The Fallen Legions

Lord Inquisitor Sofi Oregon Ignatious

An overview of the history and current bearing of the nine Fallen Legions that turned against the Emperor in the 31st Millennium under the Warmaster Horus to embrace the Ruinous Powers and wage war upon the Imperium, as well as including a brief account of all thirteen Black Crusades launched from the Great Eye thus far by Ezykle Abaddon, Master of the Black Legion and Warmaster of Chaos

The Original Twenty Legions: their Listing, their Loyalties, and their Primarchs

Loyalist I - Dark Angels under Lion El'Johnson

II - unknown Legion and Primarch

Fallen III - Emperor's Children under Fulgrim

Fallen IV - Iron Warriors under Perturabo

Loyalist V - White Scars under Jaghati Khan

Loyalist VI - The Rout, or Vlka Fenryka (or Space Wolves) under Leman Russ

Loyalist VII - Imperial Fists under Rogal Dorn

Fallen VIII - Night Lords under Konrad Curze, known also as Nighthaunter

Loyalist IX - Blood Angels under Sanguinius

Loyalist X - Iron Hands under Ferrus Manus

XI - unknown Legion and Primarch

Fallen XII - World Eaters under Angron

Loyalist XIII - Ultramarines under Roboute Guilliman

Fallen XIV - Death Guard under Mortarion

Fallen XV - Thousand Sons under Magnus the Red

Fallen XVI - Sons of Horus, previously Luna Wolves, under Horus Lupercal, the First Warmaster

Fallen XVII - Word Bearers under Lorgar Aurelian

Loyalist XVIII - Salamanders under Vulkan

Loyalist XIX - Raven Guard under Corvus Corax

Fallen XX - Alpha Legion under Alpharius

Introduction

I will not pretend to be the most well-read or knowledgable Imperial scholar; in fact, even calling myself a scholar is far too generous. I gorged myself on learning during my early years in service to the Inquisition within the Imperial archives on Terra, and I've published a few papers in my time, contributed to a few collections (my chapter contribution to Bedroom Secrets of the Lord Inquisitors being my personal favourite), but otherwise, my duties as an Inquisitor have kept me further from the world of scholarship than I would have liked. In these days of retirement therefore, though I am not without responsibilities, I find I have the time to put pen to paper and finally share, with all those who may access it, what l have gleaned from this galaxy that even the most intrepid Imperial scholar would have struggled to learn of within the Imperial archives. My boast out of the way, rest assured, what I have gained through experience rests on a bedrock of Imperial, pre-Imperial, and xenos scholarship; indeed, such a ready base of knowledge should be mandatory for anyone hoping to embark upon the realm of ideas.

For this first foray into my new life as an amateur scholar, we will be concerning ourselves with the history and current bearing of the Fallen Legions, those nine of the Emperor's original twenty that fell, to varying degrees, to the corruption of Chaos. Having spent time among the Fallen Legions, the Black Legion and Night Lords especially, though encountering a good smattering of others along the way, it is a topic on which I feel well placed to write. This is a history of all the Legions so each entry must be necessarily brief, and I won't pretend the evidence of my own knowledge, experiences, and biases won't come through. But, for all the lack of detail this volume may contain, my hope is that it offers fresh details and perspectives, those ignored or downplayed by mainstream Imperial history. So I hope this not too heavy tome, the first of many all going well, proves a worthy foray into Imperial scholarship, and I especially hope it proves to be of some use to my fellow Inquisitors given the end-of-days our Imperium may or may not be going through.

Each Fallen Legion has been given its own entry in this volume, entries of varying lengths, and I have tried to focus on the Legions rather than their primarchs or those great names within them, and I have inevitably had more success in some entries than others. I have also decided to include an entry on the Red Corsairs; they may not be one of the nine Fallen Legions, but I believe a broad understanding of this faction would aid anyone trying to understand the military capabilities of Chaos and the threat posed by the Corsairs as a powerful and sustainable warband (a highly inadequate term for them) outside the bounds of the Great Eye. Finally, this volume will conclude with a long chapter on the thirteen Black Crusades that have been visited upon our Imperium thus far. The purpose of this chapter is to flesh out the history of the Black Legion, them being the instigator of these Black Crusades, and also to act as a conclusion for the volume as a whole.

Finally, I'd like to thank my fellow Inquisitors Abi and Edris, my two closest friends within the Holy Ordos; my faithful acolyte who served me for so long, Miko, and my less faithful acolyte Bunnyhop, who I have loved nonetheless. My pilot Titch, her partner Clarah, and my long-suffering secretary, Estabhan. There are of course so many others I could name and I hope to do so in my future works. Many of you are no longer with us, the rest of you I don't expect to meet again given my retirement/self-imposed exile, but I carry each of you in my heart, remember the journeys we've shared, the laughs, the joys, and the pains (and the betrayals let's not forget, but then such is the life of an Inquisitor), and it is all of you, not my doings within the role, that make me proud to call myself, if I still may do so, a Lord Inquisitor. And of course, Noura; I lost you before I even gained my rosette, but you have always lived on in my heart.

World Eaters

There are no World Eaters in the 41st Millennium, and this fact has held true for the last several millennia. Not counting less than a handful of still-surviving individuals, the Legion has managed to wipe itself out in its entirety. No one can say precisely when this occurred and it is likely they went out with far more of a whimper than a bang, their final end likely occurred on some derelict ship somewhere out in the void, on board The Conquerer perhaps, one remaining Legionary burying his axe into another amidst emergency lighting and blood-dried walls. Perhaps the life-sustaining apparatus went out and they all suffocated, or froze in the void. Or, maybe, the end for their XII was one last drop-pod assault for a small band of surviving members, meaning to go out in a blaze of glory, only to discover the retro-thrusters had long fallen into disrepair and its cogitators have all glitched out. Whatever the case, following the Great Heresy, over a few short millennia, the World Eaters managed to whittle themselves out of existence.

Kill, Maim, Burn! That is the credo of the Kharnate Berserkers, and it was their XII Legion forebears who were the first to adopt it, the first Astartes to incur the notice of the Blood God. Their rage was their weapon, and even before it was imbibed with Chaos, it turned the tide of many a battle which, on paper, should have been unwinnable, especially by such direct, brutish tactics; their battle against the Ultramarines during the Great Heresy on the world of Armatura demonstrates well their heedless fervour. The sound tactics and coordination of the Ultramarines should easily have seen the World Eaters off, and indeed, the XII were losing the battle, battering themselves bloody against the indomitable shield-walls of the XIII. Dismayed, First Captain Kharn gave up trying to instil any coordination or sense into his men, instead surrendering himself to the Nails, and bellowing to his brothers locked against the shield-wall, "Our turn!" Within an hour, Armatura was theirs, and not a single Ultramarine was left alive.

The discovery of their primarch and, with it, the introduction of the Butchers Nails, took their blood-soaked fury to new heights, and lucidity leaked from the Legion as the Nails they grafted onto their skulls dug deeper and deeper into the meat of their brains. These pain-engines were unique to this Legion, and the only way to find respite from their agony was to, as their words say, kill, maim, and burn. Unsurprisingly, the World Eaters had the highest casualty rate of any Legion except perhaps the Iron Warriors and, like their Iron cousins, they were rapacious in their rate of recruitment and replenishment. Having no homeworld to draw upon, Angron famously being the only primarch who failed to conquer his adopted home, they harvested initiates from the planets on their warpath, taking anyone from anywhere who could pass their brutal combat trials. As such, they, along with the Iron Warriors, are one of the most ethnically diverse of Legions. Failure in the trials to become a World Eater was almost always fatal, and even a fully fledged Legionary regularly faced death in the numerous gladiatorial pits about their spaceships. The XII were a Legion that threw themselves at their enemies, and at each other when there were no more enemies to be had.

The losses experienced by the World Eaters on Terra, both during the Siege and the subsequent Rout, were possibly the worst of any Legion. They assaulted the walls in all their fury, lacking sense or strategy, heedless of their losses, seeking the blood of their enemies and relief from the pain-engines. But they weren't ineffective, and were often at the vanguard of Traitor assaults on the palace as they made their way across the palatial mountain. But this was a scattered Legion, and they operated on Terra with little form or function, just slaughter. Their father did not lead them, instead he soared above the battlefield in his new form, the incoherent embodiment of pain and rage, a daemon-primarch of Kharn'neth. However, despite the apocalyptic majesty of his new form, it didn't last long, and come his destruction and banishment at the hands of Imperial gunnery crews, a fate easily avoided had he retained a few strands of sanity, the psychic shockwave of their father's 'death' did not paralyse them as Horus' demise did the Sons of Horus. Instead their fury only grew, and they turned their axes on whoever was nearest, be they Fallen or Loyal. This omnidirectional slaughter lasted the rest of the Siege and the other Fallen Astartes learned not to get too close to their cousins in the XII. It is only thanks to First Captain Kharn and the supporting efforts of the Thousand Sons that any of his Legion made it off Terra at all come the death of the Warmaster. Kharn still had something of a hold on his sanity and his order to retreat cut through the Legion's ire and grief. They also have Lotarra Sarin to thank, the Blood Soaked Rose who had command of the Legion's flagship, The Conquerer, for placing her beast of a vessel ahead of the Chaos landing zones and picking up as many of her Legion as she could, herded into the ships by Thousand Sons and led by Kharn. But the World Eaters never forgave the XV for their aid that day. They fled with the rest of the Fallen Legions, many of their number interspersed with the rest of the routing host. They'd been widespread on Terra and it's been argued they didn't so much retreat as just follow the other Fallen Legions, assuming such was the flow of battle, not the route off planet. They made it to the Eye, its mad shores a sanctuary for the Traitor forces, only to see their numbers start to dwindle rapidly.

It is well known that the central tenet of the Kharnate cult is that their deity, Khar'neth, cares not from where the blood flows, so long as it flows. Had they not been so wedded to their beliefs they might have lasted a little longer; instead, they stuck to their principles and paid for it with their own extinction. Notable exceptions that have lasted to this day include Kharn, three or four terrifying warlords, stripped of XII heraldry, commanding enormous hosts of Berserkers and cultists, and I've no doubt a few others exist who have survived through contrived circumstances; perhaps they are lost in the warp, held prisoner, or left the galaxy. I know of one commander in the Night Lords Legion in fact who keeps several World Eaters in terminator armour held in stasis, chained to the rafters above his throne-room, ready to fall (literally) upon unwanted interlopers; a messy, indiscriminate, probably unnecessary, but no doubt very effective security measure. As for the rest, the scattered legionaries slowly died out, lost to war, betrayal, or the general environmental mishaps that are so prevalent within the Great Eye. The core of the Legion was held together by Kharn, but even this didn't last. He betrayed his own, hence his moniker 'The Betrayer', just as they were close to winning a battle against their hated rivals, the Emperor's Children. Kharn turned his axe on his brothers just as victory was in their hands, rejecting glory in favour of treachery, all the better to keep the blood flowing and skulls piling up. The Legion didn't survive this day, it broke up into warbands and was never again whole. This put an end to any hope of replenishment, a project requiring time, resources, working infrastructure, and sanity. The surviving World Eaters had none of these things. They fought, they dwindled, they fought, and they died. This was during the bloody time of the Legion Wars as well, not a good time for isolated warbands, especially for the XII, with their Slaa'nethi rivals in ascension and hunting in packs, as there was nothing the III Legion enjoyed more at this time than taking World Eaters alive. If they were lucky, their captives would be made to fight to the death, but few were so fortunate. Time and attrition took their toll, and before long, sightings of World Eaters became rarer and rarer, until they were understood, to no one's surprise, to no longer exist.

Although there are no more World Eaters in the galaxy, theirs is one of the strongest legacies amidst the forces of Chaos. Kharnate Berserkers, those who have given themselves over to the service of the War God, litter the Great Eye and the Maelstrom, and aren't uncommon in the wider galaxy. It is typical for them to adopt the sayings and motifs of the World Eaters, and coin their warband names in reference to their forebears. The term 'World Eater' is still casually thrown around both within and without the Eye as shorthand for Berserkers and newly turned loyalist Astartes are often surprised to learn that those they have been referring to as World Eaters are in fact no such thing.

Kharnate warbands are a ubiquitous presence in the Great Eye. They are rarely large, but there are a great many of them, Kharnate corruption being an easy vice to fall into within the Eye. In fact, a good deal of the time the Kharnate element of a traitor host, its Kharnate warband, is in truth no more than those individuals of the larger force who have lost themselves to rage, bloodlust, and the attentions of Khar'neth over time. Deemed too unstable or dangerous to live alongside their Astartes brothers, they will instead be herded to some derelict vessel tugged behind the main fleet, far from reach. Here they will be sedated, kept in chains, or given free reign of the derelict to vent their murderous ire on each other in the name of their indifferent god. Come battle, they will be hurled into the fray to inflict shock damage, to break the line, to shatter the resolve of their foe. They will be led by the least insane among them, or herded by cruel overseers wielding chain whips, bellowing their pain and rage at enemies they don't understand, a horde of mis-matched armour and clashing heraldry, if their equipment hasn't already been stripped from them and claimed by those who were once their brothers.

For those Kharnate warbands that don't fall into this tragic category, there is some variety to be found in aesthetic and, I hesitate to say, temperament. Rage is of course a reliable constant among all Kharnate warbands, but even rage can come in a variety of flavours. The gamut largely runs from bloodshot maniacs scarcely capable of speech that will tear apart anything arrayed in front of them, to proud, martial warriors seeking worthy foes, seething with a cold, contained rage; the former are more common than the latter. It isn't hard to work out that the more crazed a warband, the more likely they are to sport pain-engines, those crude imitations of the Butcher's Nails which are themselves a crude imitation of the mutilation hammered into their primarch's brain in the gladiatorial arenas of Nuceria. Some of the most martial warbands actually see the pain-engines as a blasphemy, a cheap shortcut to divine anger. Such warbands are less enamoured with the extinct XII, though, in fairness, the more maddened ones are in no position to reflect upon their heritage, spouting XII Legion motifs with little thought to their origins.

But regardless of temperament (though admittedly more so with the madder ones), it is a rare and exceptional warband that can operate independently for any length of time. They will usually start out independent, temporarily join a war host, and will quickly realise it is in their best interest to remain attached, very aware that without external support they will go the way of their heritage Legion. Even the more martial and honourable warbands suffer from this, their honour getting in the way of sound military strategy, existing above petty concerns such as logistics, navigation, and resources. If they have spaceships, they will need navigators, if they have armour, they will need fuel, if they have firearms (hardly a guarantee), they will need ammunition; they are incapable of providing these things for themselves. Hence they are shepherded from conflict to conflict, their ranks waning with each battle, and waxing from within and without their larger warhost, all the while not caring from where the blood flows. They are valuable allies, but all know not to get too close.

That is the tragedy of the World Eaters, on the battlefield they are the single most devastating close-combat infantry the Great Eye can field, loyalist Astartes abandon their positions in the face of a Kharnate charge and they do so without shame. But away from the roar of battle, aboard space vessels and Chaos-held worlds, they are children. Either insensate in their rage, or existing in a stupefied state, spit dribbling down their chins when not in combat. They can't focus, they can't plan, they can't husband their resources, and they can't stay their hand from their allies. They need to be guided, managed, and looked after, this meta-breed of angry manchild. But it's worth it. Keeping a Kharnate warband in tow pays dividends, and those without a Kharnate element to their warhost know which battles to avoid. They are crude, blunt and direct, but devastating and relatively cheap (their unstable presence is a more modest price to pay than those mercenary warbands of the VIII, XV, and XX). The legacy of the World Eaters is alive and well in the Great Eye and is made good use of by all those Lords of Chaos not in service to the Blood God.

As something of an afterword, let's look at the phenomena of the lone Kharnate Berserker. As the name might suggest, these are Kharnate Berserkers who forge a path through the galaxy on their own. Sometimes, they are truly alone, possessing no more than their armour, weapons, and a gun-cutter to traverse the void. More commonly, they will command a horde of fanatical cultists dedicated to Khar'neth, or just a mass of the Lost and Damned to be disposed of after each use. These nomads are often motivated by single combat against worthy foes and may spend years tracking down names of note in order to meet them in the field. They will call out a challenge to their quarry, or the more strategically minded might deploy their mortal followers/slaves in order to cut their target off from their support and then descend upon them. A well timed use of this strategy, especially when operating amidst a larger warhost, can cut a swathe through the enemy straight to their commanders. These Berserkers, champions, are focused, relentless, and utterly single-minded in their efforts to reach their foe and meet them in single-combat; or just run into them with obliterating force when their attention is focused elsewhere.

So what might drive one to follow this lonely path? To be shorn of the brotherhood so valued by the ranks of Astartes, even the Fallen Legions? There are two paths: one of honour and one of worship. The latter is simple: a serious and studied worship of Khar'neth and a wish to walk a path of solitude in service to his god, defeating ever greater enemies until they too are offered up to the Throne of Skulls. They fully expect to die on this path and they meet their fate gladly. The other motivation is not religious but very human. They are motivated by disgust and atonement, either at the actions of their former brothers or actions of their own making. Betrayal does not sit so easy with all Kharnates, neither does mass slaughter of innocents. These martial warriors do not seek blood so much as honourable combat. They make reliable allies and command a high price. These warriors have also managed to keep their sanity for the most part, not falling prey to the blood-madness that takes so many of their brothers and adhering to honourable traditions. They have found it is easier to do this as lone warriors and their followers rather than as part of a warband, even one that seems to share their values. While a lone Kharnate champion fights for even more blood and skulls for his patron, the lone Kharnate paladin fights for honour, and perhaps to shame his former brothers too. Their main advantage is a much clearer mind, will, and tactical planning than their warband bothers. They may even lead a warband for a time, but before long they return to their path of solitude, often by claiming the skulls of those they so recently led.

