The Horus Heresy Book 9 - Crusade

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weapons emplacements. The Lion could beyond easy reckoning and now little more were slowly building charge to slice open the
not hope to destroy or deter it with a simple than desiccated organs held within a huge and planet below and render its cities and stony
bombardment, and instead, as was his wont, terrifying metal shell. This creature, caught flesh into food for the forges of Ulan Hilda.
forsook any attempt at subtlety and took to in a mechanical purgatory that was neither In orbit, the Faceless Prince, Nakrid Thole,
the field in person to press the attack truly alive nor fully deceased, controlled the set his ships against those commanded by
hordes offlesh-thralls with a chilling and Corswain, determined that nothing should
Rather than a storm oflas beams and shells, dispassionate logic, sacrificing dozens ofher stay his revenge on Thramas and denying the
it was one ofdrop pods and assault craft that constructs to bring down a single Dark Angels Dark Angels commander the chance to aid
fell upon the surface of Ulan Ruda, while veteran without compunction. his comrades on the surface.
the capital ships held their distance and lent
their firepower to the orbital battle around The grim neural-impulses of the Witch of Every moment of fighting saw the death
them under the command of Corswain. Thramas drove her thralls and servant magi of hundreds of the Dark Mechanicum
Impacting on the surface, the forces of into a frenzy, thousands upon thousands of drones, but also of a handful of the Legiones
the Dark Angels and White Scars found them descending on the isolated Legiones Astartes, and the warriors that followed the
themselves immediately under assault by the Astartes landing force in an endless throng Lion could ill-afford casualties. Sensing
hideous flesh-drones and lacrymosan thralls ofblades. Even led by the Lion, the Space weakness, the Witch ofThramas let loose
that composed Ulan Hilda's foul armies, a tidal Marines found themselves mired in a frantic the most powerful ofher minions, hoarded
wave ofdebased and befouled flesh wedded melee that stretched across the vast surface and preserved for just such an opening.
to forbidden technology. Led by the Lion, the of Ulan Hilda. Separating into smaller forces Led by the Witch herself, a mass of hulking
Loyalist forces pressed into the thick ofit, to capitalise on their skills and split the Errax automata, debased and ferocious
leaving the White Scars and Zhenjin Khan enemy horde, the Legiones Astartes stormed killing machines with claws that could shear
to guard their extraction zone. They waged a cannon-bunkers and forge halls, destroying through power armour, threw themselves
vicious war amid the tangled confines of Ulan them with melta charges and moving on to into the battle. Met head on by the Lion and
Hilda's forge works, its halls and passageways new objectives. Yet, despite the damage they the warriors ofthe Deathwing Companions
arranged in a maddeningly labyrinthine inflicted, it was little more than a pinprick to the assault was blunted, scything steel claws
pattern. Here they would come face-to-face the vast predator-moon, a trifling matter that countered by Calibanite blades, but it had
with the architect ofthe insane creation that would not slow its advance or stay its assault immobilised the Dark Angels, pinning them
was Ulan Hilda, the creature that history on Thramas. For though the Lion and his in place and leaving them unable to continue
would come to call the 'Witch ofThramas' sons demolished dozens of the huge cutting their campaign of sabotage. Yet Zhenjin
- a dark magos ofthe Mechanicum ancient beam emitters, hundreds more remained and Khan had not been idle while the Lion
battled, for the renowned scouts of the White

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Scars had discovered a series ofunstable that fought far above on the surface claim to Yet, in the end the Witch could not stand
generators buried deep beneath the surface have caught fragments of a last transmission against the Lion, and he cut her in two with
and heavily guarded by massive automata bearing the code-stamp of the Saviour a sweep of his blade, severing the upper
sentinels. A single short vox message himself and badly distorted by the radiation torso which scuttled away like a great spider
announced the intention ofthe Saviour, of the blast. All that could be deciphered of metal and spite. Freed from the stalemate
transmitted in the clear to the Dark Angels as after the battle was a short segment that ofbattle, the Dark Angels stormed the tower
they fought for their lives, "Evacuate now, our read, 'Tell the Khan we .. .' and scattered the metal hordes of Ulan
debts are paid in full". Hilda that stood in their path. The surviving
On the surface above, systems began to Loyalists summoned their shuttles and
The White Scars abandoned the landing cut out all across the moon as its surface gunships and fled the surface, trusting to
zones to assault the deep generators in full bucked and shook from the force ofthe the last sacrifice of Zhenjin Khan. As they
force, tearing into the ranks of its automata Saviour's fury; the Witch and her minions boosted towards their ships, the metal skin
defenders with a suicidal fury. They made were thrown into chaos by the failure ofkey of Ulan Hilda behind them buckled and
no attempt to clear out the foe or capture noosphere interlinks while the Dark Angels shifted then erupted in a huge gout of flame
ground, trading their lives to close upon cut a path through the horde towards one of that tore a hole kilometres across from the
the vast underground reactors in vicious the vast spires that sprouted from its surface. surface of the moon, scattering debris across
firefights in the pitch-black labyrinth More than a match for any ordinary warrior, orbital space and consuming the brave
beneath Ulan Hilda. None can know what the Witch ofThramas tore apart those ofthe warriors of the White Scars in an instant.
feats ofbravery and skill were wrought in First Legion that challenged her, the huge The grievously-wounded moon, trailing
that assault, a battered handful of desperate claws ofher war-armature strong enough to burning gas and the broken shards of its
warriors clad in the white of the Great shear apart ceramite with ease and its armour halls, was enveloped in a pall of crawling
Khan's Legion pitted against a seething proof against all but the most powerful of lightning as it clawed upon the veil of
horde ofmachine horrors, but it is a feat not weapons. The swordsmanship ofthe Dark realspace, opening a portal to the Warp and
many could have equalled even amongst Angels champions was meaningless in the fleeingThramas, leaving the shattered and
the Legiones Astartes. Those few survivors face ofsuch brute strength and their bolter blasted planet in the hands of the Loyalists.
that managed to reach the central generator fire futile despite the marksmanship of
cores, ragged and bloody from battle, the warriors ofthe First Legion. Even the Yet, the victory would prove cold comfort
detonated the melta-charges they had borne firepower of the Dark Angels Dreadnoughts for the broken denizens ofThramas and
through that dark hell, setting off a chain of and specialist fire teams was in vain, tearing the Dark Angels alike. For between the
devastating explosions within Ulan Hilda's holes in the baroque chassis of the Witch hunger of Ulan Hilda and the fury ofthe
hidden heart. Several of the Dark Angels but unable to strike any critical components Dark Angels' counter-assault, there was
concealed at the heart ofthat huge bio- little left of that proud world but ruins,
mechanical terror. It seemed that here at the few of its towering hive spires still capable
moment oftheir victory the First Legion of sheltering the surviving people from
would be denied escape, trapped upon the the harsh weather ofThramas and the
failing forge-moon as it tore itself apart and storms offiery debris that would rain down
granted only an ignominious death as reward upon its surface for months. Despite their
for their heroism. salvation from the forces of the Warmaster
and the clutches of the predator-forge,
There, at the edge of disaster, the Lion there remained little for the people of
joined the battle, his ire awoken by the Thramas to celebrate, for the price of their
slaughter of his sons and the sacrifice of salvation was almost as grim as the fate
loyal warriors of the Emperor. He fell upon they had avoided. Some amongst them
the Witch ofThramas with the implacable even whispered that perhaps the mercy
force of an avalanche and met the inhuman of the Lion was as terrible as the anger of
strength of her war-throne with the the Night Haunter, that neither ofthose
faultless skill of his sword arm. For a span towering lords of battle cared for the
oflong moments they stood matched at the carnage they caused - only for the war
heart of the battle, neither giving ground as itself, the never-ending conflict for which
the perverted artifice ofthe Mechanicum the Primarchs had been bred.
strained against the gene-craft of the
Emperor, claws shearing chips from the
Lion's armour even as the Primarch's blade
cut new wounds in her adamantium hide.

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Savage Weapons the warring Legiones Astartes and by their upon them to meet him at Tsagualsa, a
The battle at Thramas marked the own hands, wondering what would remain world that had remained hidden from the
beginning of the second year of the when one side finally declared victory. Dark Angels prior to this point, baiting
Thramas Crusade, and while the Dark The citizens of the Imperium looked upon the Lion with the hope of settling the war
Angels had seized the initiative, they the post-human warriors they had once between the two Primarchs and sparing
had yet to completely eliminate the foe. thought of as heroes and liberators and their Legions the slow death of unending
The Traitors still controlled many worlds saw only weapons bereft of a strong hand warfare among the stars of the Eastern
within the Thramas sector and almost to guide their impact. True panic began to Fringe. A war that had already spanned
the entirety of the Aegis sector. Only the take its grip upon the worlds of the Eastern two long years, where to hold a handful
area of space around Gulgorahd remained Fringe, with many of those on the border of worlds had cost the lives of many
largely clear of their influence, many of worlds taking to the desolate places of thousands of his own sons and uncounted
the Bastion worlds still holding on in grim their homes and hoping to hide, and those millions of unaugmented soldiers and
defiance of the enormous destruction on the populous hubs of the sector taking civilians. If the war continued, the tally of
wrought upon them by the Traitors' long to ships so that they might flee. Order the dead would only grow until the First
siege. Indeed, with the Night Lords now began to break down, many planets falling Legion no longer had the numbers to
under heavy pressure from the Dark silent as food shipments failed to arrive aid in the final battle for Terra. So, when
Angels along the Thramas front and the or as xenos raiders fell upon them. The Curze called upon his brother it was a call
slow but steady advance of the forces empire that was being so fiercely fought the Lion could not refuse, even though
from Tigrus along the Verstun front, the for was slowly unravelling. he knew that it must be a trap, but it was a
vast armies that had once surrounded trap that he must spring for the sake of his
Gulgorahd had fallen back to engage the On Tsagualsa, where the bones of a new Legion and the Imperium.
Dark Angels. The sudden appearance of fortress and stronghold for his Legion had
fresh forces allowed the Night Lords to begun to take shape, the Night Haunter The war remained balanced on the edge of
retake Yaelis, but in turn the advance of brooded and plotted. His interest in the a blade, with the recent victory at Thramas
the legions of Gulgorahd saw the fall of strategic goals of Horus' campaign was finally offering the advantage to the
Parthac, whose surface would be stripped long forgotten, replaced by an insane Loyalist forces, an advantage that could be
clean of resources to fuel the depleted desire to face his brother, the Lion, and easily snatched from them by ill fortune.
forges of Gulgorahd. force a confrontation that might alter his As such, the Lion could not afford to pull
fate. He paid no heed to the disposition a large force from the line to accompany
Both sides were approaching exhaustion, of his Legion or that of his allies, but him without risking the fall of more
with much of the once-powerful industrial instead set into motion a plan of his own, worlds, which he may have assumed was
base of the Eastern Fringe in ruins and its born from the fevered imaginings of his the goal of Curze's plan all along. Instead
population centres decimated, and the pace nightmares. He summoned Sevatar, Sheng, he selected a single Chapter to stand at
of the fighting began to slow. Governors, Barbatos and those others of his Legion his side, a force large enough to fight free
militia commanders and petty warlords that he favoured and bid them send out of a trap, but not so large as to endanger
across the Eastern Fringe looked upon the a message in his name, a message for his the wider war that still raged unabated
ruin that had been wrought about them by brother and his Dark Angels. He called across the Eastern Fringe. The co-
ordinates provided by the message placed
Tsagualsa at the southernmost edge of the
Nostramo sector, well within the bounds
of territory controlled by the Traitor
forces; here anything less than the entire
First Legion fleet would not be enough to
break through by force and such a major
confrontation was ill-advised. Just as he
had elected to bring but a single Chapter as
his honour guard, the Lion took with him
a squadron of his swiftest ships, rigged for
a long journey in the depths of the Warp,
leaving behind the battleship Invincible
Reason. Speed and subtlety would stand the
Dark Angels in better stead than bluster
or brute force, and, unlike some of their
brother Legions, the First Legion was more
than capable of adopting a tactical stance
appropriate to the needs of the moment.

With the Warp stirred to restless turmoil
by the rituals of the Word Bearers at Calth,
even the expert navigators of the First
Legion had difficulty plotting a course
full across the sector. While they managed

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to avoid the loss of any ships, the entire surface could be seen the beginnings of numbers of the foe. Hours had passed as
squadron was scattered and dispersed. the Night Haunter's baroque new fortress the Lion's fleet assembled, yet the Night
Aboard the strike cruiser Vehemence, the and in orbit on the far side of the planet Lords neither approached nor targeted the
Lion was the first to breach the Warp at the lurked a small fleet of Night Lords craft. Loyalist ships. Indeed, as they approached
edge of the system where Tsagualsa could Waiting on the outskirts of the system the barren world in combat formation they
be found, an otherwise unremarkable the Dark Angels ships slowly regrouped, received a brief hail, inviting the Lion to
world whose drab and lifeless terrain made the remaining craft dropping from the meet his brother on the surface.

no impression of strategic value. Yet on the Warp one by one until they matched the

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His warriors in standby aboard the cruisers This would be no ordered and composed The Spite ofDevils
above, waiting at their gunships and battle, no carefully planned engagement While the battle at Tsagualsa had driven a
drop pods for the ambush they all knew with objectives and strategies, but a splinter ofdoubt into the Lion's mind, it had
must be coming, the Lion teleported to sprawling brawl. A mindless melee altered neither the state ofthe war nor the
the surface with only two warriors as his powered by blind hatred and fury destruction being wrought upon the Eastern
honour guard. Alajos, Praetor of the Ninth, where neither side made any attempt Fringe. Worse, with his final gambit wasted
and Corswain would bear witness to the at formations or battle lines, but simply and failed, the Night Haunter could now
meeting ofthe two brothers on the surface charged forwards to grapple and blast at see only one path ahead ofhim, a future he
ofTsagualsa, the first time they had come the foe at point blank range. At its heart dreaded more than anything else, but one
face to face since the beginning of the the two Primarchs fought until they he now saw no way to avoid. The demons
Horus Heresy. There, amid the foundations were awash in each other's blood, both he had struggled with since he had left
of his new, macabre stronghold, Curze screaming curses and exchanging blows Nostramo took hold ofhim and the last
taunted his brother with the fragments with equal viciousness, their differences vestiges ofhonour and reason fell away from
of truth his dreams had made known to masked with gore and the rage that twisted the Night Lords. While the Traitor lords of
him, with the plans of Horus and the lies their features. The only cause or objective Heraldor, Memlock and other strongholds
he knew would wound the Lion's pride on Tsagualsa was death and the fighting across the Eastern Fringe still fought a war
the most deeply. He baited and cursed all did not relent, continuing long past the to claim these stars for the Warmaster, the
in order to coax his brother to violence, to exhaustion ofmunitions and long past any Night Haunter and the most debased of his
force his future onto a new path that would rational casualty level. warriors fought only for the briefdistraction
avoid the fate he feared was his destiny. He that death and blood brought them. There
fought with the one weapon he knew that In the end, the sons of Konrad Curze would be no more attempts to take or hold
the Lion would not expect from his dark dragged him bodily from the field, the ground for them,just killing and destruction
brother: the truth. Night Haunter's wounds were so grave he and the Warmaster be damned.
could do little more than scream insults
"We are savage weapons, one and all, too as the Night Lords struggled to hold By contrast, the Loyalists found their
dangerous to be wielded without cost. That is all back the Lion, for even cut to the bone ranks swelled with those regiments ofthe
history will see ofus. Even you Lion. Even you." the Primarch of the First Legion was a Nightwatch once pinned in place by the siege
fearsome opponent. This was no victory for ofThramas, and with its reliefthey gained
All those present had expected the meeting the Dark Angels though, for the Chapter the ability to control a far larger spread of
to end in violence, that it would see the that had followed the enraged Lion into territory. Captain-general Morhde set the
two Primarchs cross blades and draw their battle was a shadow of its former numbers, serried regiments ofThramas on the attack,
Legions into the fight, but only Curze and as more Night Lords ships arrived in leaving the defence ofmany planets to the
had expected that it would be the Lion the system they in turn were forced to flee. ranks ofthe Imperialis Militia in order to
who would strike first. With the Lion's It had been a savage battle fought by savage press the conscript armies ofthe Traitor Aegis
sudden fury the battle was begun, and weapons, Curze's insults lodged now in the sector, desperate to put an end to the war
once started it quickly spread. At first the mind of the Lion like cruel barbs, for in before it utterly ruined the home he fought
two Primarchs struggled alone then their the end they had been proven more similar for. Catching that wide expanse ofworlds
honour guards drew blood and within the than they were different, the titles Loyalist between Tigrus to the south-west,Gulgorahd
space ofa few short minutes, drop pods and Traitor had counted for nothing. to the north and the Thramassi Nightwatch to
and attack ships rained down upon the the east, the Loyalist regiments pressed home
planet as full scale conflict erupted.

