Advex-mors Extremis followed these initial successes in orbit, with the Grandmaster himself deploying at the head of the Ist Legion's 8th Chapter to spearhead the assault. Advex-mors Extremis possessed only limited strategic worth, playing host to a small facility that refined fuel from the vast seas of liquid hydrogen trapped beneath the thick icy crust, and was defended by only a small garrison of slave soldiers and a single Rangdan overseer. Yet despite this, its value to the morale of the invasion force and as a statement of the Ist Legion's power was immense. One thousand warriors of the Ist Legion took to the field against 10,000 of the foe, a frenzied wave of flesh-puppets sent by their xenos overlord into a mindless fury, to spend their lives recklessly that the foe might be crushed.The dark wave of mind-slaved warriors washed over the Ist Legion's lines and was shattered and broken by the Legiones Astartes in a battle that lasted but three short solar hours, at a cost to them of less than 200 casualties. Urian Vendraig himself descended into the boreal hell of the ice mines and slew the Rangdan overlord in personal combat, emerging to hoist its head before the assembled warriors of his Legion. So would go the fighting on the four outer worlds, each small garrison isolated by the vast Imperial fleet and destroyed in detail by different detachments of the Ist Legion, each testing and probing the foe for weaknesses. The Rangda spent the lives of their slaves profligately to bleed the Legion, sending tens of thousands to their deaths to slow their advance and cull the numbers of the invaders, losing but a handful of true Rangda as the Ist Legion celebrated their victories.Within the space of a few short solar months the Imperium's fleet had crushed the four outermost planets of the system and stood upon the threshold of Advex-mors Primus. Here would begin the true battle, for as the Ist Legion had spent its time subjugating the outer worlds, the Rangda had gathered all their strength amongst the huge shielded fortresses of Advex-mors Primus, and in its skies hung the vast war-moon, a sentinel of huge and terrifying power. Here there would be no simple triumph, and the Ist Legion turned to a far more daring plan to secure victory. Knowing that any effort to destroy the war-moon by means of a sustained orbital assault would result in massive casualties and allow the planet beneath even more time to fortify and prepare, Grandmaster Vendraig planned to strike both targets at once using the might of his Astartes warriors. A single chapter of the Legion would attack the war-moon under cover of a diversionary attack by the fleet and disable it from within, while the majority of the Legion would conduct a massive planetary landing and crush the world's capital in a single, focused assault.The phalanx of heavy Imperial battleships advanced on Advex-mors Primus but, unlike previous engagements, the lumpen xenos defence barges did not rush headlong to meet them and be torn apart by the heavy guns of the Ist Legion. Instead, the Rangdan craft formed a defensive constellation about the war-moon, denying the Imperial fleet any easy opening by which to deploy landing craft or make a concerted assault, and displaying a level of tactical awareness hitherto unexpected by the Emperor's forces, who were now forced to attack into the concentrated guns of the foe. The space around Rangda erupted in light as the two fleets clashed above the immense face of the war-moon and hundreds of thousands of guns let fly, punctuating the void with both the yellow flash of Imperial Macrocannons and the malefic green flare of Rangdan shadow blasters. Within the first few moments both fleets had lost entire squadrons of craft, with concentrated weapons fire from the innumerable guns of the war-moon ripping apart even the most heavily shielded of Imperium void craft and spreading storms of debris across the battle zone. This was a war of attrition the Imperium's forces had wanted to avoid and could ill-afford to prolong, but one they could not easily abandon without ceding control of Advex-mors Primus to the enemy. It would only be the sacrifice of the battleship, Paradigm of Hate, that would finally turn the tide of the engagement.The ancient battleship, its void shields flaring as it strove to absorb the sheer weight of fire thrown at it, ploughed into the enemy's formation and scattered the lesser ships of the Rangda. Infested by Rangdan stalker drones and badly wounded by the exotic directed energy weapons of the xenos craft, the Paradigm of Hate slammed into the vast hull of the war-moon, gouging a deep wound in its metal hide. The survivors of its crew and the contingent of Ist Legion warriors aboard the battleship took up defensive positions within the shattered wreck of their vessel and set the plasma reactor to reach catastrophic overload even as the Rangda hosts aboard the vast war-moon moved to overwhelm them. A brief and bloody action was fought in the cold void on the war-moon's surface, with full detachments of towering Rangdan warriors committed to battle for the first time.Brutally strong and armed with weapons of terrible power, the Rangda proved a match for the Legiones Astartes, both sides inflicting serious casualties upon their foe but the Rangda could not overrun the Ist Legion's defences in time to prevent the Paradigm of Hate's vengeance. The warriors that had once rode the proud ship into war sacrificed themselves that she might strike one last blow against the foe, her reactors exploding like a miniature sun, crippling the vast war-moon and spreading a deadly storm of debris across high orbit. With its death, the battleship had bought the rest of the fleet a brief respite, a chance to press the foe, and the orbital battle quickly fell into a chaotic melee of intermixed starships and squadrons, each locked in a desperate struggle for survival in a mass of duels between individuals and squadrons. The remaining Imperial battleships, Invincible Reason and Truth's Razor, blasted a path into low orbit, weathering enemy attack craft and strikes from ground-based weapons platforms to begin landing ground forces, abandoning any attempt to capture the shattered and silent war-moon.As the sky filled with the light of a thousand tiny battles fought in the void, the massed forces of the Ist Legion made planetfall, a rain of Drop Pods falling on the wastelands away from the chain of fortresses that girded the equator, while several smaller forces dispersed in squadrons of gunships and Stormbird transports. It would be these smaller forces that saw action first, mounting raids on the nearest fortresses and those columns of Rangdan slave soldiers sent to investigate the landing zone, buying time with the blood of the enemy for their brothers to array themselves for battle.For the first day these raiding columns, mostly led by the warriors of the Order of Crows and the marshals of the Hosts of Wind and Fire, bore the brunt of the fighting. At first they only had to contend with lesser forces of slave soldiers, driven into their path by the Rangda to weaken them and easily bested by the battle-hardened Legiones Astartes. But they would also be the first to face the true Rangda in combat. Little is known of the alien enemy those warriors faced; that they were towering creatures of fell strength, inhuman cunning and bearing the products of a cruel technology that equalled or even exceeded that of Mankind is common to all the tales that would later be told. The warriors that fought these initial battles suffered terribly, many of the columns reduced to less than half their original strength as they fended off the Rangda and several were annihilated entirely, but the information they procured was priceless indeed. The tactics, weaponry and character of the Rangda were laid bare to Grandmaster Vendraig, though at the cost of several hundred of his finest warriors, and with this he planned his next steps.Arrayed and ordered to take full advantage of their foe's weakness, the host of the Ist Legion advanced in force to meet their enemy: a host of near 30,000 Astartes in full panoply of glory and with all the brutal weapons of their trade, the full muster of those still combat-capable and not bound to serve in orbit aboard the ships of the fleet. Such a force was a threat that could not be ignored and the Rangda, proud and still certain of their superiority, quickly moved to oppose the creatures that dared to invade their home. The two armies met across 100 kilometres of Advex-mors' broken outlands.The initial stages of the battle were fought against the slave legions of the Rangda by the screening elements of the Host of Blades and the heavy tanks of the Host of Iron, warriors ready to counter this by-now familiar Rangdan tactic. Knowing that the true Rangda would expend their slaves with abandon in order to pinpoint a weakness in the Astartes' lines before attacking -- pitting their strength against the weakest point of their opponent -- Grandmaster Vendraig had massed his finest warriors, veterans of the Hosts of Crowns and Bone, to act as a mobile reserve. Meanwhile, mobile elements of companies led by warriors of the Host of Wind, mounted on swift jetbikes and Land Speeders, isolated and harried the main body of the Rangdan force and relayed precise information on their movements. Made complacent by Terran centuries of conquest and success, the Rangdan elite watched and waited, fully assured that they would claim victory once committed to the fighting against an exhausted and drained foe.Rather than wait for the hammer blow to fall and sunder his formation, Grandmaster Vendraig moved first, leading a charge that burst through the slave soldier battalions and bore down upon their waiting Rangdan overlords. Too proud to retreat in the face of such a challenge, the Rangda met the warriors of the Ist Legion blade-to-blade in a savage melee that tested the mettle of both forces, the stoic brutality and measured swordsmanship of the Ist Legion matched against the savage might and cruel technology of the Rangda. Legiones Astartes warriorswere cut asunder by Rangdan warriors enveloped in layers of energy shielding that burned the very air about them as they fought, while the lithe, vulpine xenos fell before the Terranic Greatswords of the Ist Legion Terminators.It was a slaughter that would have ended in mutual annihilation, both sides equally matched in skill and power, until Vendraig met the Rangdan warmaster in single combat. Vendraig was a superlative swordsman, strong of arm and swift in battle, yet his foe was a towering xenos monster cloaked in burning energy fields and wielding a huge crystalline blade that bled a neurotoxin of hideous potency. For an hour the duel raged and, as their warriors died around them, the two generals fought with savage ferocity, neither giving an inch. In the end, though wracked by the pain of the toxin raging in his blood and his armour rent and sundered, Urian Vendraig slew his foe and held high the severed head of the Rangdan warmaster, the battle decided and the pride of that foul xenos breed broken.With the greatest strength of the foe shattered in open combat by the warriors of the Emperor and their warmaster a cooling corpse in the dust, those Rangda that remained fled and took refuge in the fortresses left to them. However, with the Imperium's ships consolidating control of orbit now that the war-moon had been broken and the Grandmaster's host having scattered the greatest strength of their defences, the Rangda were a broken force. The next few solar months became a series of gruelling sieges as the Ist Legion surrounded and reduced each of the Rangdan fortresses by storm, leaving no stone upon stone and utterly erasing all trace of the enemy on the world they had once claimed, while in orbit specially equipped cadres of Breachers and Destroyers swept the vast ruins of the war-moon slaughtering the thousands of Rangda still trapped in its labyrinthine warrens.Yet the cost of this victory in the First Rangdan Xenocide was staggering, with some 10,000 of the Ist Legion slain and 50 Imperial ships of the line utterly destroyed, including the irreplaceable Paradigm of Hate, the wreckage of which could not be salvaged from the fused remains of the Rangdan war-moon. This was the legacy the Ist Legion wished to leave, a symbol of their Legion in the barren waste they made of Advex-mors and a message to those who might seek to oppose them. Those that would seek war with the Ist Legion would be met by a foe that would not balk when faced with the highest cost to claim victory, a host that would bring an enemy not only to defeat, but to utter annihilation.