There are no World Eaters in the 41st Millennium, and yet, they are arguably the most successful of all the Fallen Legions. Of the other

Death Guard

Despite their outward appearance of rot and decay, the Death Guard are a hale and healthy Legion in the 41st millennium. They have unity, purpose, resources, infrastructure, and are well numbered under the nurturing care of their Plague God patron Nurg'leth. They have many legionaries among their ranks dating from the Great Heresy and also enjoy close ties to the Black Legion, while also being one of the Great Eye's major players in their own right. The only other comparable Legion (not including the Black, not an original Legion) is the Iron Warriors in terms of strength, unity, and Original Legionaries. Finally, the cult of Nurg'leth is a very healthy one within the Eye; not as prevalent as Kharnates or Slaa'nethis, but such souls find common cause under the Plaguefather's banner and the Death Guard's leadership.

The Death Guard, or Dusk Raiders as they were known before they were united with their primarch, were ever the masters of attrition. Whether that meant hunkering down for months on end in continent-stretching trenchworks, or sending wave after wave of legionaries against an entrenched foe, the XIV could outlast any enemy through their exceptionally tough constitutions and stoic, dour demeanours. While Purturabo of the IV adopted the tactic of attrition, hurling droves of Astartes and mortal soldiers into the guns of his enemies, he wasn't born to it as was his brother Mortarion. The Death Guard mastered this style of warfare without the enormous losses incurred by the Iron Warriors. For all Perturabo's cool calculations, they were marred by a simmering anger that fuelled his strategies, and this intensity always piled more bodies into an enemy than was ever strictly necessary. As such, the XIV they knew what they could weather, what they could just about weather, and what they should call on air support to death with. With such a mindset, they bit by bit conquered battlefields, and bit by bit crushed all that stood in the way of their expedition fleets.

For the XIV, the merging that took place with their primarch may not have been the happiest of unions, but it was far from the worst; happier than the Iron Warriors and World Eaters, and much happier than the Night Lords. Mortarion was a hard father to love; not only was he a gaunt and haunting figure with a brooding personality to match, but he changed the Legion name, something the proud Terran contingent of his sons didn't take well. But he approved of his sons' attrition tactics and introduced to his Legion the concept of chemical warfare. Such a thing wasn't unknown to the Dusk Raiders, now the Death Guard, but Mortarion elevated and expanded the tactic, introducing as yet unknown toxins to the Legion arsenal, and devastating battlefields, whole worlds, before they'd even set foot on them. To stand against the Death Guard now meant fighting amidst a toxic malaise where the slightest breach in one's environmental protections meant a slow, gruelling death, likely puking up and choking on a frothy broth of noxious chemicals and one's own lungs.

Mortarion was hardly an emotionally stable figure. He was a psyker, a sorcerer in waiting, but he had no love for sorcery and spoke most passionately against it during the Council of Nikea. But the more he resisted the lure of sorcery and the whispers of the Plaguefather, the more he was ensnared. It was this hatred of sorcery that led to his betrayal of the Imperium, or at least that is the rationale he tells himself. But we are here to speak of the Death Guard, not its primarch, so more significant to their fall was First Captain Typhus. Typhus is to Mortarion what Lorgar was to Horus. Typhus fell to Chaos long before his gene-sire, in secret, and pulled the strings of his Legion to deliver his brothers into the arms of Nurg'leth. In this he was successful. The Death Guard were becalmed in the warp on their way to join their fellow Fallen Legions in the assault on Terra. The story of their corruption is a famous one: they were infected with Nurgle's Rot during their transit to Terra and slowly decayed, enduring agonising pain, but unable to die. To this day Mortarion justifies to himself his decision, his choice, to give himself and his Legion over to the Lord of Decay. But, in truth, he has regretted it ever since; a torn, conflicted, and often morose figure at the head of one of the mightiest Fallen Legions.

The Death Guard proved themselves invaluable during the Siege of Terra, their implacable advance and gifts of their patron god being invaluable on the strategic scale. Like an advancing fungus, they made their slow advance towards the walls of the palace. But when Horus fell and the assault on Terra shattered, the XIV Legion then found themselves as the unwilling rearguard of the Great Rout. Their bulk and ponderous pace forced them into this role, unable to keep up with the exodus of traitors from the Throneworld, bolstered by the fact that they suffered relatively little from the psychic backlash of Horus' death. Any other Legion would have been devastated in the role of rearguard, Iron Warriors perhaps excepted, but their legendary resilience, now bolstered by the gifts of rot and decay, weathered the storm. They were also aided by the sorcery of the Thousand Sons who lent their psychic might to further bolster their frightening hardiness and instil what haste they could into their slow withdrawal.

They made it to their ships as a Legion, getting off Terra quite well numbered compared to some other Legions, and dived into the warp as soon as the Sol System's Mandeville point was in reach. It was here that their fortune changed, their ever-benevolent patron harnessing the winds of the warp to waft his Pledged Legion to the Great Eye with haste, outstripping the rest of the fleeing traitor hostrt. The winds deposited the XIV Legion on what is now known as the Plague Planet, a copy and exaggeration of the toxic world that was Barbarus, their primarch's adopted homeworld. Of course, the Death Guard were leaderless at this juncture, their gene-sire Mortarion having been banished to the warp by his brother Jaghati during the Siege, the Great Khan, the deed for which the primarch of the V Legion gave his life. But the Death Guard did not fracture, they stayed whole. Several tried to vie for power, each having a faction, and for a time the Legion lay on the brink of civil war, until an amicable understanding arose that, with the Legion Wars broiling around them, disunity would make them easy pickings for their foes. Besides, they were in a position of strength following Terra, why throw it away? Finally, though their gene-sire was banished, he would return, and he would expect a Legion to command when he did, not a squabbling band of warlords and their petty fiefdoms.

The Legion Wars raged throughout the Great Eye, that savage conflict in which the defeated Legions turned on each other for supremacy, or just to vent their rage and shame; there is more than one interpretation of these events. The Death Guard were in a position of relative strength and it is very feasible that they would have come out on top of the Legion Wars. Despite the ascendancy of the Emperor's Children at this time, Fulgrim's ilk lacked any long-term vision, merely revelling in the unbounded success they currently enjoyed alongside their oh-so untouchable status. But the Death Guard did not wish for simple domination; they wished to lead. The figurehead in their desire for dominion was a sorcerer from the highlands of Barbarus by the name of Thagus Daraveck. He had the same long-term vision of Abaddon: unite the Legions and bring war to Terra. Thagus' contingent of Death Guard was actually rather small, instead assimilating Astartes of other Legions into his. In truth, it's not so dissimilar from the early days of the Black Legion and the two were very much peers at this point in the history of the Eye. But despite the diversity of his force, Thagus was XIV through and through, and intended to lead the other eight Fallen Legions in the name of the Death Guard. But he could not inspire like Abaddon could, threats and force being his more common tools of 'assimilation' rather than the promise of purpose and brotherhood that Abaddon offered.

Things came to a head in the generously named First Black Crusade. In truth, the First Black Crusade was launched almost by accident, and it wasn't a Crusade, it was a desperate escape from the confines of the Eye, a proof of concept more than anything else. This short lived endeavour would result in the scattering of Abaddon's fleet and a major setback for his ambitions; the Black Legion was lucky to survive the First Black Crusade. But it did achieve one essential thing (to do with domestic Legion politics rather than posing any real threat to the Imperium) which was to defeat Thagus, assimilate his adopted Astartes, and allow the Black Legion to progress unchallenged and cement their novelty as a new Legion.

As soon as Abaddon and his fleet escaped the Eye, at great personal cost in terms of men and resources, they found themselves clamped between the jaws of the Imperial Warden fleet that guarded the Eye and with Thagus who snapped at their heels as he followed them in their escape; Abaddon forged a path that Thagus merely followed. A great battle ensued, Abaddon led the assault against the Imperials, while Iskandor Khayon, a founding member of the Black Legion, dealt with Thagus. Thagus was defeated and killed, but not by Abaddon, who was busy laying to rest the greatest swordsman in Imperial history and almost paying with his life to do so. Nonetheless, even with the death of Sigismund, the Imperial might arrayed against them was unassailable, especially after the damage Thagus inflicted on their rear, and so they scattered, most retreating back into the Eye almost as soon as they escaped it. But that is a story for another entry.

The death of Thagus the Pretender paved the way for the rise of First Captain Typhus within the ranks of the Death Guard, a true believer in the gift of Nurg'leth and the reshaping of the galaxy in the image of his garden. Indeed, the fall of the Death Guard has far more to do with the actions of their First Captain than their primarch. Taking the reins of the Legion after Thagus' failure, he killed all dreams of the the XIV ascending over the other Fallen Legions, reigned in the other warlords of the Death Guards, and made ready the Legion for the return of Mortarion, which proved to be soon in the happening.

Since then, the Death Guard have been staunch allies and supporters of the Black Legion. This has proved to be a fruitful partnership for both parties. The Death Guard utilising the drive and ambition and the sheer novelty of the Black Legion while the Black Legion benefit from the strength, resources, and divine favour of the Death Guard. If it ever came down to a contest of strength between the two Legions, the Black would win, but it would set back Abaddon's goals by at least a couple of millennia and give the Imperium plenty of much needed breathing room. So the two are very much inclined to support each other and all know the mutual disaster conflict between the two would bring.

Unlike the fickleness of Slaa'neth, the esoteric incurability of Tzee'nth, or the indifference of Khar'neth, Nurg'leth is a nurturing god who wishes nothing but what he sees as the best for his followers. Plague Marines of all stripes he takes a special interest in and the Death Guard he practically dotes upon; the Great Game must be going very badly for Nurg'leth should the Death Guard not find the winds of the warp in their favour. The Death Guard are a largely beneficent Legion, revelling in their god-given gifts. This relative openness means they are not averse to accepting new members into their ranks. Those Plague Marines who distinguish themselves, often as individuals but occasionally as warbands, will be invited into the ranks of the Death Guard and refusal will be met not with indignation, but with understanding, respect, best wishes, and likely a few boons. As is typical with the other Pledged Legions, the Death Guard are idolised within the cult of Nurg'leth, perhaps to an even greater degree than the other Pledged Legions. This means most warbands touched by Nurg'leth can be corralled, manipulated, and directed by the Death Guard. This gives them great strength beyond the bounds of their own Legion, not to mention the numerous mortal cults that crop up throughout the Imperium.

And they have factory worlds, plague planets, corrupted webways, sorcerous pacts with Greater Daemons, and are united to spread the Garden of Nurg'leth. True, there is a schism in the Death Guard, one of ideology, but, as is typical of the luck of this Legion, it has little practical impact on their goals. The temperament of Plague Marines is split between joyous embrace of their necrotic condition, and bitterness and resentment at it. The former wish to spread Nurg'leth's gifts out of gratitude and worship, while the latter do so in order to spread their pain and bitterness outwards to others as recompense for their own shame at their condition. Either way, the result is the same: the growth of Nurg'leth's garden.

Tactically, Plague Marines (as are known the Astartes who have embraced the gifts of the Plaguefather) are slow and ponderous. Therefore, despite their legendary resilience, there are tactical options to deal with them that even the Imperial Guard can utilise. Generally, these involve overwhelming heavy weaponry and the occasional flanking manoeuvre. But, on a strategic level, they are nigh unstoppable, Exterminatus being the only truly reliable strategy to employ in response to them. The toxic miasma that precedes them, as well as the sorceries at their disposal, means that to fight the Death Guard requires a massive investment in environmental protection and rebreathers. Financially speaking, the Imperium is frequently better off abandoning a world to the Death Guard rather than fight for it, hope they don't have colonisation in mind, and then reclaim the world after a few centuries of extensive terraforming has taken place.

A final note on the Death Guard and Plague Marines in general is that of their distinctive appearance. They are most typically some variety of dirty green, corrosive white, or shit-stained brown, but the theme of rot, decay, and putrefaction is ubiquitous throughout the entire cult Nurg'leth. However, there is a divergence between what is known as wet and dry plague marines. The wet plague marines are what we imagine when we consider the stereotypes; all putrid pus and wet entrails, goo dripping from the eyes and leaking from every orifice. The dry on the other hand look more like husks; dehydrated, flaking skin, dry eyes, and a deathly rattle of a voice. There is religious speculation between the followers of Nurg'leth as to the significance of this divergence, but they needn't detain us here

So that's the Death Guard, the most favoured of the Pledged Astartes and trusted friends of the Black Legion. Thanks to their numbers, resources, and vision, along with the Word Bearers and the Black Legion, they make up one of the Big Three of the Fallen Legions. They are a serious strategic threat to the Imperium and a major player in the Eye, a Legion that has sustained itself since the Great Heresy and maintained the purpose and vision. This is their true strength; should all their infrastructure and resources disappear, they would have the will and unholy patronage to rebuild.

Emperor's Children

"There are no more World Eaters" is a common refrain both within and without the Great Eye. Their most hated rivals, the Emperor's Children, very nearly went the same way. Yet, if you had said this in the centuries immediately following the Great Heresy, it would have been hard to believe that this once pre-eminent Legion within the Eye could have so nearly wiped itself out. It is often said the Emperor's Children, those devotees of perfection in art and war, have fallen the furthest of all the Fallen Legions. In the eyes of the Imperium they have fallen far from the majesty and apparent perfection they once possessed, the only Legion deemed fit to sport the Imperial Aquila upon the breastplates of their powered armour, now sick parodies of their former selves, hedonistic seekers of pain, pleasure, and debasement. In the eyes of their fellow traitors however, the true decadence of the III Legion was revealed by their actions during the Siege of Terra.

The outer walls of the Palace had fallen, Magnifican was in flames, and the assault on the Ultimate Wall had begun. It was at this time that the Emperor's Children abandoned the attack and sought instead to sate their greed and lust on the civilian population of wider Terra. The Legion dispersed across the planet to zones untouched by Horus' incursion, and reaped a grotesque harvest of slaughter and slaves. For a short time, they were the lords of all Terra bar the Palace itself. The most damning accounts attribute this dereliction of battle as nothing more than wanton fickleness; hardly difficult to conceive for a Legion such as the III. However, more scholarly efforts suggest the Emperor's Children were repulsed during a clever scheme of Pertruabo's to break the Saturnine section of the Ultimate Wall and make a straight thrust for the Sanctum. It is said that Rogal Dorn himself repulsed this ploy and threw his serpentine brother from the wall himself, and only then did they embark on their wanton ravaging of the civilian populace (though this is likely a tale grown tall over the millennia). Regardless of the truth, their actions that day revealed the depths of their decadence to their traitor brethren. Even among the Fallen Legions there remains a perverse form of honour, of martial heritage and pride, a commitment to battle and all its ebbs and flows, and the Emperor's Children let it be known to their brethren that it meant nothing to them. They did not just eschew the song of battle, but the momentous weight of history and power of the moment. To abandon the assault now, when they had come so far and were so close to victory, to choose the hunting of mere humans over this? Unthinkable. Disgraceful. Wrong.

When the retreat ensued, the Great Rout, the Emperor's Children suffered little. Spread across the planet as they were, they were largely safe from the wrath of surviving loyalists. They made it off planet with their ships laden heavy with the boons that were the populace and resources of Terra. When they reached the Eye, laughing as they outran the purging zeal of the surviving primarchs, they were well positioned to thrive in the Legion Wars that would soon break out. They wasted little time and immediately started vying for dominance in the Eye. They colonised planets, set up a few factory worlds, and preyed on the more devastated Legions, World Eaters of course making the choicest morsels. Most soon learned to run from them, only the strongest Legions like the Death Guard and Iron Warriors being able to effectively repulse them. Mostly they acted as pirates and raiders, searchers and destroyers. They would steal slaves and resources, kill those who held them, and take the plunder back to their newly adopted homeworld, Harmony, and its capital, the Canticle City.

Something of a paradise-world, Harmony was temperate and it's warp-related activity minimal for what was still fundamentally a daemon-world. As for its capital, it is hard to write about the Canticle City without getting relegated to the category of sado-erotic non-fiction. Then again, to write in purely dry, academic terms is to miss the point of the place. So we will try to walk a line.

The Canticle City was the hedonistic paradise of the III Legion and its followers. A colourful, horrific kaleidoscope of every imaginable pain and pleasure, a caustic cacophany of sense and sensuality. Its inhabitants splurged their cruel passions on slaves in sadistic pleasure-houses, murder-brothels, and torture-theatres that lined the cobbled streets. Mad artists took portraits of their Legion masters as they walked by and offered up nonsensical symphonies in the hope of recognition. The Astartes of the Emperor's Children lauded over all; in the top boxes of the combat arenas, and amid the booths at theatre, they were adorned with flowers, oils, and perfumes by their subjects, and were reserved the most lithe and responsive of pleasure-slaves to attend them along with sweetmeats and charms. The arts, as understood by the III, were revered in the Canticle City; musical innovations such as the man-cello and human-harp were pioneered and poets recited linguistically exquisite, yet utterly perverted poetry inspired by the agonised cries and weeping tears of their beloved muses; murder itself, done well, was considered an art-form by the citizens of the Canticle City. To those of a certain sensibility, it was a pleasure-world at the height of refinement, whereas to those less cruel, or more sane, it was a degraded city and a shameful society, like Sodom, or Gomorrah, of ancient Old Earth, but magnified and perfected. Like Sodom and Gomorrah, its time would come.