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their attack. The Dark Angels were the tip of the weak or the vulnerable, and poisoning him, the Lion began a grim new strategy I.l~
the spear that struck the Traitors in their open worlds from orbit where their defences ofhis own. On his orders, those worlds
flank, striking at the strongest opposition and were too strong for a traditional assault. that could not be fully safeguarded from ,:
the most fortified strongholds, ever searching Unlike their previous onslaught this was no the Night Lords' depredations were razed
for the sons ofthe Night Haunter that they attempt to build small empires or to spread to the ground to ensure that no succour or '
might settle their grudge in honest and open that favoured weapon of the Night Lords, profit could be gleaned from them. Those
battle. Yet even as they conquered and bled, fear, but instead a scorched earth campaign few ofthe lesser worlds that had escaped
the Dark Angels found little trace ofthe Night was undertaken. What they could not keep the ravages ofthe Night Lords fell to the
Lords, encountering only scattered bands and they would destroy, the Eastern Fringe Dark Angels, whose own rampage caused as
small groups ofreavers that gave them little would burn to satisfy their spite and anger. much destruction as that ofthe Night Lords.
satisfaction in battle. Where they encountered the First Legion Munitions and warriors were spared the
in numbers enough to trouble them they scorched earth policy and consolidated on
The fall ofMemlock, one ofth~ chief withdrew, whenever the Lion managed those major worlds deemed worth defending
strongholds ofthe Traitor forces in the to corner them they withdrew. They gave by the First Legion. Those smaller colonies
Aegis sector, preserved against the chaos the First Legion no chance for a decisive or minor forges whose resources were
overtaking the Eastern Fringe, saw one ofthe battle and no pause to regroup. Denied an too meagre to warrant a garrison - for to
few confrontations between the two Legions escape from his nightmares, Curze granted defend every single outpost was beyond the
in this last stage ofthe crusade.There a full the Eastern Fringe a chance to see what it manpower that remained to the Loyalists -
Chapterofthe Night Lords, under Anrek was that haunted him, to bring despair to were stripped bare and their people forced
Barbatos, stood sentinel over the nine-tiered his noble brother and work upon the doubt to relocate as their old homes burned. It was
fortress ofMemlock, overseeing the transfer that had lodged within him at Tsagualsa. No as pragmatically logical as it was cruel, and
ofmaterials and conscripts to Tsagualsa and longer was the lhramas Crusade a battle to the inhabitants oflhramas watched as those
the newstronghold ofthe Night Lords that control the Eastern Fringe, it had become they once hailed as the heroes ofthe Great
was being built. Ever a stalwart ofthe old its death. Crusade tore the Eastern Fringe apart.
Legion and its Terran origins, Barbatos had
resisted the madness that gripped much of Regret and Desolation For all its spite, the Dark Angels' new strategy
his Legion and deplored the long decline of The once-rich worlds ofthe Eastern Fringe, proved only marginally effective. For while
his Primarch. To Barbatos and those that still already devastated by more than two years of the larger strongholds ofthe Loyalists
followed him, it seemed right that they make constant war and battle, were ruined by the were now all but impregnable to the Night
a stand in the~ ofthe empire they had new pace ofthe conflict. The last semblances Haunter's legions, heavily guarded and
sought to build, and when the Dark Angels ofstellar civilisation fell away and left fortified, the Night Lords remained a threat
came they did not run. For seven weeks only barbarism and madness behind, and that could not be pinned down or brought
such small concepts as Loyalist and Traitor to battle where they might be broken. Worse
Barbatos, his warriors and a dozen conscript began to lose their meaning. The Night still, they had completed what the Night
Lords descended wherever they could find Lords had begun, the systematic destruction
regiments held the massed might ofthe weakness or the smallest gap in the Loyalists' ofthe communication and infrastructure
lhramassi Nightwatch and three Chapters lines, their ships apparently uninhibited links that had held the Eastern Fringe
ofthe Dark Angels at bay, falling only when by the worsening warp storms that spread together. The warp storms that had engulfed
the Lion himselfbrought another r,ooo of out from Ultramar to encompass lhramas. the Imperium grew steadily worse, the name
his black-armoured killers to the fray. It is a Where they appeared, there were no glorious · 'Ruinstorm' spreading across the sectors with
legend ofthe First Legion that one ofthe scars battles or defiant last stands, only a brutal every tale ofa ship lost in transit, but such
on the Lion's armour is from Barbatos' blade, slaughter ofanyone that the Legion chose woes seemed not to affect those sworn to
a last memento ofa warrior that chose to face not to enslave. Everything ofworth on those the Warmaster. Moving slowly and in great
worlds they marked was taken aboard the numbers, the Loyalists weathered the storms,
his end bravely. dark ships ofthe Vlllth Legion, and what striking at Traitor strongholds where they
they could not claim they destroyed, burning found them and bringing much ofthe Aegis
The remainder ofthe Night Lords had no cities and herding entire populations into sector to heel at last, but always the Night
intention ofgranting the First Legion any the skinning pits. When they left, there Lords evaded them. Though they wielded
satisfaction, to the Nostraman warriors there remained nothing ofvalue, only scorched superior numbers and resources, the Dark
was little value in a brave but futile death ruins and the bleached bones ofthose Angels could not end the war while the
when they could hurt their opponent in deemed unworthy to slave in the bowels of Night Lords still roamed free.
other ways. The scattered warbands ofthe the Night Lords fleet until they died. It was
Vlllth Legion moved from world to world, In the midst ofthis turmoil, withthe Eastern
burning and killing where they found only a policy that hurt the Night Lords almost as
Fringe crumbling around him, Lion El'Jonson
much as it crippled the Dark Angels, denying
both sides any safe port in the madness of suddenly gathered 30,000 ofhis warriors and
war and leaving them few havens to repair
and resupply the battered Legions that without explanation departed the Eastern
prosecuted the crusade. Fringe for an unknown location. With such a
large portion ofthe Dark Angels' strength and
Still tormented by the Night Haunter's many ofits greatest leaders absent, the Night
words on Tsagualsa and barely recovered
from the grievous injuries inflicted upon Lords went on the offensive for the first time

in months. All across the Eastern Fringe they
struck at the remaining Dark Angels garrisons,

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largely ignoring the less well-defended worlds Emerging from the Warp was a Dark Angels of a loyal world, they hunted the last ofthe
held by the SolarAuxilia and Irnperialis Militia, fleet gathered over the long days ofThramas' Night Lords, the dark blue plate once worn
bleeding them and taking many trophies torment so they might be able to strike a blow so proudly by the Night Haunter's warriors
but failing to unseat the well-entrenched against the Legion that had so far avoided
defenders. Only one Loyalist stronghold would twisted into something demonic by the heat
their fury. Commanded by the Eskaton
fall to the talons ofthe Night Haunter's sons and destruction.Thole himself, found alone
Marduk Sedras, their goal was not the relief in the Regent's heavily-shielded palace, died
and then only briefly, but it was a bitter loss for ofThramas or the rescue ofits people,but in battle with Eskaton Marduk, and a legend
the utter destruction ofthe Night Lords within the First Legion claims that he died
the Dark Angels to bear. 1hramas,stripped ofits host present on that world. In the face of with the Regent's bleached skull fixed on his
the far larger Dark Angels fleet, its relic void armour and a bitter smile on his face.
Dark Angels garrison when the Lion vanished, craft more than a match in open battle for
was unprepared for the onslaught ofNakrid the Night Lords craft, the Faceless Prince's The Dark Angels declared the battle a victory,
Thole and the xo,ooo warriors at his back.The for the Night Lords had suffered a major loss
defences ruined in the onslaught ofUlan Huda vessel stood little chance ofvictory, but their oftroops as a result oftheir actions, but it was
had never been fully repaired and many ofthe a victory that rang hollow. Thramas had been
regiments once pledged to its defence were warlord refused to order a withdrawal while the capital ofthe Eastern Fringe, one ofits
spread across the stars prosecuting the Lion's the Regent ofThramas still lived. Even as the most prosperous worlds and a bastion of the
crusade,the Star ofthe East fell within hours of ships above staged a short battle for orbital Great Crusade, and now it was ruins. Brought
bitter but one-sided battle. Only the palace of supremacy before abandoning the hopeless low not by the hand ofthe Warmaster or the
the Regent hdd, the Midnight Host and their struggle, Nakrid Thole led his men in an madness of Curze but by the pragmatic logic of
power axes kept the Night Lords at bay in the assault on the palace. the First Legion, the warriors that represented
dose confines ofthe palace, spending their lives the Emperor and the Imperium He had
to guard not the throne room but the sanctum Having seized orbital space above Thramas, built. This was the first glimpse ofthe true
ofthe world's Astropathic choir. the ships ofthe Dark Angels rained fire face of the Horus Heresy, a war ofhatred and
down upon it, the Eskaton concluding that brutality that was no longer about who would
Obsessed with the complete destruction of what little remained after the Night Lords, control the ruins ofthe Imperium,but which
Thramas, Nakrid Thole refused to withdraw rampage was little worth risking the lives of had become an exercise in genocide. Thramas
until its last fastnesses had been overthrown his warriors to save. Phosphex and lance beam was a symbol ofwhat the Horus Heresy held
and its surface utterly razed. His warriors reduced the once proud spires ofThramas in store for the Eastern Fringe, a quiet death in
spent days tormenting and butchering the to rubble, killing many ofthe Night Lords the shadow ofgrappling post-human siblings
few people ofThramas that still dung to that still hunted through the hive city and with neither hero nor villain to be found. The
their home world, parading their broken obliterating the few surviving citizens. When death ofThramas did not tilt the balance ofthe
corpses before the Regent's palace where the the Eskaton and the grim warriors ofthe war, the Night Lords remained a dire threat
Regent and the Midnight Host still held. In Dreadwing finally set foot upon the surface to the Loyalists despite their losses, and it
his arrogance, Thole gave little thought to after three hours ofbombardment they found seemed the killing would go on until nothing
anything but his revenge, and when the Warp little that still resembled a city,just twisted remained in the segmentum but corpses and
opened again after seven long days spent metal and melted ferrocrete warped into ruins. Then, the Lion returned from Perditus.
tormenting the Regent and her bodyguards, shapes that seemed alien and strange. There,
he found himselfin a trap ofhis own making. among the burning rain and bleached bones

Desperation cuts Keenly
From the moment of the Lion's return, the
war began to change. Where before the
Dark Angels had groped blindly through
the Warp, travelling only with difficulty
and unable to pin down their foe, now they
moved with a speed that the Night Lords
had ill-expected. The First Legion had
been granted a weapon that allowed them
to bypass the storms that isolated much
ofthe Eastern Fringe. This new weapon,
added to their arsenal at Perdirus by the
hand ofthe Lion himself, would be the key
to victory in the Thramas Crusade. For that
key to work there would need to be a lock,
a critical point where it could be wielded
to maximum effect. The Dark Angels were
running out oftime, they could ill-afford
another three years ofwar in the east with
Horus pressing on Terra and disturbing
rumours seeping out of war-torn Ultramar.
They needed a decisive battle, a field on
which to break the Night Lords and end the
war once and for all.

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..

1.

DARK ANGELS TERMINATOR CENOBITE

CENOBITE Asrn.AEus, TIIE ORDER OF TIIE EMm SKY, SECOND BATILE OF THRAMAS

Deployed as part ofthe landing force that would eradicate the Night Lords' presence in the ruins ofThramas, Cenobite Astilaeus
and the other members ofhis cenobium made the specialised skills ofthe Order ofthe Empty Sky available to the Dark Angels'
spearhead and were experts in the prosecution ofclose-quarters battle in conjunction with lethalis category artillery support,
exploiting the chaos oflethalis category fire support as shells burst in the very midst oftheir assault. It was a tradition that had

begun on Caliban, with the heavily armoured knights fighting even while their serfs and armsmen showered the field with
shafts and shot from primitive projectile weaponry, and many ofits adherents were ofCalibanite stock. The heavy Cataphracti
Terminator armour granted them by the Lion as part ofhis vaunted First Legion, allowed them to weather the storm ofshrapnel
and flame produced by the terrible weapons ofthe Great Crusade with limited risk and bring the fury oftheir assault into the

heart ofenemy formations that were cowering in the face ofthe artillery's fury.

"

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Creating such a field would be the Due to the nature of his new weapon, the The greater part ofthose ships that remained
challenge, for the Night Lords operated in Lion could not resort to more traditional to the Vlllth Legion conducted a massed
scattered raiding fleets and rarely gathered naval tactics; there would be no advance charge, while the lesser remained in orbit
in force. Their anchorage point had been squadrons to scout their approach and no of Sheol IX, still struggling to bring the
discovered in data retrieved from the slow consolidation ofdisparate armadas warriors ofthe Legion aboard. The sleek
wrecks ofships destroyed over Thramas, at the edge of the system. Instead, the attack cruisers ofthe Night Lords stormed
a hidden facility above one of the outer gathered might ofthe Dark Angels, some forwards, those in the lead taking horrific
worlds of the ruined Sheol system, which 300 capital class ships and twice that of damage from the accurate Dark Angels fire,
had been abandoned almost a year ago and strike craft and smaller ships, appeared less acting as a shield for those behind them to
deemed dead by the Loyalists. Yet, to act on than one AU from the outer planets of the reach firing range. Splitting like a shoal of
this information would render it useless, Sheol system, drawn up in tight formation deadly and ravenous aquatic predators, the
for once the Night Lords realised their base around the ancient battleship Invincible Night Lords divided into a dozen smaller
was compromised, they would abandon it Reason. The Night Lords fleet, perhaps 200 formations and struck the Dark Angels line
as they had done others and the war would capital ships and three times that oflighter as they unleashed a furious close range storm
go on. For there to be a single great battle, torpedo boats and hunter-killer frigates, was offire. The Dark Angels lines split, with a
the Dark Angels would need to create it caught completely unprepared, with many number of their ships aflame and listing
whole cloth. The first stage in the Lion's of its ships still at anchor in orbital stations out offormation, but did not break and the
plan to achieve this was the destruction above Sheol IX and the vast majority of its Night Lords ships threw themselves at the
and harrying of the Night Lords fleets, warriors on the planet's surface awaiting openings they had forced, leaving just as
leaving the conduct of the wider war to the embarkation. Those squadrons ready for many of their own craft as broken hulks in
surviving Nightwatch regiments and the action moved to oppose the lead elements the attempt. Of the 100 or more capital craft
lords of Gulgorahd. Gathering the might of ofthe Dark Angels fleet, but could do little that had gone forth to give battle, barely
his Legion's vessels to him, the Lion waited more than delay the massed heavy cruisers of 50 survived to breach the lines of the First
and watched. When his allies reported the the First Legion. A dozen Night Lords ships Legion fleet, with many oftheir number
appearance of a Night Lords fleet in-system, ofthe line were destroyed in the opening having been purposefully crippled and left
he used his new weapon to bring his entire moments ofthe attack, but the precious few helpless in the void and then boarded by the
fleet to bear upon them, crushing those minutes they bought for their kin allowed Lion's warriors to be taken as prizes for the
that tried to fight and letting flee those the rest of their fleet to prepare. Some moved ongoing war. The survivors did not tum for
that choose to run. Within the space of to form a cohesive defence, others tried in a second assault or to save their wounded
a few months, after eight separate Night vain to shuttle the troops trapped on Sheol brethren, instead making best speed for the
Lords flotillas had been scattered, the Night IX, including the Primarch Konrad Curze outskirts of the system and the safety of deep
Lords had all but withdrawn from combat, himself, to the relative safety oforbit and space, unwilling to allow the Dark Angels
choosing to hide and wait for the tide to a few turned tail and slipped into the Warp. a comprehensive slaughter, for in their
tum once again. survival there was to be found a bitter victory.
The Dark Angels advanced, their ships so
The second stage ofthe Lion's plan was to numerous that, from the surface of Sheol IX, The First Legion fleet did not pursue, instead
provide the lords ofGulgorahd with the they blocked out the light of the stars, and choosing to close on those ships that still
location ofthe remnants ofthe renegade those Night Lords that remained were given lurked in orbit of Sheol IX, having chosen to
Legio Victorum, that most hated oftheir foes, little choice but to stand against the black- save the Night Lords as a combat force. With
deliberately provoking an immediate response hulled tide that descended upon them. Here deliberate malice, the Dark Angels encircled
from the belligerent magi ofGulgorahd who was the climactic battle they had sought, the Sheol IX, a small and otherwise insignificant
emptied their garrisons to strike at the traitors. apex of the long crusade in which they had world, and began to dismember the Night
This sudden weakness along the Loyalist lines fought and the final dispensation ofjustice Lords that had bravely elected to remain and
opened by the ill-advised assault ofthe lords for those that had foreswom their oaths. Yet attempt to rescue their stranded brethren on
ofGulgorahd, was an opportunity the Traitors despite this, there was no gallant charge, no the surface below. The main force ofthe Dark
could not ignore. moving speeches or heroic end to the long Angels fleet concentrated on the lead ships of
struggle for the Eastern Fringe. Instead, the enemies' defence: the hulking Gloriana
Even as the Taghma ofGulgorahd began the Dark Angels took up firing positions class battleship Nightfall that was Curze's
their own battle and called for his aid, the and began a systematic bombardment of flagship and the heavy cruisers Shroud of
Lion was already marshalling the bulk ofhis the Night Lords, many of their ancient Eventide and Feral Heart that made a desperate
Legion to attack Sheol IX, where he knew relic cruisers capable of engaging the foe attempt to shield the flagship, taking almost
that the Night Haunter must be doing the accurately at a far greater range than that at as much damage as they inflicted in their
same in preparation to take advantage ofwhat which their opponents could easily reply. eagerness to end the Night Haunter. Curze,
seemed like another strategic blunder by the It was a slaughter conducted with cold however, was not aboard the Nightfall, but on
Gulgorahd forces. Here at last would be the and dispassionate precision, with entire the surface, a fact that was revealed only as the
decisive battle the Lion desired, arranged at squadrons of Night Lords craft torn apart Dark Angels began to land their own troops,
the cost ofthe warriors ofGulgorahd, who before they could even reply in kind to the seeking to end the Night Lords in detail, both
would be expended in a futile assault on the onslaught, and the foe they had cornered in orbit and on the ground. The battle for
renegade elements ofthe Legio Victorum refused to die an ignominious death as Sheol IX quickly fell into madness and chaos,
in exchange for the chance to cripple the traitors should and responded with the with both armies hard-pressed to follow the
Night Lords. determination and stubborn dignity expected events in detail and chained to the small
of heroes of the Great Crusade. battles they found themselves caught in.