|
Dark Angels - Decline of the First: The epic poems and depictions of the Advex-mors campaign were spread across the Imperium by the Remembrancers that had accompanied the fleet. The Ist Legion had taken one of the direst threats to emerge from beyond the borders of the Imperium head-on in their place of power and crushed them utterly and without mercy, leaving no stone upon stone. Yet, it was but one great victory among a thousand others, with each of the Legions able to boast of achievements just as impressive, their returned primarchs forging legends that would resound across the galaxy for thousands of Terran years.Far from ending the strife within the Legion, the Battle of Advex-mors seemed only to deepen the malaise that gripped its heart, a sickness that sought to corrupt that once unparalleled force. Pride had taken hold of the warriors and masters of the Legion, and only blood would assuage its hunger.In the wake of the campaign at Advex-mors, the newly-anointed Grandmaster sought other badges of glory for his Legion. A dozen victories were claimed for the First, each more reckless than the last, and yet it was still considered nothing more than what was expected by the Divisio Militaris on distant Terra. Driven on by a hunger for glory that grew with each and every campaign honour, the Grandmaster and his warriors arrived at the non-Compliant stronghold of Karkasarn, a fortress-world that had resisted Roboute Guilliman and the storied ranks of his elite for almost a solar month. The patient warlord of the Ultramarines had set his strategies, intending to besiege the fortress in detail and save his Legion the unwarranted casualties a foolhardy frontal assault would bring.The arrival of Grandmaster Urian Vendraig and his warriors did not change this strategy, and the Lord of Ultramar expected them to heed his counsel and join his camp. The warriors of the First, seeing before them a chance to humble the great primarch, formed ranks before the great kilometres-high gates of the world-fortress of Karkasarn and charged.A wedge of black-armoured warriors and engines of war, 10,000 strong and preceded by the same great banners that had once gone to war at the side of the Emperor Himself, descended upon the city-sized gatehouse. Hundreds fell in the initial assault, blasted apart by rampart cannon and immolated by plasma-gouts issued forth from hidden murder holes in the fortifications. They forced a breach at the cost of their own lives, opening a path for the heavy guns to burn a hole in the vast gates and into the maze of fortified boulevards beyond. His hand forced by the actions of the First, Guilliman and his own warriors advanced, but slowly, cautiously, taking each objective methodically and with minimal losses.The vanguard of the Ist Legion soon outpaced them, making for the central plaza and the citadel at its heart. Though they would reach it long before the Ultramarines, a final act of treachery by the desperate overlords of Karkasarn would undermine the Ist Legion's victory: a hidden atomic mine detonated under the keep's tower and killed the second Grandmaster of the Ist Legion as he stood upon the threshold of triumph, burying both Vendraig and his lifeguard cadre from the Host of Death.Though their losses had been grievous, both in number and in significance, victory had been seized in the Legion's bloodied grasp, its savour all the more sweet for the price paid to earn it. Yet the Lord of Ultramar, his blue-clad warriors last to the battle and last to the victory, offered them no words of congratulations. The primarch did not acknowledge the skills or the fortitude of the Ist Legion, gave no salute to their bravery or their fallen. Instead, he offered only these words to the battered ranks of the victorious First as they stood about the bodies of their fallen champions: "Vainglory is a poor strategist, for he renders triumph a bitter trophy and an empty prize. Today you have proven the strength of your Legion, but not its wisdom."
|
Dark Angels - Along a Knife's Edge: It would be in death that Grandmaster Urian Vendraig would finally achieve his aim, for it was the first stirrings of hate that would unite his Legion, an animosity that was born with his death and festered in the ignominious victory of Karkasarn. That world was abandoned by the Ist Legion and left to the warriors of Ultramar, its battle honour excised from Legion records and marked on banners only by an empty laurel. The only thing that the Angels of Death would take with them from Karkasarn was a subtle taint, a lingering sense of ignominy that soured their conquests and achievements and drove them to even greater feats to prove their valour.For despite the deeds of their past and the victory at Karkasarn, the Ultramarines saw them simply as equals -- brothers rather than mentors. To the Ist Legion, whom the Emperor had created first and kept close at His side, this seemed more of an insult than the harsh words of Roboute Guilliman.Once more the Council of Masters took the reins of the Ist Legion, that most potent weapon of war, and split it across the stars to seek vindication in the most deadly contests of arms they could find, each eager to prove the worth of their Legion and their Host. They gave battle without remorse and grasped at triumphs without regard for the cost attached to their trophies. The 9th and 14th Chapters of the Legion took the coral citadels of Melnoch from the Fra'al in a single night of brutal close quarters slaughter, at a cost of a tenth of their own strength, in order to outpace the onslaught of the Luna Wolves elsewhere in the cluster.Upon the rust deserts of Vorsingun a force of 1,000 initiates of the Host of Iron, gathered from 11 companies and crewing over 400 engines of war, took the field against a throng of brutish Orkoid hulks over three times their number, running ahead of the main assault force to claim victory for themselves at a fearful price. Yet for each victory, each battle honour claimed by the blood of its warriors, the Ist Legion came no closer to regaining the glory of its inception.All across the galaxy the Legiones Astartes had each become a unique weapon of war, having taken the doctrines of the Principia Bellicosa developed from the trials of the Ist Legion's campaigns and surpassed them, adapting them to their own needs. In the Realm of Ultramar, the grand kingdom of the Ultramarines forged by the hand of Guilliman, the primarch of the XIIIth Legion had gone so far as to pen a new treatise of war to improve upon the scheme by which the Legions had organised themselves since they had left Terra. The golden age of the Ist Legion, those halcyon days when it had stood as sole guardian of the fledgling Imperium, had all but ended. The nature of those hidden battles meant that they would live on only in the memories of the oldest warriors of the Legion and in the secret histories of the Imperial Archives, a bitter price to pay for the first of all the Emperor's Legions that their own honour would ever hold their greatest achievements captive.Pride, which had sustained the Legion through all of the horrors of its past, all of its solitary crusades and valiant last stands, would not allow them to accept a lesser place in the Imperium's order of battle. Pride would see the Legion ground to dust before it would let the younger Legions eclipse them.As the Great Crusade drew to its mid-point, the turning of the tide in the Emperor's war to conquer the galaxy, the Ist Legion stood at a precipice of their own. The years since the death of Grandmaster Urian Vendraig had seen them reduced in number, but not in spirit. Where the other Legions had prospered and grown stronger, the Angels of Death had seen their power squandered in suicidal assaults and campaigns gruelling beyond the ken of mortal soldiers. Those wars had cost them warriors and war engines, more perhaps than was wise, but had honed the fighting skills of its warriors to a keen, but brittle edge. To their allies they were grim deathseekers, ever-searching for the mightiest foes against which to match their skills and never retreating from battle, even in the face of annihilation. Its leadership divided among the Council of Masters and its warriors taken by a fever of battle-lust, the Legion was spread across the galaxy and engaged in wars beyond count, each chapter, host and order seeking to regain what had been lost.Had it continued down that path it is likely that the Ist Legion would have fallen, slowly and inevitably cut to pieces on the double-edged blade of its pride. Yet this was not to be, for a small fleet of Jaghatai Khan's roving hunters, the White Scars, would discover a world known as Caliban and the Emperor would bring forth from its dark forests the Ist Legion's salvation.