Despite the Legion being whole and united, the Emperor's Children had no single leader at this time, but a very loose council of the Legion's most powerful captains. Thanks to their strength, their unassailable position, and near limitless resources, proper leadership was hardly necessary. It would be apt at this juncture to accuse the Emperor's Children of complicity. In little more than the blink of an eye, the ascendancy of the Emperor's Children would come to a spectacular and sudden close, scattered and set back to one of the most vulnerable Legions in the Great Eye. What makes their downfall so delicious is that it wasn't even the intention of those who felled them, just a fortunate side-effect of a grander design.

Of the slaves of the Canticle City, those put to work in the pleasure-houses were grateful to be out of the murder-brothels, while those in the murder-brothels were grateful to be out of the skin-galleries, and those in the skin-galleries, at least those unfortunate souls still capable of rational thought, were grateful not to be sent to the laboratory-ship of Fabius Bile, the forsaken vessel The Pulchritudinous. Bile had no seat on the council of the Emperor's Children, nor any official position of authority; in strictly hierarchal terms, he was no more than an apothecary. But, in real terms, no single figure in the Emperor's Children held the same level of influence as Bile, and this emphasis on influence over power well describes his career down to this day. Bile never had much love for his Legion, by this point in our story it meant nothing to him, and in today's galaxy he is well and truly severed from it. His power instead came from his knowledge, and the grotesque, hulking abominations that spewed forth from his laboratory. True to his Legion's heritage, Bile was, and still is, on the quest to perfect the human form. This is a long-term goal however, and he has no qualms about the imperfections that must inevitably be created on the way. For as effective as his 'improvements' were to his fellow legionaries, increased speed, strength, sonic powers, they were crude and ugly things. As deadly as his flesh-abominations were, and as high a price as he commanded for them, they too were grotesques, begging for death when they could speak at all and many would fall from cardiac arrest at battle's close; but they did make excellent shock-troops. Thanks to the influence Bile held within the Emperor's Children, his Legion brothers holding the flesh-smith in high regard and genuine respect, it was not hard for him to persuade the council of the Emperor's Children that it was a necessary endeavour to recover the corpse of Horus Lupercal. This would necessitate the destruction of Maelium, the tomb and last stronghold of the XVI Legion, and the III were all too happy to oblige, revelling in the insult offered to the crippled Sons of Horus. It seems Bile sought to clone or resurrect Horus, it's unclear, but what is clear is that First Captain Abaddon, once of the XVI, who would one day be known as The Despoiler, would not stand for this insult to his father's corpse.

In its day, the sky over Harmony was a sapphire-blue, and when the Canticle City fell, the vault of heaven that overlooked it was especially crisp and clear; even the city's slaves could not have denied the beauty of Harmony's sky. From this clear blue veil fell The Tlaloc like a bullet fired from a gun, and the strike cruiser of Iskander Khayon, founding member of the Black Legion, obliterated the Canticle City in a stroke, leaving behind an irradiated crater that scars the land to this day. Those Astartes that could flee did so, these being the ones already in orbit or in immediate proximity to ship ready to launch, and so a flock of voidships took flight to abandon Harmony. The vassals of the III Legion wailed at the sky, their fate hurtling towards them as a fiery mass, while the slaves of the Canticle City closed their eyes and waited for the release of death. Amidst the chaos and confusion, Abaddon and his allies boarded The Pulchritudinous, destroyed the False Horus (Bile's efforts had been more successful than anyone dared fear), and lived to found the Black Legion.

The destruction of the Canticle City marked the end to the ascendancy of the Emperor's Children. Their numbers were little effected, only a small number of legionaries being planetside at the time of the City's destruction, but all their slave-stocks and other resources, the legacy of their plundering of Terra, were destroyed. This bounty had formed the basis of their ascendancy and was the reason they'd stuck together as a Legion. Stripped of their power-base, the other Legions turned on the Emperor's Children almost as fast as the Children turned on each other. Assailed from within and without, the numbers of Emperor's Children legionaries, dispersed among various warbands, dwindled rapidly. Even once the Legion Wars came to an end, III Legion warbands continued to hound each other (Fabius Bile was a popular target at the time for those foolish enough to try their luck) and had this state of affairs continued, they would have ended up as dead as their World Eater cousins.

Fortunately for the Emperor's Children, they are far less committed to their religious principles than the World Eaters ever were, and far too proud to let posterity speak of them in same breath as the extinct XII. Seeing the writing on the wall, the surviving war bands of the Emperor's Children declared a truce and a parley, mediated by Fabius Bile, who deigned to involve himself once more in Legion affairs, and they hammered out a lasting truce. The surviving Astartes numbered less than a few thousand, and of course this number is even smaller today. Their hedonism, venality, and pride had prevented them from unity, and their pettiness meant they felt the need to answer every insult with interest. It is this attitude that decimated the Legion. But they had the foresight to realise that if they wanted to pursue hedonism and pleasure then they would need to be alive to do so. It was agreed the warbands would not attack each other, would present a united front to other Legions, and would come to each other's aid if needed (assuming the cause wasn't hopeless, then said beleaguered warband could die on their own). This truce has served the warbands well and kept them in existence to the 41st millennium.

In today's galaxy, the surviving warbands of the Emperor's Children are far from a great power in their own right. However their position is a strong and secure one thanks to their status as trusted auxiliaries of the Black Legion. These warbands will rarely be in the thick of fighting, preferring softer targets as they once did on Terra, but they command a good deal of influence and respect amongst the uncounted warbands, both within and without they Eye, that are devoted to Slaa'neth, not to mention the millions of Slaa'nethi cults that exist within the Imperium. It is this political influence that makes them valued allies of the Black Legion, the celebrity status they revel in allowing them to command power beyond what they themselves could bring. They also act as the artists, poets, and entertainers of the Traitor Hosts, valuable on campaigns for purposes of celebration and commemoration, a valuable asset to the propaganda of the Black Legion. They can also act as heralds and diplomats for those occasions when the zeal of the Word Bearers may not be welcome and instead a display of finery, revelry, or just a few well placed words uttered by a silver-tounge may be most efficient course of action. Finally, while the surviving warbands of the Emperor's Children may be paltry for the Astartes they can field, they typically have enormous numbers of fanatical followers and cultists at their command and they have no compunction sending them straight into the guns of the enemy. They have little desire to risk their own necks, preferring to command from afar, enjoying the pleasures of their slaves and only joining combat for the most showy and dramatic of set-pieces that bear little personal risk. This lack of commitment is tolerated by the Black Legion as their scarcity of numbers doesn't mean much to Abandon's vast forces, their influence amongst Slaa'nethi marines and vast hordes of human cattle being a far more valued asset. This is only my speculation, but this tolerance might also spring from the fact that the Terran born Captain of the Emperor's Children 51st Company, Telemachon Lyras, a dual swordsman of superlative skill, was one of the earliest founding members of the Black Legion and would go on to serve as one of Abaddon's most trusted lieutenants, his herald, before succumbing at an unknown time and place. I mention this only to show that not all members of the III are petty, venal creatures, incapable of thinking beyond themselves, and that they, like any Fallen Legion, have those members that have the potential to rise above the shackles of their father's failures.

Spiteful, fey, and fickle, the Emperor's Children have found themselves a niche in the Great Eye of the 41st millennium. Trading on their usefulness to offset their vulnerability, they have kept their preening, arrogant ways, but have enough sense to focus on preservation over glory. Besides, they are far less interested in the honing the martial perfection than they are sating their lurid passions, sending others to battle in their stead, and reaping easy victories. But don't underestimate them. Among their ranks are some of the greatest swordsmen the Astartes have ever produced, and they still sporadically benefit from the fickle favour of their patron god. And there is still that perpetual question asked by scholars of the Eye: Who would you rather be taken captive by? The Night Lords or the Emperor's Children? It is an ongoing debate that no one would wish to speak on with any authority.

Alpha Legion

It is a perennial question among scholars of the Great Eye to ask which of the Fallen Legions has fallen the furthest. The III Legion is the common answer, or perhaps the Thousand Sons for those of a less obvious mindset. But, when one looks closely it is clear the Emperor's Children were far from the paragons of perfection they claimed to be and the Thousand Sons never reached the depths of depravity as the rest of their Fallen cousins so they arguably haven't sunk so far. A few contrarians like to argue for the Word Bearers, the Black Legion doesn't count, and no one argues for the Night Lords. In this entry, I would like to make a case for the Alpha Legion. Not an obvious choice I grant, but, to my eyes, they have fallen the furthest as they are not only a highly fragmented Legion, shattered even, but, thanks to the legacy of their primarch's choices, they are now the most lost and purposeless of the Fallen Legions, contending with madness, shame, and a schizophrenic sense of identity. Since the days of the Great Crusade, the Thousand Sons and Alpha Legion were the most mysterious of those that would later fall. Yet ,where the XV were esoteric and aloof, the XX were enigmatic and afar. If the Thousands Sons conducted themselves according to ancient wisdom and timeless knowledge, then the Alpha Legion were at the cutting edge of the future, both in their philosophical outlook and battlefield technique; very much the avante garde of the Astartes Legions. In time though, it would be their philosophy, not their irregular way of war, that would prove their undoing.

The word virtuoso, more than any other, best describes the Alpha Legion's approach to combat and conquest. In the early stages of an operation, they are patient and methodical, collecting data, expanding their network of spies and collaborators, learning the weaknesses of their foe before they even know they're being watched. From there, things begin to escalate: a few well placed assassinations, a few key pieces of planetary infrastructure might undergo an 'accident' or two, and a siphoning of funds from a choice selection of bank accounts might take instil panic in a few chosen souls; such tactics might begin to escalate. Confusion builds amongst the defenders, suspicion and accusation runs rife, until a boiling point is reached and pandemonium prevails: communication breaks down, friendly fire incidents take place, everyone is at full alert but nobody has any idea what it is they're fighting, what's going on, and who they can trust. Rebellions and riots ensue, planetary control hangs by a thread. Finally, there comes the reaping, a magnificent display of overwhelming military force, their enemy blind and cut-off, betrayed by opportunists, and utterly unable to resist the cascade of legionaries they are about to face.

The XX would speak of efficiency, and they were indeed an efficient Legion, but, to those who looked closely, their campaigns of compliance were always a tad more complicated than they needed to be, possessing a touch more flare than was necessary, and their routes to victory were longer than a strict adherence to efficiency would have allowed; this was a Legion that liked to play with its food. And there was a knowing arrogance behind the Alpha Legion, their words and attitude implying an aura of untouchability. It can be safely said that anyone who called a Thousand Son arrogant never encountered a son of the Hydra. They did little to ingratiate themselves with the other Legions, even Horus not breaking very far past the armour of his brother Alpharius. This veil of secrecy was maintained, a pride in their distance and separation from the rest of the Imperium, much to the chagrin of any allies they might share a war-zone with. Most of all, they thought they knew better than other Legions. As events would show, they thought they understood the will of the Emperor himself.

The knowledge is sequestered outside Inquisitorial libraries, but the reasons for the Alpha Legion's betrayal of the Imperium are well known. Whether in legend, fable, or folklore, it is a tale that has leaked past Imperial censors, if they were ever in a position to catch it. The full story is a dedicated tale for another to recite, but, essentially, as the common telling goes, Alpharius, the primarch of the Alpha Legion was approached by a cabal of xenos named The Cabal. This poorly named organisation was a coalition of some of the oldest and wisest species in the galaxy, and they showed the primarch two competing visions of the future, one where Horus was victorious in his rebellion, another where he was defeated. Defeat would mean the slow death of the Imperium and the ultimate victory of Chaos, in time. Should Horus win on the other hand, Chaos' victory would be short-lived, Horus would feel the full shame and ignominy of his actions, and then use his great strength to put an end to Chaos once and for all. Humanity would fall, but Chaos would be eradicated. In short, Alpharius allowed himself to be convinced that the best way to fulfil the Emperor's dream of overcoming Chaos, if indeed that was his dream, was to tear down and destroy everything he and his sons had built, and throw themselves in fully to supporting Horus. This is one of those ideas that is so stupid, so devoid of sense, that only an intellectual genius of unknowable vision could ever think it a good idea (in fairness, our Imperium is built on similar foundations). Only the Alpha Legion, those convoluted, counter-intuitive, genius-morons, could have ever thought this a good idea. I haven't even mentioned the fact they seemed to take the Cabal at their word, nor did they think to seek the Emperor's advice before doing anything rash. The path they chose revealed their chauvinism, their unilateral assumption of the Emperor's will that was typical of their lack of consultation, their faith in unaided triumph, and the belief that they alone could turn the fate of the galaxy. We criticise Magnus, righty, for these same sins, but Magnus at least has the defence of apparently being duped by the Changer of Ways and striving for the preservation of the Imperium, not its destruction. The Alpha Legion on the other hand, they may not have wrecked the Imperial webway as did Magnus, but they knowingly chose the Imperium's destruction, xeno visions be damned.

So the Legion sided with Horus out of loyalty to the Emperor. If any Legion could live with such cognitive dissonance then it would have been the Alpha Legion. Since their inception they were a brotherhood of contradictions: utterly united, yet prizing highly individual thought and action, and an elegant, showy aesthetic that was more often than not eschewed in the name of stealth. Even their primarch would regularly appear as a simple line-trooper, his true identity a secret, and his Legion was trained to operate just as effectively without his hand. But ten thousand years is a long time, and even the Alpha Legion could not husband such dissonance forever, especially as they were revealed as the fools of the Great Heresy when the overthrow of the Imperium failed to materialise. The Alpha Legion were committed to the Imperium's destruction and operated in a behind the scenes role to aid the advance of Horus' forces and turn hundreds of worlds to the Warmaster without a shot being fired. There is talk of failsafes and backup plans, options to turn the tide in the Emperor's favour should they choose, but even if these did exist, only the arrogance of the Alpha Legion could think they could reverse Horus' tide. They so loved to think they were on top of events, tugging and pulling at forces behind the scenes, spinning the galaxy around the Hydra's heads, realising far too late that they had long lost control of the forces in play, a state of being anathema to a Legion of operatives, spies, and control freaks.

During the Siege of Terra, it was as Horus' armada tore its way through the Sol System that the Alpha Legion proved their greatest worth. Their prep work among the planets of the Sol System gave the rest of the Fallen Legions a far easier time reaching Terra than they had any right to enjoy. The Alpha Legion were the first to break the Sol cordon, their vanguard having infiltrated much of Dorn's defensive lattices in advance. Uprisings, demolitions, system failures, comm blackouts, ammo shortages, targeted assassinations, and betrayals, all these disasters that took place in the initial breaking of the Sol System can be laid at the door of the XX. Upon Terra however, their stratagems failed, Dorn having neutralised them in advance, predicted their moves, or just became redundant in the face of the tempest that was unleashed on the Throneworld. And so, the vast majority of the Alpha Legion forces were reduced to the roles of mere foot-sloggers and ground-pounders, finally engaging in those unglamorous aspects of war they had so long eschewed. But they endured and they fought with a great ferocity, perhaps finding catharsis and release in an honest fight as opposed to the disciplined subterfuge and cerebral warfare they had engaged in up to now; let off the leash as it were.

Come the Great Rout, the Alpha Legion was far from the most devastated Legion, but they suffered a great deal. Not only could they not comprehend the failure of their war goals, failure without redundancy or backup, but they had let themselves off the leash on Terra and found themselves baying for blood with the rest of the traitor host and their vassals. Theirs was a double shock: failure and dislocation. It was a ragged retreat, not much better than a rout, fleeing as small units rather than as a total force. They staggered back with the rest of the Fallen Legions, but, unlike their (not for much longer) allies, the majority headed not for the Great Eye, but for the Maelstrom. It was here the Alpha Legion reunited and tried to keep themselves together. They succeeded, for a time. Possessing a great deal of unity and individuality together, the Alpha Legion managed for a few centuries without their primarch, who had fallen to Rogal Dorn during the Battle for Sol. That right there is a classified secret as it's largely believed Alpharius fell after the Great Heresy, but no, that is a popular and deliberate misconception put about by the XX. The figure in question was an Astartes by the name of Omegon, who had adopted leadership of the Alpha Legion after his father's fall.

The Alpha Legion had entered the Great Heresy with a very specific purpose in mind: overthrow the Imperium in order to destroy Chaos. They failed; blatantly. They threw away their honour and reputation for nothing. Their betrayal was meaningless and so too was their loyalty. They weren't even truly accepted in the traitor ranks, not sharing their slogans, views, or faith. And what of Terra? The Siege? They had thrown away their cool, their composure, their superiority, to join in with the blood-baying hordes. Was the Hydra just an act? Had they been suppressing their bloodlust all this time? Were they no better than their base, straightforward cousins of other Legions? And what of their purpose? What were they to do now? In the first instance it was obvious: continue the war against the Imperium, bring it down, have Chaos ascend, and watch it implode; somehow. For a time, this was enough.