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Across orbital space, the ships ofthe two fleets Haunter broken and bleeding. The Lion smash aside the cruiser Unyielding Duty and
began to intermingle, caught in desperate would have finished his fallen brother, his ire the remaining ships ofthe fleet followed.
duels and brutal boarding actions while raised by the destruction he had been forced lhe Night Lords cruisers Absolute and Crown
broken hulks and the detonations ofthe to unleash upon the Eastern Fringe, had the ofAshes, last in the fleeing fleet, turned at bay
dying proved as deadly as live foes, while the captains of the Night Lords not committed to buy their brothers time to get clear ofthe
landing craft and shuttles of the Night Lords the last of their reserves to hold him back. A Dark Angels, overloading their power relays
fought a separate battle to bring their troops to deliver salvo after salvo offire as the Darlc
to those few ships still capable of taking them full company ofthe Night Lords sacrificed Angels cut them to pieces. lhe surviving
aboard as the Dark Angels interceptors and Night Lords did not wait to reach the outer
frigates hunted them without mercy. Below, themselves to cover those warriors that extents ofthe system and the Mandeville
on the barren grey rock of Sheol IX, the dragged the comatose Night Haunter to the point, but instead activated their warp drives
Night Lords struggled to hold the line around last ofthe Stormbirds, giving their lives to just outside of Sheol IX's weak gravitic pull
the few fortified stations where they could thwart the Lion's revenge. Three more ships died there as their warp
safely embark, some detachments conducting drives suffered catastrophic failures, the result
raids against the First Legion's own landing The Nightfall and its companions remained ofsuch a desperate gambit, and the rest fell
points and others fought to destroy their pinned in orbit while the Night Haunter into the dubious safety ofthe Warp, the Dark
own hidden armoury-vaults before the escaped aboard the Excoriator. Battered by Angels remaining on-station over Sheol IX to
First Legion captured the heavy armour the unceasing assault ofthe Dark Angels' eradicate those left behind lhe battle for the
and equipment that could not be evacuated. ships that surrounded them, the Nightfall Sheol system was over, and on the surface of
lhe Night Haunter prowled the battlefield, was infested with boarding pods and brutally its ninth planet, amid the ashes ofthe latest in
killing in a wild frenzy and screaming for efficient cadres ofFirewing saboteurs. Even so many worlds broken by his hands, the Lion
his brother to face him, leaving his Legion with their Primarch saved, though his injuries brooded over the words of Konrad Curze:
leaderless and divided in the face ofthe First might yet prove fatal, the Night Lords would
Legion's onslaught. have been doomed but for the destruction "We are savage weapons, one and all, too
ofthe Feral Heart. The badly damaged assault dangerous to be wielded without cost. That is all
For two long hours, the Night Lords held cruiser, only the bridge still under the history will see of us. Even you Lion. Even you."
their ground, both in orbit and on the control ofthe Night Lords and with Firewing
surface, keeping the overwhelming numbers veterans cutting through the last bulkheads,
ofthe Dark Angels at bay with sheer bloody detonated its warp core rather than allow the
spite and a tally offallen warriors and ship to be captured. lhe dying ship tore apart
destroyed ships that beggared belie£ In realspace over a vast area, annihilating those
orbit the number ofoperational Night Lords ships caught within the event horizon and
ships was outnumbered by floating hulks of carving chunks from the flanks ofthose on
the dead and crippled, while on the surface its edge, blasting an opening in the closing
there was no company or detachment that net ofthe Dark Angels fleet. The Nightfall
had not suffered debilitating casualties. In powered into the gap, using its sheer bulk to
the space ofthis one short battle, the Dark
Angels had destroyed a quarter ofthe Vlllth
Legion and threatened to further bloody
them with each moment that passed. Here,
at the apex ofthe lhramas Crusade, the Lion
and the Night Haunter met once again in
mortal combat, one seeking a death and the
other a vindication. Their clash would be
briefbut vicious, no honourable duel but a
spiteful brawl that would leave the Night

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A Legion Rent Asunder their prey so greatly and had surprised them campaign. It was a wound inflicted by the ;ij
Written in the vast clouds of debris that spun so completely that it was not a matter of Night Haunter, not a wound carved in his
in orbit of Sheol IX and with the drifts of whether they would claim victory, but rather flesh, for the Primarchs had ever been quick ~I
corpses on its surface was the final end of the one of how many Traitor ships would be to heal from even the most grievous wounds,
Thramas Crusade. More than three years of able to escape the slaughter. Once again, the but a darkness on his heart. Konrad Curze's
blood and death had brought both Loyalist deciding factor would be the unpredictable words haunted him, "Even you Lion, even you".

and Traitor to this dark place. There was no actions of Konrad Curze, who, awakening He did not care that others might hold him

victory parade or laurels granted to its heroes, from, his torpor aboard the Excoriator as the in contempt for his choices, for he believed

only the empty places in their ranks. For Night Lords fought to escape, ordered a that history would redeem him, but that his ~r
the Night Lords, it seemed the death knell final boarding assault upon the Dark Angels'
oftheir Legion, for near a quarter of those flagship. It was a futile and doomed effort, methods made him no different from Curze, .
that had survived the war to that point now the manifestation ofthe Night Haunter's from the Night Haunter, was a blade held
lay dead on the surface ofSheol IX and the bitter and suicidal spite, and it would cost against his heart. All ofthe sacrifices that
had been made to build the Imperium and

once-great fleet ofthe VIIr1' Legion was his Legion dearly. Of the more than 100,000 preserve the Emperor's dream ofunity were I '~'
reduced to a shadow ofits former self The warriors of the VIII'h Legion that had his pride, his duty, paid for with his own blood
Night Haunter stood as the very emblem of entered the conflict, less than 60,000 would and that ofhis sons. That they would be seen ~1·1

·.~.

his Legion, for though he lived, his wounds escape the ambush at Sheol IX, with the as equal to the butchery perpetrated by brute-

were so grave that all who beheld him spoke Night Haunter himself counted amongst killers like Curze or Angron set him closer to

ofhim as dead. One halfof his shattered those lost, last seen battling the Lion aboard anger, to blind rage, than any other insult or

Legion feared he would never rise again, and the Invincible Reason alongside Sevatar and wound had ever done. The Lion wondered

the other half, blaming his mania for their the Atramentar. It was the end of the VIIIth whether, in the final days ofwar in the Eastern

own humiliation, hoped that this was true. Legion, the last gasp ofthe warriors that had Fringe, he had acted from cruel necessity or at

In the aftermath ofSheol, little remained of won the Great Crusade only to be cut loose the impulse ofhis own hatred for Curze.

the once-proud VIIIth Legion that would be from the constraints of its strictures, and the

recognised by those that had known them in beginning of something far darker. For Thramas and its broken worlds he could

the long-passed days of the Unification Wars. do nothing, remorse of any kind was akin to

A Resolve Tarnished foolishness to the Lion. It had been ruined

In imitation oftheir Primarch, the Night Even for the Legion that history records as in the cause of the Imperium, yet one more

Lords Legion was wounded unto death, and the victor, the savour of their triumph was sacrifice offered up for a future the Emperor

its warriors stood on the very edge of their ashen and the laurels they wore fashioned had promised to His sons, and it was of no

own civil war. Without the threat ofthe of the scorched bones of empire. Though further value in the war against Horus. So

Night Haunter's wrath there seemed little the Dark Angels had taken only a fraction the Lion left, neither in triumph nor defeat,

reason to many ofthe warlords within the of the losses inflicted upon the Night Lords, but with a fragile sense ofpride that once

Legion for them to continue Horus' war with no more than 10,000 ofits warriors again the First Legion had stormed into

when they could instead see to their own slain in combat, they had expended a the jaws of hell and emerged bloodied but

amusement. Had this been left to fester, it different collateral in order to secure the unbroken. Ifthis rebellion was to be the

is likely that the Night Lords would have final destruction of their foe. The resolve final test ofhis resolve he would meet it

ceased to exist as a cohesive army, bound ofthe First Legion and its Primarch had head-on, he would prove himselfbetter than

to disintegrate into roving warbands of been tested, their desire for victory matched those of his brothers that had fallen to their

pirates and reavers, instead it would be bled against their willingness to tear down the own selfish needs and hatreds. By his hand

of its sickness. Sevatar and the Atramentar Imperium to grasp it. It was a test that Lion would the Imperium be saved, and he would

brought death to their own, fighting a short El'Jonson had stood many times in the past, tolerate none that sought to see it ended, for

and brutal war to restore a sense of unity and the death ofa world considered a small the sake of his own sacrifices and the duty

purpose to the broken Legion. Taking power cost to pay for the future ofthe Imperium that had been given him by the Emperor

and setting up a new council to lead the entire, but this war would be different. Himself From broken Thramas the Lion

Legion, Sevatar let those who could not serve It would demand sacrifice on a scale that turned his ships, not towards distant Terra,

in his new Night Lords slip into the shadows dwarfed even that of the Great Crusade, with still shrouded in warp storms, but towards

of the Thramas sector while he gathered hundreds of worlds either left to bum so that Ultramar and his brother Guilliman, for

the last survivors to him at the small and battles elsewhere might be won, or entire dire rumours had reached him from Tigrus.

insignificant star ofQetesh. populations put to the sword so that they They spoke ofdestruction and death, ofthe

could not be pressed to the service ofthe treachery of the World Eaters and Word

Here, the Night Lords would meet with Traitor. Had it been any other than the Lion Bearers, and of a new banner raised amongst

the final humiliation oftheir long battle they might have wavered. Sanguinius would the ruins of his Imperium. One rebel had

with the Dark Angels. Having gathered the have deplored the cost in innocent lives and already risen and would fall at the Lion's

survivors ofthe fleet, calling ships from Guilliman would have abhorred the ruin of hand, and ifanother had dared to rise, they

the rally points at Yrrkesh, Taur and other productive worlds, but Lion El'Jonson had would meet the same fate. The Dark Angels
stars, the Night Lords had thought to gain long since hardened his heart to such trials. departed Thramas in full battle order, guns

a briefrespite, but this was not to be. Even readied and blades sharp; they set their

as the Night Lords prepared to depart the There was but a single tiny chink in the courses by a new beacon and to a singular

Eastern Fringe, the Dark Angels fell upon armour that the Lion had forged around destination.

.them once more. This could not be called his soul, a sole weakness that pained him .,

a battle, for the First Legion outnumbered greatly in the final days of the Thramas To Imperium Secundus.

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HERALDRY OF THE NIGHT LORDS

These banners are typical
ofthe later heraldry ofthe
Night Lords, and heavily
influenced by the hive gangs

ofNostramo, Cairn and
other benighted worlds of
that distant sector. Much

ofthe ordered heraldry
of the old Terran Legion
has been replaced by the
more haphazard icons
ofindividual warlords,
displaying favoured trophies
and sobriquets to intimidate

and terrorise a foe.

This MkIII pauldron shows l~, A MkVI pauldron from The Screaming Skull insignia,
a traditional Nostraman Nostramo. The insignia is that shown here in crimson on
__ _• of the Grave Lords street gang, a MkIV pauldron, is often
command insignia. The red which supplied a large number associated with those of the
field indicates the owner was , ·- ~- Night Lords that favoured
of Night Lords recruits. the Warmaster.
under official sanction. An older example of Legion
heraldry, borne by a Terran
veteran ofthe old Legion.
It features the newer icon
favoured by the Night Haunter.

The Cross 'o Bones that served Another depiction ofthe The Red Gauntlet, displayed A traditional Night Lords
Screaming Skull. The here on a Mklll pauldron, emblem. Likely this is intended
to identify the Faceless Prince. to serve during rare Imperium
accompanying inscription had come to indicate a parades when the more macabre
The inscription translates features the Nostraman runes loyalty to Jago Sevatarion
roughly to 'The strong prosper, the and the restoration ofthe battle plate would
for 'empire' and 'destroy'. be frowned upon.
wealt suffer. Night Haunter.

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VIIFH LEGION VETERAN LEGIONARY

HEADSMAN REHK NAHMRIS, 9T11 DECIMATION BRIGADE, YAELIS EXPANSE CAMPAIGN
Operating as part ofa deployment ofthree separate Chapters ofthe Night Lords, Headsman Nahmris and the Assault squads
assigned to his command participated in the cleansing ofthree worlds, a campaign lasting nearly three months. In each case they
faced only light opposition, most often in the form ofSolar Auxilia detachments ofthe Thramassi Nightwatch, and were easily
able to slaughter those that openly opposed them. The majority ofthe campaign would be spent in the systematic and brutal
annihilation ofthe main planetary population centres, driving the inhabitants into the wilderness to starve. Such campaigns
served as an object lesson to those who would oppose the Night Haunter and were key in forcing a number ofsurrenders by
more heavily-forti1ied worlds. Headsman Nahmris himself was hailed for his zeal in such operations and would end the Thramas

Crusade at the rank ofCenturion thanks to his efforts.

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PACIFICATION BATTALIONS

Among the Night Lords' order ofbattle for Upon arriving at its target, a Pacification A Pacification Battalion rarely made any
the Thramas Crusade were a number of Battalion first deploys its heavy armour attempt to hold its ground, most often
divisions, innocuously named 'Pacification en-masse, with most worlds targeted for departing after a briefonslaught intended to
Battalions'. Despite the title borne by these attack unable to muster more than token inflict maximum destruction. In their wake
forces, they were primarily constituted of resistance to such a hammerblow ofmilitary would be left a scene ofutter devastation -
heavy armour and shock assault infantry, might. Once the defenders were broken the desecrated corpses ofthe fallen and the
most often from the infamous Terror Squads and scattered, infantry assets and swift gutted remains ofcities, not merely wanton
that were a unique feature ofthe Vlllth speeders and bikes are deployed to hunt destruction, but a weapon more potent than
Legion. In action these forces were deployed them down, both military and civilian assets any cannon or tank. Fear was the goal of
to isolated Loyalist worlds with the sole goal alike. Such operations are focused not on these operations and it was such fear that
ofbreaking whatever limited defences they the reduction ofenemy military force, but tormented the Thramas sector during the
might possess and then ravaging the planet on collateral damage and a brutal culling of long years ofthe Night Haunter's crusade.
and its population, making ofthem a visceral the population, making certain that those
example to others ofthe price ofdefiance. few who might evade their hunt would have
secured little more than a slower death for
themselves.

N IGHTLORDS LAND RAIDER

MERCY-KILLER

Named ironically, as was the wont ofthe Night Lords, this vehicle is known to have participated in some 18 pacification operations, with a

potential tally ofkills in the thousands. Its crew were known for their propensity for using the vehicle's lascannon to collapse hab-blocks upon

those civilians attempting to take shelter within or to cut apart fortifications, turning them into traps for the troops now entombed within.

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NIGHT LORDS JAVELIN LAND SPEEDER

FLAY-THRA/NINE

Part ofthe large Land Speeder formations used by the Night Lords to harry retreating foes or to drive civilian forces into pre-arranged
ambushes. Such vehicles were a favoured tool ofthe VIIIth Legion for their ability to engage the enemy on their own terms and

withdraw before being outmanoeuvred, earning them the nickname 'Skathra Nar', a hilt-less knife from Nostramo used for sudden
strikes and unexpected attacks.

;

~

'

· ~ J.

• - 'I

.. '·'

VInrn LEGION ICONOGRAPHY

Seen here on the Mercy-killer's rear/side embarkation port is another variation ofthe Screaming
Skull emblem associated with the Warmaster's advocates within the Legion, though it is

largely obscured by the grisly trophies secured to the hull ofthe Land Raider. Such gruesome
decorations were far from uncommon amongst the Night Haunter's warriors.

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THE BLEAK COHORT

The Night Lords 17'1' Chapter, often known full panoply ofthe cohort would be drawn brethren evacuated. Despite their pride and
up before the enemy, the serried ranks of long-honed skill, the Bleak Cohort found
within the Legion as the Bleak Cohort, was its armoured vehicles an unbroken line of themselves put to shame by the deft tactics
one ofthe few fully-mechanised detachments steel and ceramite, engines roaring loud and relic war machines ofthe Ironwing,
ofthe Night Haunter's Legion. Its ranks enough to drown out all other noise. Many forced to commit their heaviest and most
included a large proportion ofarmoured a foe has broken and run in the face ofsuch treasured vehicles to desperate ambushes:and
vehicles, including several squadrons of an onslaught, the Bleak Cohort leading the holding actions to keep from being overrun.
Kratos heavy tanks whose design had fallen Night Lords to many a victory. Yet during Indeed, such was the carnage they endured
out offavour with many Legions. When that ofthe eight super-heavy vehicles
the Legion went openly to war, once terror the Thramas Crusade, the 17'1' would face attached to the Bleak Cohort, only two
had done its job and weakened the enemy's would survive the battle and be successfully
resolve, the Bleak Cohort was often to be its most fearsome challenge in the Dark evacuated, and both ofthose had sustained
found in the vanguard. Angels Ironwing. On Sheol IX, the gathered
might of the Bleak Cohort would be pitted such severe damage that neither would be
In a unique variation on the Legion's against those elements ofthe Ironwing
philosophy, the Bleak Cohort deployed in a assembled from the host ofthe First Legion combat ready for several months after the
manner that sought to set fear in the heart that assaulted that world, a battle that saw fighting.
ofthe foe. Before the onset ofbattle, the several hundred armoured vehicles thrown
against each other as the Bleak Cohort strove
to hold the Dark Angels at bay while their

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NIGHT LORDS BOMBARD

VANGUARD
Attached to the 17th Chapter, this is a rare example of an artillery vehicle in the Night Lords' service. The Night Lords showed little favour to
artillery and the more static tactics that required its massed deployment. The Bombard, with its slow speed and blunt aspect, was most often
assigned rear echelon roles, typically used to eradicate enemy positions that had been isolated and bypassed by the Night Lords frontlines.

NIGHT LORDS FELLBLADE I~'~

MIDNIGIIT TERMINUS
The command vehicle of the 17th Chapter, and
often commanded by Praetor Cynvaer in person.
Its tally ofvictories during the Great Crusade
was a matter of some pride amongst the warriors
of the Bleak Cohort, and earned much honour
for its commander. During the fighting on Sheol

IX, the Midnight Terminus would score kills on
four Dark Angels vehicles, including a Mastodon
super-heavy transport, before its destruction
at the hands ofa squadron ofFirewing Sabre
strike tanks.

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NIGHT LORDS VETERAN LEGIONARY

LEGIONARY ENDROS SHEK
THRAMAS CRUSADE

9™ TERROR COMPANY, r8™ CHAmR

One ofmany Night Lords warriors but recently

raised to the Legion from the ruined world of

Nostramo, Shek is typical ofthat malicious breed.
Raised among the street gangs ofNostramo, he
and his brethren paid more heed to the barbaric
honour codes that had governed those fractious
clans than to the dictates ofthe Principia Bellicosa,
the doctrines ofwar that were the basis ofthe
old Legiones Astartes. By the beginning of the
Thramas Crusade, the 18th Chapter ofthe Night
Lords had become little more than a warped
mirror of Nostramo's dark side, more piratical
marauders than soldiers ofthe Imperial Truth
and little given to the discipline that had once
characterised their breed.

During the Thramas Crusade, the 18th Chapter
was one ofmany involved in the reduction of
morale in the Thramas sector, striking at isolated
and vulnerable targets on Loyalist worlds with the
utmost ferocity. Such raiding forces left behind
little but gruesome trophies oftheir conquests,

seeking to break the foe's will to fight and spread

fear throughout the Loyalist defenders ofthe
sector. The 18th Chapter would see some early
success but falter when confronted by elements
ofthe Dark Angels during later battles, the First
Legion's fury stoked by the tales ofthe atrocities
committed by the Night Lords.

The Bloody Hand was the unofficial emblem of The standard heraldry in use by the Night Lords
the Night Lords terror battalions. at the time of the Thramas Crusade.

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NIGHT LoRDs CoNTEMPTOR DREADNOUGHT
smHARBINGER MALTHAX THULE, DREADNOUGHf OF TilE CHAYrER

As a Terran veteran of the old Vlllth Legion, Harbinger Thule was viewed with a mix of wary respect and amused disdain
by his Nostraman cohorts. Prone to falling into a fugue where visions ofpast battles and glories replaced the gore and slaughter of
the Night Lords battles in the Thramas sector, the warrior within the Dreadnought found himselfbranded with the mark ofthe

outcast, the Red Gauntlet. The Night Haunter himselfheld the veterans ofhis father's wars, entombed now in coffins ofceramite,

as distasteful reminders of a past he chose to shun and often assigned them to the most gruelling battlefields and deadly
campaigns. Harbinger Thule would find the end of his long campaign at Sheol IX, believing himself once more at the side

ofthe Emperor and His hosts, and bellowing the old warcries of Uniry even as the Dark Angels cut him apart.

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THE PATH OF TEARS

Achain of stars strung between the bottom ofthe Nostramo sector and leading in~rably to the heart ofthe Thramas sector, named the Tithe Road on official Imperium

star charts, but more often as the Path ofTears by those who dwell along its length. The Tithe Road was one ofseveral recruiting areas for the Night Lords - so-called
for the tithe ofits population they tooll in exchange for their protection - comprising some 50 or more worlds with few boasting more than small and isolated outposts

of humanity.These miall colonies were the only riches to be found in this region, their settlers proving to be both resilient and strong but without any great wealth of

weapons or resources to draw the attention ofthe mighty.