|
Dark Angels - Lion El'Jonson: As with much knowledge regarding the Ist Legion and its master, there was a vast body of rumour and little fact regarding the earliest years of the Primarch Lion El'Jonson.Before the start of the Great Crusade, the gestation pod containing the infant primarch that had been mysteriously teleported through the Warp from the Emperor's subterranean gene-laboratory beneath the Himalazian (Himalayan) Mountains landed on the feudal Death World of Caliban in what would become the Segmentum Obscurus.Caliban was a planet whose surface was largely covered by immense forests inhabited by terrible, monstrous beasts mutated by the touch of Chaos in the centuries after the birth of the Chaos God Slaanesh due to the planet's proximity to the nearby Eye of Terror. Jonson managed to survive in the forests alone, living as a wild man far from civilisation.Caliban was home to many knightly orders of warrior-aristocrats created to defend its people and the massive fortress-monasteries they lived within to defend themselves from the Great Beasts. These knights maintained a few aspects of Caliban's ancient technology from before the Age of Strife and wielded primitive Bolt Pistols and wore suits of simple power armour, very similar to that later used by the Legiones Astartes, that were handed down from knight to knight.Despite these technological trappings, however, Caliban remained very much a pre-industrial society whose warriors rode to war on horseback. One of the most prominent knightly organisations was known simply as "The Order," and was made up of commoners and nobles alike, whereas the other knightly orders were drawn by tradition only from the Calibanite nobility.Over 150 Terran years later, the young Lion would be discovered by a hunting party of the knights of The Order in the depths of Caliban's forests. Within these forests dwelt a breed of creature now unknown in the galaxy, monstrous chimaeric weapons left over from the Age of Strife, driven by a hunger that could not be slaked and fully capable of rendering an armoured warrior into a ruin of blood and flesh in seconds.How long the young primarch had survived alone in the green deeps cannot be known for certain, for the Lion himself seldom spoke of those times. The knights that found him assumed from his stature and bearing that he could not have spent more than a solar decade alone, but the growth and development of the primarchs does not follow the pattern of mortal Humans, and they do not age as do those untouched by the Emperor's genius.The span of standard years in which the Lion prowled Caliban's sea of trees may well have been far longer than can be easily comprehended. Indeed, the legends of those fortified towns that bordered the stretch of forest where the primarch was discovered spoke of a forest spirit that haunted the depths, a spirit of small stature but whose form was that of a man who was known only by the mysterious marks he left in his wake and had existed for nearly a standard century before the discovery of El'Jonson.Regardless of whether the Lion had stalked the world-forest of Caliban for a Terran decade or a century, that time had left its mark upon him. The lightless depths beneath the forest canopy teemed with horrors, rapacious killers that often emerged from the deeps to hunt among the towns and villages of Caliban's slowly-dwindling Human population. There, amongst the most foul monstrosities imaginable, the Lion spent his childhood.He learned to keep silent, lest he grant advantage to those that stalked him, he learned to fight only when he could win, lest he be wounded too gravely to survive, and he learned that once battle was joined it could end only in death, that the strong would survive and the weak would fall. He fought for his life with nothing but his bare hands and a determination so inhumanly strong that it served him better than any iron-forged blade.The Lion was no feral berserker, but rather a calculating hunter ruled by logic and not simple rage. When he was discovered at last by the knights of Caliban, he was judged so dangerous that it might be best to have him slain, treated as one of the Great Beasts of the forest, so akin to them was he. It was the judgement of one man that would see him brought into the realm of Mankind and away from that of beasts, and that man was named Luther.As a champion among the warriors that had defended Caliban through the long years of Old Night, Luther named his new charge Lion El'Jonson, which meant "the Lion, Son of the Forest" in the Calibanite dialect of Low Gothic, and raised him as a knight of The Order. Luther taught El'Jonson the laws and strictures of The Order, to mete out justice as a man rather than as a beast, and gave him something that the young primarch had never before had -- a reason to fight beyond simple survival.Caliban was a dying world, its people besieged by the Great Beasts that thronged in the hidden depths of the forest and slowly driven to extinction. The Order, which built and manned the great fortresses at the borders of the wild, had vainly tried to stem the tide but had succeeded only at slowing the pace of their people's destruction, for they were too few to do more than defend their fastnesses from the constant assaults.El'Jonson was taken to The Order's chief fortress-monastery of Aldurukh and taught Human ways. The Lion learned to speak incredibly quickly and soon mastered all of the necessary aspects of Calibanite culture faster than anyone, including Luther, his mentor, foster father and best friend, believed possible.Before long, El'Jonson had become a fierce warrior in The Order's ranks -- though of his years living alone in Caliban's forests, he said nothing, then or later. With Luther at his side, El'Jonson ultimately rose into the highest ranks of The Order.At the height of his reputation, El'Jonson made clear his extraordinary ambition: he called for a grand crusade to exterminate the Great Beasts of Caliban so that the people of his world could finally know peace and live free from fear.This was received with great enthusiasm by the other members of The Order and even the other knightly orders, but it proved to be a time-consuming process that took nearly a solar decade of constant warfare against the terrible dangers of the deep forests.El'Jonson would quickly prove not only a superlative warrior and strategist, but also a leader whose quiet confidence and iron will drew recruits to The Order in numbers never before seen. With each victory against the Great Beasts of the forest, each fell head planted upon the walls of The Order's fortresses, more warriors took up arms with hope in more than simple survival.Lion El'Jonson stood at the forefront of this new crusade, not by choice, for he had ever been taciturn and prone to seek solitude, but by action, always to be found at the fore of any battle and unafraid to speak his mind or act when others might hesitate. By his order the old traditions that allowed only the nobility to fight among the knightly orders of Caliban were dropped, swelling The Order's ranks further at the cost of some dissent within the ranks of the more traditional knights.Any Calibanite knightly order that did not follow El'Jonson's lead, such as the Knights of Lupus of the northern forests which feared like many that the destruction of the Great Beasts would up-end Caliban's traditional social order, was destroyed to the last man.Within the space of a solar decade, The Order's ranks had grown to the point that they were able to take the war for their survival ever-deeper into the world-forest itself. With Lion El'Jonson and Luther at their head, they unleashed their crusade to rid Caliban of its curse, bringing flame and steel to the lair of the monsters that had hunted them for generations beyond count.The war was long and bloody, with hundreds slain for each monstrous nest put to the torch, and many grew weary of the slaughter -- all save the grim knight, El'Jonson. The Lion knew that mercy had no place in war, to leave with their task unfinished and with any of the foe yet alive would be to waste all of the lives spent in its pursuit. There could be only one end and that was the total annihilation of the enemy by whatever means was needed.El'Jonson set the knights to ambush the Great Beasts as they came to feed, poisoned the pools at which the creatures drank and set ablaze vast tracts of the forest to set them to flight. He gave the foe no respite and hunted them till no more could be found, and when his warriors spoke of his prowess and victories, it was fear that coloured their words as much as awe.Some of Caliban's aristocracy, following in the wake of the Knights of Lupus, feared his new methods and determination enough to declare open rebellion, some fearing the changes he had wrought upon the tradition-bound people of Caliban and others simply seeking to claim the power Lion El'Jonson had come to wield. These traitors to the cause of Caliban's salvation were put down without mercy, the ranks of their knights and soldiers culled in their entirety and their fastnesses torn down as a warning to others.At the end of the crusade against the Great Beasts, with both the Lion and Luther exhausted by the terrible cost the fighting had exacted, it was El'Jonson that received the battle honours and the title of Grand Master of The Order. He accepted the accolade without fanfare, for such Human eccentricities still seemed less worthwhile to the youth that had grown to manhood among monsters. He understood little the value some placedupon titles and rewards, for his grim and solitary habits had always kept him distant from others, and he saw not the change his rise hadwrought in Luther.For where they had once competed as equals for honour and victory, the primarch had now eclipsed his mentor and brother, leaving him behind as he grudgingly accepted the people's adulation and offer to rule over all of Caliban. It was a wound dealt in ignorance, for El'Jonson did not see the spark of fierce pride that burned within his brother ignite to jealousy in the face of his triumphs, a wound that would fester in the years to follow.Had the Emperor not arrived shortly after this victory, descending from the heavens to claim His lost son, then perhaps this wound might have healed in Caliban's new peace, but this was not to be. The Emperor came to heap new glories upon the Lion, granting him command of the Ist Legion, whom He renamed the "Dark Angels" after an ancient Calibanite myth that spoke to their grim mien, and making him a general within the vast Imperial army that sought to conquer the galaxy.Lion El'Jonson would soon leave for distant Terra and his new destiny, bringing his uncompromising and remorseless style of warfare to the ranks of the Imperial forces. To him would fall the role of watchman at the edge of the Emperor's domain, the bane of monsters and beasts and the bearer of weapons too terrible to entrust to any other.He would be the cold and inevitable destroyer, the doom that once unleashed could not be recalled, subverted or delayed; taught by the black depths of the forest of Caliban the value of cold, ruthless tenacity. Lion El'Jonson was the first of all the primarchs, war distilled into its rawest and most fundamental essence, death that walked like a man, and the galaxy would be forever changed by his return.