But such a purpose couldn't hold the Legion together. Such a schizophrenic mindset, loyal traitors, couldn't be held by anyone for the long-term, not even the Alpha Legion. The views amongst the XX were too fragmented, there being those who wanted to stay true to their course, those who wished to abandon it and fight openly for the Imperium, or Chaos; there were those who embraced sorcery and the warp, those who resisted it, those who wished to become pirates; while others insisted that whatever their goal, replenishment was of the highest priority. Their famous balancing of unity and individuality was beginning to unravel, and so ensued the Alpha Legion civil war in the Maelstrom.

Tomes could be written on this conflict, if the sources were available (I know of a couple of interested Inqusitors in this field but they've yet to publish) and so we unfortunately cannot linger here. They may have missed out on the Legion Wars, being so far from the Great Eye, but they had their own post-Heresy crucible to go through. In typical Alpha Legion fashion this was a silent war fought via proxies, subterfuge, and the occasional and spectacular, though short-lived, flare-up. The details will likely come to the fore in time, hopefully in ours, but this was the event that fragmented the Legion into warbands and set themselves on their own courses. Madness had seeped in to the Legion by now, aided by exposure to the warp yes, but, fundamentally, it was the all-too human madness born out of trauma and dislocation that any non-augmented human can relate to. Since this shattering of their unity (though their numbers remained quite healthy; the civil war was not big on casualties for the factions/warbands that survived), the surviving warbands can't bear the sight of each other and encounters between them result in dramatic but quiet flare-ups in the style of the XX. This slow, methodical dance of destruction can last decades, lots of back-and-forth tactical games and strategic ploys, and typically ends in spectacular fashion; only a check-mate satisfies the Alpha Legion.

In the Great Eye of the 41st Millennium, a place where much of the Alpha Legion has flocked to, the warbands of Alpha Legion have maintained their enigma, their auxiliaries, their subterfuge and flair, but they have utterly lost their purpose. The journey rather than the destination, their virtuosity, is all the majority of XX warbands have left to their name. The Alpha Legion in the Eye are not too poorly numbered, despite their general reluctance to engage in replenishment, and yet they are one of the rarest Legions to encounter. They stick to the shadows, playing their own games, and don't seek to forge bonds. But, for those who can track them down, once or twice in their careers, they make the most devastating mercenaries to be found outside the Thousand Sons. They are fickle in the getting of, worse even (though generally more accessible due to their numbers alone) than the Thousand Sons, yet can achieve far greater feats on the battlefield than the Night Lords, the de facto mercenaries of the Eye. But they make notoriously difficult allies. Unless you are the Despoiler himself, there is very little hope to get them to work with your forces, communicate effectively, and coordinate. Instead, they will agree a sought goal, and are then best left to their own devices. It is not uncommon for those doing the hiring to think these allies of fortune have deserted them, cut and run like a Night Lord, only to show up at the eleventh hour of battle, turn it all around, and then leave mysteriously. Or, a warband could show up to their expected war-zone and find it already secured, no enemies to fight, and no sign of the Alpha Legion except the bloody handiwork they leave behind.

That's the thing about the warbands of the Alpha Legion, all they have left is their handiwork, their virtuosity. True, there are plenty of warbands that may trace their heritage to the XX but otherwise have little in common, or some warbands so maddened as to play to whole new agendas, or lose themselves to Chaos in search of purpose (a minority defected to the Word Bearers). The Alpha Legion were a well numbered Legion so plenty of their seeds are to be found within and without the Eye, but for those who still consider themselves Sons of the Hydra, this is their curse: they are the most operationally adept of the Fallen Legions, but with nothing greater to marry their skills to than their own virtuosity.

Interestingly, those warbands that hold to the original creed of 'For the Emperor', the sincere version of those words rather than the mocking parody it's become for so many XX warbands, tend to have the closest ties to the Black Legion or have instead abandoned their Legion's heraldry to become fully paid up members of the the Despoiler's own. Like the Death Guard or Word Bearers, they acknowledge the strength and vision of the Long War and see the Black Legion as the greatest chance of achieving their goals which are, in practical terms at least, well-aligned to each other. But to my eye at least there is something especially tragic about these warbands: they have piggy-backed onto the drive and purpose of another, glad to have a goal but lacking the fire to pursue it themselves. These Alpha Legionaries within the Black Legion either utilise their Legion's skills or fight as standard foot-sloggers, relieved to be free of the burden of choice or decision.

Otherwise, the warbands of the Alpha Legion roam the Great Eye, the wider galaxy, and have a few permanent stations within the Maelstrom. Indeed, though their prevalence has been displaced by the empire of the Red Corsairs, the Maelstrom still bears the greatest legacy of the Alpha Legion, and it is there that some such warbands are even even work together, those that did not make for the Eye with the rise of the Red Corsairs. And as far as the question of whether a core of the original Alpha Legions still exists, the answer is both yes and no. There are three or four established, adequately numbered, and well resourced warbands that claim the title of Alpha Legion, but they have for millennia been engaged in low-level warfare with each other and have no interest in reconciliation. There is a parallel to the civil war of the Emperor's Children in this regard, though the III would eventually bury their hatchets and their numbers were whittled down to a far lesser number, far more quickly, thanks to their bravado and ostentation as opposed to the caution, subtlety, and long game of the Alpha Legion. Also unlike the III Legion, the XX is not above replenishing their numbers when they have to, though they are utterly ruthless in their selection and training processes; such are the high standards the demanded by the Hydra.

But it's that very commitment to the long game that has proved them the fools of the Great Heresy. As useful as they were to Horus' cause, they were hardly decisive. Despite their protestations of unity, such solidarity couldn't stand the test of time and dissonance. Their betrayal meant nothing and their loyalty meant nothing. Let us not argue the current state of the galaxy proves their long term goals; Chaos is in the ascendancy and anyone who claims victory will be its undoing is as foolish as Alpharius. Maybe such an outcome was possible under while Horus was Warmaster, but not Abaddon, who has learned from the sins of his father. Once they were the cutting edge, militarily and philosophically, of the Astartes Legions. Nowadays, they may still prattle a few words of wisdom, but it's meaningless. This once superlative Legion now lives only for the journey, any destination they might once have had long lost from sight.

Thousand Sons

There is a generally agreed consensus amongst scholars of the Eye that the Thousand Sons are the most tragic of all the Fallen Legions. Theirs was once a Legion of teachers and scholars, pursuing knowledge for its own sake and diving ever deeper into the mysteries of the warp, only to become the Imperium's unwilling traitors, the fools of the Trickster God, the effort they made to prevent the Great Heresy forgotten in the face of the catastrophe they unleashed in its doing. The second disaster to befall them came after the traitor host had fled Terra and sought refuge in the Great Eye, when a spell was cast over the Legion brothers of the XV known as the Rubric of Ahriman. Since that fateful day they have been a broken Legion of lone sorcerers commanding armies of automatons, once their brothers, clad in baroque suits powered armour. Thoughtful, morose, and enigmatic, the sorcerers of the Thousand Sons are some of the rarest, most powerful, and tragic individuals amidst the ranks of Fallen Astartes.

Before the days of the Great Heresy, the Thousand Sons had a reputation for being knowing and aloof, or just insufferably arrogant in in the eyes of their more brutish cousins, the World Eaters or Vlka Fenryka for example. I don't think arrogance is fair criticism, long have the ignorant feared the learned, it was just a confident belief in their knowledge and use of the warp, but they were never preening in the way of the Emperor's Children, or stand-offish like the Night Lords. However, the charge of arrogance, or at least a lack of doubt, becomes harder to deny after the Council of Nikea, also known as the Trial of Magnus. The events of this momentous occasion are best retold elsewhere lest we be here all day, but the outcome of the trial (and it was far more a trial than it was a council) is well known to Imperial scholars who can access such material. By the Emperor's decree, not just the use of sorcery, but all except the most essential psykers were outlawed. Those touched by the warp amidst the Librarius of the Astartes were ordered to suppress their powers and return to the ranks as common line-troopers; Dorn went even further and locked the entirety of his Librarius division away in his fanatical loyalty to his father. But as for the Sons, the chief defendants of Nikea, they as good as ignored the Emperor's decree. Being kind, we could say Magnus was overtaken with prophetic visions of his father's empire in flames, the hand of his brother Horus bearing the torch, and had no choice but to act; being realistic, we must revisit the charge of arrogance.

Magnus returned to his adopted home-world of Prospero, where psychic powers continued to thrive on every level of society, in order to confirm his visions of Horus' betrayal through his gift of foresight. Once he was satisfied with the validity of his visions, he determined to warn his father of the coming betrayal by any means necessary; the necessary means he chose was sorcery. It was by use of magick that he broke through the Emperor's secret Webway project, his Great Work unknown to his sons, and crashed through its warded defences straight into the Throne-room itself. This was the second deception the Trickster God performed on the Crimson King, allowing him to reach the Imperial Throne-room at the price of his Legion's soul and his father's vision. The first of Tzee'nth's deceptions came soon after Magnus took ownership of a Legion on the brink of destruction thanks to the ravages of the flesh-change, a cancerous and rapid series of mutations resulting in the painful death of its victim. Magnus was determined to save his sons and made a pact with an apparently benign warp entity, and all it cost him was an eye. Unknowingly, Magnus had struck a terrible bargain and unwillingly pacted his Legion to the Changer of Ways.

Returning to our story, Magnus' astral form soared across the galaxy in a few heartbeats and broke through the wards and charms that kept the heart of the Imperial Sanctum safe from the warp. He succeeded, and materialised before the Golden Throne, a red monster at the feet of his father. Havoc ensued. The seals protecting the Emperor's Great Work, his great hubris, were shattered, and an unstoppable tide of daemons flooded into the most guarded location in the whole Imperium. The tide could only be staunched by the Emperor himself, thus confining him to the Golden Throne for much of the Great Heresy, an omen of future events. There was apparently a brief moment when Magnus' form was in the Throne-room, on his knees from exhaustion, writhing in horror and shame when he realised the enormity of what he had ruined, and begged his father for forgiveness. But barely had moments passed before he was pulled right back across the galaxy, expelled by the Emperor and abandoned by the Trickster God, to return to his physical form on Prospero and the city of Tizca, the City of Light, soon to be the City of Fire.

Since the well-known Burning of Prospero, the VI Legion, the Vlka Fenryka (or Space Wolves if one must), have been known to the Thousand Sons as 'The Deceived'. Such a moniker is typical of the scholarly understanding of things that XV has never been able to shake, their need for knowledge running just ahead of their passions. Even if the Wolves were tricked by the Warmaster into razing instead of chastening Prospero, this is a remarkable level of understanding for a Fallen Legion, the term's accusation of naivety tempered by its inherent pity for their destroyer's gullibility; in the fashion of the Thousand Sons, all sides of debate are considered.

Prospero burned at the hands of the Wolves. Ever the smallest of Legions thanks to the impact of the flesh-change in their early days, the XV took losses they would never recover from. Much of the destruction was thanks to the prevarication of Magnus, hovering between willing subjection to his brother, Leman Russ, and angry defiance at the Imperium's harsh treatment. He had acted with the best of intentions, to the best of his abilities and to the best of his knowledge; should he really be punished so? At a great disadvantage, his Legion fought back even if he didn't, infamous names such as Amon and Ahriman leading the defence with their backs were to the wall, the Legion unleashing the full might of its sorcery. But it wasn't enough, the Sons were losing and the Wolves knew it. At last, Magnus made his choice: he bequeathed his grimoire, the fabled Book of Magnus, to First Captain Ahriman, and joined the fray to seek out the Wolf King, primarch of the VI. He did not have to look for long. When the epic duel between demi-gods was over, Russ raised his brother's battered body above his head and crashed him down on his knee, shattering his spine. Magnus lost the fight against his brother, a fight long in the making given the fractious history between the two Legions and, since then, Magnus has been a figure not of flesh and blood, but light and energy, an astral figure untethered to the physical world like the rest of us. He summoned the last of his reserves, drew from the warp deeper than he ever had before, and, in an act of unthinkable magic might, transported himself, his surviving sons, and a good chunk of Tizca across the galaxy and into the Great Eye, to Sortiarius, the world that we know today as the Planet of the Sorcerers.

A poor imitation of Prospero, here the Legion lingered, cast off from the Imperium, not yet part of the the traitor host that would assault Terra, but free to pursue their sorceries and esoteric pursuits away from the Edicts of Nikea (not that it ever made much of an impact with them) and the suspicions of lesser minds. This also means they were the first of the Fallen Legions to make a home for themselves within the Eye and so, following the Great Rout, they knew where to find safe harbour, unlike the rest of the Fallen Legions who had to scrabble and fight for their new home-worlds. The XV were not inactive following the Burning of Prospero, far from it, but, for our purposes, the story of the Thousand Sons picks up again on Terra, during the Siege.

The best that can be said for the Thousand Sons during the Siege of Terra is that they were there. They threw in their lot with Horus, understanding there was no route back to the Imperium and they might as well be on the winning side, but we can also assume promises and threats were made by the Warmaster to aid in this decision. But they were, in the main, unwilling combatants, mostly acting as support for other Legions, much to the fury of their allies. The devastating power of their sorcery was instead deployed in a secondary role, useful certainly, but far from the impact they could have had if they had truly committed themselves. Whenever they did make a frontal attack, it was at the direct, non-interpretable instruction of the primarch Perturabo, who had command of the field, and even then they did nothing more than was asked of them. Otherwise they hung back (though their packs of tzaangors made a healthy contribution to the hordes of beastmen), their hearts not truly belonging to the traitor cause. One historical footnote worth mentioning is the possibility that First Captain Ahriman infiltrated the Imperial libraries in the Sanctum to gain access to such knowledge, under the impression it would soon all be lost. How this feat of infiltration could have been possible is unknown, though this is Ahriman we are writing about so this tale is not so tall as to be beyond the realm of possibility.

Come the defeat of Horus and the start of the Great Rout, the Thousand Sons finally came into their own. They did their best to shepherd the retreat off-world, instil some sense of order into the chaos, and preserve as much of the traitor host as they could. They supported the XIV in their rearguard, herded as much of the XII as they could away from the frontlines, aided in the rallying of the XVI and brought at least some of the XVII back to their senses; they also called in dropships of every Legion to ferry the retreating masses away from Terra. To this day, there is a begrudging gratitude amongst the Fallen Legions for these actions, yet none have forgotten their lacklustre performance prior to the Great Rout. The Thousand Sons left Terra with their strength preserved and Legion intact, and utilised their manipulation of the warp to hasten the flight of the traitor host as they fled before the Great Scouring. It was the last time the Thousand sons would feel pride as a Legion, using their gifts to preserve rather than destroy. They returned to Sortiarius with every intention of devoting themselves to the study of the sorcerous arts, the gathering of knowledge, and to restore some semblance of the values and culture of Tizca, hoping to regain some sense of who they once were.

Alas, it was not to be. The flesh-change again took hold of the Legion, epidemic in proportion, and the Astartes found their own bodies betraying them once more. Astartes don't feel fear, but, if the XV were to fear anything, it would be the flesh-change, those treacherous mutations over which they had no power or control. It was proof that their father's apparent victory over the flesh-change was in the early days of their Legion was no such thing, so this time it was First Captain Ahriman, armed with the knowledge of the Book of Magnus, who tried his hand at salvation. His solution came in the form of a spell, one crafted himself, that has come to be known as the Rubric of Ahriman.

The Rubric of Ahriman was the second disaster to befall the Thousand Sons after the shattering of the Imperial Webway and the Burning of Prospero. Magnus had already saved his Legion once at the price of an eye, and he had been pleased with his achievement. But, in doing so, he had unknowingly formed a pact with one of the Old Four, Tzee'nth, and set his Legion on the path of false confidence that would result in Magnus breaking the wards of the Emperor's Throne-room. Ahriman was determined not to repeat his father's mistakes, to save the Legion through sorcery alone, no pacts with gods or dealings with daemons. For months he secluded himself in his father's library with his father's grimoire, and when he re-emerged to his brothers, he was confident he had found the key to halt the flesh-change. Ahriman's Rubric worked, the flesh-change ceased, but at a cost more terrible than anyone, Ahriman included, had been willing to pay.

'All is Dust': these have been the words of the Thousand Sons since their inception. In its original form, the motto was a call to humility, a reminder of the finite nature of life and the cycles of birth and creation; we are all ultimately created from stardust, are we not? But, after the Rubric was performed, the words took on a sickening literalism. In a stroke, all but the most gifted sorcerers of the Legion were reduced to dust, sealed in the suits of powered armour that were now their tombs. Their souls remain, some wan flickering of consciousness the psychically gifted may be able to detect, but otherwise they are automatons, each a walking coffin, the life, will, and memories of an Astartes forever sealed in ceramite. The surviving Sons, Ahriman included, were horrified. Ahriman had saved their Legion form the flesh-change and damned them to a whole new nightmare. Their brothers, their comrades, were as good as gone. Ahriman was accused of atrocity, and he had the grace not to deny it, and fled from the wrath of his brothers, or worse, their sympathy. Of all the still living Thousand Sons, Ahriman's is the greatest burden, for it was his hand that cast the Rubric, the one who reduced his brothers to living sentinels with no will but to obey the commands of the few flesh and blood sorcerers who would claim them.

The Thousand Sons as good as died that day. The surviving sorcerers, each superlative in their own right, left Sortiarius with their own contingent of Rubricae Marines. They fled from their shared shame and wanted nothing more to do with the hate, recrimination, and fear that now plagued them as a fraternity. If the Thousand Sons can be said to still exist as a Legion, a doubtful claim, then it is to be found in those who remained on Sortiarius. A morose collection of six or seven individuals, each tending to his own patch of what was supposed to Prospero reborn. These sullen Astartes have sworn off glory, pride, and brotherhood, husbanding old lore, tending to their towers, and walking the surface of the planet to the baying worship of tzaangors and the cackling of daemons that both litter the Planet of the Sorcerers. They, alone among the surviving Thousand Sons, wear the red and ivory of Magnus' Legion, though faded now to rusty brown and dirty beige.