TsAGUALSA In the wake ofthe Lion's incursion on Tsagualsa during the final stages
of the Thramas Crusade, it is rumoured that those of the First Legion
Classification: Barren world [Legiones Astartes stronghold] who fell and were not recovered had their bodies incorporated into the
Little more than a vast black rock, Tsagualsa is set far from the weak very walls of the growing fortress, and that many other far more foul
sun at the heart ofits system, only a feeble light reaching the massive decorations graced the fortifications of Konrad Curze's new lair.
deserts ofbleak mica that cover much ofits surface, broken only by
drifts ofhuge, glassy boulders ofmidnight rock. Its only wealth is With the end of the fighting and the disappearance ofCurze aboard the
in the stark black rock that forms its crust and its position along the Invincible Reason, the many halls ofthis new stronghold would stand
strategic Tithe Road between Nostramo and Thramas. The small cities empty for a time, avoided by those that still dwelt upon the broken
and quarries that had once marred its barren surface were annihilated worlds ofthe Path ofTears. Few dared to trespass in the nightmare
by the Night Lords at the very start ofthe Thramas Crusade. Utterly precincts ofthe Night Haunter's realm, even when many claimed
destroyed, the settlements were razed and the few survivors herded that he had fallen and drew breath no more. Yet, within the space of
into their flaying pits and slave corrals, it was the end ofTsagualsa as a year, grim tales began to spread that it was once again occupied by
an Imperium colony and the beginning of the war to control Thramas. dark figures in the midnight armour of the Night Lords. As the Horus
The corpse-strewn world would rise to prominence when the Night Heresy closed upon its brutal climax, Tsagualsa would again rise to dark
Haunter selected it as the site of his new fortress, intended to replace prominence; not as a fortress of Horus' rebels, but as the centre ofa
Nostramo, which the Primarch had ruined by his own hand as new petty kingdom, one that could have threatened the recovery ofthe
punishment for its fall into corruption. Imperium had it not mysteriously fallen into ruin during the Scouring.

By the time the war for Thramas was begun, there were little more
than the barest offoundations laid upon the dark sands ofTsagualsa,
but as the war progressed so too would the construction ofCurze's
black fortress. Raised by vast hordes ofslave labourers and based on
the twisted visions ofthe Night Haunter, it would be an edifice of
nightmare and horror.

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WRACK As with so many of the isolated worlds of the Tithe Road, Wrack would
Classification: Mining World [minimal population] not survive the Thramas Crusade. When the Night Lords came at the
outset oftheir new crusade, they claimed every able-bodied inhabitant,
Typical of the small colonies that were to be found throughout the either as recruits for the Legion or as slave-fodder for the work gangs.
region, Wrack is a small moon whose atmosphere is considered barely Those who resisted died in torment at the hands of those who had
capable of supporting human habitation, with little endemic life and once born the title heroes of the Great Crusade, some ofwhom had
meagre seams of ore. Cold, wracked by violent storms without reprieve, likely once called Wrack home before the blood ofthe Night Haunter
and preyed upon by pirates, renegades and xenos marauders, only changed them. Wrack, and so many other worlds, would be rendered
the most stubborn colonists chose to eke out a life there, people who into a corpse, with only mute and empty colonies standing as a
welcomed the absence ofthe Imperium's fledgling bureaucracy. Its monument to their existence.
inhabitants were a coarse breed ofhumanity; tough and indomitable
and bred to survive in one ofthe harshest ofthe sector's worlds, they Other MinorWorlds ofNote
were the true wealth ofthis benighted stretch ofspace. The Night • Cairn [Hive world]
Lords and several regiments ofthe Nightwatch came to Wrack and the • Kruun [Colonised world, now destroyed]
other isolated worlds ofthe Tithe Road to claim this resource, taking
the best oftheir youth to serve in the Emperor's distant wars and
leaving behind a people made bitter to the dreams of Unity by the price
they paid for its realisation.

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THE THRAMAS SECTOR

The last bastion ofthe Imperium on the outer edge ofthe galaxy, the Thramas sector was one ofthe great way-stations for those fleets ofthe Great Crusade working to

bring the Eastern Fringe to Compliance. During the peak ofthe Great Crusade, it thronged with vast fleets and the wealth ofthe Imperium flowed into it to fuel its

factories and shipyards, and the great and the mighty walked its worlds and set their marks upon its monuments. Its ancient hive worlds had yielded willingly to the

armies ofthe Emperor,for they had long stood upon the edge ofthe vast wilderness ofspace and knew well the terror ofthat which dwelt beyond. Bythe last years of

MJo, the sector was past the years ofits greatglory, the armies and fleets moved on to other warzones, but it remained a seat ofmuch militarypower, aprize that neither

side could ignore as the Horus Heresy blossomed into war.

THRAMAS By the outbreak ofthe Horus Heresy,Thramas was one ofthe most
fortified systems in the Imperium. The sentinel moons in its outer reaches
Classification: Hive world bristled with macro cannon and laser lances, fleets ofwarships based at the
[Spire sub-type/Imperialis Armada Port Majoris] massive orbital shipyards at the Thramas nadir point patrolled the void,
Often known as the Jewel of the East, Thramas has been the seat ever watchful for attacks from past the bounds ofthe lmperium. Thramas
of empires for millennia, having first been settled long before itselfboasted eight hive cities whose thick armour was studded with gun
the fall of Old Night during the glory days of Mankind's first turrets and guarded by a dozen regiments ofthe Thramassi Nightwatch,
rush to colonise the galaxy. Its vast hive spires chart its history, the greatest fortress to be found in those distant, eastern stars. Yet, it
long-abandoned structures buried in their depths displaying the was a fortress that looked only outwards, ever prepared for an assault by
heraldry of the Centauran Republic, the Tenebris Freehold, the those that stood outside the Emperor's domain but utterly unready for
Barony ofThrame and other forgotten dynasties long since lost the onslaught ofany enemy from within. No gate within the domain of
to history. When the lmperium arrived at the edge of the galaxy Thramas was barred to the Legiones Astartes, for those heroes ofthe Great
they would find it under the control ofthe Regents ofThramas, a Crusade had the utmost respect ofthe people ofThramas,and when Horus
lonely bastion ofhumankind besieged by all the horrors of the far
rim. The Regents ofThramas would freely and willingly accept the sent the Night Lords to claim the east for him, this trust was brutally
rule ofthe Emperor, joining their armies to His in the fight against
the multitude ofdebased human marauders and ravenous xenos abused and the defences ofThramas laid bare despite their power.
domains that existed beyond the edge of the map. Revitalised by
the influx of trade and resources that followed in the wake of the What had drawn both the Emperor and Horus to Thramas was not its
Great Crusade, Thramas would become one ofthe most staunch power as a fortress orthe wealth ofits factories, but rather the strength of
supporters of the lmperium in the Eastern Fringe and the centre its people. Thramas was among the most populous ofthe border worlds,
of innumerable campaigns launched into the dark void beyon d the and host to a strain ofhumanity well-suited to the rigours ofwar in the
galaxy's edge. Such was its importance to the Great Crusade that void. It had been the birthplace ofmany ofthe lmperium's armies and
the Emperor Himself once set foot upon the world, pausing briefly had tithed recruits to four ofthe Legiones Astartes. To any warlord who
during the prosecution ofthe Eighth extra-galactic expedition and sought to raise a host ofwarriors, it was a prize beyond compare, for if
the assault on the ancient Khrave mega-nest on Gorgorron, where the Horus Heresy extended beyond a short strike at Terra and became
no light had ever shone. a long war ofattrition then victory would be decided by numbers and
not by skill Where the wealth ofTriplex might command the greatest
short term-advantage to the warring factions that sought control ofthe
Imperium, it was Thramas that held the key to long-term triumph.

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CRUCIBLE QETESH 1.

Classification: Stellar phenomenon Classification: Hive World [Border outpost]
[Category-Omega:Cannine/Mechanicum Fief] Sitting at the very edge of the Thramas Sector, Desperation, fifth planet
The name Crucible refers to both the eighth planet ofthe Gharn system of the Qetesh system, was of little strategic importance and warranted
a garrison of the Thramassi Nightwatch only due to its proximity to
and a section ofspace along the border between the 1hramas and Triplex the Huda Gulf Other than its role as a minor sentinel fortress along
sectors where ships cannot pass. This area, listed on proper star charts as the Imperium's furthest border, it served as little more than a minor
the Thramas Exclusion Zone, and better known to the chartist captains of hive world populated by those courageous enough to make a home so
far from Terra. When it fell out of contact in the earliest stages of the
the Eastern Fringe as the Crucible Field or the Graveyard ofStars, hosts Thramas Crusade, as the Night Lords began to rampage and murder
nearly a dozen black holes ofvarying sizes all clustered within the space a path across the sector, few of the powerful noted its absence. Yet, its
ofonly a few dozen light years. The sheer power ofthese disruptive stellar capture by the Night Lords was a critical move in the Night Haunter's
phenomenon is felt even in aetheric space, forming a huge vortex in the initial plan for the fall ofThramas, serving as a secure point for his
Warp from which few human craft have ever emerged and blocking all fleets to marshal and a crucial link in the flow of supplies from Ulan
Huda to the Night Lords. The !28th Regiment of the Nightwatch
passage between the Thramas and Triplex sectors along this vector. It is made a brave stand, holding the main hive for eight days as the Night
the Exclusion Zone that forces all merchant and military traffic to travel Lords toyed with them, capturing the bravest oftheir warriors for
the creation ofbloody trophies ofwar and terrorising the colonists.
via the slower stable warp channels that lead to the hive world ofSheol III, However, when the defences finally fell, the Night Lords left none
creating a strategic bottleneck in warp travel to and from the lower regions alive, decorating the city with the bones ofthe fallen and converting its
ofthe Eastern Fringe and bringing great wealth to Sheol III. facilities into one of a number ofhidden shipyards.

The Exclusion Zone itself has long fallen under the purview ofobscure Other Minor Worlds ofNote
taghma from the Forge World ofTriplex Phall, who maintain a research • Moritane [Knight world]
station on its periphery. This taghma, the Ketriox, ostensibly involved • Sheol III [Hive world]
in the development of exotic particle weaponry, would avoid the fall • Kodan [Hive world]
of Phall and remain a potent renegade force for much ofthe Thramas • Serk [Hive world]
Crusade. Lurking within the depths of the Crucible Field, Taghma • Sedraan [Colonised world]
Ketriox would emerge to fall upon isolated Loyalist garrisons and
transport convoys, wielding weapons capable oftearing apart the fabric Aeolay [Colonised world]
of realspace and breaching even the thickest armour. It would take
an entire Chapter ofthe First Legion to finally end the threat of the
Ketriox, waging a month-long campaign oftraps, feints and decoys to
lure them into a decisive battle that saw only a few ragged survivors
escape back into the Exclusion Zone.

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THE TRIPLEX SECTOR

The Triplex sector was dominated by swathes ofbarren systems, largely uninhabitable and empty. A wasteland ofore rich roeIts, old dying stars and afew scatured clans

ofabhuman miners and prospectors, which was far from any established trade route and cut offfrom the more populous sections ofthe region by fierce wary storms. Sat

at its heart was the system ofTriplex, its triple Forge Worlds the centre ofall industry in the sector and the greatest prize in the Eastern Fringe. With Triplex, ageneral

might control the entirety ofthe eastern halfofthe Imperium, for it rivalled great Anvillus in power, and many aspiring warlords cast their gaze upon this prize as the

Horus Heresy erupted.

TRIPLEX Galatia's triumph would be short lived. For though the bones ofThule
would nourish its industry and fuel the construction ofnew armies and
Classification: Mega-industrial complex and sector capital void era.ft in anticipation ofthe Traitor conquest ofthe Eastern Fringe,the
The beating heart of the Eastern Fringe was the system ofTriplex, one arrival ofthe Lion and his Dark Angels would seal the fate ofthe darkened
ofthe greatest industrial hubs in the entire Imperium, rivalling even forge ofGalatia. Utterly destroyed by the Dreadwing, it would stand as
great Mars and Anvilus in the capacity ofits forges. By its labour had a warning ofthe fate ofTraitors and a token ofthe First Legion's wrath
the Great Crusade won the distant stars ofthe east, and it was by the that Phall could neither forget nor ignore. Even by the end ofthe Horus
products oftheir manufactoria that civilisation was sustained in those Heresy, it remained largely unvisited, for few wished to risk calling down
hostile systems that sat at the very edge ofthe galaxy. Home to the the First Legion's censure upon themselves despite the riches and secrets
three-fold Titan Legio Victorum and several hundred militant taghma, that lay buried in the ruin ofGalatia's pride and ambition.
the system was also one ofthe greatest concentrations ofmilitary force
in the east. The few inhabited worlds and scattered mining colonies TRIPLEX PRALL
in the sector were held in thrall to Triplex by the threat ofits anger
and the necessity ofits protection in the face ofthe terrors that lurked Classification: Forge World [Grade Primaris-1]
in unknown space. It was a nascent power that strained at the bonds Phall was the second ofTriplex's great forges, and the only one that
ofthe Emperor's law and the dictates ofdistant Mars, one that saw in would survive the ravages ofwar in the Eastern Fringe. Though it had
Horus' rebellion a chance for their own ascent even as they professed begun as little more than an adjunct to Galatia, its parent forge, Phall,
their loyalty to the newly founded Imperiwn. had grown swiftly during the years ofOld Night, developing both an
impressive industrial base and a significant martial tradition. Driven
TRIPLEX GALATIA by a stubborn pride and a desire for greatness, Phall had long stood at
the forefront ofTriplex' wars, defending it from the threat ofxenos
Classification: Forge World [Grade Primaris-I] invasion and expanding its small domain across the sector. By the time
The Forge World of Galatia was the first ofthe triple forges to be ofthe Emperor's arrival, the Legio Victorum II, the Foe Hammers,
established, its birth long since lost to history in those ancient days had grown to rival that of Galatia and would win the honour of
when the Explorator fleets ofthe Mechanicwn set forth blindly into representing Triplex among the armies ofthe Great Crusade. The spoils
the void, seeking fertile new lands in which to grow and expand. oftheir victories as part ofthe Emperor's vanguard would see Phall
For long centuries, it would reign as the overlord oflocal space, its grow to eclipse its erstwhile brethren, gaining resources and glory
dominion assured by the strength ofthe Legio Victorum I, the Foe from across the galaxy and catching the eye ofthe Warmaster himself.
Slayers, and the sheer proclivity ofits Tech-Priests. It would only be Indeed, Phall would become one ofthe main shipyards for the vast
with the atrival ofthe Emperor that it would stumble and fall behind fleets ofthe Great Crusade outside ofSol itself
its sibling forges, for Mars took a hand to curb the power ofthis new
rival and petitioned the Emperor to take only the Legio Victorum II Under Horus' patronage they would become the foremost power in
for His Great Crusade, sealing the remaining two slivers ofthe Legio Triplex and the Eastern Fringe, assuming abelligerent and prideful air in
to the defence ofTriplex. This would see Galatia cut offfrom the riches their dealing that brought about the ire ofMars, which had once favoured
ofthe Great Crusade, which would flow instead into the hands of them. The archmagi of Sol's red world would work to isolate Phall and
Phall Denied the glory ofwar and the spoils ofvictory, Galatia turned Triplex, denying them access to technology and influence within the
inwards and its tech-adepts began to walk forbidden paths in search of strange network ofthe Omnissiah's seivants as they sought to ensure that
power, paths long forbidden by the decree ofboth Mars and Terra. none could challenge their dominion amongst the ranks ofthe many
Forge Worlds. It was this quiet campaign waged against them that would
So it was that when the representatives of the Warmaster and ofits set Phall to the research oftechnologies forbidden to them by the dictates
brother forge, Phall, sought to turn them to their cause they found a ofMars, aided by Horus and representatives ofthose scattered forges
ready ally, one more than prepared to throw offthe shackles ofthe that had struck bargains with the Warmaster, as the magi ofPhall sought
Imperiwn. With the promise ofrich rewards from the Warmaster advantage in their struggle against the Martian ascendancy. In retrospect,
himself, Galatia began to slowly stockpile weapons ofwar built to new this seems one more gambit orchestrated by Horus, seeding rebellion and
and fearsome specifications, shipping the more orthodox examples of dissent across the Imperiwn that he might later wield as a weapon. What
their era.ft to the Imperium in order to keep up the pretence of loyalty might have become ofit had it been left to fester we can only guess but,
that had been thrown across the system like a shroud. History has with their research incomplete and ambitions not fully realised, Phall and
often suggested that Galatia, despite its new hidden allegiance, did Triplex would be brought to heel by the Dark Angels.
not take a hand in the death ofThule and kept its warriors and Titans
absent from the fratricidal conflict. Yet, it remains guilty ofthe lesser Phall was spared the full extent ofLion El'Jonson's wrath only so that it
sin ofstanding by as the Legio Victorum III and the warriors ofThule might repay the hurt it had done the Imperiwn with the labour ofits
died, and of stripping bare the corpse that remained of its brother forge, manufactoria and the life-blood ofits warriors; a price it was bound to
unleashing at last its heretechnical hosts once the battle had been pay were it to avoid the fate meted out upon fallen Galatia.
decided in order to seal its pact with the Traitors.

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Its vast wealth and grand armies were bled dry in the prosecution of It was a conflict that would only intensify after the Emperor inducted
the warriors of Phall into His crusade and gave it access to all the riches
the Lion's campaign against his brother, the once-magnificent halls ofthe wider Imperium. As it had always done, Phall held its newfound
bedecked with trophies ofthe Great Crusade reduced to soot-stained wealth at arm's reach from the tech-magi ofThule, both a taunting
assembly lines for the Loyalist cause. The proud archmagi of Phall were reminder ofthe power Phall held and a mocking promise ofwhat they
humbled and set to labour under the oversight ofDark Angels forge might enjoy should they bow before Phall as Galatia had chosen to do.
masters, their work examined for any sign oftreachery or deviance,
while the princeps and Titans ofthe Foe Hammers were sent into the Stubborn and convinced ofthe rightfulness oftheir cause, the rulers
most dangerous warzones ofthe war to pay their penance in death. By ofThule refused to buckle beneath the growing influence of Phall.
the end ofthe Thramas Crusade, Phall was much reduced in power and When the Warmaster's emissaries came in secret to offer them Horus'
strength, its mere survival such a struggle that it posed no further threat favour for their loyalty, the archmagi ofThule spurned them as servants
to distant Mars. of Phall and its sneering hereteks. The hidden war then took a more
savage turn, with bombs and data-phage infections wreaking havoc on
TRIPLEX THULE outposts ofboth Forge Worlds as well as upon Thule itself It would
be Thule's retaliation, the assassination ofa Phallian archmagus by a
Classification: Forge World [Grade Primaris-III] trio ofMalagra adepts, which would set the pyre for the final tragedy
The smallest ofTriplex's three Forge Worlds, the tale ofThule is born ofThule's tale. In the opening months ofHorus' rebellion, open war
and ended in tragedy. It was founded by tech-magi cast out ofGalatia would arrive in Triplex as Phall took up arms against its least sibling,
in its early days for the practise ofan extreme branch ofMars' orthodox setting the Legios Victorum I and III to open battle. As with any war
doctrine that abhorred and condemned even the primitive servo- between brothers it was fought with a vicious and unrelenting spite,
automata still in production amongst the Mechanicum's scattered with no mercy offered or expected, and by the time ofthe Night Lords'
worlds. Their obsession with the purity ofmechanical devices and arrival in the system, there would be little but ruins left ofthe once-
the subtle blending ofman and machine in the form ofservitors and proud Forge World ofThule.
MIU links put them at odds with the rulers ofGalatia, who trod an
increasingly deviant path in their research and lust for power. Thule Other Minor Worlds ofNote
would grow only slowly, starved ofresources and shunned by their • Shan Mor [Knight world]
siblings, having reached the lowest grade ofprimaris ranking by the time • Yaelis [Hive world]
ofthe Imperium's arrival at Triplex. • Catarra [Mining world]

Driven to struggle against their brethren for every last shipment of
ore and batch of new subjects, Thule had long engaged in a hidden
war with the other forges ofTriplex, one fought by a small taghma of
heavily-modified S"ervitors and the agents ofthe Malagra sect rather
than by the Titans ofthe Legio Victorum III, the Foe Breakers.