|
Dark Angels - Coming of the Emperor: Shortly after the success of the campaign against the Great Beasts, in 846.M30 the Emperor of Mankind and a small band of His Legiones Astartes scouts drawn from the Ist Legion arrived on Caliban after they detected the psychic emanations of one of the primarchs. From the moment the Emperor first landed, El'Jonson felt the deep connection between himself and the Master of Mankind, and swore his fealty. In return, the Emperor made the Lion the commander of the Ist Legion of Space Marines that had been created from his genome.The Emperor had launched His Great Crusade after the end of Old Night to reunite all the lost colonies of Humanity and restore Mankind's birthright as the rulers of the galaxy. The Emperor's Space Marine Legions purged entire star systems of Humanity's xenos oppressors. As the Imperium's wave of conquest advanced across the galaxy, Imperial scouts brought word that they had rediscovered the isolated world of Caliban in the Segmentum Obscurus and that it was home to a man who was likely one of the missing primarchs.Only a small honour guard of the Ist Legion would accompany the Emperor to Caliban, for the Legion was still scattered to war zonesacross the front lines of the Great Crusade. A mere 500, mostly veterans of the Host of Death, would precede the Master of Mankind as He journeyed to greet His lost son, the Knight of Caliban known as "The Lion." Arrayed in the jet black power armour and mortuary symbols that had come to be their mark, it seemed as if the old tales of Calibanite legend and myth had come to life, a host of dark angels mustering before thestronghold of The Order and kneeling before Lion El'Jonson.In that initial, fateful encounter the Legion would earn a new title from the first of the primarchs, for he saw fit to test the mettle of his new followers by personally duelling the captain of the company. The Lion stood against the Cataphractii-armoured warrior and matched his Calibanite steel to the power field-wreathed blade of his opponent and left him woundedin the dust; the Lion took their measure and they his and both learned a respect for the other. From that day forth the primarch would call the Astartes of the Ist Legion his "Dark Angels," a title that soon spread throughout the Legion.Within a short span of time, the Emperor arrived at The Order's fortress-monastery to reclaim His lost gene-son in person and induct Caliban formally into the Imperium of Man, its vast forests to be cleared for industry and the first tithes of recruits claimed from among its population to replenish the depleted ranks of the Ist Legion.The day of the Emperor's arrival was one that would live on for centuries in Calibanite legend. His great vessel descended from the heavens and He welcomed His lost son back into the Imperial fold.The event was slightly marred by an attempt against the Emperor's life made by certain conservative knights of The Order who feared the changes that would be wrought to their world by the Imperium and its advanced science and culture, but these malcontents were swiftly and mercilessly executed as traitors by the Astartes.The Ist Legion's governing Council of Masters on distant Gramarye would soon hear of Lion El'Jonson, the man who was their primarch, and once more they were riven by dissension. Though none would doubt the word of the Emperor that this knight of Caliban was their true lord, they were split by shame and pride. Some were stricken by remorse at the state of the Legion their primarch would inherit, while others wished to set forth and bring a suitable victory as a trophy to set at the feet of their new master.All across the galaxy, the dispersed units of the Ist Legion reacted much the same, some detachments redoubling their efforts and throwing themselves into combat with renewed zeal to bring honour to the Legion, while others sought to extricate themselves from their campaigns so they might travel to Caliban and ask forgiveness of their returned primarch. The Lion himself was brought to Terra by the Emperor, that he might learn of the war the Master of Mankind wished him to prosecute and of the role he would play for the Imperium in the years yet to come.Soon, the Space Marines of the Ist Legion who had accompanied the Emperor to Caliban were putting potential Astartes aspirants from The Order and the other knightly organisations through myriad martial trials and competitions to gauge their level of martial prowess and character. Only the strongest and most dedicated were allowed to pass to the next stage.Many within The Order whispered that they were competing for a place within the ranks of the Astartes. But these trials also served the secondary purpose of determining if the Human strain on Caliban was genetically pure enough to warrant its status as a world that the Ist Legion could recruit from in the coming years.While the Calibanite knightly orders revelled in their differences and often resorted to combat to settle their feuds, the Space Marine Legions were united in purpose and will. Such division could not be tolerated, and at the behest of the Lion and the Dark Angels, the individual knightly orders were disbanded and brought under the control of the Ist Legion.Such a drastic move did not happen overnight, and could not pass without dissenting voices, but when the Lion spoke in favour of the union of knights and the glory that would be theirs for the taking in the service of the Emperor, most such voices were stilled -- most, but not all.More objections were raised when the soldiers of the Imperial Army descended to the surface of Caliban. The Ist Legion's aspirant trials had already identified the likely candidates for recruitment into that august body, but the vast majority of the planet's population would still be able to serve the Emperor as troops of the Imperial Army.Within an unimaginably short period of time, the surface of Caliban was transformed from a world of sprawling wilderness and castles to one of martial industry that rang to the beat of factory hammers and the tramp of booted feet as its populace girded itself for interstellar war.The Emperor's servants had descended to Caliban with enormous earth-moving machines that cleared dozens of kilometres of forest a solar day and left flat, lifeless soil in their wake, ready to be planted or built upon. Mines, refineries and manufactoria followed, ready to transform the planet's abundant resources into vital war materiel for the Emperor's crusade.Cities were built to supply the sprawling industrial sites, growing upwards and outwards with each passing Terran year as the traditional villages and towns surrounding the fortress-monasteries were emptied and their citizens relocated to better serve the Imperium.Finally, the day arrived when those individuals whose courage had been proven beyond doubt, whose stamina, endurance and strength had seen them through the Astartes trials were ready to be added to the ranks of the Ist Legion.Word had come from Luther that the Astartes had made their final selection for advanced training and the genhancement required to join their ranks. Through the application of Imperial science and the marvels of the gene-seed, these aspirants were transformed over the next several standard years into battle-brothers of the Ist Legion, the newly renamed "Dark Angels."Luther had also been chosen to join the Ist Legion by the Astartes, but in common with a large proportion of that initial intake from The Order and the other Calibanite knightly orders, he had been too old to benefit from the implantation of gene-seed.In its place, Luther, and others like him, had undergone an extensive series of genetic, surgical and biochemical enhancement procedures designed to increase their strength, stamina and reflexes to superhuman levels. They were taller, stronger and quicker than mortal men, but for all that they were still not true Astartes.It was difficult for Luther and the others to come to terms with that fact, knowing that they were surrounded by those who had once served under them as squires and junior knights, but were now far more powerful than they could ever hope to become.Luther still served as the Lion's second within the Legion, earning his position based on merit and fuelled with a desire to prove himself by his devotion to the Imperial ideal. But despite his successes, he could not escape his own inner conviction that he was somehow being looked down upon because he was not a full Astartes.As for Lion El'Jonson, his brother primarchs would come to call him dour and morose, given to dark moods and heedless of the counsel of others, but he saw things simply and starkly. He learned on Terra that the war he had fought in Caliban's monster-haunted forests had not been ended, but only begun -- for the galaxy teemed with monsters to be slain. He dedicated himself to one task: killing.He had no time for Sanguinius' chivalric ideals, for Mortarion's arbitrary hatreds or Fulgrim's obsession with beauty, such passion only obfuscated the true goal: that the enemies of Mankind should be destroyed. As the first of all the primarchs created by the Emperor, he was both more and less than his brothers: a primal force of destruction whose single-minded focus wrought him more inhuman than even Magnus the Red.The Lion could stand against any of his kin, match blades with Fulgrim and stalemate the strategies of Roboute Guilliman and, though some might exceed him in the details of some tasks there were none that were his equal in the grander scope of battle, none whose will could match the bloody-minded determination of the Lion. His talents and resolute confidence, which some might have called arrogance, won him few friends but saw him placed at the head of his Legion faster than any of the primarchs to be rediscovered before him.And the Legion he inherited was in sore need of its primarch and in need of a new beginning. Scattered and fractured, the Ist Legion remained a powerful fighting force but one whose purpose had become lost in the long years of the Great Crusade. Before the coming of the primarch they had been mentors and guides for the younger Legions, but their students had long since found their own wisdom. Now Lion El'Jonson would grant them a new purpose, one in keeping with the primarch's own methods and the vision he had for the Emperor's Great Crusade.His first acts were to merge many of the teachings of Caliban's techno-feudal aristocracy with those of the Ist Legion Hexagrammaton, fusing the best of Terra and Caliban to create something new and more refined, and to gather the scattered fragments of his Legion together. With the first generations of recruits taken from the ranks of the worthy among the knights of Caliban still undergoing implantation of gene-seed, hypnogogic indoctrination and live-fire training, the Lion prepared to embark on a crusade of his own.With him were to be found the original 500 warriors that had first arrived at Caliban as well as those chapters and battle groups that had sought