These lords of Sortiarius occasionally play host to visitors. These could be their former brothers returning for one reason or another, to stock up on tzaangors perhaps, or to pursue a niche bit of knowledge that demands their attention and can be found only in the libraries of Sortiarius. Counsel is sometimes sought, or closure, a making of peace with the sins of the past. More often though, it is renegade Astartes who seek them out, those pledged to the Changer of Ways or trying to master the sorcerous arts. They inevitably leave disappointed, put off by the planet's glum guardians and parody of a once great city. But the world does serve as a neutral ground for Thousand Sons and other sorcerous Astartes; many a pact, treaty, and alliance has been forged on Sortiarius over the millennia and is greatly aided by the fact that there is very little there worth conquering. It is a planet of meaning and history, and for all their misery, the guardians of Sortiarius are old, wise, and knowledgeable, far more so than many of their nomadic once-brethren. They are sources of lore and wisdom, and their words carry weight. But they have no Rubricae Marines, they remain alone, standing sentinel over the lost hopes and dreams of their Legion. This is all that remains of the XV as a Legion.

Otherwise, the Thousand Sons exist now only as warbands, each led by one, a couple, or several flesh and blood Astartes. The warbands of the original Thousand Sons are at best ambivalent in their attitude towards each other, verging on openly hostile. Fortunately, these warbands do not seek each other out (unlike a certain few warbands of the Alpha Legion) and they are so few and far between they are unlikely to encounter each other anyway. As for their makeup, there is there is a deal of variety to be found. A warband might field no more than a score of Rubricae Marines, yet possess tens of thousands of tzaangors, cultists, or both, or perhaps they rely on summoned daemons to fight their battles. Lord Azhrek of the Reborn Son warband is known to be obsessed with Rubricae Marines and has repeated the Rubric ritual several times on a smaller scale to turn his acquired flesh and blood Astartes into Rubricaes. He sees perfection and purity in the form of the Rubricae, something to do with the weakness of flesh, yet, as far as I know, not one of his followers has gone through this ritual willingly. The man holds thousands of Rubricaes and they are an impressive sight when lined up. Needless to say, Lord Azhrek is quite mad. Other warbands, if they can even be called that, may simply consist of a single sorcerer and his Rubricae bodyguards, and the earth-shattering sorcery he brings to bear. Captain Imhatep is known to have eschewed Rubricaes altogether, unable to bear the sight of them, and has successfully recruited from other Legions/warbands as well as engaging in replenishment to surround himself once more with living battle-brothers. Had he lacked an obvious need for brotherhood, Captain Imhatep just as easily could have walked a path not unlike the lone Berserkers of Khar'neth, surrounding himself with mutants, tzaangors, and cultists, expendable chaff to supplement his devastating spells on the battlefield.

Concerning the aesthetics of these warbands, those bearing the legacy of the Thousand Sons tend to be a lot less 'Chaosy' than other Fallen Legions, less attuned to the aesthetic of the Great Eye, foregoing the grisly ornaments so favoured by Night Lords, Word Bearers, and the Black Legion. They tend to possess an air of ornate finery, polished scrimshaw in the place of rotting bone and finely wrought gold in the place of bronze spikes. Their sorcerers may glow with an aura of aetheirc strangeness (though some have morphed into nothing less than horrors) and sport the occasional Chaos boon upon their flesh, while their Rubricae Marines stand tall, majestic, and empty. But it is refreshing to find a Fallen Legion so well presented in their baroque majesty, often colourful and even vibrant, yet fine, venerable, and possessing a slow, sorrowful grace.

The leaders of these warbands have their own esoteric goals, each a law unto himself, and perhaps a small band of comrades. Thousand Sons warbands are rare and hard to find, but, if you can meet their ruinous prices, or perhaps possess a precious piece of forgotten lore, then they make excellent mercenaries. Less fickle than the Night Lords, easier to work with than Alpha Legion (and only slightly harder to track down), they are loyal to the pacts they make, are too proud to cut and run upon the completion of said pacts, and, of course, you will find no more powerful sorcery than what a Thousand Sons warband can bring to bear. Sorcerers appear in almost every Legion and are hardly uncommon in warbands, but show up to a war-zone with a Thousand Sons sorcerer at your side and psychic superiority is good as guaranteed; only the most deluded, insane, or downright ignorant of sorcerers would try their luck against the Thousand Sons. Besides, the prestige in which the Thousand Sons are held in by most Chaos sorcerers means most would rather pay homage on the rare, possibly once in a lifetime, opportunity of encountering a warband of the Thousand Sons.

Even the Black Legion treats the Sons with, not deference, but a good deal of respect. They are, after all, responsible for salvaging what they could of Horus' forces during the Great Rout, not to mention they also make very dangerous enemies. They are far too fragmented to ever bring to heel as a Legion and the effort and resources that would be required to bring even a single warband to submission bodes ill for the attempt. Therefore, with one significant exception not withstanding, no Thousand Sons warbands have permanent ties to the Black Legion. They are not World Eaters (or Kharnates in general), dependent on the charity of other Legions, and nor are they Word Bearers, filling some mad religious purpose; despite being a pledged Legion, few Thousand Sons lords pay any homage to the Changer of Ways and have little desire to carry out the Trickster God's works. What Abaddon can claim is to have a number of reliable contacts among the Thousand Sons, a lot more than any other Chaos Lord can hope to have. A Chaos Lord might have one, or even two Thousand Sons warbands they can call upon, or have longstanding relationships with, while Abaddon can count about a dozen, a sizeable minority of XV warbands overall. But even Abaddon must negotiate on a case by case basis, and his associates are under no obligation to heed his call and he in turn has little recourse to revenge; the warbands of the XV are too dangerous, too hard to track down, and too powerful not to be called upon for another day. Frustrating as it might be for those seeking their services, the mysterious and aloof nature of the Thousand Sons is a small price to pay to count them as allies on the battlefield.

Before we conclude, I mentioned an exception to the rule of independence among the Thousand Sons in the figure of Iskandor Khayon. He was a founding member of the Black Legion, one of the early Pledged Astartes to make up the core of the Black Legion. In Khayon's case he abandoned his Legion as all Thousand Sons lords have done, but did not them follow them on that lonely, esoteric path walked by so many of his former brothers. Instead, he joined the Black Legion out of a desire to know brotherhood and fellowship once more, and march with purpose as a Legion. That is what the Black Legion offered, and what Khayon offered the Legion was the strength of a Thousand Sons sorcerer, one of the best, one that is loyal and committed to the Long War. That is a powerful boon, and aided the Black Legion greatly in its fledgeling years. Khayon's Rubricae Marines maintain the majesty and sombre grace that is to be expected amongst their kind, but clad in the black and gold of Abaddon's own.

Word Bearers

Every child in the Imperium is told the story of Horus and the Great Heresy. It is a story told in a myriad of different forms, in books and poems and songs, as nursery rhymes, old wives-tales, folklore told round a fire or at a mother's breast, or any other way humanity passes down it's stories from generation to generation. A thousand variations of this tale exist to form the basis of what has become the foundational myth of the Imperium as we know it. However, what all but the most complete or ambitious tellings omit, the Horus Cycle for example, or Lost Imperium, is that Horus and his sons were not the first of the Emperor's Legions to fall to Chaos, that dubious honour belonging to Lorgar Aurelian, known as the Urizen to his sons, the XVII, the Word Bearers. This knowledge is hardly sequestered and yet it has largely failed to spread through to the general consciousness of the wider Imperium. It may be known to citizens living on civilised Imperial worlds but, in the main, Horus' betrayal has eclipsed the Word Bearer's treachery.

Ever the most zealous of the Emperor's Legions during the Great Crusade, they saw themselves as bearers of the word of the Imperial Truth to humanity, lost and scattered amongst the stars. The uniting of the Legion with its primarch only exacerbated this proselytising tendency, raising it to the level of outright worship of the Emperor. Commonplace as such as practice is today, during the Emperor's day, a day of rationality and secular faith, worship of the Emperor was a serious offence (yes, yes, I've heard it all before, only the truly divine would deny their divinity, a test for the truly faithful; Emperor forbid we take the man at his word). Yet Lorgar was a man of faith, and he poured that faith into his father, spread the faith to his Legion and the worlds they conquered. Worlds they conquered and remade in the Emperor's image that was so pleasing to Lorgar and, so Lorgar thought, to his father. He could not have been more wrong.

It is absurd to suggest that Lorgar was ignorant of his father's decree regarding religious worship, worship of himself especially, but yet Lorgar did so anyway. Why? And not as some private, quiet tenet, but loudly and proudly to all who would (and wouldn't) listen. He proselytised, he preached, he even wrote a tome that would inspire billions in his own time to embrace Emperor worship and come to serve as the foundational text for the Adeptus Ministorum. Oh yes, I expect that little tidbit of knowledge will ruffle some feathers even within the ranks of the all-knowing Inquisition, but it's true: the Lecito Divinatus, Holy Book of the Imperial Creed, was written by none other than the First Heretic.

Lorgar's need to believe was tolerated by his father, who had a soft-spot for his least bellicose son, and this state of affairs may have endured, one of the exceptions to the Imperial rule like the Adeptus Mechanicus and their machine-god, or how the people of Baal were allowed to continue in their worship of Sanguinius. But the rate of compliance, the rate of conquest, by the Word Bearers since Lorgar took charge was woeful; snails have conquered worlds at greater pace. This is almost exclusively thanks to the need felt by Lorgar and the XVII to build a new society from the ashes of whatever world they conquered. While other Legions would bring about a compliance and then move on, leaving the work of nation-building to the Imperial officials who followed in their wake, the Word Bearers would instead linger to create societies built around the worship of the Emperor as a god.

Things came to a head at the Atrocity, yes, Atrocity, of Monarchia. This sad tale is well known to Imperial scholars and aficionados of the Horus Cycle but largely forgotten in the wider literature. The Ultramarines descended on to Khur, gave the citizens of Monarchia a week to evacuate their homes and abandon their lives, and then obliterated the Perfect City, the jewel of the Word Bearers crown, in a storm of orbital artillery bombardment. In the words of Cyrene Valention, "Can you imagine looking up and seeing the stars fall from the sky? Can you imagine the heavens themselves raining fire upon the world below?" The pride and joy of the XVII Legion was now nothing more than a crater, while Khur itself was reduced to a planet of roving tech-barbarians upon rad-wasted plains. When they received the distress signal from Khur, explaining what had befell Monarchia at the hands of the XIII, the Word Bearers made all haste to the planet, expecting battle with the traitorous Ultramarines who had clearly gone mad. Instead, the Word Bearers were forced to assemble in the ruins of the Perfect City, and there the Emperor used his psychic might to bring a primarch and his entire Legion to their knees. Lorgar was rebuked, the Legion was humiliated, and their faith in the Emperor as a god worthy of worship was shattered; but they never stopped seeing him as a god.

Before we move on with our history, we can't ignore another small but, in time, momentous occurrence that took place during the Atrocity of Monarchia. It was here that Cyrene Valention joined the Word Bearers as their blind prophet, her sight taken from her by the eradicating fires of Monarchia. A fascinating woman who held many professions over the course of her long life, from the oldest, to prophet, to priestess, to spy, to agent of Chaos and operative of the Imperium and more. There are even rumours that she and the mysterious figure of Moriana are one and the same, but we cannot confirm or deny these rumours. This figure will not be cropping up in our history, but I, unlike so many other typically male Imperial scholars, will not do her the injustice of skipping over her name during these events. Hers is a fascinating tale based on what sources and general lore are available to us, but it is a telling for another day.

Lorgar left Monarchia a broken man with a lost Legion. He was still a man of faith, the need to believe burning within him strong as it ever did, but he was bereft of any object of worship. It was in this lost state of searching vulnerability that he fell prey to the ministrations of his adopted father, Kor Phaeron, and First Chaplain Erebus, both natives of Lorgar's adopted homeworld of Colchis. Together, they had tolerated Lorgar's faith in the Emperor, but they themselves, in secret, stuck to the old ways of Colchis, the worship of the Old Four and their aspects undivided. They saw their chance, and whispered sweet words of forgotten gods, gods worthy of worship, which they dripped like poison into Lorgar's ear. What follows is a fifty year long period of history known as the Pilgrimage of Lorgar. This is an oblique, convoluted, and downright bizarre tale based on far too few legitimate histories and far too much on the maddened scrawls of lunatics. There is a consistent route to be navigated through these waters, but such a passage must be charted by one with far more patience than I. Nonetheless, I can recommend a handful of good if intimidating histories on the subject.

What is known is that when Lorgar emerged from his self-imposed exile in the Great Eye, the Word Bearers blazed a trail of compliance that not only matched the other Legions but put several to shame. The Imperial officers who followed their trail of destruction had a hell of a time rebuilding these shattered worlds, but the powers that be in the Imperium in that era clearly found this preferable to the snail-pace they had contended with previously. Besides, it's not like they were the XII, or, Emperor forbid, the VIII. It seemed the Word Bearers had finally got with the Imperial programme. Nobody suspected they nursed treachery in their hearts and would come to instigate, if not actually orchestrate, the Great Heresy.

But this is not a history of the family psychodrama that led to the Heresy, it is a history of the Legions who fell to Chaos, and so we will skip over how Lorgar, Kor Phaeron, and Erebus were able to corrupt Warmaster Horus, but it was undoubtedly they who unlocked the resentment in Horus' heart that led to his turning against the Emperor; the genesis of the Great Heresy can therefore be laid at the door of the Word Bearers. But, despite theirs being the first to pledge themselves to Chaos, the XVII Legion were among the last to actually unfurl their new colours. Along with the IV, VIII, and XX, they were among the supposedly loyal Astartes on Istvaan V, and they made their new allegiance known among in a hail of bolt and lasfire that scythed through the ranks of their once fellow loyalists.

After this event, the Word Bearers took a leading role in the Heresy. They famously devastated Calth, confined the Ultramarines to Ultramar by carrying out the Ruinstorm Blockade, and can be held responsible for the ascension of Angron to the fearsome status of daemon-primarch. But it seems Lorgar got too big for his shoes in the eyes of the Warmaster, his fervent faith in Chaos clashing with Horus', as he liked to believe, mere utilisation of Chaos for his own ends. Horus was clearly the favoured fool of the Old Four, but he was savvy enough to recognise the threat that his high-priest of Chaos bother represented. The details of this family psychodrama are best left to another telling, but the result was a permanent schism between Lorgar and Horus, resulting in Lorgar's self-imposed exile at the height of the Heresy. He left his Legion with a small force, embarking on his second pilgrimage, and trusting both his Legion and the assault on Terra to First Chaplain Erebus.

During the Siege, the Word Bearers acted as the zealots and, dare we say it, cheerleaders of the Traitor cause. They sermoned, ministrated, inspired, and performed their cruel rituals to keep up the Chaotic fervour that spurned the Traitor hordes to greater and greater heights of murderous passion. After so many decades of plotting, of hiding, of fighting for an Imperium they'd in secret spurned, finally they were unleashing themselves in a Holy War that would taint the very planet. And the hordes, the endless hordes of mutants and cultists, the original stock of the Lost and the Damned, flooded over the Terran defences, hurling themselves at the gates of Terra to fulfil the desires of mad gods. No Legion enjoyed the assault on the Palace more than the Word Bearers, it was the fruition of their schemes and fulfilling of their religious prophecies. It could be said they enjoyed the Siege the most because their motives were the most pure. It was not revenge, pride, or justice that spurned them like so many Fallen Legions, and they were lost to neither pleasure nor pain, nor did they have ulterior motives. They wanted to see the Imperium fall because it was foretold and would please their cruel patrons, and everything that happened on Terra up to the last told them their faith was vindicated.

But it was thanks to this very sense of vindication that the Word Bearers suffered as horrifically as they did come the death of Horus and the onset of the Great Rout. The Word Bears were paralysed when they felt the psychic shockwave of Horus' death, and paralysis turned to shock, to disbelief, to despair, and to madness. Some died where they stood, dead from shock and disbelief felt on a post-human level. Others simply ran. Many tore out their eyes, clawed at their flesh, and ripped off each other's limbs, and all the while they were easy targets for the remaining Terran defenders, even unaugmented humans finding most Word Bearers to be about as threatening as senile grox clad in powered armour.

Once among the most numbered of all Legions, they fled Terra a fraction of what they once were, a testament to the hammering they took once their will was broken. They fled to the Great Eye with the rest of the Traitor host, and arrived on its shores as a ragged and broken Legion. They might have remained so were it not for the return of Lorgar to the planet of Sicarus where the Legion made its new home. Far from broken and bereft like his sons, Lorgar returned triumphant, a daemon-prince of the Ruinous Powers, united as one; an avatar of Chaos Undivided. This was a very much needed morale boost for his Legion in a time when they were at their lowest, far lower then their shaming in the ruins of Monarchia. Their gene-sire's ascension was taken as proof that they still held the favour of the Old Four. So when Lorgar subsequently locked himself away in a tower on Sicarus to meditate on the wisdom of Chaos, an absorbing activity he is yet to weary of, the Legion retained enough will and unity to begin the slow, painstaking task of rebuilding and replenishing their Legion.