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THE AEGIS SECTOR

Dominated by the twin worlds ofMemloc~ and Heraldor, the populous worlds ofthe Aegis sector were the bread basket ofthe Eastern Fringe. The fertile agri-worlds
that abounded in this otherwise calm sector had not ceded their independence easily to the Imperium, havingfought a short but bitter war before reluctantly accepting

the Emperor. Though sworn to the Imperium, they had long begrudged the tithes they sent to distantThramas to fuel the Great Crusade, and remained Compliant only
by the constant vigilance ofthe Imperial Army regiments set over them as sentinels.

HERALDOR When the Horus Heresy arrived in the Eastern Fringe, Memlock
Classification: Hive World [Sub-surface sub-type] seemed at first bound to remain loyal, the majority of its clan-lords
unwilling to set themselves to a war that they had no part of. Yet the
Chiefamong the worlds ofthe Aegis sector, Heraldor had once grown emissaries ofthe Warmaster were cunning, and found among the
fat and strong on the trade ofslaves taken from the isolated worlds of clan-lords those that sought power over their peers, those unhappy
the Yaelic nebula and the outer colonies ofGulgorahd. Its marauders with their isolation and ignominy. These they armed and prepared,
had been the terror ofthe Eastern Fringe, clashing with the ships of setting them upon those that favoured the Emperor in a brief and
Thramas and Gulgorahd in the years before the Emperor's arrival in an vicious civil war. Memlock would join the Warmaster, its clans
effort to forge a petty kingdom ofits own. Allied with the clan-lords of bound to him now by the blood of their kin and a determination to
Memlock, the Hierarchs ofHeraldor would not surrender their dreams claim a new glory in exchange for the death they had wrought on
ofconquest in the face ofthe Emperor's arrival and fought a briefwar their own. Rather than surrender or die in bitter defiance when the
against His Legions. Ironically, it would be the Night Lords that led war in the east turned against them, many ofthe renegade clan-
the assault on Heraldor, decorating the deeply buried halls ofits hives lords abandoned Memlock and fled to the Warmaster's side. Some
are thought to have even fought as part of the horde that landed on
with the Hierarchs' skins and forcing a bitter surrender to the will of Terra itself, though their dedication to the Warmaster's dark patrons
would warp them into something terrible to behold.
the Emperor. It was a submission that would fester among the surviving
nobles ofHeraldor, emerging many years later as a foul and spiteful hate VERSrUN
that would lead them to the side ofHorus as the rebellion against the
Emperor reached the Eastern Fringe. Classification: Colonised World [Aero-stat colony]
An otherwise unimportant way-station on the long and unstable
Heraldor itselfwas a small world whose wealth was found in the fertile warp canals that lead from Ultramar to the Eastern Fringe, Verstun
soil sited at the feet ofthe immense volcanoes that dominated the surface is a collection ofloosely-allied colony stations set in orbit ofa vast
ofthe planet, farmed by legions ofslave-workers that were easily replaced gas giant. Its immense orbital refineries mine the surface ofthe
after each new eruption replenished the fertile volcanic soil. Even after the giant's atmosphere; the fuel they produce earning a meagre living
coming ofthe Emperor, Heraldor would be worked by unwilling hands, for the hardy colonists. When fighting broke out between Loyalists
for the Great Crusade could not do without its produce. Prisoners and the and Traitors within the Eastern Fringe, Verstun stood apart, seeking
condemned from a hundred worlds would be shipped to Heraldor to slave to remain neutral in a war that seemed outside oftheir interests.
in its burning air and produce harvests to feed the armies ofthe Imperium. Neutrality lasted until the first of Heraldor's war barges arrived in orbit,
The Hierarchs dwelt in labyrinthine hive cities buried deep beneath the their guns enough to see the pledge ofVerstun's colonists to the cause
of the Warmaster - for the alternative was a slow death in chains. The
most stable parts ofHeraldor, an insular and corpulent breed ofhumanity fuel produced at Verstun would feed the fleets ofthe Night Lords and
their allies, allowing them to maintain a mobile stance, keeping ahead
dedicated to its own pleasure above all else; the emissaries ofHorus found ofthe Dark Angels and their superior firepower.

them easy to turn to his cause and open to the most simple ofbribes. It would not be the vengeful ships ofthe Dark Angels that saw to its
fall, but rather those ofanother Legion. Survivors ofthe scattered
They would meet their end in those same cthonic halls, cornered by the Ultramarines fleet, drawn to nearby Tigrus, broke free ofthe Warp to
advancing warriors ofthe Thramassi Nightwatch and the Ultramarines drive out the Night Lords and burn the barges ofHeraldor in a naval
and besieged for 18 long weeks, though the Emperor's warriors would battle lasting three days and culminating in a series ofsavage boarding
accept no second surrender and left Heraldor a broken and empty world. actions on the colony-stations. Rather than surrender the wealth of
Verstun, the Night Lords detonated the atomantic reactors at the core
M EMLOCK ofthe largest refineries, the nuclear death ofthose platforms igniting
the gas giant's atmosphere, denying the Loyalists any comfort from
Classification: Agri-world [Grand Terrestrial sub-type] their victory and putting an end to the colony. Yet, despite this act of
Memlock is an aberration, a world nine times the size ofdistant Terra wilful spite, the opening of a second front on the far side ofthe Aegis
and yet possessed ofeerily calm and stable seasons, its three identical sector was a turning point in the war for the Eastern Fringe, one from
moons each fixed in optimal orbits to promote beneficial tides and which the Night Lords would not recover.
winds. Ancient ruins that dot the surface hint at an artificial origin
at the hands ofsome unknown xenos clade, though the tech-nomad Other Minor Worlds ofNote
clans that dwell there forbid outsiders from investigating the ruins • Mennis Rho [Agri-world]
for fear of ancient curses. As with bitter Heraldor, Memlock resisted • Subere [Agri-world]
the Emperor's peace in battle but, in contrast to its old ally, held • Kerro-Val [Knight world]
few grudges in the victory of the Legiones Astartes, for they had
no great dreams of conquest, only a desire to remain isolated and
uncontaminated by the wider host ofhumanity. Once the battles
were over they returned to the vast harvest-crawlers that were their
homes and continued the unending harvest, the produce ofMemlock
surety against any violation of their sovereignty, for the newly-forged
Imperium was a hungry creation.

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=-IZ::;;;

THE GULGORAHD PROTECTORATE

In the time before Old Night, this sector was athriving centre of human expansion, but little ofthat glory survived the millennia ofisolation. Battered and broken by

endless waves ofxenos invasions and human renegades, its people had taken refuge in grim strongholds and made war the sole focus oftheir industry. Though they

survived Old Night, they became isolationist and distrustfu~ envious ofthe wealth ofTriplex and the glory ofTerra, a people brought to Compliance only through
struggle and hardship. As the Horus Heresy returned the galaxy to strife and terror, Gulgorahd looked once more to its ancient feud with Triplex and the glory ofits

lost power.

GULGORAHD The Legio Adamantus and all the armies of Gulgorahd were loosed
into the fray without reserve and, despite the hardship that awaited
Classification: Forge World [Grade Secundus-1] them, the cold greed of Gulgorahd would be rewarded by fate far more
Once a mighty and proud bastion ofthe Mechanicum with outposts generously than the purer motives of others. For, when the Legiones
and thrall-forges across the sector, Gulgorahd could lay claim to an Astartes left the Eastern Fringe, Gulgorahd stood triumphant in the
ancient and vast dominion. Yet it would suffer harshly for this glory ashes of its domain.
during the years of Old Night, where terrible warp storms swept across
the galaxy and tore apart the old realms of humanity's golden age. BASITON-019
Gulgorahd and its many holdings bore the brunt ofxenos invasions
and debased human marauders. Gulgorahd's old strongholds fell Classification: Knight World [Subterranean fortifications]
one by one in a series of brutal conflicts that would slowly bleed its One of many small outposts ofthe broken empire ofGulgorahd,
armies to a fraction of their former size and break its once-immense Bastion-019 served as both a vast network ofmines and a formidable
manufacturing capacity. When the Emperor and His Great Crusade fortress. Here, one of several Knight houses sworn to Gulgorahd sat
finally arrived in that distant sector of space, mighty Gulgorahd was sentinel over the borders ofthat shrunken realm, its warriors reduced to
reduced to a single forge and a handful ofclient worlds. little more than servitor drones and Houses reduced to simple numbers
in order to best serve the ruthless masters of Gulgorahd. Shorn oftheir
Gulgorahd eagerly accepted its new allies and a place within the ranks limiting human needs and desires, they could serve as unsleeping
of the Mechanicum, eager to regain its lost glory, only to find that many guardians and untiring defenders of Gulgorahd, so reduced was that
of its old places of power were either ruined beyond any return or empire in power that it must marshal what few assets remained as
claimed now by others. Of all their new rivals, the lords of Gulgorahd efficiently as possible.The efficacy ofthis policy was to be proven during
found that the triple forges ofTriplex had benefitted most from their the Thramas Crusade,for the warriors of House-019 would fight the
fall, claiming many oftheir old mines and fortresses as their own and invading forces ofthe Night Lords and Triplex long past the point of
refusing all overtures for their return. It was the beginning of a bitter mortal endurance. Within the endless labyrinth offortified bunkers and
feud, one that Gulgorahd was ill-equipped to win - for the Emperor tunnels that lay below the surface of Bastion-019 they fought without
forbade open war among His servants. Instead, it would simmer and pause, rest or fear and held back a force many times their number for
grow to obsess the lords of Gulgorahd, who schemed incessantly for many months. Their dedication, measured in the devastated ruins of
the overthrow ofTriplex and the reclamation oflost glories. their home and the vast number oftheir fallen, received little reward
from their masters - though rumour holds that among the broken
Many in the Eastern Fringe beheld the approach ofwar and the fortifications ofBastion-019 stands a legion ofhidden shrines, each
rebellion of Horus with fear and trepidation, but not the lords of dedicated to a fallen warrior now freed from an eternity ofservitude.
Gulgorahd. This was the chance they had awaited, a last chance to
humble Triplex and seize that which had been taken from them by Other Minor Worlds ofNote
force. They cared not for the greater politics of the Horus Heresy Bastions 001-101 [Fortress worlds]
and threw in their lot with the Loyalists not because they wished to
preserve the Emperor and His dominion, but rather only because • Caldari [Mining world]
Triplex had backed the Traitor Warmaster. • Sedonis [Mining world]

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THE HODA GuLF AND THE 0ITTER Vom

Beyond the edges ofthe maps ofthe lmperium was to be found agreat stretch ofwild and dangerous space. Here, xenos terrors and lost enclaves ofdebased human

cultures still held sway and preyed upon each other, even raiding into the Thramas sector and testing the defences ofthe N ightwatch. vmtk Legion fleets had listed the
region as ofnegligiblevalue to the lmperium, discouraging committing the resources ofthe Great Crusade into conquering the barren worlds ofthe gulf, mounting

occasional punitive expeditions oftheir own into unknown space. Yet, as MJ1 began, the region remained as chaotic as ever, its secrets still hidden at the outbreak ofthe

Horus Heresy.

ULANHUDA Technology, both human and xenos, was incorporated into the
refashioned shell ofUlan Ruda until it little resembled anything
Classification: Rogue Forge World [Grade Extremis-I] known to Mankind and its rulers could no longer be called sane.
In the years before the Thramas Crusade, Ulan Ruda was little more
than a rumour, a dark legend spoken ofby the most adventurous of Such a horrific creation could not be welcomed openly within the
chartist captains in hushed tones. Known as the predator-forge, it was Imperium, indeed such were its transgressions that, by Imperial law,
a monstrous creation of heinous and twisted technology that prowled it would be destroyed for the taint ofthe forbidden and xenos that it
the systems beyond the edge ofthe Imperium and devoured entire had taken into itself, and yet it escaped all sanction as the Imperium
worlds to sate its hunger. The truth later made plain was to be no reached the fringe. Records found amongst the ruins ofTsagualsa
less terrifying than the legends, for ifanything it would prove more during the Scouring indicate that factions within the Night Lords
unbelievable than any fabricated tale. Ulan Ruda had begun as a minor purposefully concealed the predator-forge from Imperial scrutiny.
Forge World, stranded within the isolated systems later known as the In return, they received a share ofits forbidden spoils, strange
Ghoul Stars. There, cut offfrom all aid and succour and surrounded technologies and exotic slaves, as well as the services ofits misbegotten
by hordes offoul xenos, its archmagos perceived only one route to Titans, the Legio Phasma or the Void Spectres. In the last years ofthe
survival - they would make themselves more terrifying than those that Thramas Crusade, this alliance would be openly revealed as the Night
opposed them. Lords unleashed Ulan Ruda upon the Imperium in an attempt to tum
the tide ofa conflict that seemed to have gone against them.
Forced by direst need, the first tech-magi ofUlan Ruda refashioned
their home by means oftechnology long deemed utterly forbidden by Ulan Ruda would suffer grievous hurt during the fighting,wounded
Mars, for in its use they risked harm to the very fabric ofspace. Buried by the sacrifice ofthe warrior known as the Saviour and harried by the
deep within the core ofUlan Ruda, a series ofarcane engines were fleets ofthe Dark Angels,but no report from any Loyalist force speaks
created that would allow it to breach realspace and sojourn within ofits final destruction. Indeed, a number ofrecords from the Scouring
the Warp itself Moving from system to system, Ulan Ruda became speak ofsightings ofstrange and misshapen forges in the farthest
a scourge, overwhelming those weaker than it and fleeing those that reaches ofthe Imperium, only for such worlds to vanish when later
were strong. Those they overthrew were subsumed by the predator- forces arrive to investigate, only the broken remains ofborder posts
forge, their worlds reduced to a slurry ofbroken earth and the people left behind. Ulan Ruda, it seems, has retreated into the realm oflegend
that once dwelt upon them reforged as servitors and cogitator cores. once more, a dark tale made all the more terrifying for the fact that it
likely still lurks somewhere in the darkness beyond the galactic rim.

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.

THE DOMINION OF STORMS
Though within the borders ofthe Imperium, this long and sparsely inhabited stretch ofspace that linlred Ultramar, the Eastern Fringe and the Northern Rim was
largely unmapped. Known as the Dominion ofStorms for the wary storms and aberrant stellar phenomenon that plagued it, this region was not part ofthe Eastern
Fringe, nor part ofany of the Legiones Astartes-sworn territories, yet it would prove vital to the war fought within the Eastern Fringe. It would be this region that saw

the procession ofWord Bearers and World Eaters finus that would sack Ultramar while the Night Lords fought in the Thramas sector, and it was also here that the

Ultramarines and their allies would stage astubborn resistance. The successes ofthese Legions within the Dominion ofStorms would have a dire impact on the war

forThramas.

TIGRUS HALE

Classification: Forge World [Grade Primaris-111] Classification: Legiones Astartes Outpost [Ruined/depopulated]
Situated inbetween the distant Eastern Fringe and the growing empire Hale was little more than an isolated outpost ofthe Ultramarines Legion,
ofUltramar, the Forge World ofTigrus had long been a stout supporter home to a single company ofwarriors set as sentinels over the shipping
ofthe Great Crusade, its warriors ever eager to display their fervour in routes between Ultramar and the wider Imperium. In the early months
battle. Few would doubt its loyalty to the Imperium and the design ofthe of 007.M31 the garrison would be scattered by three Chapters ofthe
Emperor, and this loyalty would seal its fate. Horus had his servants, the World Eaters, part ofthe vast armada that was headed to the battlefields
lords ofthe Word Bearers and World Eaters, dispatch forces to isolate and ofdistant Calth,and to the commanders ofthe Traitor host it seemed a
destroy Tigrus before it could move to support either Ultramar or the matter now ended. However, the rebels had underestimated the tenacity
worlds ofthe Eastern Fringe. Fortunately for the Imperium, the carnage ofthe Ultramarines, leaving only a single Chapter oftheir own to secure
ofthe assault on Calth and the ongoing Shadow Crusade in Ultramar the warp channels ofthe region before departing. Within a month, the
meant that only a small force ofTraitor warriors could be spared to survivors ofthe Ultramarines force had returned, along with stragglers
assault Tigrus, a force that the loyal magi ofthat world met and scattered from the Loyalist forces fleeing the Isstvan system and other garrison
in battle. It would be forces dispatched from the bastion ofTigrus that forces, and set upon the World Eaters, their numbers greater than the
would aid in turning the tide ofboth the war in the Eastern Fringe and Traitors but not as unified a force. It was a battle that seemed as though it
the Shadow Crusade, the warriors ofTigrus ever willing to face death and could only end in bitter stalemate and mutual annihilation until a single
hardship in the name ofloyalty and valour. The lords ofTigrus would battle cruiser broke from the Warp and lent its firepower to the Loyalist
be honoured by many for their steadfast bravery and the sacrifice ofso cause.That ship was the Fifth Horseman, one ofthe Dark Angels craft sent
many oftheir own in the name ofvictory. by the Lion to seek allies for the battle unfolding around Thramas. The
Loyalist forces, numbering almost 3,000, were quick to volunteer their
aid in the war against the Night Haunter. In reward for their stalwart
bravery, the Lion would later decree that they could bear the symbol of
his Legion,for those that fought by his side with honour would ever be
truest sons. Even in these latter days, with the Ultramarines scattered
by the edict ofthe Second Founding, there remain a few that still carry a
vambrace or pauldron in the stark black ofthe Lion's heraldry.