him out to pledge their allegiance, as well as auxilia companies raised from the stock of Caliban to serve the Imperial Army, and a small retinue of Mechanicum magi from the Forge World of Xana II, eager to court favour with the new primarch. In full they numbered 20,000warriors, perhaps a third of the Legion, each marked by the new beginning they were pledged to, adorned with the winged sword of Lion El'Jonson's Dark Angels instead of the grim marks of an age now ended.Lion El'Jonson led this host forth, seeking out those companies of his gene-sons that had not yet found their way to his side. To find those scattered warriors amid the chaos of the Great Crusade, a war waged across a galaxy by ten billion warriors under arms, was no small feat and made possible only by the genius of the Lion himself and the arts of the tech-adepts of Xana, who quickly parsed the data banks of the Divisio Militaris to discern in which campaigns the Ist Legion bled and died.For any other Legion the arrival of their newly-rediscovered primarch might have been the cause for raucous celebration or ostentatious parades, but not so for the grim Ist. News of Lion El'Jonson's approach most often spurred the warriors of the Ist Legion to redouble their efforts in battle, throwing themselves upon the foe without care for their survival so that when they stood before their gene-father they might offer him the blood-soaked laurels of victory.Each battle-worn company received their new master with the same stoic reserve, with silent courtesy and brief but solemn vows of allegiance, and each was tested in battle by the primarch himself before they joined the ranks of his growing entourage. As was the way of the Lion, he demonstrated his worth by his actions and skill rather than with words and vague promises, allowing those who might doubt him to match their blades against his in honest combat. None among the Legion could question his right to lead after such a trial, though some few within the Legion harboured misgivings at the sudden changes the primarch brought to the centuries-old doctrines of the Legion and the shift in authority he represented.Within a few short standard years, the Lion had gathered the vast majority of his Legion together, near 100,000 warriors, and led them to the ancient stronghold of the Ist Legion on Gramarye. There the gathered Council of Masters and Preceptor's Conclave awaited him amid the many glories of the Ist Legion's long and glorious history and the amassed wisdom distilled from its battles. Here, surrounded by the dusty trophies of the past, Lion El'Jonson made his Legion whole once again; he faced the ceremonial champion of the Council of Masters in the ring of honour, battling Pyrhus Calagat, the master of the Host of Fire, in an hour-long duel that has since become legend. This final trial ended, the primarch accepted the titles of Grandmaster of the Ist Legion, the six wings of the Hexagrammaton and High Preceptor of the Orders Militant of the Ist Legion, the first warrior to consolidate the leadership of the entire Legion under one banner.To the gathered warriors of the Dark Angels, whose oaths had now been sworn in blood and sacrifice, the new primarch swore an oath of his own, an oath to seal the pact between them. This oath is recorded in the books of the Council of Masters: "We are the Angels of Darkness, for us there is no peace, no end but war and death. We shall not walk in the golden halls of Mankind's future, but stand resolute in the shadows beyond. While we yet draw breath, this Imperium will not fall and we will not know defeat, for I pledge every warrior, every drop of blood in the Legion in the name of victory, no matter the cost."
|
Dark Angels - Reorganisation of the Ist Legion: With his oath to his Legion sworn, Lion El'Jonson saw the rise of his Dark Angels, placing new masters over each of the wings he had created from the bones of the Legion's old hosts and formalising the Dark Angels' various informal orders in the style of Caliban's knightly orders.With the first influx of new recruits from Caliban now ready to join the Ist Legion, comprising those older warriors like Luther that had opted to undergo the painful and unreliable cybernetic and genetic augmetic enhancement process that allowed them to reach levels of ability comparable to true Space Marines, Lion El'Jonson swiftly incorporated them within this new structure, taking care to assign posts and commands based only on merit and not due to origin or the simple virtue of time in service.A number of the Lion's old companions from The Order found positions within his inner circle, and despite the stringent trials the Lion insisted upon, some of the oldest veterans were less than pleased to yield their authority to these comparative newcomers. The old grand Legion chantry on Gramarye was torn down, replaced with a more modest fortress to secure the industrial sprawl of that world, for though the Legion would maintain a great fortress-monastery on Caliban, its true heart and seat of power would be the sanctum of its primarch aboard his flagship, the ancient Gloriana-class Battleship Invincible Reason.For many, this reinvigoration of the Legion served to dispel the malaise that had long lain over the First, discarding the vainglory that had sapped the worth from victory and embracing the purity of the primarch's vision; though for a silent minority of veterans the sudden and jarring dissolution of old traditions and the introduction of new Calibanite blood left a lingering sense of doubt.The Lion chose to confront any intransigence with the stoic indifference that was his hallmark, choosing to immerse the Legion in war and trust that his example would dispel any doubt. Dispersed under the masters and knight-commanders of the Legion he set the Dark Angels to their task, while the primarch led his own fleet to answer a call for aid received only recently by the newly-installed astropathic choir at Caliban. His destination was the distant world of Karkasam, where the Ultramarines garrison there had resisted siege for over eight solar months after a sudden uprising against Imperial rule among the population living within the ruined halls of the shattered world-fortress.The desperate rebels had opened hidden vaults deep beneath the surface of the planet and set loose a biogenic phage that had reshaped the broken people of their world into twisted, blood-hungry ghouls whose minds were burned clean of all thought except the need to hunt and kill. These monstrous mutant creations then fell upon the unsuspecting warriors of the XIIIth Legion with a ferocity that gave pause to even the warriors of the Legiones Astartes.With much of the Great Crusade's strength concentrated to the galactic east, there were few forces available to relieve the beleaguered Ultramarines and, given the history of Karkasam, few expected the Dark Angels to return. So, when the Invincible Reason broke through the Immaterium andentered realspace, its drop bays already open and primed for launch, Praetor Artaeon of the XIIIth, the commander of the all-but-overrun Astartes garrison, lost for a moment the famous stoic reserve of the Ultramarines and cried out for joy at the sight.The Lion himself was at the forefront of the relief force, cutting a path through the teeming hordes of flesh-ghola that threatened to overrun the Ultramarines. At the head of 1,000 ebon-armoured Veterans of the Dreadwing, the new master of the Ist Legion made swift work of the foe, a curtain of superheated plasma scouring clean the walls and bunkers of the Ultramarines' fortress. At his heels came the full force of the fleet, 10,000 transhuman warriors of the Dark Angels, and by their blades was the enemy put to rout and then annihilated as they cowered in their boltholes.When the Ultramarines sallied forth from their fortifications to meet them among the sea of corpses and ash they did so with some trepidation, perhaps expecting some measure of retribution for the last meeting between their Legions at Karkasarn or a demand to cede the world to the Ist Legion in return for their aid. Yet the Lion had no interest in old grudges or the tawdry business of accolades and honours, and with the killing complete he left without fanfare, leaving behind only an empty banner to mark the Dark Angels' debt to the Ultramarines paid. That this was among his first battles was no accident, but a statement of his intent. He was not to play at politics, not to build empires, nor monuments, he was pledged to war and death -- to kill the enemies of the Emperor and nothing else.And so it was with this doctrine in mind that Lion El'Jonson and his Dark Angels took up their duties in the latter days of the Great Crusade.
|
Dark Angels - Late Great Crusade: Twenty Legions of Space Marines were created by the Emperor during the Great Crusade to join and lead His quest to unite all of Humanity under the aegis of the Imperium of Man. The nascent proto-Legion, known as the Primus or Ist Legion (later renamed after a series of cognomens including "The First," the "Angels of Death" and the "Uncrowned Princes" as the Angelis Tenebraium or Dark Angels) was the very first of those original "First Founding" Legions to be created at the beginning of the Great Crusade.The Ist Legion was raised first to active service in a staged process of testing and trials before the full active force was created through mass recruitment. Each stage of creation resulted in an expansion of the gene-seed implantation on progressively larger groups of neophytes.During the Unification Wars on Terra, they were the first of the Space Marine Legions to be created and were therefore originally under the command of the Emperor Himself.Once the Emperor discovered Lion El'Jonson on Caliban, however, the primarch took command of the Dark Angels Legion that had been created from his genetic stock, and he was granted command of the 4th Expeditionary Fleet of the Great Crusade.
|
Dark Angels - Compliance of Molech: One of Lion El'Jonson's earliest campaigns as commander of the newly-dubbed Dark Angels Legion, was the Imperial Compliance of the newly discovered Knight World of Molech. This was a massive joint-Compliance operation between multiple Legiones Astartes, including the Dark Angels, Luna Wolves, Emperor's Children, White Scars and thousands of Imperialis Auxilia soldiers and various Mechanicum and Legio Titanicus assets.Cyprian Devine of House Devine was named planetary governor of Molech. In the presence of several of His primarch sons, the Emperor led them to a Warp Gate hidden underground, where He proceeded to utilise it to enter into the Realm of Chaos to parley with the Ruinous Powers.When He finally returned, the Emperor appeared aged, but much more powerful. He then psychically suppressed His sons' memories of Molech and stationed a large garrison force comprised of nearly 100 Imperialis Auxilia regiments, three Legio Titanicus cohorts, along with detachments from two Space Marine Legions to protect the secrets of the Warp Gate on Molech.