And rebuild they did. As other Legions fought and whittled each other away in those futile conflicts which came to be known as the Legion Wars, the Word Bearers stayed to ground, drawing no attention to themselves, subtly raiding where they could, stealing resources and slaves, all under neutral colours that couldn't be traced to their Legion. They collected gene-seed, made secret pacts with factions of the Mechanicum, and should any force get too close to Sicarus, they would be quickly and quietly eradicated. Or, should such a force be too strong to safely eliminate, it would be allowed to fly past, secret surface-orbit launch pads tracking them all the way. It worked. By the close of the Legion Wars, the Word Bearers had rebuilt their numbers, fleet, and infrastructure. They were nothing like their former glory of course, but then what Legion was? They were whole, intact, and ready to make themselves known once more. But there was a problem. Up to this point the purpose of the Legion had been to rebuild, and that purpose is what held them together. But now that was achieved, and still the Legion was divorced from their primarch's guidance (despite his proximity), and the creeping tendrils of existential dread crawled their way back into the psyche of the XVII.

Kor Phaeron held sway over the Word Bearers, first among equals of the Dark Council, the ruling body of the Legion that exists to this day. His Council professed the interest of his adopted son but, in truth, known consciously to him or not, he sought to cement his own control over the Legion. He advocated a guard position, a defensive posture to husband the strength of the Legion as they awaited the awakening of Lorgar from his meditations. Such a static approach would have suited the power-hungry Kor Phaeron, but, by chance or design, it was at this juncture that First Chaplain Erebus returned from his self-imposed exile. Erebus had not stuck with his Legion as they reached the Eye, but instead absented himself to pursue his esoteric wanderings, not unlike Abandon's journey following the failure of the Heresy, and they were far from the only individuals among the Fallen Legions who walked the path of the nomad at this time. Erebus returned to Legion politics a man brimming with confidence and purpose, and he came bearing a message for the Legion he had abandoned.

Erebus made his claim in front of a Dark Council sceptical at the prodigal son's return ("what right does he have to lecture us? Where was he when we rebuilt an entire Legion?"), that Horus' defeat was not a curse or a rebuke to the designs of the Old Four, but a glorious opportunity for the greater veneration, glory, and eventual victory of the dark gods they served. They could now stretch out the defeat of the Imperium over the course of millennia, ever enriching their mad gods with the constant drip drop of Imperial blood; a ritual war, the Long War, ten thousand years in the making, or as long as it takes to see the Imperium eventually fall and humanity committed to the Ruinous Powers. But how were they to achieve this? Could they do it alone? Just one Legion? Bring down the Imperium? No. It was then that Erebus spoke of Abaddon and his newly forged Black Legion; for reference, this was around the time of that much overblown First Black Crusade. He advocated joining forces with the Despoiler, join the Black Legion and the Long War. Destiny awaited, and the Black Legion was the vehicle what would deliver the final victory of Chaos. Erebus omitted the fact that this would put him at the side of new Warmaster with the strength of the Word Bearers, clad in black and gold as they might be, at his command, with Kor Phaeton well and truly sidelined.

Erebus had never harboured much love or loyalty for his Legion, and held few scruples about seeing the XVII subsumed into the Black Legion, he and Abaddon sharing history with each other (even if Abandon can't stand the man) and even crossing paths in their mutual exiles. Erebus spoke well, as he always had, and his words landed with impact. He almost had the Dark Council convinced, the promise of action and purpose, to march once more as a glorious host in fraternal lockstep. "Remember the Heresy? The Siege?" Erebus said, "Wasn't it glorious?" Wouldn't their father be proud to return to an active Legion taking the war to the Imperium? Wasn't that their duty to the Old Four? But Kor Phaeron would not allow his victory to be stolen so easily. Erebus had swayed them, he could see it in their eyes and he could not out-compete his loathed adversary for charm and charisma. But he would not allow the Word Bearers to slide into oblivion, a footnote in the history of the Black Legion, and spoke to the Council of Erebus' wisdom, the greatness of his vision, and, pointedly, the education of his exile. Kor Phaeron joined Erebus and advocated for allying with Abaddon, but drew the line at taking on the heraldry of the Black Legion, and Erebus could not outright argue for the destruction of the Word Bearers. So, like Kor Phaeron was also forced to do, he bit his tongue and praised his hated rival's wisdom.

Kor Phaeron came away much the stronger of the two rivals at the close of that meeting, having lost control of the trajectory of the Legion but maintaining his power and position over it. Erebus, meanwhile, had achieved the total opposite result; seeing his wishes to join the Long War largely fulfilled, but remaining a faction of one within an entire Legion. A truly evil man, evil for it's own sake, Erebus would continue to act as one of the most dangerous individuals in the galaxy and has since abandoned, betrayed, enriched, led, and humiliated his own Legion along the way, to no shame on his part whatsoever.

Since that day the Word Bearers have been a strong and active force in the Eye. As allies of the Black Legion, they are more conspicuous than the Death Guard, who don't feel the need to hound Abaddon's every step, and could be said to act as they heralds, zealots, and proselytisers of the Fallen Legions. They bring not only zeal to the fight, but a great deal of numbers, factory-worlds, and cultist auxiliaries, and their oratory can be an effective morale booster more mortals and Astartes alike. Nonetheless, it is hardly uncommon for Fallen Astartes to complain of their endless going-on about faith, destiny, and the apparent will of the gods. But, despite the pain in the backside their allies no doubt find them to be, their contributions to the Fallen Legions as a whole cannot be underestimated. Excepting Abaddon's own, no other Legion in the Eye has done more to advance the causex of the Long War. Their eyes firmly fixed on the ultimate victory of Chaos, they are unclouded by the perpetual petty disputes that fester among the inhabitants of the Eye and have been known to act as mediators and diplomats between warring Chaos factions. Many a meeting between fractious warbands have had their security guaranteed by a contingent of Word Bearers; this is a Legion that bemoans the squabbles and infighting that are so prevalent in the Eye to this day. For this reason, defectors to the Word Bearers are not uncommon; those tempted by the Black Legion, yet seeking greater spiritual succour than Avbaddon's invicta can offer, may well clad themselves in the red and silver heraldry of the XVII. They are received with open arms for the Legion is not a jealous one. Indeed, those Astartes from the days of the Great Heresy are relatively few in a Legion that has grown large since the days of the Great Rout. The Word Bearers are a Legion united and whole but only loosely centralised. It's Chapter Masters (yes, the XVII still has Chapter Masters) are given a great deal of leeway by the Dark Council, who can and do give direct instructions, but otherwise are prepared to hand a good deal of autonomy to its captains. Their clarity of spiritual purpose typically means little oversight is necessary. Indeed, the structure of the Legion is very much the same as it was during the Great Heresy minus the presence of the Dark Council.

There is only one major schism in the Legion and that is a political one as opposed to spiritual or ideological, and for this reason it largely does not get in the way of the Legion's prosecution of the Long War. This schism is the rival power bases of Erebus and Kor Phaeron. In our galaxy of the 41st Millennium, Erebus has worked his way up to an almost even footing to Kor Phaeron. True, he never attained a seat on the Dark Council, but this is largely due to him not vying for a place. Instead, he acts as a thorn in the side of Kor Phaeron, going his own way regardless of the will of the Dark Council. True, Kor Phaeron has more official authority than the First Chaplain, but Erebus holds sway over nearly half the Legion. Kor Phaeron lacks Erebus' charisma and connections to other Legions and, though ten thousand years has passed and the man has been granted many gifts of the warp to make up for his shortcomings, the Fallen Legions have never forgotten that he is an augmented human, not an Astartes, no matter how hulking he may be in his terminator plate. This schism stands as a cold war within the Legion, open bloodshed holding disastrous consequences for both sides being as evenly matched as they are. But Kor Phaeron, in secret, prays frantically for Lorgar's awakening to wrest control of the Legion from he and Erebus both. He prays that Lorgar will lead the Legion as he once did with all the power of a daemon-prince, daemon-primarch in fact, and put an end to the First Chaplain's schemes. But, if things continue apace, Erebus will outstrip Kor Phaeron in power and influence, giving one of the most dangerous Astartes in the history of the galaxy an entire Legion to do with as he pleases. Unless, of course, Lorgar decides he is done with his ponderings, and chooses to lead his sons once more.

Night Lords

"Send the Eighth!" In the days of the Great Crusade, those three little words were the cruellest, most inhuman, most damning words it was possible to utter. Thankfully, only a handful of individuals had the authority to actually say those three little words, and all but one of them had the decency to look ashamed as they did so. These words were no edict of eradication, or purging or obliteration; in fact, to send the VIII meant a far lower casualty rate for the foes of the Imperium than could be promised by the XII, VI, or IV. And yet, the punitive campaigns of these Legions were considered mercies compared to what the VIII would bring; depths of cruelty and degradation that were as yet unplumbed by the human heart. They are the VIII Legion, the Lords of the Night, the Night Lords; Ave Dominus Nox.

On the bronze and iron battlefields of ancient Old Earth, campaigning armies would employ a particular strategy to induce surrender amongst the inhabitants of whatever land they invaded. The First Empire of Old Earth's Mediterranean would arrive at a city, besiege it, assault it, and sack it. The men would be killed, the women raped, and the survivors would be sold into slavery. The commanders, the generals, they sanctioned these horrors, letting their men off the leash of discipline to give full reign to their bloodlust, low passions, and desire for loot. Once the order was given to sack a city, men turned into animals and could not be called back into order until their fervour was sated. Come the night, the city would burn like a torch, and in the morning a mushroom cloud of smoke would rise to give warning to all those who would defy the might of the conquerers. Though generally reliable, the tactic was not foolproof, and might well inspire defiance rather than submission from neighbouring cities. Defiance was a risky choice though, as if they failed to see off the invaders (and without outside aid the besieged are rarely victorious) then they could expect no mercy; hence, they asked for none. It's hardly a novel tactic, it's one we've all employed in some shape or form in our lives to a lesser degree; smack a child and forestall future wailing, sack an employee for a minor transgression and instil discipline in the rest of your workforce, kill one man brutally to prevent mutiny in another. It is a primitive but effective tactic our species has made good use of: make an example and let the rest fall into line.

The Night Lords took on this philosophy and extended it by orders of magnitude beyond anything even the the terrible Czar Ivan of the Old Kievan Rus would countenance. Should a world throw off the heavy chains of Imperial rule, a proud and stubborn enemy refuse to acknowledge they were already defeated, or should the Imperial Truth be rejected with particular obstinacy, then the VIII would be sent. Fear was their weapon; fear and its subsequent paralysis. The sadistic hand of the Night Lords extended this paralysis to whole worlds and systems thanks to the spectacle of their handiwork. Recruited from the prison sinks, under-cities, and cave-societies, indeed all manner of dark and forgotten places spawned by the years of Terra's Long Night, this Legion of killers would designate an area on a world, or a world in a system, and descend upon it in force. Once secured through shock assaults and stealth incursions, their handiwork would begin.

In the skinning pits, flesh was flayed, preserved, and adorned, while tableaus of skinless men and women looked on and screamed through eyes that could no longer blink and mouths that could no longer form words. Mothers and their children were impaled on the same stakes, kilometres high in places, where they would endure for days, weeks even, bleeding into each other. Fathers were made to eat their sons and violate their daughters while their neighbours watched, awaiting their turn. Bones were broken slowly, spines were stretched and twisted into new shapes, never quite snapping, and flesh was slowly, delicately, and succulently roasted. Hands and feet were amputated, their owners forced to crawl through sewage for dubious promises of mercy. But the VIII never took eyes and they never took ears, all so their victims may appreciate the horror being done to them and theirs. Begging meant nothing, pleas of fealty meant nothing, acknowledgement of their apparent folly mean nothing. Once the Night Lords got to work, nothing could stay their hand until all in the designated zones were dead, dying, or had felt their inhuman touch.

And all the while, servo-skulls would record and broadcast everything. The sights and sounds, the broken flesh and the blood-curdled cries of agony would reach the rest of those who defied the Imperium, and they would be given a missive dating back to humanity's earliest days: surrender, or share their fate. In this way, the VIII achieved compliance after compliance through fear and the threat of collective punishment. And they were disciplined too, those Night Lords hailing from Terra, they could stop the horror as quickly as it started, and they were methodical in their torture, diligent and inescapable. There was no wanton bloodlust like we might expect from Angron's brood, but instead a cold, considered application of theory delivered by those cold souls best suited to atrocity. Should surrender not be achieved or defiance go unquelled, then the designated area would expand, or another planet in the system was selected, and the whole process would start again until compliance was achieved. However, such expansion of their mission parameters was very rarely necessary.

During the Great Crusade, the Night Lords left a trail of broken planets behind them as they conquered and subdued at the Emperor's command. Cowed and fearful, these worlds were the mould of obedience, but they would never prosper, the inter-generational trauma would never leave their descendants. They might bring peace to a world, but more often than not it was the sort of peace one might find in a graveyard. The Night Lords were not loved by the Imperium, and many, including Dorn and Guilliman, wished to see them sanctioned. But most preferred not to dwell on the Imperium's monsters and what they said about a society that creates such a force, and whether the sin of rebellion and the folly of obstinacy truly deserved such a response. This state of affairs may have lasted, or perhaps the Emperor had an expiry date on this Legion of torturers and they would have met a suspiciously abrupt end like the legendary Thunder Warriors atop mount Arrat. We will never know, for the loyalty of the Night Lords would not survive its reunion with their primarch.

Armed with the superhuman genetics of one of the Emperor's sons alongside a toxic adolescent's understanding of law and order, the night-world of Nostramo well suited the blackness of Konrad Curze's heart and the temperament of his Legion. The world of Nostramo was run by several cabals of high-faluting gangsters who fancied themselves aristocrats. Crime was the order of the planet, all levels of society running purely on cruelty and fear. Kurze may have brought peace and order to Nostramo (the 'peace of the grave' as a brave councillor once put to him) but the rot remained just out of sight, and when recruitment for the Legion commenced on Nostramo, the rot spread to the VIII. Not that they weren't already a depraved Legion, but they were a dutiful one that was loyal to the Imperium and believed in the strategic rationale behind their method. But as more and more Nostramo stock entered the Legion, more and more did the Legion engage in cruelty for its own sake. Their austere aesthetic of blue and silver became even more menacing as they adorned themselves in skulls and draped themselves in skin while sporting the winged bat of Nostramo, all at the behest of their primarch, who understood the value of fear better then his sons (who were already master practitioners). Though few at the time would have believed in possible, the Night Lords were sliding into even greater depths of cruelty and atrocity.

Kurze hated his Legion like he hated himself. He saw in them a reflection of his own tension between duty and pleasure, the strict warden and the depraved monster. But I believe it was seeing the atrocities he had long committed reflected back at him by another that brought home to the man just what he truly was; his Legion was a looking-glass and in it he couldn't bear to contemplate what he saw. Unsurprisingly then, Kurze, the Nighthaunter, did not bond with his Legion. He did not uplift them like Sanguinius did with the IX, nor revel on their level as Angron did with his sons. He failed to guide, mould, or even lead them, not truly. Battling his broken mind, he would philosophise his toxic worldview to his sons, but without ever enforcing his beliefs nor nurturing his Legion. And so the Legion festered, the Terran core disappointed at their newfound father and the Nostramo new-blood, gangsters and killers, given the strength of supermen and the free reign to enact their depravity. Kurze had a core of followers within in the Legion, all obeyed him and none dared defy him, and there is the inevitable genetic/psychic link between a primarch and his sons, but this was not a happy Legion. Nonetheless, this rejection by both their primarch and Imperial society at large had interesting effects on the Legion's psyche that we will come to later.

We will run through the events of the Great Crusade at pace. Kurze's angst, both at himself and the poison his Legion was absorbing from Nostramo, led him to obliterate his homeworld in what is best described as a transhuman fit of pique. From here, blows were exchanged between he and Rogan Dorn, who came off much the worse of the encounter, and this seems to be the deciding event that drove Kurze from the bosom of the Imperium. However, their new loyalties (though that word is a gross exaggeration) were not made known to the Imperium until the events of Istvaan V, where they were among the supposedly loyal Legions that opened fire on their Astartes cousins. It is not our focus, but, if the histories are accurate, it was on Isstvan V that Kurze took Vulkan, primarch of the XVIII, prisoner and tortured him to death (that's right, death; he was bloody hard to kill but he did die…Vulkan does not live) over a period of months. Following the betrayal at Isstvan, the Night Lords engaged in the Thramas Crusade against the Dark Angels, a conflict in which they came off the worst. It was thanks to this strategic defeat that Kurze became separated form his Legion. There is evidence to suggest he was taken prisoner by the Lion, yet other sources say it was Guilliman so we cannot yet be sure; personally, I suspect this whole episode has something to do with the needlessly controversial history of Imperium Secundus. We will leave Kurze for now but he will crop up again in our history.

From what I've been able to gather, and I am someone who has spent some time as a guest (yes, a guest, that's not a euphemism) of a confederation of Night Lords warbands, it appears that the Legion was taken over in a quick but bloody coup, in true Night Lords fashion, by the legendary figure of Jago Severtarion. This favoured son of Kurze was superlative warrior comparable to Nassir Amit, Kharn (the Betrayer), Lucius (the apparently Eternal), and even Sigismund in some accounts. He is so steeped in awe and legend that even amongst the Night Lords there is no agreed account of his final demise. This is greatly frustrating for scholars of the Fallen Legions and we can only hope sources are found from which a definitive account can emerge. In any case, come the Siege of Terra, the Legion was under the nominal command of Gendor Skraivok, the Painted Count, though his hold of the Legion seems to have been tenuous at best and his death in the early stages of the battle seems to have gone largely unremarked. The Night Lords were therefore leaderless for the vast majority of the siege.