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Stark and uncompromising, the Dark Angels The Unhegotten Father
were the first ofthe Emperor's Legions and the Ofall the tens ofthousands ofsubjects that bled and died within the hidden laboratories
rruest to the mouldfrom which the Legiones ofthe Emperor, the names ofall but a handful are unknown. Most were, and remain,
Astartes had been struck. They were killers of anonymous vessels used to nurture the first crude batches ofgene-seed distilled from the
the purest and most refined kind, for whom Primarchs' blood, test subjects for the earliest organs cultured from that seed and all were
there could be no other destiny but a lifetime considered disposable in the cause ofthe Space Marines' genesis. Some few, however, served
ofwarand death in the name ofthe Imperium as something more: functional prototypes ofthe new breed ofwarrior the Emperor had
and Mankind. They did not build empires, envisaged for His conquest ofnot just Old Earth but the entire galaxy. They were likely not
made no attempt to master the ways ofpeace quite as their modern cousins - unrefined and ill-favoured but potent nonetheless - and
or the subtle skills ofthe artist, craftsman or served as the bridge between the unique power ofthe Primarchs and theirsons; a formula
diplomat. They offered no excuses for their by which the process could be repeated and perfected.The vast majority ofthese were
nature and made no compromises in the born ofthe strain ofgene-seed extracted from the first ofthe Primarchs, noted as it was for
pursuit oftheir assigned duty, shirking neither its stability, with a single warrior listed by name in the oldest ofrecords salvaged from the
the price they paid in blood northe price paid depths ofthe Imperial Palace Archives: Abrasax,ofthe fourteenth Ghent intake.
in infamy and solitude. Their greatest battles
are to be found in no catalogue ofCompliance No mention ofthis figure is to be found again in Imperialrecords, nor in the orderofbattle of
or roll ofhonour, no scholars or poets sing of any ofthe Legiones Astartes, save in one obscure text. Abriefaccount, written by one ofthe
these glories or remember those fullen in their councillors attending the Emperor during the Siege ofthe Imperial Palace, notes a warrior by
prosecution,for they were fought against foes the name ofAbraxus Ghent, clad in unadorned power armour, who had served as one ofthe
so monstrous that it was deemed necessary that many guardians ofthat venerated building's vast halls and who fought as part ofthe rear guard
all mention ofthem be erased from history. that held the inner precincts against the Traitor hordes while the Emperor and his Primarchs
Such was the nature oftheir service, not only to led the assault on Horus' flagship. His death is not noted in the account, nor does he appear on
be prosecutors ofthe Great Crusade, but also to the lengthy rolls ofhonournaming the veterans ofthat climactic battle, either living or dead.
serve as the Imperium's most potent bulwark
against the unknown terrors that lurked in the
dark between the stars.

ORIGINS: FORGED OF SECRETS AND DARKNESS This grand experiment exacted a bloody the crucible in which all the savage lore ofOld •· '!:
toll upon those territories controlled by the Night,all the bitter knowledge and red-handed
The heraldry ofthe Dark Angels proclaims Emperor,for its most critical components wisdom accumulated in millennia ofwar was
their lineage, the first ofthe Emperor's were untainted human subjects,allwithin to be distilled and fashioned into a weapon of
Legiones AstarteS, but other than that a specific range ofage and physical fitness. rare potency.
simple fact little is known ofthe origins of Given the state ofTerra in the wake ofthe wars
the Legion and its initial gene-stock. The ofOld Night, its surface polluted by the twin In those first faltering years ofthe grand
genesis ofthe Legiones Astartes as a whole scourges ofatomic bombardment and genetic experiment that was the Legiones Astartes,the
is a subject shrouded in much secrecy. It is phage, such subjects were limited. The initial proto-warriors ofthe First Legion,barely a few
perhaps the greatest and most enduring of experiments were conducted with the youth hundred strong, were encouraged to eschew
the Emperor's many works and a subject ofthe Emperor's conquered foes and those the names oftheir own people and embrace
scholars have been warned away from in purchased from the nomadic clans ofslavers a new unity unmarked byold loyalties,often
the latter days ofHis Imperium. What is that abounded in the wastes ofpre-UnityTerra, taking instead the names ofheroes from the old
known with some certainty is that, ofall the and later the toll was borne byflesh-tithes tales that had survived the Age ofStrife. In the
many breeds ofthese post-human warriors, exacted on those territories brought, willingly first rolls ofhonour ofthe Legion can be found
the Dark Angels were conceived by the or not, into the fold ofthe Imperium.As such, Gilgamesh,Heracles,Tarchon,Hengist and
Emperor as a template for those that would the Dark Angels did not bearthe stamp ofany other names imbued by time with the power of
follow, distilled from the gene-code ofthe single gene-stock, unlike some ofthe other legend. Combined with the grim aspect granted
most stable ofall His Primarchs and without Legions during their earliestyears whose them by the gene-seed ofthe first Primarch,
any attempt to foster specific traits or curb character had been moulded by the nature of these warriors quickly gained a reputation
the eccentricities of the stock from which their initial intake. Their first recruits, selected among the disparate throngthat was at that time
they sprang. Even so, the process by which from the best ofthe stock available to the the army ofthe Emperor,for they seemed as a
these first samples were produced was long Emperor, were diverse in origin and shared band ofgods all cast from asingular and potent
and laborious, initiated perhaps a century no single cultural heritage that would shape mould. Fighting atfirst as smallgroups within
or more before the end ofthe wars ofUnity the way in which they made war. Indeed, the the ranks ofthe Emperor's host, plyingboth the
and consuming a vast number oftest subjects diversity oftheir origins brought a wealth of skills oftheir origins and ofthe drill masters of
to produce but a handful ofstable proto- disparate martial traditions into the fledgling the ImperialLaboratories,they would come to
Astartes. Ofthese initial creations, referenced Legion.The dour infantry ofthe Francish be known as the Uncrowned Princes or simply
in fragmentary records unearthed in the plains and islands ofAlbia broughtwith them Crowns. This was a homage both to their place in
Imperial Archives as the Primordial Strain, the brutal coda that had conquered halfthe the line ofbattle and the destiny bestowed upon
almost none are known to have survived ruined lands ofEuropa, the warriors ofthe them by their creator; a title that would inspire
initial combat trials and surgical testing,but far Anatolic steppes a skill at cavalry warfure, both a sense ofunity and acertain arrogance in
they form the basis for the initial cultures of the berserkers offrozen Skandia a murderous the first Space Marines and spur them to lead
the First Legion and, by merit ofthe refined efficiency, and from a dozen other cultures yet the way amongst the growing brotherhood of
process formulated with their creation, the more ofthe arts ofwar. The First Legion was the Legiones Astartes.
other Legions as well.

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This, in the Legion's earliest moments, such formations noted by their distinct would later become the Principia Bellicosa.
was the genesis of the Hosts of the First heraldry in the earliest records of the wars As the other Legions grew to a size large
Legion, which would later be refined of Unity. The third siege of Antioch in 603. enough to engage in small scale combat
by the Primarch, Lion El'Jonson, into M30 saw the participation of nine distinct actions, some of the more specialised
the Wings of his Dark Angels; a myriad 'Hosts' across four separate Companies Hosts became obsolete, unnecessary in
of informal groups within the early of the Legion, though at this point they the face ofwarriors more adept at that
companies of the Legion that worked to numbered less than 30 warriors each and style of warfare, while others were made
adapt the doctrines of battle brought from displayed significant tactical overlap in the extinct by the inadequacies of their
those disparate origins and create a coda methods they employed to breach the walls methods and the brutal nature of war in
ofbattle fit for the post-human armies of of that ancient enclave. the 3o'hMillennium. Far from harming the
the Emperor. The Hosts were not bound Legion, this process ofbloody evolution
by company or commander and existed Time would see the many Hosts of left it strong; a weapon well-honed by the
throughout the Legion, at any given those chaotic years quickly resolved fighting on Terra. It also forged a bond
battle or engagement at least some small into a smaller number of more focused between the disparate warriors who made
number of a given Host would be present Hosts, but in those early years, with their up that early Legion; a bond based upon
to advise and lead should their expertise brother Legions still but handfuls of the sense ofsuperiority and distinction
be required. In the early years ofthe First warriors newly-cast from a rough mould, instilled in them by the servants ofthe
Legion's existence there were many more the First Legion became the testbed for Emperor that trained them and the awe
Hosts than now exist, with as many as 18 the various tactics and doctrines that they inspired in those they fought beside.

The First Legion
As with all the Legiones Astartes, the First
Legion was intended as a replacement
for the Thunder Warriors brigades, that
unstable experiment which by the mid
years ofthe Unification Wars had run its
course. The Thunder Warriors 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 the Ancient Terra. Yet, in
comparison to the Legiones Astartes they
were a rough breed, powerful to be sure,
perhaps even individually more so than
their new kin, but unable to quell their fury
to work in unison. They were a mob, a storm
offury and blades that rolled over its foes,
while the Legiones Astartes were a true
army and in their unity could withstand
any onslaught.

The First Legion would demonstrate that
potential, for they were a true Legion,
numbering nearly 101000 while their
kin were but a few hundred each. It was
at Samerkend in 668.M30 that the First
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 oftheir worth as an army. 10,000
of the First, flanked by contingents of
four other Legions took the field against
200,000 gene-forged Udug Hul, the elite
slave-soldiers ofthe 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.

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Ten hours after battle was joined
Samerkend was in ruins, the Udug Hul
scattered and broken and the Great King
ofAkkad's head a trophy on the belt of
the newly-appointed Grandmaster of the
First 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
ofTerra, His most fearsome instrument
of conquest. By order of the Emperor,
the First 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
Legions was accelerated, their potential
proven in triumph, and the First 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 First Legion's battles
during the battle 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 inevitability that spawned many long-held The warriors of the First Legion, ever of
wastes ofAncienrTerra, to the Battle of superstitions regarding the reclusive warriors pragmatic mind, soon began to assume the
Karnakon amid the cryo-volcanic mountains of the First. They were treated with an awe guise in which they had been cast, adopting
ofSedna, the First Legion would meet the that sat somewhere between respect and the skeletal icon of Death as their own
worst threats that faced the armies of Unity terror by those who served alongside them, and adorning their armour with funerary
and lay them low. So horrific were many of for it was said that to offend them was to symbols. This self-imposed exile from the
the threats they faced - xenos terrors beyond bring the scrutiny oftheir patron, Death camaraderie of the Emperor's lesser servants
the pale ofsanity and psychic phenomena himself, upon the offender. Among the host was a point of pride among the First
that threatened to tear reality asunder - that gathered by the Emperor they were not Legion. It was a sacrifice made to protect
little more than the battle honours remain, heroes, but rather a breed of monster made the mortal army from the terrors only the
the details erased even from the data-stacks loyal by the will of their master. They were First Legion were fit to bear, though to
ofthe Emperor's library. To prosecute these not to be lauded for their bravery but rather some ofthose they fought beside, most
impossible battles the Emperor would grant placated to assuage their wrath. Despite the especially the other Legiones Astartes, it
them access to the armoury vaults ofthe dictates of the Imperial Truth, the common seemed more vainglory and arrogance than
Imperial Palace, to every forbidden weapon soldiery of the Imperial armies often set humble sacrifice. The Masters of the First
entombed within, and they would be the small wards and charms at the edges of their showed no interest in such slights, content
only Legion trusted to wield the worst of camps when the First Legion arrived to to remain wreathed in malign rumour as
Mankind's creations freely. The orders of avert the ill-luck that many felt followed the they fought the battles that could never be
Grandmaster Hector Thrane would see the Emperor's firstborn Legion. Such superstition lauded lest they break the minds ofthose
obliteration of the warped cities ofKhadun was not without cause, for ofthose Imperial who bore witness to the battle honours. For
and Molay in the eastern reaches ofAncient formations attached to support the First while the younger Legions were granted
Terra and the deployment ofgene-phage Legion in combat most came to bloody ends. the lesser honour of standing triumphant
munitions to purge Enceladus clean of Some were savaged by the monsters that the at the mundane victories of conquest, the
Khrave infestation. These were victories that newly-dubbed Angels of Death had come First Legion would be awarded the greater
left an indelible stain on both the course of to slay, and others would simply vanish, honour of acting as the Emperor's left hand;
the war and the identity of the warriors who purported to have been silenced by the First a brutally efficient weapon ofgrim aspect
prosecuted them, forging Thrane's reputation Legion themselves, lest word of some dread hidden behind the bright pageantry of the
as a ruthless and prideful warlord. enemy return to the camps with the survivors. Imperial Army.

Among the armies of Unification, the First
Legion had become synonymous with death,
for where they walked it seemed as though
·that pale rider followed after them with an

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THE EMPEROR'S OWN ANGELS OF DEATii There, amid the vast muster that took war to the dens of monsters and legends
This was an honour they would bear place around the shipyards ofSaturn, the without fear or hesitation, shattering
throughout the war to unify Sol and fleet granted to the First Legion stood out the hold of nightmares on the future of
beyond, a duty that kept them separate among the newly-built Saturnine pattern Mankind; though only in the most secure
from the other Legions created in their vessels and the ancient ships re-awakened vaults of the Imperial Archives do any
image. As the younger Legions slowly from the macro-vaults of Mars, for the First records of these battles remain. They speak
began to reach the nominal strength Legion were granted the honour of a tithe of Behtelgen IV, where the 3'd Chapter,
required for the beginning of the of those few remaining Terran vessels. formed mainly of warriors from the Hosts
Emperor's Great Crusade, the First Legion These ancient craft almost all dated back ofStone and Iron, assaulted a world whose
conducted a lonely vigil far from the light to the years before Old Night, relics of mountains and crust had been hollowed
of Sol, scouring clean the Oort Cloud forgotten technologies and lost aspirations out to form a fortress for a swarm-creature
and keeping watch along the heliopause of grandeur. Among them were to be ofprotoplasmic and hyper-acidic slime,
border for those terrors that sought to found massive Gloriana class battleships, the nucleus ofan infection that had spread
slip unnoticed into the Emperor's newly- Promethean class cruisers clad in dense through the void to infest a dozen worlds
claimed domain. This duty they accepted layers of void shields and weapon-studded and seen millions rendered into little
without complaint, taking pride in the role Tiamat class destroyers, all far surpassing more than a nutrient slurry for the beasts.
selected for them by the Emperor, for they more modern designs in potency and made Scattered picts show the shattered husks
were His Angels of Death - a name which, available to few other than the Emperor's of the once verdant worlds ofthe Osiryne
at that time, belonged to them alone. For own guards. To each of His other Legions Cluster where the First Legion's 19th
nearly a decade they would dwell in the He bequeathed but a handful of such Expeditionary Fleet engaged a vast, sentient
lightless depths of the system, burning ships, while to the First Legion He granted planet-killer - a technological abomination
clean the frozen moons of the outer a fleet. spawned by some long-forgotten empire
system and freeing the few lost outposts and left to wreak havoc upon an uncaring
ofMankind that still survived at the very This gift was not a simple reward for universe - the records ofthe battle itself
outermost edges of the Sol System. the heroics they had displayed in the sealed by Grandmaster Thrane. These
fighting on Old Earth and beyond, but horrors, and a thousand more, were
Here, the informal network of specialists rather a necessary tool for those actions exterminated by the warriors of the First
within the Legion became the first of the yet to come. For as the armies of the Legion, and all trace of the campaigns
Orders, dedicated to a singular focus of war Emperor set forth on the Great Crusade erased from records to protect the sanity of
beyond the wider scope of the Hosts; their and pushed beyond the edges ofthose those unprepared for the raw mindless hate
craft honed in the battles at the dark edge few star charts that had survived Old ofthe universe laid bare.
of Sol, and the complex ciphers and rituals Night, they encountered such terrors
by which they recorded it entrenched over that the battles on Terra were made to To those outside the ranks of the First,
the long years of isolation. It was by the seem inconsequential by comparison. their record in the early years of the
hard-won knowledge of these warriors that In these dark places among the stars, Great Crusade seems at best lacking in
the Legion would prevail again and again the First Legion would find the reason comparison to their brother Legions and
in the most gruelling and hazardous battles for their reward, for in order to fight the at worst a fabrication. With many oftheir
faced by the warriors of the Emperor, the monsters the Emperor had foreseen in greatest triumphs shrouded in secrecy,
weaknesses ofeach foe exposed by sacrifice His path, they would need monstrous they had less conventional triumphs to
and encoded in the traditions ofthe Orders weapons. Alone among the Legiones their name: merely a handful of worlds
and the secrets of war in any environment Astartes, they would make common use brought to Compliance where hundreds
catalogued in their archives. The Legion of the forbidden weaponry of Old Night, had burned in silence. What few knew was
would return to the inner worlds purged of of gene-phage and rad wave, employed that it was in the sacrifice and valour of
weakness and hardened by adversity, their to wipe clean the nests of those enemies the First Legion that many of the Legiones
armour no longer the flat grey ofthe other deemed too terrible to be faced in open Astartes' key doctrines were forged, with
Legions, but a deep and impassive black. battle. The First Legion were the fulcrum such tomes as the Principia Bellicosa formed,
There would be no fanfare on their return of the Emperor's wrath, the agency of in part, from the strategies and tactics
to the Emperor's side, no parades ofvictory, His hate, for they brought not simple perfected by them as each Host strove to
merely the silent approval of the Emperor destruction but the all-encompassing refine their own brand of warfare upon the
ofMankind and a place at the vanguard oblivion ofutter annihilation. They were most vile battlefields of the Great Crusade.
of the host that mustered ready to make the Angels of Death, a title that would Those that thrived on the field ofbattle
war upon a hostile galaxy. Despite the one day encompass all ofthe Emperor's would grow and pass their knowledge on,
hardships that would await them and the Space Marines but, in those brutal days of not only to their battle brothers within the
mighty foes they would face, none could conquest and blood, it was theirs alone. Legion but to those without through the
doubt victory having witnessed the grim doctrines created in their wake. While those
resolve and stoic pride in the faces of the Even as other Legions fought to bring that struggled would fade from the roster
black-clad warriors as they took their place those human colonies discovered by the ofthe Legion, ground to extinction by the
at the head of the host. Expeditionary fleets to Compliance, the inexorable hunger ofwar.
First Legion fought to hold back the hate
ofa galaxy filled with terrors. They took

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THE Hosrs OF TIIE FIRST LEGION

In the days before the coming oftheir Primarch, the Hosts of the First Legion were named and organised differently to the Wings that were
the later creation ofLion El'Jonson. The foundation of the doctrine that would lead to the formation of the Hosts is often credited to the
Emperor Himself in the histories ofthe Legion, a strand ofthe great plan that He had formed for the first of His Legions. The list that follows
is reconstructed from the records from 753.M30, a median point in the early history of the First Legion, and shows the main Hosts still
known to history, which would later be reconfigured into the six Wings of the Hexagrammaton:

• The Host of Crowns: Among the oldest ofthose Hosts still known in the records of the First Legion, being the
original core ofthe First Legion's warriors who had served as champions among the vast hosts ofthe pre-Unity
• armies on Terra. The Host of Crowns specialised as linebreakers and vanguard warriors, experts in the honour-
• duels that had once been a key feature of Mankind's wars and icons ofvictory as much as they were fighters.

The Host of Blades: The core ofthe Legion as its numbers grew and it took to the field as a true army. The Host
of Blades were the infantry cohorts that formed the ranks and held against the assault ofthe foe, the gun line that
threw back their warriors and the bold columns that shattered their lines. They were masters ofthe close order
infantry tactics that were the crux ofthe early Legiones Astartes order ofbattle, formed around the primacy of the
Legion Tactical squad and the principal agent in the development ofthe first volumes ofthe Principia Bellicosa.

The Host of Pentacles: Now little more than a forgotten legend to most, the Host of Pentacles was the earliest
attempt to incorporate the war-witches of Old Earth into the line ofbattle, to bring the might ofthe psyker to bear
upon the foes ofMankind. It was a Host oft-maligned by those its adepts fought alongside, for in its early days
there were as many calamities as triumphs for the battle psykers ofthe First Legion, and in time it would be an
experiment that was brought to a close by the Grandmaster of the Legion.