|
Dark Angels - Second and Third Rangdan Xenocides: Next, the Dark Angels took part in the vital campaigns of the final Rangdan Xenocides. They fought alongside Titans from the Legio Gryphonicus, Legio Vulturum and Legio Kydianos as well as other Xanite Mechanicum forces from the Forge World of Xana II.The conflict began in 862.M30 when the Rangda, that xenos terror long thought extinguished in the earlier First Rangdan Xenocide, fell upon the northern reaches of the Imperium in numbers that defied belief. For almost a solar decade the veterans of the Ist Legion, now the Dark Angels, fought to hold at bay an enemy that threatened to consume all the worlds of Mankind.The Lion wrought his own legend in those dark times, a grim figure of death and vengeance that descended upon the Rangda in a cold fury: In the first dire standard years of the conflict, when the Imperium seemed lost in a tide of xenos fiends and their slaves, the Lion stood tall amid the carnage. He was no golden hero like his brother Sanguinius, nor a black-humoured figurehead like Horus Lupercal, but rather a silent rock, unyielding in the storm. He did not inspire loyalty, nor any other virtue. Rather he went forth where the foe was strongest, armoured by his pride and confidence and drew others along with him for the simple honour of standing by his side.For near a solar decade the battles would rage, some nine Space Marine Legions taking part in the fighting, and ravaging Human colonies across the northern sectors of the Imperium. Of those Legions caught up in the fighting many would suffer serious losses, the Space Wolves marking the loss of some 5,000 Astartes breaking the siege of Xana alone and the Dark Angels, gathered once again in almost their full number, bore a toll of their own.The Dark Angels hurled themselves at their enemies and broke their greater strength in countless battles against the vile xenos on the edge of the Halo Stars. This campaign culminated in the Third Rangdan Xenocide around 890.M30, which resulted in the loss of the lives of 50,000 Dark Angels Space Marines, spent in preventing the destruction of perhaps the entire northern Imperium by the alien menace from the outer darkness.At the breaking of the great citadel of Vorksag, during the vast clash of void ships over Morcar and the seven-solar-week-long Battle of Morro, where three companies of the Dark Angels held against more than a million Rangdan neuro-shackled servitors, victory was bought at the cost of their lives, and with the blood of the old Legion, for when victory was at last proclaimed and the Rangdan menace vanquished for the final time, the Dark Angels were but a tenth of their old number.Some say the old Legion fought to prove themselves worthy of their new master, others that they bled to make right their failure to destroy the Rangda when first they met at the Battle of Advex-mors, and a few whispered that the Lion sent them into slaughter so he might replace them with more tractable, Calibanite warriors.Whether true or not, it was to Caliban that the Lion turned to replenish the ranks of his Legion. With the Rangdan plague driven back, the first new influx of true Calibanite Space Marines entered the ranks of the Legion, where once they had been but the few older companions of the primarch, now they were dispersed across all the wings and orders of the Legion.They were a new breed of warrior for the Ist Legion, guided more by tradition and ritual than their forebears and unburdened by the weight of pride that had been the lodestone of the Terran veterans. In the wake of the Second Rangdan Xenocide, it was this changed Legion that went forth to continue its works and to bring war to the most fell of foes.From Caliban they spread out across the stars, for unlike many of their brethren they took few strongholds, save for the lonely chantry-holds that held the knowledge of the Legion. Each of their expeditionary fleets was bound to a different corner of the Imperium, to patrol the dark places where monsters were still to be found. The Lion took command of one such fleet, no larger or more grand than any other for he expected each to be an engine of death capable of defeating any foe, and set course for the world known to Imperial cartographers as Sarosh.Due to the extensive losses suffered by the Ist Legion during the Rangdan Xenocides, by 899.M30, the Ultramarines Legion were on the cusp of becoming the largest Space Marine Legion, standing at around 166,000 Legionaries.
|
Dark Angels - Feud of Dulan: As the Space Marine Legions pushed back the frontiers of the Imperium, each primarch strove to excel in the eyes of the Emperor and none more so than Leman Russ, primarch of the Space Wolves. Only Horus Lupercal and Lion El'Jonson could claim more victories than Russ and this was a constant frustration for him.It was on the world of Dulan in 870.M30 where the Space Wolves were fighting alongside the Dark Angels that matters came to a head. This incident would start the millennia-long rivalry between the Dark Angels and the Space Wolves. The planetary governor of Dulan, Durath, had denounced the Space Wolf Primarch Leman Russ as "the Emperor's lap-dog" and swore to feed his heart to his pet Grox. Russ, enraged, swore to kill Durath himself and demanded the satisfaction of leading the assault. Jonson, however, had meticulously planned the attack and was not about to let his brother's hot-headedness foil his plans.Jonson led the assault, leaving Russ to watch helplessly as the Lion killed Durath. After the battle, Russ stormed into the fortress and struck Jonson across the room. A brawl ensued that lasted a full solar day and night, the two combatants being said to be equally matched: while Russ was slightly stronger, the Lion was slightly quicker.Russ eventually ceased and started laughing, realising how foolish their fight was and how he had allowed his pride and temper to get the better of him. Jonson, however, still angry at what he considered the treachery of Russ' first punch, knocked the laughing Space Wolf out cold with one final blow.By the time Russ regained consciousness, the Dark Angels had departed for new fields of battle in the Great Crusade. It has since been customary for selected champions from both Chapters to engage in a non-lethal duel whenever they meet so that honour may be satisfied.The Battle of Dulan and the infamous feud between the Dark Angels and the Space Wolves is a tale told many times. In essence it is always recounted as a simple tale, yet one that has seen a number of tellings each of which has had its own agenda, and rarely has that agenda been the simple truth. The details of the battle are well known as noted in the most common retelling above.Leman Russ and Lion El'Jonson were both assigned to the conquest of the world of Dulan and, while the Space Wolves waited and lay siege, the Dark Angels staged a sudden assault that allowed them to claim the honour of the final victory. On hearing of this it is most often claimed as above that Leman Russ flew into a rage and assaulted his brother, leading to the legendary duel between them that their Legions' Successor Chapters are rumoured to reenact whenever they meet. This has led to the popular assumption of a bitter grudge between the Space Wolves and the Dark Angels, a sense of lasting ill will brought about by this single isolated incident that has been accepted by history as fact.Yet, those two Legions and their later Successor Chapter fought together on a number of occasions, both before and after the Battle of Dulan, without rancour and in many cases with a noted sense of shared camaraderie. Indeed, it has often been noted that the two primarchs, Lion El'Jonson and Leman Russ, were of much the same character, though they oft expressed it differently. Both were practical to their core, with little time for frivolity or the excesses of civilisation. Both valued plain speaking over political necessity and judged men and women by the actions they took rather than the words they spoke. But above all, the two primarchs placed the utmost value on loyalty, holding their oaths as iron bonds and reserving the deepest hate for those who would forsake a vow.This being true, it throws the events on Dulan, and the grudge they are supposed to have given birth to, into a strange light. That the two fought is not in doubt, for too many sources agree on it; that either came to hold a grudge is implausible. If anything, the record of the two primarchs suggests a deep bond of trust and mutual respect.Together they had seen the end of the Rangdan empire, had conquered a thousand worlds and vanquished some of the most terrible foes to stand against the Imperium. Dulan would seem to have represented one of many tests; a test that allowed the two to take a measure of each other and a test oft repeated when they or their warriors met -- but one repeated without the rancour often attributed to it. There exists no greater symbol of the loyalty held between the two Legions, the Wolves of Fenris and the Knights of Caliban, than in the final days of the rebellion against the Emperor, when Horus himself trembled as the two Legions re-united as brothers-in-arms, ready to test themselves against the forces that lay siege to Terra.