If the XIV Legion were the unwilling rearguard of the Great Rout, then the Night Lords were it's enthusiastic vanguard. Their raptors may have been the first to mount the walls of the outer Palace, as they will never let anyone within earshot forget, but as soon as they felt the psychic backlash of Horus' death they were the first of the traitor mass to cut and run. Leaderless as they were, scattered across a Palace the size of a nation, one word rang out across the Legion vox, picked up and repeated en masse: "Tsagualsa!" During the Thramas Crusade, the Night Lords had founded a new homeworld, the planet of Tsagualsa, a barren outcrop in a forgotten region of the Eastern Fringe. Their colonisation efforts were abandoned come their defeat in the to the Dark Angels, but it was now the obvious place to regroup. When they reached Tsagualsa, all the various factions and elements that now made up the Legion, they found their gene-sire waiting for them.

The Legion was once again reunited with its primarch, though this reunion proved no happier than their last. If Kurze had been a broken man before the Great Heresy, he was now a shattered one, barely holding on to the threads of his sanity and wracked by both guilt and bloodlust. He rarely left the Bone Citadel that lay at the heart of the newly raised fortress on Tsagualsa, spending his days seated amongst the living statues of the Screaming Gallery, basking in their agonised song. He brooded on his own failures and crimes as well as those of his father, attended to by his core of faithful supporters. He continued his petulant philosophy, offering tainted pearls of wisdom to his sons. Some of them heeded his words, found meaning in them, while others had little time for their father, well cogent of his madness and fully aware, as was his inner circle, that he was no longer capable of leading a Legion.

The end came for Kurze in the form of Imperial Assassin M'Shen, a name of legend amongst the ranks of the Officio Assassinorum. It is fair to ask how much of an achievement this really is considering the Nighthaunter embraced his sentence without resistance, but nonetheless, the death of a primarch is the death of a primarch, and the Assassins are right to proud. Being one of the few individuals in the history of our galaxy whose gifts of precognition I actually take seriously, it seems Kurze knew his end would come at the hands of M'Shen and did not wish to defy the Imperium's, his father's, decree; never mind that the Emperor was keeping very much to himself following the Great Heresy, ensconced upon the Golden Throne as he was. Kurze didn't wish to escape the death he felt he deserved, but his dying would also prove the hypocrisy of his father, that he was no better than his son. Such a view is clearly absurd. I hold the Emperor to be his own kind of monster, one alien to the horror of the Nighthaunter, and we can take from this Kurze's own childish defiance and self-loathing; if "death is nothing compared to vindication", then we can assume the man didn't have much in his life worth living for. He bequeathed his last will and testament to his sons:

"There will come a time when our Legion is shattered across the stars. When the powers we spurn become allies to which many turn.

The paths of your future are closed to me,

And they are yours to walk alone.

But I know this:

The war that fires our blood now will still rage in ten thousand years.

Bleed the Imperium. Tera it down, tear it apart. How no mercy.

But watch yourselves. There is no traitors' unity in the Old War.

Trust your Legion brothers.

And trust no one else.

This testament was taken on to varying degrees by his Legion; hallowed words to carry out, a cryptic missive to interpret, or the self-wallowing pity of a broken maniac. In any case, his famous decapitation at the hands of M'Shen followed little more than a month later. As known and celebrated as this event is, what is not known to Imperial scholars is what happened to M'Shen afterwards. Kurze's severed head and a few relics made it back to the Imperium in a servitor-piloted vessel, but there was no sign of the Assassin. Imperial scholars generally assume she chose to vanish from Imperial service, choosing to live out her days as the legend who slew a primarch, and the general consensus seems to be that she earned the right to do so. The truth, as I have been told by my hosts in the Eighth Confederacy, is less worthy of Imperial pomp and circumstance.

An apothecary of Tenth Company by the name of Talos Valoran, or Soul Hunter as his father named him for the events he foresaw would occur this day, denied his father's instruction to let the Assassin escape unmolested and chased her back to her ship. I truly don't wish to puncture the legend of M'Shen, but several sources I've spoken to all agree that Talos achieved what should be impossible, and slew the Imperial Assassin in single combat. There were no witnesses to the deed itself, but all agree Talos ended her in a close fight, disposed of her remains, and set the ship containing his father's head on course for Terra. For the pursuit of his father's killer he earned the name Soul Hunter. I can't speak to how Talos bested this Assassin but I will say this: if I was an Astartes still in possession my Bletcher's Gland, and I came up against an Assassin, the first thing I'd do, spit in their eyes.

For a century following the death of the Nighthaunter, the VIII continued to operate as pirates and raiders from their base of operations at Tsagualsa, the various fleets and captains of the VIII, but the Night Lords were becoming increasingly fragmented as more and more warbands were leaving for the Great Eye or other, greener pastures. During the time of the Great Scouring, the surviving loyalist primarchs were focused on the great mass of the traitor host as it fled to the Eye and of purging the domain of Imperial space that Horus had carved out for himself. This allowed the Night Lords a free hand to plunder, pillage, and terrorise the lightly defended Easter Fringe with impunity; but with the Great Scouring now over, the Imperium's attention turned to the VIII.

Thanks to Guilliman's reforms contained within the Codex Astartes, the Ultramarines no longer existed as a Legion. But they, and all of its successor Chapters, and I do mean every single one, answered the summons to muster at Tsagualsa and break the Night Lords once and for all. The force faced by the Night Lords was a mighty one, but their fragmentation into Chapters, and subsequent lack of overall leadership actually proved to be the Legion's saving grace, for no sooner had the rain of drop-pods began that the Night Lords abandoned the planet. The successors of the XIII attacked as one full force, but this left vast swathes of Tsagualsa's skies open for the VIII to retreat. Their timing was poor as well, for less than half of the Night Lords Legion happened to be present on Tsagualsa at this time. Therefore, despite the set-piece magnificence of the event, a hail of drop-pods descending form the skies, the Legion was still a well-numbered one as they fled from Tsagualsa.

Why were the successor Chapters to the XIII so inefficient? Had they forgotten the nature of their foes? Did they think the VIII would stand and fight? Or was their blood so hot from the Great Scouring that they lost all tactical sense and charged in? Perhaps the chance to make planetfall as one, as a Legion once more, was too hard to resist. Whatever the reason, Tsagualsa was lost, but the Legion survived.

The various warbands that now made up the Night Lords Legion fled Tsagualsa and most made their way to the Great Eye to join the other Fallen Legions, though a good number chose to continue their pirating and raiding outside the bounds of the Eye, and a smaller number headed to the Maelstrom. The majority of the VIII were therefore present for the tail-end of the Legion Wars but made little impact, arriving in dribs and drabs as they did and not eager to immolate themselves on the pyre of conflict blazing within the Eye at this time.

Since then, the Night Lords have become a diverse Legion in terms of the make-up of their warbands. Those increasingly rare Night Lords we might term traditionalists are typically strict, disciplined, and continue to believe in the rationale behind their terror-tactics. They have no truck with the worship of Chaos and the sorcerers in their ranks exist under sufferance, while their human serfs are subject to harsh measures under their rule but, conversely, the emphasis on discipline means they are not generally subject to the cruel pastimes of their masters. Yet only the very strictest of such warbands are uniform in their attitude, the Night Lords of 10th Company, and the to be corruption found within its ranks, being a good illustration of a 'strict' VIII warband. Some have embraced the Ruinous Powers, Kharnate and Slaa'nethi worship seeming to be the branch of Chaos the legionaries of the VIII are most susceptible to, while more continue to eschew worship but embrace sadistic hedonism, spectacular atrocity, and may or may not accept the gifts of Chaos and the warp along the way; indifference to higher powers can be a effective shield. I know of an exceptionally small warband, no more than a dozen warriors or so, found within the Eighth Confederacy, who have given themselves over to daemonic union, yet continue to defy the will and worship of Chaos in a manner one wouldn't expect from those who have embraced the warp in so personal and intimate a manner.

The Night Lords are one of those Fallen Legions that stand apart from the main of Chaotic society within the Eye. It is said the Old Four look askance at the VIII Legion, unsure what to make of these monsters that have so embraced cruelty and depravity, have violated so many taboos of human culture built up over the centuries, yet pay so little heed to the patron deities of such cruelties and commit these atrocities regardless of their influence. The Word Bearers commit atrocity for ritual purposes and in order curry favour with Chaos Undivided, the Emperor's Children at least have some esoteric writings like the _ to back up their cruelty with some prattle about metaphysics (and, whether they acknowledge it or not, they do exist in the clutches of the Youngest God), but the Night Lords do what they do either in imitation of their father's teachings, or just for their own pleasure. It would be apt here to remember the school of thought, one endorsed by guest of the Terran Inquisition Iskandor Khain, that the Old Four are mere reflections of humanity, reflections of atrocity, depravity, and degradation, but not their instigators; it is a chilling reminder that human beings have existed far longer than have the Ruinous Powers.

It could be said it is their overall lack of commitment to Chaos that sets the VIII apart from other Legions, but then the same could be said for Alpha Legion and, in a somewhat counter-intuitive way, the Thousand Sons. But none of these Legions, save perhaps the Iron Warriors, can match the Night Lord's irreverent disdain and general lack of awe in the face of what lies beyond the Veil of Reality. The Night Lords extend this lack of grace to their fellows within the Eye, and are obstinate and stand-offish in their dealings with other Legions, a trait so common and ingrained it seems to be true on the level of gene-seed. However, they are relatively well-numbered in their many warbands and their services are typically available for hire by those willing to pay. They are effective in their niche and, if given the correct opportunity, their shock, terror, and stealth tactics can cripple a defensive structure before the main Chaos host takes the field. They can't reach the same feats of military ingenuity as can the Alpha Legion, and the Thousand Sons are a far more decisive force to have on the field, but they nonetheless excel in their favoured roles of stealth and terror, and are a strong asset for a commander that has an eye to their talents. But they are notoriously fickle, especially if they feel their current patron is not making good enough use of their skills.

When Abaddon launched an incursion into the Imperium proper (not a Black Crusade, a smaller, more limited affair) to plunder the Forge World of Crythe, Captain Vandred Anrathi of Tenth Company (known also as the Exalted, a once great captain who lost his way to the Changer of them) went to war alongside him. But Abaddon employed Tenth Company as footsloggers and ground-pounders, against unfeeling Skitarri no less, their fear -receptors well dampened. It was not the sort of battlefield Night Lords excel on, and they paid Abaddon back by abandoning the field and compromising the whole campaign. Then again, Tenth Company was later employed by Huron Blackheart, the Tyrant of Badab, as terror troops in the opening stages of his audacious raid on the fortress-monastery on the world of Vilamus; yet Tenth Company paid back their patron in treachery nonetheless (much to their own misfortune as I understand it). The value of VIII Legion warbands is well known in the Eye, but only a fool would rest their battle plans on the promise of their fealty. But, despite their fickle nature, they are nonetheless effective and, perhaps more importantly, readily available mercenaries.

I've said before than Night Lord warbands are very diverse in their compositions, and this is true. But, while they are certainly a fragmented Legion devoid of overall leadership and worldview (since the death of Severtarion, it is an agreed truth within the Legion that no one individual could command its loyalty entire), one would be hard pressed to call them a broken Legion. This is because no matter the composition of a warband or the beliefs they profess, even those who have disowned their parent Legion, in the eyes of the Legion brothers and cousins, they are unmistakably Night Lords. Their identity and aesthetic as members to the VIII Legion comes before their warband's allegiance, and for this reason, those Night Lords who have gone on to join the Black Legion or any other are shunned to almost homicidal levels by their once-brothers. From what I have gleaned from my conversations with Night Lords, this phenomena can be traced back to their relationship with their gene-sire. The Night Lords were unloved, untrusted, and uncelebrated by both the Imperium and their gene-sire. As such, hailing from thieves, murderers, and rapists, they may not have to like one another, but the bonds of brotherhood they shared, forged by the rejection and suspicion they all faced, took a firm hold in this Legion. This shared bond is a subtle chain, the gripes and squabble between Night Lord warbands are endless and frequently homicidal, but they are strong nonetheless. Therefore, their identity as sons of the Nighthaunter endures and prevails over all other markers, and woe betide the Night Lord that forgets this fact.

We will finally look at the aesthetics and disposition of the Night Lords in the 41st Millennium. Despite their reluctance for recruitment and replenishment, they are a well numbered Legion, most of their Original Legionaries surviving to this day, a feat no other Legion can claim (except perhaps the Thousand Sons if one counts empty suits of armour as Original Legionaries). Night Lords are often branded cowards both within and without the Great Eye, and though I don't believe cowardice to be the correct term, it would be safer to call them an expedient Legion, and this is probably a factor to account for the health of their numbers. They don't expose themselves to too much risk, enjoy the easy pickings of a civilian population, and take little joy in glorious last stands. The writings of the the War-sage Malcharion reflect this philosophy well in a more martial light, one of his most famous claims beings "victory at too high a price is no victory at all," found in his opus The Tenebrous Path. This attitude to war has seen their numbers well husbanded over the millennia.

The aesthetics of the Night Lords are another thing that binds the various warbands of the VIII Legion together and makes them instantly recognisable as sons of Nostramo. They have wrung out every possible combination of blue armour with silver (or iron) or gold (or bronze, or brass, or copper, or etc…) trim, a touch of red, and the inevitable lightning bolts. The warbands pride and distinguish themselves on their particular tone or hue, perhaps achieving a subtle blend of blue, green, and grey armour that is sets the brother's teeth to envy; I've even seen pink lightning bolts in one case. While a Thousand Son could be said to be more stylish, the Night Lords are a lot more style-conscious. The faux aristocratic culture of Nostramo made a mark on the Legion, combined with their primarch's morbid aesthetic to create a unique style amongst the Fallen Legions. True, the individual elements of their look are reflected across many Chaotic factions; skulls, flayed skin, iron spikes, and various other grisly totems, but, to borrow a phrase from Imperial fashionistas, no other Legion wears them better.

Proficient in the tactics of both stealth and shock, masters in the art of prolonged torture, Night Lords emerge from the shadows to make superlative use of fear and dread like no other Legion can. I understand the charge of cowardice put to them, it is not without reason, but that is cold comfort to those who find themselves chained to the skinning-pits. So call them cowards if you must, the charge is not without some cause, but just know that should you face them on the battlefield then you are facing Astartes like any other, and like any other, they know no fear.

The Black Legion

Despite the prevailing view of Imperial scholars to the contrary, I hold, as do most denizens of the Great Eye, that the Black Legion is not the successor Legion to the Sons of Horus; one, to paraphrase a founding member, did not become the other. Instead, one died so another may rise from its ashes. But even this idea of a phoenix Legion doesn't hold, to do so it would have had to have to risen once more in the image of its predecessor. What we have instead is the is the only Legion without a number, uniquely existing without a primarch's influence, founded and joined by legionaries from all Legions; to call such a thing an outcrop of the XVI doesn't do its story the justice it deserves. They are the single greatest success story the Eye has to offer, a symbol of hope and fraternity amongst the Fallen Legions after their failed rebellion under Horus, a torch that has kept their hate for the Imperium, their invicta, alive these last ten thousand years.

"From flame and shadow recast, in Black and Gold, reborn"

- taken from the first volume of the dictated writings of Iskandor Khayon, The Talon of Horus, compiled and edited by Lady Inquisitor Elizabeth Beckett.

As we are not writing about them, the Sons of Horus needn't detain us long. Besides, they have the most well-furrowed history of any of the Fallen Legions and I've little to contribute in that regard. In brief, they may not have instigated the Great Heresy, but, after they were tricked into it by the XVII, they were at its cutting edge in the drive for Terra. Once they were upon that holy soil, they were behind only the World Eaters in their eagerness to break the walls and reach the Throne. When the psychic backlash of Horus' death was felt, they, along with the Word Bearers, suffered the most. In paralytic shock or catatonic despair, caught in their grief at the death of a father, they were slaughtered. A few regained sense enough to press on the attack, while many more listened to First Captain Abaddon and fell back in a rout to reach their ships. His father's body still warm, Ezyklyle Abaddon had command of the Legion from the deck of the Vengeful Spirit. His Legion, for indeed it was now his Legion, joined the fleeing traitor host and made for the Eye. But their defeat and flight from Terra was only the beginning of their travails. Every one of the other Fallen Legions, even the Thousand Sons who had only reluctantly joined the traitor cause, held the XVI responsible for their collective failure.

There is no agreement within the Great Eye as to who fired the first shot of the Legion Wars. However, what all can wholeheartedly agree on, is who was on the receiving end of that shot. The conflict started before the traitor host even reached the Eye, that sanctuary beyond the reach of the avenging fury of the loyalist primarchs, and not, as is generally believed, once they were within the bounds of their hellish haven. The Sons bore the brunt of the firestorm before they could break away and the other Legions then turned their guns on each other; the Fallen Legions entered the Eye already at each other's throats.