The Host of Iron: Drawn at first from the hardy nomads ofthe Thulic tribes on Old Terra, adapting their ancient
traditions to the modern battlefield, the Host of Iron was expert in the employment of armoured vehicles on the
field ofbattle. From the lumbering gun-crawlers of Old Earth's pre-Unity armies, to the war engines designed
and built for use by the Emperor's Legiones Astartes, the Host of Iron would pioneer many ofthe strategies that
underpinned their use on the battlefield.

The Host of Fire: Among the most secretive ofthe early Hosts, the ranks ofthe Host of Fire were filled with spies,
assassins and all the subtle tools ofwar. In war it was the eyes and bloody left hand ofthe Legion, the first to take
to the field in the form ofinfiltrators and lone invigilators and the last to draw blood, and its interrogator consuls
were widely feared for their talent.

• The Host of Bone: Sometimes known as the Skandic Host, both for the wild and bloodthirsty tactics that were its I
preference as well as the primary recruiting ground ofits warriors. The Host of Bone fought not to break the lines
.{() of a single army, but to crush the spirit ofthe foe entirely, seeking to find the weakness that almost all enemies hid !
and then cut it apart. Reavers without equal, they gave little credence to the noble ideals ofcivilised warfare and
brought the most terrible weapons and tactics to the field ofbattle. I

The Host of Stone: Experts in the static arts ofwar, of siege and the destruction offortifications. The grim I
demeanour ofthese warriors is a key feature ofmany ofthe most bitter defences and bloody assaults in the early

years ofthe Great Crusade, for to the adepts of the Host of Stone all war was a simple matter of determination.

Those that did not yield to the foe, who stood impassive in the face ofutter destruction, would find victory and
those who gave way would be crushed underfoot.

• The Host ofWind: Skirmishers and cavalry warriors, the Host ofWind excelled where warfare moved at the
• speed ofthe storm that was their namesake. Experts in the use oflight armour and jetbikes, as well as swift assault
troops, the Host ofthe Wind enjoyed a reputation as one ofthe most glorious in the First Legion, though it also
bore one ofthe highest tallies ofthe dead for its reckless valour.

The Host of the Void: One ofthe last Hosts to emerge as a major force within the First Legion, the adepts ofthe
Void were masters in the use ofteleport assaults from low orbit as well as war amongst the heavens themselves.
Shock assault infantry equipped with teleport displacement beacons, shipboard assault cadres and aircraft pilots
were all to be found within the Host once the First Legion reached the stars in the wake of the wars on Old Earth.

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A Fortress of Pride Yet, as with all things, the glory ofthe First learn no more. Recruitment from outside
These trials would shape the Legion into their ancient enclaves on Terra and a few
afearsome weapon, the largest and most Legion would be a fragile thing and one other worlds slowed to but a trickle, with
that could endure only for a short time those from outside the traditional recruiting
heavily armed ofall ofthe Legiones Astartes before becoming something less than it grounds considered less valuable. Each battle
once was. For the First Legion, in those led them further down the path ofwilful
during the early years ofthe Great Crusade. days before the return oftheir Primarch, arrogance, each victory hailed as a triumph
They fielded more warriors under arms, the great foe that would topple them of their skill and each defeat dismissed as the
maintained a larger fleet and had access to from their place ofhonour would not be folly oflesser breeds ofwarrior and leaders
· weaponry more powerful than any of their any terror from the outer dark, but rather rightfully culled from the Legion by their
brother Legions at that time, even those their own hubris. For, though the black failure. Tradition and ritual became more
such as the Luna Wolves and Space Wolves cruisers of the Legion were ever to be valued than innovation, with each Order
which had already been reunited with their found at the edges of the map, hunting for and Host jealously guarding their own small
Primarchs. The Grandmaster ofthe First monsters in the dark between the stars, fragments of the Legion's battle-lore, certain
Legion stood at the left hand ofthe Emperor, they now took a perverse pride in pitting that it was this scrap ofknowledge that was
one of the most influential personages in themselves against only the most powerful the true heart ofthe Legion's success.
the early Imperial Court whose counsel was offoes, those that wielded a power equal
second only to that ofMalcador and Horus to that oftheir own, those in whom they The Legion began to turn in upon itself, the
LupercaL Despite the hidden nature ofmany saw the possibility ofdefeat. Other threats openness and inquisitive nature oftheir early
oftheir triumphs, they were acknowledged - deemed too insignificant for the First years slowly being replaced by a secretive and
by all as pre-eminent among their post- Legion, too weak to pose a real challenge, tradition-bound approach. They had begun
human kin; the most powerful force-at-arms foes that would not test their strategies the Great Crusade as mentors and guides for
or mettle - would often be bypassed and the other Legions, seeking out the stratagems
in the serried ranks ofthe Imperial armies. left to the Imperial Army regiments and and tactics through which the potential of
other Legion fleets that followed in their the Legiones Astartes might be fully realised,
In those heady years of conquest and victory wake. Yet with each encounter they grew but now came more and more to resent those
the First Legion stood true to their name at only stronger; no enemy, no matter how they had once guided. The other Legions
the apex ofImperial might, feared by those powerful or destructive, could stop them claimed world after world for the Emperor,
who stood against the Emperor and his and each triumph only added to the shield of easy victories in the eyes ofthe First Legion,
dream ofunity and respected by all those arrogance they had built about themselves. trivial conquests against unworthy foes, yet
who fought at their side. ones for which they received laurels and
The stubborn pride that had sustained praise equal to that ofthe First Legion's
them through hardships unnumbered hard-won battles. Some also came to rival the
now became a double-edged blade. The power ofthe First: the Ultramarines, now
Hexagrammaton, once an ever-shifting re-united with their Primarch, could claim
body ofknowledge that changed to match more warriors under arms, and the Imperial
each challenge, had become fixed in place; Fists, under Dorn, boasted the firepower of
the warriors ofthe First assuming that they immense relics such as the Phalanx in their
had reached the apex ofskill and could fleets. To a Legion that had built its pride
upon a sense ofauthority, some might say
superiority, to find itselfnow merely one
among many would shake its foundations.

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Perhaps the final blow to their fragile pride The Ill-made Knight His new task was to unify a divided Legion .'I
was to come at Canis-Balor, where simple and return them to the Great Crusade
conquest and stubborn complacency became This struggle was fought m0st fiercely upon the and the purpose laid out for them by i
ignominy and disaster. Here, in an otherwise floor ofthe First Legion's great Hall ofCouncil the Emperor unburdened by doubt and
insignificant system home to a xenos breed as division. As a warrior first and foremost, •!
yet uncatalogued by the sage-brothers ofthe at Gramarye, at the heart ofthe Legion. There, Vendraig saw the value ofbringing the l
Orders ofExtinction and Annihilation, the where once the Masters and Preceptors ofthe Legion fully into the Emperor's Great
First Legion and its Grandmaster committed Legion had created much ofthe wisdom that Crusade, taking its rightful place at the head 'I
a small force to the assault, confident in their now guided the Legiones Astartes as a whole, oftheir brothers rather than only serving
ability to prevail and secure in the tested a storm ofvitrioland admonition had erupted. at the fringes of history. For the first time ~~
strategies ofthe Hosts and Orders. Yet the Each ofthe Masters ofthe Legion, unable or in the Great Crusade, a small contingent
xenos ofCanis-Balor, their identity long unwilling to see fault in their own wisdom, ofcarefully-selected remembrancers .
since purged from records, proved a threat sought to attach it to that oftheir fellows so was allowed to join the Grandmaster's
unlike any faced before, fighting without that it might be excised from the First Legion. entourage, attached to his personal guard .
regard for sane tactics and with a technology Most contentious ofall was the selection ofa and given strictly hmited access to the ;
that defied rational explanation. The First new Grandmaster, for few would countenance Legion's records, so that they might bear
Legion's initial attack was repulsed with the selection ofawarrior from a Host other witness to the First Legion's ascension. I
heavy losses, an indignity that the First than their own. As the pace ofthe First Legion's All that remained was to find a challenge
Legion had not known for decades. Defeat conquests slowed and the dehberations of worthy ofthe Legion, some terrible foe !
was a foe they thought they had conquered the CouncilofMasters stagnated, it would be to bind them once again in hatred ofthe
and pride began to cloud their wisdom. A the intercession ofMalcador, first among the enemy and, as though gifted to them I
second assault followed and then a third, Emperor's confidants, to break the deadlock. by the Emperor, word arrived ofa new
each repulsed in turn with mounting losses. Rather than present some censure on behalf terror encountered on the far rim ofthe I
ofthe Emperor, he chose instead to sponsor Great Crusade: a race known to history as
With his faultless record now tainted and his a candidate ofhis own, seeking to stir the the Rangda.
pride sorely wounded, GrandmasterThrane Legion from its doldrums and return them
led one final assault, refusing to accept that wholeheartedly to war. His words to the Encountered by the 105•h Pioneer
Council ofMasters were carved upon the hntel Company ofthe yth Legion on an isolated
any might equal his own warriors in skill and ofthe chamber, such was their impact: world along the northern rim of the galaxy,
tenacity. This assault, even weakened by the "Afertress can be held upright by manypillars, alone the Rangda were considered a grave threat
they are rwthing but together they are mighty. Yet, a to the expanding Imperium. Though at
losses already sustained, cut a swathe through fertress must have amaster orelse all its strength is that time their territory was thought to
the xenos forces defending the planet, but for nothing". encompass only a single system, they
could not overcome the sheer numerical possessed a vile technology and fearsome
superiority ofthe foe. Overwhelmed, it The warrior nominated by the Sigillite was aspect that warranted the most extreme of
teetered on the brink ofannihilation. elected by unanimous vote ofthe Council; he responses. Mustering a fleet numbering
GrandmasterThrane, realising the folly of was neither Master ofHosts nor Preceptor hundreds of capital class warships the new
pride that had driven him into battle, chose to ofthe Orders, but a war-worn captain from Grandmaster descended upon the isolated
remain behind with his lifeguard, sacrificing among the vast ranks ofthe First Legion. system ofAdvex-mors, where the Rangda
himselfto allow the retrieval ofvaluable Malcador's logic was impeccable, for such had created a vast artificial war-moon,
combat assets. Canis-Balor was reduced to a candidate stood for no one branch ofthe an immense engine ofwar that had cost
ashes from orbit, all trace oflife on its surface Legion's arts alone, but rather for all as one. millions ofslave labourers from a hundred
incinerated in nucleonic fire, a measure that Where any ofthe venerable masters would worlds their lives. This monstrous weapon
many argued should have been taken earher find nothing but opposition from their peers, was defended by a fleet oflumpen and
had pride not forced their hand. All records a simple warrior found acceptance from all ugly Rangdan war-barques, each bristling
ofthe foe they had fought were sealed away, The warrior chosen was Urian Vendraig, with weapons and crewed by slaves whose
though they would laterbe recovered by the once captain ofthe 14th Company ofthe gm neural collars enforced their unflinching
Order ofBroken Claws before being sealed Chapter, a Terran taken into the Legion after obedience. The battle that ensued would
once again for reasons equally lost to history. the Emperor had united that war-tom world, leave the system of Advex-mors as little
and with a grand record ofvictory as his more than ashes and rubble, all six worlds
The loss, both ofthe battle and of banner and as yet uninitiated into the inner claimed by the Rangda were rendered
Grandmaster Thrane, proved a catalyst for mysteries ofany one Host or Order. His was uninhabitable, their fleets reduced to
turmoil among the ranks ofthe Legion. a legacy ofbloodshed in battle, ofrousing drifting fields ofwreckage and their vast
Each ofthe Masters ofthe Hosts and the speeches and glorious last stands. He had slave armies utterly annihilated. The
Preceptors ofthe Orders were sure that stood shoulder-to-shoulder with his battle- campaign lasted for four months and cost
had their doctrines been given primacy, brothers through all his service and spent but the lives ofsome 5,000 of the First Legion,
they could have turned the tide ofbattle. A little time in rirual or doctrinal debate. but as the banner of the Imperium was
subtle struggle for power erupted among raised over those broken fragments ofthe
the complex tiers ofauthority within the Rangdan war-moon that had rained down
Legion, a struggle that slowed the pace of upon the burned husk ofAdvex-mors
their conquests and threatened to unseat beneath, the Imperium was reminded of
the Legion from its pre-eminent position of the sheer power ofthe First Legion.
honour once and for all.

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THE RANGDAN CAMPAIGNS

The Imperium is a fragile sliver ofsanity in the void, besieged upon all sides by forces of monstrous dread that are held at bay only by the blood
and sacrifice of millions of forgotten heroes. For every crusade trumpeted to the masses as a safe legacy of triumph and glory, like the much
lauded victory at Ullanor, there are a hundred dire tales of desperate stalemate with forces malignant beyond mortal ken. Were the populous
of the Imperium to realise the dire peril in which they existed in the tenuous days of the Great Crusade then it is likely that the terror would
have kept them prisoner on Old Earth, never to reach out for the stars. Of all these hidden threats and dire wars against the unknown, the most
infamous among scholars of the forbidden is that of the Rangdan Campaigns.

These campaigns have long been relegated to the footnotes of history, at the isolated Forge World ofXana, the combined forces ofthe V'h and
little understood by the common historian save as an obscure reference XIX'h Legions fought a bitter holding action for eight months at a cost
to a forgotten evil. In reality the wars against the Rangda threatened of 3,000 of the Legiones Astartes and many hundreds of thousands
the utter destruction of all the realms of Mankind, the destruction of ofMechanicum thralls. The siege ofXana would be broken by the
His dominion and the butchery of its subjects. More than 80,000 of the furious onslaught of the Dark Angels and Death Guard, shattering
Legiones Astartes and uncounted millions of the Imperial Army gave the Rangdan blockade and cutting a path through the slave cohorts
their lives to hold back the hordes of the Rangda and their cohorts, on the surface to once again open up the forge as a beachhead for the
over wars fought across some two decades ofthe Great Crusade. The Imperium's counter-attacks.
Dark Angels stand prominent in the telling of this tale, and it is by
their hand that so few details are known, for it was deemed by the First What would follow was more than two decades of war, millions upon
Legion that all knowledge of the Rangda and the wars fought against millions of deaths, 19 inhabited systems laid waste and a ban on further
them should be purged for the good ofthe Imperium. expeditions past the exclusion posts on Endyris and Morox. Before
the crisis was declared ended, contingents from nine separate Legions
Much of the fact surrounding those battles has long since been obscured would become embroiled in the fighting, with more than 300,000
by rumour and invention, with even the true form ofthe Rangda Space Marines being deployed at the height of the conflict during
forgotten. All that remains are a few blurred and indistinct picts offallen the climactic assault on Taxal. Due to the widespread nature of the
Rangdan warriors and ancient horror stories speaking oftowering xenos campaign, the battle honour goes to no single warlord, though three of
of monstrous appearance and terrifying intellect. They were conquerors the Primarchs were known to have led their troops into battle against
and destroyers whose seat ofpower lay along the very edges ofthe the Rangda. Despite this, the Primarch of the Dark Angels is widely
galaxy, a race whose foul technology and cruel ambition were a match held to be the foremost commander of the war.
for that of the Imperium and whose determination to rule over all others
threatened to drown the Emperor's dream ofempire in blood. The last known battle ofthe second Rangdan campaign is thought
to have occurred in 882.M30, a chance encounter with a battered
It is beyond the scope ofthis volume to address the full impact and Rangdan fleet, a broken remnant of the vast armada that had
devastation wrought during the campaigns that would see the evenruar challenged the Imperium and lost. At the time the truth of the
extinction of the Rangda, though perhaps future works may address this Rangdan campaign, of the slaughter endured and how the Imperium
omission. However, considering the integral role ofthe First Legion in had teetered on the brink of ruin, was concealed. Those worlds tainted
the events ofall three Rangdan Campaigns, it seems appropriate that the beyond recovery were abandoned and the surviving veterans sworn
base facts of the fighting be presented here, at least in brie£ to silence or eliminated, for it was deemed necessary that the Rangda
must vanish if the Imperium was to rebuild. Much of its legend would
The wars fought against the Rangda number three in total. The first come later, the invention of Remembrancers and ideologues eager
of these campaigns, the assault and destruction of Advex-mors in 839. to promote the glory of the Great Crusade, and was composed of as
MJo, is most probably the first encounter between the forces ofthe much fiction as fact. For most this marked the end ofthe wars with the
Emperor and the Rangda, and has been covered elsewhere in this Rangda, an end to one threat among thousands. A simple, if bloody, way
treatise in some detail. Advex-mors would later be discovered to be marker in the Great Crusade's inexorable path.
little more than a small ourpost of the Rangdan empire, a minor station
at the edge of their domains. In the aftermath of the Imperium's The third and final Rangdan war, more commonly known as The
assault, the Rangda paused in their conquests elsewhere to turn Rangdan Xenocide, is little known and in many histories completely
their eye back upon Advex-mors and the surrounding systems, now absent. It was conducted under the orders of the Divisio Militaris by
swarming with the Imperium's colonies and fleets. The victory at the combined forces of the Dark Angels and Space Wolves, the final
Advex-mors, despite the steep price paid to secure it, would prove to be and irrevocable solution to the threat of the Rangda. That great and
little more than the prelude to the true assault. terrible race had been sorely wounded by their losses in the second
war with the Imperium, but not vanquished. They had returned to
In 862.M30 the Rangda returned to Imperium space, marking the their ancient home worlds, and there, nourished by hate and a dark
start of the second Rangdan war. They came not with a single small hunger, they had grown strong once again. By chance those nests were
fleet, but with a vast armada comprising thousands of vessels as well discovered by a roving Company ofWhite Scars after the lifting of
as over a dozen war-moons, a force of might far exceeding that of the the edict of exclusion in 88 7.M 30, news the sons ofJaghatai brought
small garrisons and Expeditionary fleets in the area. They struck the to the courts of the Lion and the Wolf. Those two, often antagonistic,
northern fringe of the Imperium like a thunderbolt, annihilating warlords were united by the same bleak purpose, for if the Rangda still
the fleets set in defence over the fledgling colonies and forcing lived, they must be swiftly and utterly destroyed lest they rise again
their colonists into neural shackles. It was only by the efforts of and ignite another great war. Together they and their Legions visited
Expeditionary fleets under the banner of the V'h and XIX'h Legions that hell upon the remaining Rangda, scouring their last worlds clean from
the tide was delayed long enough for Imperial forces to rally, and the orbit and then descending to verify the termination of every hive and
price they would pay to buy this respite was staggering. Making a stand fortress with blade and flame.