|
Dark Angels - Subjugation of Sarosh: The Dark Angels' 4th Expeditionary Fleet under the command of Lion El'Jonson took part in the continued Compliance of Sarosh (officially codified as Sigma Five-One Seven but known to the Dark Angels as Four-Three, the third world brought to Compliance by the 4th Expeditionary Fleet), which had formerly been commanded by an officer of the White Scars Legion.Lion El'Jonson went in answer to a call for aid from his brother, Jaghatai Khan. Of all the primarchs, the Khan stood closest to the Lion, for despite their differences each appreciated the honest and forthright nature of the other, and so the Lion was ill-disposed to ignore his call.The Sarosi -- ruled by a planetary bureaucracy -- had recently expressed their interest in becoming part of the Imperium, and the Imperials were eager to allow them in, believing that these people seemed to possess the same secular beliefs as they did in the Imperial Truth. But over a standard year had passed and the Sarosi were as yet no closer to attaining Compliance, constantly apologising to the Imperial planetary governor chosen for their world, Harlad Furst, that their bureaucracy was slowing the process.But the Sarosi (without mentioning it to the Imperial expedition) secretly worshipped Chaos entities in the Warp they called the "Melachim", and saw the anti-religious stance of the Pre-Heresy Imperium's Imperial Truth as unsuppressed evil.After the Dark Angels fleet arrived in orbit to accelerate the Compliance process, the Lord High Exacter, the leader of the Sarosi bureaucracy, who had been invited aboard the Invincible Reason to meet the primarch, denounced El'Jonson and the Emperor to the primarch's face aboard the Dark Angels' flagship, and El'Jonson responded by ramming his power sword through the fanatical Sarosi leader's body.But the Sarosi delegation had also brought a hidden nucleonic device aboard their shuttle, intending to assassinate the fleet's entire command structure, including El'Jonson, in one fell swoop; however, Luther and a junior Librarian named Zahariel El'Zurias managed to eject the shuttle into space, causing only minor damage to the flagship. Luther admitted to Zahariel that he had discovered the device earlier and had briefly considered allowing it to kill his oldest friend, largely because of the jealousy that had begun to grow in his soul.The rebels on Sarosh would be crushed for their treachery, brought to heel swiftly by the might of the Dark Angels and the Imperium's armies, but the victory would leave a bitter taste for many. In the aftermath of the fighting, some questioned the ease with which the Sarosi had infiltrated the Ist Legion's defences, and though none would call what had occurred treachery, there were those whose devotion to the Legion's new path was questioned.Luther, Zahariel and five hundred other Dark Angels drawn from among the veterans of both Terra and Caliban were to find themselves returned to Caliban, not in exile, but neither in triumph.There they were to serve as a garrison force, the overseers of the Lion's sanctuary and to continue the recruitment of new Space Marines into the Legion from the Calibanite population. They were required to leave the Great Crusade behind, regardless of their legacy of standard years in service in either the Calibanite forest or among the stars.This was the determination of the Lion, that he would set aside even those whom he held dearest in the name of duty. Some would name it arrogance and others, with the benefit of hindsight, would call it foolhardy, but it was ever the way of the Lion. It was not the cold logic of battle favoured by some among the primarchs, but the proud imperative of duty and excellence -- that those who faltered be set aside, no matter how justified or small the failing, and the worthy grow stronger through the trials they faced.
|
Dark Angels - Final Days of the Crusade: By this creed of strength and excellence the Ist Legion, the Dark Angels, lived and died, continuing the work of the Emperor in the last days of the Great Crusade. Wherever the tide of Imperial conquest slowed they were to be found, bright swords and grim resolve against the worst horrors of the galaxy. Lion El'Jonson, now long parted from the forests of Caliban and a staunch believer in the dream of Human empire embodied in his gene-father, fought with every moment given to him.He spent no time on parades, fortress-building or in petty squabbles with his kin, but went stoically from battle to battle. He and his Legion began to shun the gatherings of the Great Crusade and the fellowship of their brothers among the Legiones Astartes, scorning those who would fret over such frivolities while there remained enemies of power and strength to test their mettle against. As the years and wars wore on,a distance grew between the Dark Angels and the other Legions of the Imperium; few of the primarchs cared to take the time to seek out their reclusive brother as he and his Legion continued to whet their blades to a keen edge.They began to forget the deeds he and his warriors had performed, for he rarely spoke of them. All except one.Horus Lupercal, ever watchful, paid much heed to his brother and the actions of his Legion. Once he had tried to bind the Ist Legion to him, only to find the cipher of their ways a shield against his influence and their pride a foil to his manipulation. His and Lorgar's warrior lodges would find no purchase within the ranks of the Dark Angels, as they were shunned by the preceptors of the Orders Militant and the proctors of the wings of the Hexagrammaton as worthless and beneath them. The Dark Angels were not and never could be Horus' to command.The Dark Angels' master was as his Legion, a rock in which Horus Lupercal could find no crack or chink in which to fix his barbs, no psychological leash by which he could lead him along paths of his own choosing. The Lion was not well-liked among the brotherhood of the primarchs, but he had the respect of each and every one of his brothers, and more than that he had the trust of his father, the Emperor, and the keys to the hidden and ancient arsenals of Terra.Were the Emperor to choose a single one among his primarchs to lead, to stand at the head of the Great Crusade, then Lion El'Jonson was a choice easily understood, and this troubled the master of the Luna Wolves. So, when the conquest of Ullanor Prime loomed before Horus in 000.M30, he was sure to see the Lion and the Ist Legion diverted to far battlefields and tendered him no invitation to the great Triumph of Ullanor that followed.So it was that when Horus was crowned as the Warmaster of the Imperium the Lion was not present, a victory to the covetous mind of the newWarmaster. Yet this was one of the few miscalculations made by the shrewd intellect of the Warmaster. He counted all men of power to think as he did, yet while the Lion and the Wolf of Luna shared many traits, they were not the same.When news of Horus' new rank reached Lion El'Jonson he did not pause in his campaigns, nor did he offer congratulations or lament his own fortune and this, more than the reaction of any of his other brother primarchs, gave the Warmaster pause. When Horus' thoughts later turned to rebellion and treachery after his fall to Chaos in the Temple of the Serpent Lodge on Davin, it is likely that it was the Lion he marked as among the greatest of threats to his plans.The Dark Angels were both numerous and skilled in all the arts of war, with access to the armouries of Terra and psyarkana forbidden to all others, and their primarch was as inflexible as iron, loyal beyond doubt to the Emperor and resolute enough to rise up against any threat to his father's grand dream of Human unity.As with all of the primarchs, the Warmaster did not feel fear as did lesser mortals, but the thought of facing Lion El'Jonson in open battle gave him pause, and if he would not be turned to the Traitors' cause, then he must be removed.There were three Space Marine Legions Horus sought to remove from the path of his heresy before it began. The White Scars he hoped to preserve for his own use, the Blood Angels he hoped to destroy or corrupt -- but the Dark Angels he hoped to banish, to send far enough away that by the time they could return, his grim business would be complete.This was not to be, for the Lion would return to the Imperium as the sun returns to the horizon each morning, blinding and implacable, and he would reach for the heart of his fallen brother. Horus had loosed a beast the equal of any that lurked in the world-straddling forests of Caliban or the silent dark between the stars, one that would tear apart the Imperium if only to grasp a victory of ashes and blood.
|
Dark Angels - Horus Heresy: Unyielding, technologically capable, ruthless and insular, the Dark Angels at the time of the Horus Heresy would once again be a powerful and highly independent Legion, used to operating on their own to conduct large-scale campaigns and Compliance actions.Because of this, the fear of the Ist Legion's intervention led the machinations of the Warmaster Horus to ensure that when his treacherous plans came to fruition, the Dark Angels had been despatched to the outer edges of the Imperium where they would be unable to interfere, at least for a time.As the Horus Heresy progressed however, the power of this Legion would make itself known, savaging the Night Lords at Thramas and going on to unleash destruction on an unprecedented scale during the later years of the Heresy when they crushed Traitor world after Traitor world across the southern galactic zone.
|
Dark Angels - Suppression of the Gordian League: During the 200th year of the Great Crusade, 998.M30, the Dark Angels Legion was carrying out an Imperial Compliance campaign against the Shield Worlds of the so-called Gordian League -- a confederation of Human worlds who were allied with degenerate xenos.During the seven-Terran-year-long campaign, in 005.M31, the Dark Angels' high command received word that the Warmaster Horus and his XVIth Legion had renounced their oaths of allegiance to the Emperor, along with the Primarch Angron's World Eaters, Mortarion's Death Guard and Fulgrim's Emperor's Children. They also received word of the atrocity committed against the doomed world of Isstvan III, when Horus ordered it to be virus-bombed to eliminate the remaining Loyalist Astartes from those four Traitor Legions still active upon it, rendering it a lifeless Dead World.The Warmaster knew that the Emperor would respond with all the force He had available. Jonson believed that the Dark Angels' deployment to the Shield Worlds on Horus' orders was part of an effort to scatter the Imperium's most loyal servants as far as possible in order to minimise the number of Legions Horus would have to face at any given time.Even so, the strike force of seven full Space Marine Legions ordered to the Isstvan System in response to the Warmaster's treachery posed a dire threat to Horus' survival, as they made their way towards his forward operating base on the world of Isstvan V.