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The epic poems and depictions ofthe In the wake ofthe campaign at Advex-mors, counsel and join his camp. The warriors ofthe
Advex-mors campaign were spread across the newly-anointed Grandmaster sought other First, seeing before them a chance to humble the
the lmperium by the Remembrancers that badges ofglory for his Legion. A dozen victories great Primarch,formed ranks before the great
had accompanied the fleet. The First Legion were claimed for the First, each more reckless kilometres-high gates ofthe world-fortress of
had taken one ofthe direst threats to emerge Karkasarn and charged.
from beyond the borders ofthe Imperium than the last, and yet it was still considered
head-on in their place ofpower and crushed nothing more than what was expected by the A wedge ofblack armoured warriors and
them utterly and without mercy, leaving no engines ofwar, 101000 strong and preceded
stone upon stone. Yet, it was but one great Divisio Militaris on distant Terra. Driven on by the same great banners that had once gone
victory among a thousand others, with each to war at the side ofthe Emperor Himself,
ofthe Legions able to boast ofachievements by a hunger for glory that grew with each and descended upon the city-sized gatehouse.
just as impressive, their returned Primarchs Hundreds fell in the initial assault, blasted
forging legends that would resound across the every campaign honour, the Grandmaster and apart by rampart cannon and immolated
his warriors arrived at the non-Compliant by plasma-gouts issued forth from hidden
galaxy for thousands ofyears. Far from ending stronghold ofKarkasarn, a fortress-world that murder holes in the fortifications. They forced
had resisted Guilliman and the storied ranks of a breach at the cost oftheir own lives, opening
the strife within the Legion, it seemed only his elite for almost a month.The patient warlord a path for the heavy guns to burn a hole in
to deepen the malaise that gripped its heart, ofthe Ultramarines had set his strategies, the vast gates and into the maze offortified
a sickness that sought to corrupt that once intending to besiege the fortress in detail and boulevards beyond. His hand forced by the
unparalleled force. Pride had taken hold ofthe save his Legion the unwarranted casualties actions ofthe First, Guilliman and his own
warriors and masters ofthe Legion, and only a foolhardy frontal assault would bring. The troops advanced,but slowly, cautiously, taking
blood would assuage its hunger. arrival ofGrandmaster Vendraig and his each objective methodically and with minimal
warriors did not change this strategy, and the losses. The vanguard ofthe First Legion soon
Lord ofUltramar expected them to heed his 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 oftreachery by the desperate overlords of
Karkasarn would undermine the First Legion's
victory: a hidden atomic mine detonating
under the keep's tower and killing the second
Grandmaster ofthe First Legion as he stood
upon the threshold oftriumph, 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 ofUltramar,
his blue-clad warriors last to the battle and
last to the victory, offered them no words of
congratulations. He did not acknowledge
the skills or the fortitude ofthe First Legion,
gave no salute to their bravery or their fallen.
Instead, he offered only these words to the
battered ranks ofthe victorious First as
they stood about the bodies oftheir 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".

Along a Knife's Edge

It would be in death that Grandmaster

Vendraig would finally achieve his aim, for it

was the first stirrings ofhate 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 First Legion and left to

the warriors ofUltramar, its battle honour

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excised from Legion records and marked on force to claim victory for themselves at a As the Great Crusade drew to its mid-point, i•
banners only by an empty laurel. The only the turning of the tide in the Emperor's war
thing that the Angels of Death would take fearful price. Yet for each victory, each battle to conquer the galaxy, the First Legion stood
with them from K:i"rkasam was a subtle taint, honour claimed by the blood ofits warriors, at a precipice oftheir own. The years since
a lingering sense ofignominy that soured the First Legion came no closer to regaining the death ofGrandmaster Vendraig had seen
their conquests and achievements and drove the glory ofits inception. them reduced in number, but not in spirit.
them to even greater feats to prove their Where the other Legions had prospered and
valour. For despite the deeds oftheir past and All across the galaxy the Legiones Astartes had grown stronger, the Angels of Death had seen
the victory at Karkasarn, the Ultramarines each become a unique weapon ofwar, having their power squandered in suicidal assaults
saw them simply as equals - brothers rather taken the doctrines of the Principia Bellicosa and campaigns gruelling beyond the ken of
than mentors. To the First Legion, whom the developed from the trials of the First Legion's mortal soldiers. Those wars had cost them
Emperor had created first and kept close at campaigns and surpassed them, adapting them warriors and war engines, more perhaps
His side, this seemed more of an insult than to their own needs. In Ultramar, the grand than was wise, but had honed the fighting
the harsh words ofGuilliman. kingdom ofthe Ultramarines forged by the skills of its warriors to a keen, but brittle
hand ofGuilliman, the Primarch ofthe Xlllth edge. To their allies they were grim death-
Once more the Council ofMasters took the Legion had gone so far as to pen a new treatise seekers, ever searching for the mightiest foes
reins ofthe First Legion, that most potent ofwar to improve upon the scheme by which against which to match their skills and never
weapon ofwar, and split it across the stars to the Legions had organised themselves since retreating from battle, even in the face of
seek vindication in the most deadly contests they had left Terra. The golden age ofthe First annihilation. Its leadership divided among
of arms they could find, each eager to prove Legion, those halcyon days when it had stood the Council ofMasters and its warriors
the worth oftheir Legion and their Host. They as sole guardian ofthe fledgling Imperium, taken by a fever ofbattle-lust, the Legion was
gave battle without remorse and grasped at had all but ended. The nature ofthose hidden spread across the galaxy and engaged in wars
triumphs without regard for the cost attached battles meant that they would live on only beyond count, each Chapter, Host and Order
to their trophies. The 9th and 14th Chapters in the memories ofthe oldest warriors of seeking to regain what had been lost. Had it
took the coral citadels ofMelnoch from the the Legion and in the secret histories ofthe continued down that path it is likely that the
Fra'al in a single night ofbrutal close quarters Imperial Archives, a bitter price to pay for First Legion would have fallen, slowly and
slaughter, at a cost ofa tenth oftheir own the first ofall the Emperor's Legions that inevitably cut to pieces on the double-edged
strength, in order to outpace the onslaught their own honour would ever hold their blade of its pride. Yet this was not to be, for
ofthe Luna Wolves elsewhere in the cluster. greatest achievements captive. Pride, which a small fleet ofJaghatai's roving hunters,
Upon the rust deserts ofVorsingun a force of had sustained the Legion through all ofthe the White Scars, would discover a world
xpoo initiates ofthe Host oflron, gathered horrors ofits past, all ofits solitary crusades known as Caliban and the Emperor would
from II companies and crewing over 400 and valiant last stands, would not allow them bring forth from its dark forests the First
engines ofwar, took the field against a throng to accept a lesser place in the Imperium's Legion's salvation.
ofbrutish orkoid hulks over three times their order ofbattle. Pride would see the Legion
number, running ahead of the main assault ground to dust before it would let the younger
Legions eclipse them.

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THE SON OF THE FOREST a superlative warrior and strategist, but also a leader whose quiet
confidence and iron will drew recruits to the Order in numbers never
As with much knowledge regarding the First Legion and its master, before seen. With each victory against the beasts of the forest, each fell
there was a vast body ofrumour and little fact regarding the earliest years head planted upon the walls ofthe Order's fortresses, more warriors
ofthe Primarch Lion El'Jonson. It is known that he, along with the other took up arms with hope in more than simple survival. Lion El'Jonson
Primarchs, vanished from the Emperor's laboratories on Terra before the stood at the forefront of this new movement, not by choice, for he had
beginning ofthe Great Crusade, removed from the hidden facilities at ever been taciturn and prone to seek solitude, but by action, always
the heart ofHis secret fortress by means unknown. Over 150 years later, to be found at the fore of any battle and unafraid to speak his mind or
the young Lion would be discovered by a hunting party ofthe Knights act when others might hesitate. By his order the old traditions that
ofthe Order in the depths ofCaliban's forests. Within these forests dwelt allowed only the nobility to fight were dropped, swelling the Order's
a breed ofcreature now unknown in the galaxy, monstrous chimaeric ranks further at the cost ofsome dissent within the ranks ofthe more
weapons left over from the Age ofStrife, driven by a hunger that could traditional knights.
not be slaked and fully capable ofrendering an armoured warrior into
a ruin ofblood and flesh in seconds. How long the young Primarch Within the space of a decade, the Order's ranks had grown to the
had survived alone in the green deeps cannot be known for certain, point that they were able to take the war for their survival into the
for the Lion himselfhas seldom spoken of those times. The knights forest itself. With Lion El'Jonson and Luther at their head, they
that found him assumed from his stature and bearing that he could not began a crusade to rid their world of its curse, bringing flame and
have spent more than a decade alone, but the growth and development steel to the lair of the monsters that had hunted them for generations
of the Primarchs does not follow the pattern ofmortal man, they do beyond count. The war was long and bloody, with hundreds slain for
not age as do those untouched by the Emperor's genius. The span of each monstrous nest put to the torch, and many grew weary of the
years in which the Lion prowled the sea of trees may well have been far slaughter - all save the grim knight, El'Jonson. The Lion knew that
longer than can be easily comprehended. Indeed, the legends ofthose mercy had no place in war, to leave with their task unfinished and
fortified towns that bordered the stretch offorest where the Primarch with any of the foe yet alive would be to waste all of the lives spent
was discovered spoke ofa forest spirit that haunted the depths, a spirit in its pursuit. There could be only one end and that was the total
of small stature but whose form was that of a man who was known only annihilation of the enemy by whatever means was needed. He set the
by the mysterious marks he left in his wake and had existed for nearly a knights to ambush the beasts as they came to feed, poisoned the pools
century before the discovery of El'Jonson. 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
Regardless ofwhether the Lion had stalked the forest of Caliban no more could be found, and when his warriors spoke of his prowess
for a decade or a century, that time had left its mark upon him. The and victories, it was fear that coloured their words as much as awe.
lightless depths beneath the canopy teemed with horrors, rapacious Some feared his new methods and determination enough to declare
killers that often emerged from the deeps to hunt among the towns open rebellion, some fearing the changes he had wrought upon the
and villages ofCaliban's dwindling human population. There, amongs.t tradition-bound people of Caliban and others simply seeking to claim
the most foul monstrosities imaginable, the Lion spent his childhood. the power Lion El'Jonson had come to wield. These traitors to the
He learned to keep silent, lest he grant advantage to those that stalked cause of Caliban's salvation were put down without mercy, the ranks
him, he learned to fight only when he could win, lest he be wounded of their soldiers culled in their entirety and their fastnesses torn
too gravely to survive, and he learned that once battle was joined it down as a warning to others.
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 At the end of the crusade, with both the Lion and Luther exhausted by
a determination so inhumanly strong that it served him better than the terrible cost the fighting had exacted, it was El'Jonson that received
any iron-forged blade. No feral berserker, but rather a calculating the battle honours and the title of Grand Master of the Order. He
hunter ruled by logic and not simple rage. When he was discovered at accepted the accolade without fanfare, for such human eccentricities
last by men, he was judged so dangerous that it might be best to have still seemed less worthwhile to the youth that had grown to manhood
him slain, treated as one ofthe beasts of the forest, so akin to them among monsters. He understood little the value some men placed
was he. It was the judgement of one man that would see him brought upon titles and rewards, for his grim and solitary habits had always
into the realm ofMankind and away from that ofbeasts, that man was kept him distant from others, and he saw not the change his rise had
named Luther. wrought in Luther. For where they had once competed as equals for
honour and victory, the Primarch had now eclipsed his mentor and
As a champion among the warriors that had defended Caliban through brother, leaving him behind as he grudgingly accepted the people's
the long years ofOld Night, Luther named his new charge Lion adulation. It was a wound dealt in ignorance, for El'Jonson did not see
El'Jonson, the Son ofthe Forest, and raised him as a knight of one of the spark ofpride that burned within his brother ignite to jealousy
the many Orders of Caliban. He taught him the laws and strictures in the face of his triumphs, a wound that would fester in the years
of the Order, to mete justice as a man rather than as a beast, and gave to follow.
him something that the young Primarch had never before had - a
reason to fight beyond simple survival. Caliban was a dying world, Had the Emperor not arrived shortly after this victory, descending
its people besieged by the beasts that thronged in the hidden depths from the heavens to claim His lost son, then perhaps this wound
ofthe forest and slowly driven to extinction. The Order, which built might have healed in Caliban's new peace, but this was not to be.
and manned the great fortresses at the borders of the wild, had vainly The Emperor came to heap new glories upon the Lion, granting him
tried to stem the tide but had succeeded only at slowing the pace command of the First Legion, whom He renamed the Dark Angels
of their destruction, for they were too few to do more than defend for an ancient Calibanite myth that spoke to their grim mien, and
their fastnesses from the constant assaults. Growing and learning making him a general within the vast army that sought to conquer
faster than any normal man, El'Jonson would quickly prove not only

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ABLADE REFORGED monster-haunted forests had not been ended, pledged to, adorned with the winged sword
but only begun - for the galaxy teemed with oflion El'Jonson's Dark Angels instead ofthe
Only a small honour guard ofthe First legion monsters to be slain. He dedicated himself grim marks ofan age now ended.
would accompany the Emperor to Caliban, to one task: killing. He had no time for
fur the legion was still scattered to war zones Sanguinius' chivalric ideals, for Mortarion's lion El'Jonson led his host forth, seeking
across the front lines ofthe Great Crusade.A arbitrary hatred or Fulgrim's obsession with out those Companies ofhis sons that had not
mere 500, mostly veterans ofthe Host ofDeath, beauty, such passion only obfuscated the true yet found their way to his side. To find those
would precede the lord ofMankind as He goal: that the enemies ofMankind should be scattered warriors amid the chaos ofthe Great
journeyedto greet His lost son, the Knight of destroyed. As the first of all the Primarchs Crusade, a war waged across agalaxy by ten
Caliban known as 'The lion'. Arrayed in the created by the Emperor, he was both more billion warriors under arms, was no small
jet black armour and mortuary symbols that and less than his brothers:a primal force feat and made possible only by the genius of
had come to be their mark, it seemed as ifthe ofdestruction whose single-minded focus the lion himselfand the arts ofthe adepts
old tales ofCalibanite legend had come to life, wrought him more inhuman than Magnus. ofXana, who quickly parsed the data banks
a host ofDark Angels mustering before the He could stand against any ofhis kin, match ofthe Divisio Militaris to discern in which
stronghold ofthe Orderand kneeling before blades with Fulgrim and stalemate the campaigns the First legion bled and died. For
the lion. In that initial, fateful encounter the strategies ofGuilliman and, though some any other legion the arrival oftheir newly-
legion would earn a new title from the first of might exceed him in the details ofsome tasks rediscovered Primarch might have been the
the Primarchs, for he saw fit to test the mettle there were none that were his equal in the cause for raucous celebration or ostentatious
ofhis new followers by personally duelling the grander scope ofbattle, none whose will could parades, but not so for the grim First. News
captain ofthe Company. He stood against the match the bloody-minded determination of oflion El'Jonson's approach most often
Cataphractii-armoured warrior and matched the lion. His talents and resolute confidence, spurred the warriors ofthe First to redouble
his Calibanite steel to the power field-wreathed which some might have called arrogance, their efforts in battle, throwing themselves
blade ofhis opponent and left him wounded won him few friends but saw him placed at upon the foe without care for their survival so
in the dust; he took their measure and they the head ofhis legion faster than any ofthe that when they stood before their father they
his and both learned a respect for the other. Primarchs to be rediscovered before him. might offer him the blood-soaked laurels of
From thatday forth the Primarch would call victory.Each battle-worn Company received
them his Dark Angels, a title that soon spread The legion he inherited was in sore need of their new lord with the same stoic reserve,
throughout the legion. Within a short span its Primarch and in need ofa new beginning. with silent courtesy and briefbut solemn
oftime, the Emperor arrived to reclaim His Scattered and fractured, the First legion vows of allegiance, and each was tested in
lost son and induct Caliban formally into the remained a powerful fighting force but one battle by the Primarch himselfbefore they
Imperium ofMankind, its vast forests cleared whose purpose had become lost in the long joined the ranks of his growing entourage.
for industry and the first tithes ofrecruits years ofthe Great Crusade. Before the coming As was the way ofthe lion, he demonstrated
claimed from among its population to replenish ofthe Primarch th~y had been mentors and his worth by his actions and skill rather than
the depleted ranks ofthe First legion. guides for the younger legions, but their with words and vague promises, allowing
students had long since found their own those who might doubt him to match their
The Council ofMasters on distant Gramarye wisdom. Now lion El'Jonson would grant blades against his in honest combat. None
would soon hear oflion El'Jonson, the man them a new purpose, one in keeping with among the legion could question his right to
who was their Primarch, and once more they the Primarch's own methods and the vision lead after such a trial, though some few within
were riven by dissension. Though none would he had for the Emperor's Great Crusade. His the legion harboured misgivings at the
doubt the word ofthe Emperor that this first acts were to merge many ofthe teachings sudden changes the Primarch brought to the
knight ofCaliban was their lord, they were ofCaliban's techno-feudal aristocracy with centuries-old doctrines ofthe legion and the
splitby shame and pride. Some were stricken those ofthe First legion's Hexagrammaton, shift in authority he represented.
by remorse at the state ofthe legion he would taking the best ofTerra and Caliban to create
inherit, while others wished to set forth and something new and more refined, and to Within afew short years, the lion had gathered
bring a suitable victory as a trophy to set at gather the scattered fragments ofhis legion the vast majority ofhis legion together, near
the feet oftheir new master. All across the together. With the first generations ofrecruits 100,000 warriors, and led them to the ancient
galaxy, the First legion reacted much the same, taken from the ranks ofthe worthy among stronghold ofthe First legion on Gramarye.
some detachments redoubling their efforts the knights ofCaliban still undergoing There the gathered CouncilofMasters and
and throwing themselves into combatwith implantation ofgene-seed, hypnogogic Preceptor's Conclave awaited him amid the
renewed zeal to bring honour to the legion, indoctrination and live-fire training, the lion many glories ofthe First legion's long and
while others sought to extricate themselves prepared to embark on a crusade ofhis own. glorious history and the amassed wisdom
&om their campaigns so they might travel to With him were to be found the original 500 distilled &om its battles. Here, surrounded by
Caliban and ask forgiveness oftheir returned warriors that had first arrived at Caliban as the dusty trophies ofthe past, LionEl'Jonson
Primarch. The lion himselfwas brought to well as those Chapters and battle groups that made his legion whole once again;he faced
Terra by the Emperor, that he might learn of had sought him out to pledge their allegiance, the ceremonial champion ofthe Council in
the war He wished him to prosecute and ofthe as well as auxilia companies raised from the the ring ofhonour, battling Pyrhus Calagat,
role he would play in the years yet to come. stock ofCaliban to serve the Imperial Army, the Master ofthe Host ofFire, in an hour-long
and a small retinue oftech-magi from the duel thathas since become legend. This final
His brother Primarchs would come to call Forge ofXana, eager to court favour with the trial ended, the Primarch accepted the titles of
him dour and morose, given to dark moods new Primarch. In full they numbered 20,000 Grandmaster ofthe First legion, the six Wings
and heedless ofthe counsel ofothers, but he warriors, perhaps a third ofthe legion, each ofthe Hexagrammaton and High Preceptor
saw things simply and starkly. He learned on marked by the new beginning they were ofthe Orders Militant ofthe First legion,
Terra that the war he had fought in Caliban's

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