|
Dark Angels - Battle of Diamat: El'Jonson's forces were too deeply enmeshed in the Shield Worlds of the Gordian League to respond quickly to Horus' betrayal; the best estimates of the primarch's staff indicated that it would take them nearly eight solar months to conclude their offensive operations, even on an emergency basis, and reposition themselves for a strike against Isstvan V.Even if they could move more quickly, Horus' agents would be able to alert the Warmaster in time to organise a counter-strike. However, Jonson believed that a small, hand-picked force might accomplish what an entire Legion could not.The primarch issued orders for many of the Dark Angels' reserve squadrons to resupply and prepare for immediate deployment to the Tanagra System. Their primary target was to secure the Forge World of Diamat.They could not afford to let the Warmaster acquire the substantial supplies and ordnance needed to fortify the world of Isstvan V against the approaching Loyalist strike force.El'Jonson would personally lead the expedition to Diamat, with a battle group of fifteen warships. Secrecy was vital, as the primarch was aware that the Warmaster's agents were more than likely tracking the Dark Angels' movements. El'Jonson went to Diamat in order to secure several powerful continental siege machines known as Ordinatii; vast artillery pieces that could devastate the most powerful fortifications.The small fleet of Dark Angels vessels arrived in the Tanagra System just five solar days after the destruction of Horus' landing force at the Xanthus star port. With no way to secure the siege machines held in storage in Diamat's depots from El'Jonson's Astartes, the admiral of the raiding fleet had little choice but to withdraw back to the Isstvan System. The Warmaster's final gambit had failed.Following this small victory at the Battle of Diamat, El'Jonson met with his fellow brother primarch, Perturabo of the Iron Warriors Legion, aboard his flagship Invincible Reason. Perturabo informed Jonson that the IVth Legion was en route to the Isstvan System, to face the Warmaster and his Traitor Legions upon the black sands of Isstvan V.Ferrus Manus and the Iron Hands Legion had hastened ahead of them, hungry to claim the Emperor's vengeance against Horus. Perturabo lied to El'Jonson, explaining that he had hoped that his Legion could provision his vessels at the Xanthus star port above Diamat before continuing to the combat zone. Of course, they were now unable to, as the Ist Legion had destroyed the orbital port.Perturabo inquired of El'Jonson how he had learned of the existence of the Ordinatii siege engines. Jonson explained that he had discovered them fifty Terran years earlier when he was studying the history of the Great Crusade and saw a reference to them in a despatch from Horus that had been sent to the Emperor.Horus had commissioned the colossal siege machines from the masters of Diamat during the long siege of the xenos fortress-states on Tethonus. The war machines took much longer for the forge masters to complete than planned. By the time they were finished, the campaign on Tethonus had been over for a standard year and a half, and Horus had moved on to other conquests.So the weapons were put into a depot on Diamat against the day when the Warmaster would come to claim them. But then the Isstvan III Atrocity occurred. When Jonson had received word of Horus' perfidy, he knew that ultimately the Warmaster's path would lead to Terra.Even if he were somehow to prevail against Perturabo and the other Legions sent to confront him in the Isstvan System, the Warmaster couldn't claim total victory so long as the Emperor was safe in His palace. For Horus to triumph, the Emperor had to die. And that meant a long and costly siege of Terra. Therefore, the Warmaster would come to claim the siege engines of Diamat.El'Jonson informed his brother that he would be unable to accompany the Loyalist fleet to Diamat, as he had to make all haste to the Shield Worlds of the Gordian League and prepare the rest of the Ist Legion for the trip to Terra. In fact, he thought it best if no one outside Perturabo, himself and the other primarchs ever knew that the Lion was there. He didn't want the Emperor to believe he did anything at Diamat with an ulterior motive in mind.Perturabo agreed that it was both a prudent choice, and a very humble one. El'Jonson explained that his actions were done for the good of the Imperium, not for accolades, nor for power.But El'Jonson confessed to his brother a certain jealousy. He believed Horus had become the Emperor's favourite son for no other reason than fate. Had he been the first of the primarchs to be found, El'Jonson believed he would have been the Warmaster instead.The Lion also believed that Horus would inevitably be defeated and that the Emperor would need to choose a new Warmaster very quickly if the Great Crusade was to continue. He asked for Perturabo's support.The two primarchs ultimately reached an understanding -- El'Jonson granted permission for the Iron Warriors to take possession of the siege engines at their convenience -- on one condition. El'Jonson made his brother promise that the Ordinatii would be put to good use.Perturabo assured his brother that they would be, never letting on that he had already sworn himself to Horus' rebellion and would participate only solar months later at the Drop Site Massacre on Isstvan V where three Loyalist Legions were almost completely destroyed.
|
Dark Angels - Thramas Crusade: Following the victory of the Drop Site Massacre, Horus called a meeting of the primarchs of 8 of the Traitor Legions (minus the participation of the Alpha Legion's Primarch Alpharius) aboard his flagship, the Vengeful Spirit.Five of the primarchs, including four who had fought at Isstvan V, met in person, including Horus, Fulgrim, Angron, Mortarion and Lorgar. Three appeared through the use of hololithic emitters that transmitted their signals through the Warp, including Perturabo, Konrad Curze and Magnus the Red, who had only recently joined the Traitors after the Scouring of Prospero when the broken remains of his XVth Legion had been transported by Tzeentch into the Eye of Terror to the Planet of the Sorcerers.The Thousand Sons, bitter at what they perceived as their betrayal by the Emperor, now willingly became the ninth Traitor Legion. The council of Traitor primarchs made their plans for the next step in their war against the Emperor and then each Legion went its way according to its assigned role.In 007.M31, Konrad Curze's fleet departed, bound for the planet of Tsagualsa, a remote world in the Eastern Fringe that lay shrouded in the shadow of a great asteroid belt. From there, the Night Lords Legion's terror troops would begin a campaign of genocide against the Imperial strongholds of Heroldar and Thramas, star systems that, if not taken, would leave the flanks of the Warmaster's strike on Terra vulnerable to attack.This campaign would also delay the Dark Angels Legion from reinforcing the Loyalists. The Thramas System was of particular importance, as it comprised a number of Mechanicum Forge Worlds whose loyalty was still to the Emperor.This bitterly contested campaign, known as the Thramas Crusade, dragged on for nearly three standard years. In an attempt to sway his brother Lion El'Jonson to Horus' cause, the Night Haunter left a deep-void beacon in the patrol path of one of the Dark Angels' outrider vessels.The beacon was set to transmit coordinates in advance, so that the two primarchs could meet and parley on the planet of Tsagualsa. Night Haunter wanted to break his former brother either mentally, physically or both to obtain his objectives.The primarchs were accompanied by two warriors from their personal honour guards to the parley. The meeting began amicably enough between the two as they conversed with relative civility. This amity lasted only until the Night Haunter slandered El'Jonson, and in return the Lion struck his former brother.This melee further degenerated into an all-out brawl between the two sides. As Curze strangled the life out of El'Jonson, one of the Dark Angels honour guardsmen ran his sword through the Night Haunter's back, saving his primarch's life.Eventually both Legions sent reinforcements in response to this incident. Each side dragged away their respective primarchs from the scene of the combat. Both primarchs survived this brutal confrontation and went on to continue the contest between their Legions for control of the Aegis Sub-sector.
|
Dark Angels - Battle of Perditus: In 008.M31, the Dark Angels received intelligence from an astropathic message from the nearby Perditus System about Traitor movements. They immediately moved to intercept. Upon arrival, they interrupted the month-long conflict between the Iron Hands 98th Clan-Company, led by Casalir Lorramech and a large Death Guard contingent, led by First Captain Calas Typhon.Both sides had been fighting over an ancient sentient device, known as the Tuchulcha Engine. This device was part of a triumvirate of similar sentient devices (another being the Ouroboros and a third, unnamed engine) which when combined could create temporal rifts that bridge space and time.On its own, the Tuchulcha was capable of precise and extremely efficient Warp jumps. Faced with the prospect of fighting the entirety of the much larger Ist Legion fleet, both sides retreated from the planet's surface at the Lion's request.Wary of both sides' motives, especially those of the Death Guard's First Captain Calas Typhon, the Lion prevented the device from falling into the Death Guard's hands. Jonson proceeded to serve his own ambitions and requisitioned the device for his own use.The Lion ordered the destruction of Perditus, much to the consternation of both commanders. He used the Tuchulcha Engine to make a Warp jump, but during their sojourn through the Immaterium, the Dark Angels were beset by daemons.The Lion reinstituted his Legion's Librarian corps to fight these nefarious Warp-spawned creatures. As this was in direct violation of the Emperor's Decree Absolute at the Council of Nikaea, this caused a dispute within the Legion that eventually came to a head when the enraged Lion slew Chaplain Nemiel.During the height of the Battle of Perditus, the Lion encountered the Greater Daemon of Tzeentch known as Kairos Fateweaver, who attempted to convert the primarch to the cause of the Ruinous Powers, but failed miserably, as he had nothing to sway the Lion to their cause.The Lion told the foul creature that absolute loyalty to the Emperor was reward enough, and impaled the Lord of Change through its black heart. At the same time, he mockingly asked the daemon if he had "foreseen" his defeat.
|
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.