My own conversations with Fallen Astartes notwithstanding, we have to thank Iskandor Khayon, founding member of the Black Legion and current guest of the Terran Inquisition (don't ask how I know, heads would roll), for our knowledge of these events. According to him, and corroborated by anecdote elsewhere, Ezykyle Abaddon abandoned his Legion for the duration of the Legion Wars and went into self-imposed exile, wishing no association with the pointless conflict taking place throughout the Eye and having no interest in husbanding a dying Legion to its extinction. His absconding was seen as a betrayal by many of his Legion brothers and, had the Legion survived, this may have held problems for the future. Instead, the Sons of Horus never outlasted the Legion Wars. Hunted on all sides, they fought, scattered, regrouped, fought again, negotiated, retreated, fought again, scattered again, formed up in small groups, got picked off, reformed again, fought again, lost again, and so on. They tried a series of manoeuvres aimed at preserving the Legion but found themselves outplayed at every turn until it was time for the coup-de-grace.

The end for the Sons of Horus came with the destruction of the aptly named world Lupercalia at the hands of the III Legion. Lupercalia was the resting place of Horus Lupercal where his tomb, Maelium, was constructed (I'd love to call it a Tombworld but the Inquisitors of the Ordo Eldritch coined the term first) and was the last surviving stronghold of the XVI other than its flagship, the Vengeful Spirit, which was declared missing at this time (though not 'lost with all hands'). We now know the primary objective of the III was to steal the corpse of Horus Lupercal, but no doubt the death of the Sons was a fine bonus. The destruction of Lupercalia was the end of the XVI. The Legion didn't end the way the World Eaters would a millennia or so later, there were still a few legionaries and successor warbands to be found fleeing, hiding, or taking part in suicidal acts of vengeance, but any hope for survival as a Legion was in tatters. The Legion was now dead, it was just a matter of waiting for the body to fall.

That is how the Sons of Horus died, with the destruction of Maelium and Lupercalia. But how did the Black Legion form? I can only recommend the account of Iskandor Khayon for those who can gain access to (or steal?) such restricted lore. His account goes into far more detail than mine, and, alas, his tale is not yet complete, and though I've touched on it while accounting for the histories of other Legions, I'll now try and do what little justice I can.

It was Abaddon who founded the Black Legion. It is his Legion, the closes thing it has to a primarch, but he didn't do it alone. The founding Astartes of its very earliest genesis included Thousand Son sorcery Iskandor Khayon and Ashur-Kai, World Eater Lheorvine Ukris, Sons of Horus Justaerin, Falkes Kilbre, Emperor's Child Telemachon Lyras, and the soul-severed Word Bearer Sargon. It was this motley crew (Telemachon was a prisoner for much of their journey) that set out to reclaim the Vengeful Spirit and prevent the III Legion, or, really, Fabius Bile, from claiming the corpse of Horus. They found the Spirit, and, by doing so, they found Abaddon. His exile had come to a close, but he'd yet to announce himself to the Eye, and he did so in spectacular fashion. Signed up to the dream of a new Legion, one founded on brotherhood and future glories rather than past prides and old shames, Khayon sacrificed his strike cruiser, The Tlaloc, to be hurled at the Canticle City upon the world of Harmony, the capital of the III Legion.

In a stroke, Abaddon ended the supremacy of the III Legion who had so enjoyed the Legion Wars from a position of strength, but they were now scattered, vulnerable, and at the mercies of those they had so recently hunted and lorded over. But that was a mere side-effect, the ensuing havoc allowing Abaddon and co to board the laboratory-ship of Fabius Bile and, at no small sacrifice to themselves, kill the newly resurrected (or cloned) Horus. According to Legion lore, and I do hope this is true (though even Khayon's account has yet to convince me), Abaddon's last words to his cloned father before ending him with his own power-claw was to say to him, whisper-close, "I am not your son." And so, in spectacular fashion, Abaddon was once more known to the denizens of the Great Eye. He had single-handedly broken the sons of Fulgrim, him and a small band, no Legion to speak of, what better way to announce his return? And what better way to advertise himself to his former traitors-in-arms? The Black Legion founded itself on the eve of the assault on the Canticle City and was now openly recruiting followers.

To understand the Black Legion, one must understand why it was founded and what it offered to prospective joiners. The 'why' is quite straightforward: to carry the Long War to the Imperium and tear down the edifice of the Golden Throne; to carry Abaddon's hate, his invicta, out amongst the stars as the Great Crusade once carried the Emperor's hubris. But this alone would not have attracted the droves to its banner that the Legion did. What the Black Legion truly offered was purpose, a vision to reach for and execute, and loyalty to a cause. It offered something novel and vibrant, something free from the shadow of failure that hangs over every Fallen Legion. Finally, above all else, the Legion offered the chance to know the bonds of brotherhood once more.

An individual Astartes is one of the finest breeds of warrior the galaxy has ever known, but they are not the best, let's instead give that honour to the Emperor's sentinels, his Custodes. On a one-to-one basis, Imperial assassins easily outrank a single Astartes (M'Shen not withstanding) and I know of fine Eldar sword-dancers, including their dark cousins, who can make short work of the Emperor's finest. Therefore, as considerable as it may be, the strength of an Astartes does not lie in his prowess as an individual warrior (again, incredible as that prowess is in itself), but in what they can achieve in unison with their battle-brothers. With the odd exception here and there, and in contrast to the Adeptus Custodes, Astartes are inherently social creatures in the sense of belonging to a military fraternity. While their destination may be victory, their journey is one of marching lockstep with their brothers, to share the horror they face, and to be remembered upon their deaths.

That was the real draw of the Black Legion. Say what they will about invicta and the death of the Imperium, in truth, they wanted to belong once more, to call each other brother and walk that long march to victory. A new Legion free of the baggage of the past, no sins of the father to inherit, no victories to commemorate or defeats to remember. A chance to create something free of a primarch's influence or the Emperor's shadow. And it worked. The fledgeling Legion grew rapidly, the destruction of the Canticle City and humbling of the Emperor's Children being the best recruitment campaign they could hope for. Not a single Legion failed to provide defectors to the Black, and this was bolstered by replenishment and recruitment programmes that have been active ever since. As such, the Legion only grew from here and acquired several very lucrative signed treaties with several Mechanicum factory-worlds. They were fast becoming one of the most capable forces within the Eye. But, despite their early success, the Legion still had much to prove of itself.

The most significant early event of the Black Legion worth touching on is that thing we now call the First Black Crusade. I've spoken of this event during my entry on the Death Guard and I'm also including a long section on the Black Crusades themselves within this volume that will further illuminate the history of the Black Legion, so I will reiterate only the basics of this event: namely, that it barely counts as a Crusade and the Legion was lucky to survive it. This was however the event that made it known to the Imperium that the Fallen Legions were still an active force in the galaxy; though again, calling it a Black Crusade is extremely optimistic and the term is laughable to those dwelling within the Eye. The denizens of the Eye also call it the First Black Crusade, just as we do, but in their minds it is not a term of hallowed horror as it is to the Imperium, but a term of mocking jest. It wasn't a Crusade, it was an escape attempt, a proof of concept for future endeavours. As much of a sanctuary the Eye may be for the Fallen Legions, it is also a prison, an unspeakable realm of madness where the only thing they are safe from is the Imperium. The First Black Crusade was a proof of concept therefore, to show the borders of the Eye could indeed be breached. And breached they were. Is was during this breakout that the Black Legion lost one of their founding members, the Thousand Son seer Ashur-Kai to agents of the warp, and where at least a dozen warships were 'lost with all hands' as we in the Imperium euphemistically say. But, despite the cost, they succeeded. Chased by the XIV Legion pretender Thagus Daraveck, met by High Marshall Sigismund and his Templars, they had nonetheless escaped.

Even though Abaddon slew Sigismund, an act he remembers without relish, and even though Khayon killed Daraveck, the Black Legion fleet was still forced to scatter. Scatter, flee, raid a few Imperial planets if lucky, but otherwise retreat back into the Eye and regroup. But they had escaped, no matter how brief, and, with the death of Thagus Daraveck, the way was clear for the ascendancy of the Black Legion within the Eye. Ivy the time of the Third Black Crusade, the Cadian Gate, that passage of calm amidst the storm, would become the chosen avenue for most of Abaddon's, assaults upon the Imperium, all other points of exit being too costly or unfit for a Crusade-size force. But these were the early days of the Legion and such lessons were still to be learned. Not long after this so-called Black Crusade, a decade or so, an unmanned vessel entered the bounds of the Sol System and was auto-piloted to Terra. Aboard was the corpse of Sigismund and his banner, somewhat lovingly arranged after the clear defilement it had been subjected to. Included across his chest was his sword, the Black Sword, that Black Sword. On it was etched, in great care, the words: "We are returned". That was how the Black Legion announced itself to the Imperium. They didn't even name themselves, knowing history would see to that, and a chill went through the High Lords of Terra; their war was not yet over. No matter how long it took, how many failed attempts and foiled plots, the Fallen Legions would return. The Long War was declared, and it has raged unabated these last ten thousand years.

To my sorrow, it is here that the fascinating writings of Iskandor Khayon come to an end, at least until the publishing arm of the Terran Inquisition sees fit to furnish themselves with another volume. From here, we must rely on more traditional sources and my own findings, but I will leave one last tidbit from the early history of the Black Legion. It is well known to the Inquisition and the more trusted, higher ranked Imperial scholars, that Abaddon slew Sigismund in single combat following his breakout from the Eye. What is not known, what remained hidden even to the wider Black Legion, is just how close Abaddon and his Legion came to their extinction this day. Yes, Abaddon bested Sigismund, whose body was ravaged by the passing of time by this point, but to do so nearly cost him his life. To score the killing blow and win the duel, Abaddon had to open his guard, and Sigismund did not falter. His closest lieutenants hauled the almost lifeless body of Abaddon back to the Vengeful Spirit where he spent the next month in recovery. This information was sequestered and those legionaries who witnessed the event, those who were not part of the Despoiler's inner circle, were put to the sword. This was of course done to nurture and grow the legend of the Black Legion, the invincible power of Abaddon before whom even Sigismund stood no chance. They wished to control the narrative and that is understandable, but I think it a shame, for the truth is a far better story and, if you ask me, better displays the grit and determination of the Black Legion. This was a Legion owed nothing by fate and so forged their own destiny, existing on the knife-edge of survival. That is the true story of the Black Legion, a Legion that has fought for, bled for, and earned its ascendancy.

In Abaddon's perfect world, all Fallen Astartes would abandon their heraldry, their father's ambitions, and join the Black Legion. In Abaddon's almost perfect world, any Legion, warband, or individual who defied, scorned, or just didn't wish to associate with the Black Legion, would be hunted without remorse and their bones strung up as a warning to all those who do not submit to his will. But Abaddon does not live in a perfect world and he is very cogent of this fact. The propoganda pumped out by the Black Legion endorses Abaddon's almost perfect world, and a fledgeling warband just starting out on their traitorous career would do well to heed it, but otherwise this does not hold true most of the time. It is the Long War Abaddon fights, and while reputation and prestige matters, he cannot afford to indulge in a full retaliation for every slight against him. What holds true for we Inquisitors goes doubly so in the Eye: if you refuse to work with anyone who has ever tried to kill you in the past, you'll have very few people to work with in the future. Instead, the Black Legion rests on unpredictability. Should you scorn an invitation to join an incursion, a Black Crusade even, should you refuse the hand of friendship, there is every chance your defiance will incur no consequence. But you cannot know, and should a further invite be offered by Abaddon's Legion, cautious heads would be wise to heed it. Should a warband then be marked out by the Black Legion, they would do themselves a great favour to go and beg at Abaddon's feet, perhaps even clad themselves in black and gold, or flee the Eye and find a new home for themselves in the Maelstrom. Really, the degree to which one can ignore or defy the Black Legion comes down to a matter of strength and reputation. The Night Lords of Tenth Company was hardly a powerful warband, but their reputation was massive, containing among their number those names who were closest to the Nighthaunter, fought in the Great Crusade, and had carved quite the legend for themselves. Hence, they could afford to abandon the fight at the forgeworld of Crythe, plunging the campaign into jeopardy, but safe in the knowledge that Abaddon would need their services again in future; few warbands could have pulled such a stunt and quit the field unhounded.

The Death Guard were the first to publicly align themselves with the Black Legion, the personal relationship between Abaddon and First Captain Typhus being a useful asset at this time. The Word Bearers were not long in following suit, Erebus keen to support Abaddon in the destruction of a false god, as he saw it, and as much as Abaddon may have loathed the man, he could not turn down the backing of the XVII. Besides, Kor Phaeron held the XVII firmly in his grip and, while Abaddon may too have held him in contempt, the hatred was not personal as it was with Erebus. This loose confederation results in what I like to call the Big Three of the Great Eye, and it is their meeting of purpose that makes them so formidable. Were it not for the support of these two allies, the task of the Black Legion would have gone from extremely challenging to borderline impossible; still doable, but they would probably only be at the fourth or fifth Black Crusade by now rather than the thirteenth. The Death Guard offered industry and raw power, while the Word Bearers proffered spiritual legitimacy, conferred authority unto Abaddon, and their zealous prosletysing provided religious propaganda for the Long War. Of course, Abaddon has never been so foolish as to depend on the other two and has, over the years, expanded his own resource and manufacturing base to comfortably outstrip the other two. Not to mention that he is the favoured, unpledged champion of the Old Four (and how they lust over the soul he will never surrender to them), but this expansion and solidification of power took time, and for several millennia following the First Black Crusade, the fate of the Big Three were very much entwined as they bent the inhabitants of the Great Eye to their purpose.

As for the other Legions, the World Eaters were courted, a few joined but, like the rest of their Legion, they didn't last long. World Eater and Black Legion founding member Lheorvine Ukris is a fine example of this phenomena, and had the Black Legion's replenishment facilities been what they are today then the destructive urges of their XII Legion members might have been surmounted but, alas, such facilities were still a long time coming. As for the III, after their mutual suicide was narrowly avoided, the Emperor's Children cosied up to the power of the Black Legion and have been comfortable concubines, or parasites, ever since, well ensconced within the insulating layers of power and prestige, even if they lack much actual authority. As for the Thousand Sons, one of their greatest sorcerers is a founding member and has fully adopted the black and gold heraldry of Abaddon's Legion. That one sorcerer, him alone, makes up a respectable chunk of the still breathing Thousand Sons and he is the only - the only flesh and blood - member of the XV to join the Despoiler's Legion and remain attached. The Alpha Legion have largely managed steered clear of Abaddon's ambitions, a few warbands either adopting the black and gold or remaining as associates. However, being the virtuoso artists of espionage and irregular war that they are, they just can't resist the tidal swell of the Black Legion and the opportunities they present, drawn to Abaddon's slipstream as pilot fish are to a shark. Then there are the Night Lords, whose famous obstinacy does not make them natural joiners or supporters, and this has held true for the vast majority of the VIII. They are easily accessible as mercenaries, but little more than that and they are not known for their reliability. There was one sorcerer of the VIII by the name of Rubin, of Tenth Company no less (they do seem to crop up a lot) who was quite the catch for the Black Legion and worked close to Abaddon for a time. However, I understand he proved to be a disappointment and we need not speculate further on what that meant for him. Finally, there are the Iron Warriors, whose relationship to the Black Legion, and indeed the whole of the Big Three, is to be found in their own entry so as to do it justice.

The Black Legion is the undisputed pre-eminent Legion of the Eye. The Original Legionaries within its ranks come from all across the Fallen Legions, even from the ranks of loyalists, and typically operate as sergeants, captains, or may instead band together into squads to serve as elites. But the mass of Astartes within the Legion come from replenishment, and the Black Legion is the most effective and brutal at this process. Where they get their hands on so much un-corrupted gene-seed is unknown, the usual routes of piracy and extraction via loyalist dead just don't seem capable of furnishing such numbers. Perhaps they know how to manufacture fresh gene-seed, or have found a way to wring recruits out of corrupted stock, a terrifying prospect in either respect. Some have gone so far to speculate that within those ranks of powered armour are not Astartes but the abominations of Fabius Bile. Alas, I've seen these warriors with my own eyes and, corrupted as they are, they are undoubtedly Astartes (for those I've laid eyes on). Like those boys in the Imperium taken from their homes by our loyalist Chapters, children are taken by the Black Legion in war or as vassal tribute, or they are grown in vats. Whatever their route to the Legion, indoctrination starts young, younger than in the Imperium. From birth they are raised to feel invicta, righteous hatred, and undying fury towards the Emperor and his throne. By the time they are clad in black and gold, they are fanatical and driven soldiers, capable of both martial discipline and zealous rage, fighting a war not of their making.

It is the combination of numbers and industry that makes the Black Legion so formidable. Unlike so many other factions of Chaos, they can compete on logistical terms against the Imperium, something typically alien to the followers of the Ruinous Powers. Their logistical strength is highlighted by their need to endure all the same pitfalls the rest of Chaos must face, corruption, infighting, mutation, and madness, but are then able to absorb these inefficiencies and keep up their momentum. The Imperium's strength lies in the resources and manpower it has to command. The Imperial Guard may not be as savage as a Chaos host, but they can typically outlast them, which is why the opening moments of a Chaos assault are so crucial. The enemy will throw everything they have at an Imperial stronghold, so much sound and fury wrecking a terrible toll, but should the defenders whether the storm, the long-term picture will look increasingly positive as reinforcements bolster the defence, their foe runs out of munitions, and they slowly steal back the advantage. This is of course a crude generalisation and there are plenty of military strategies employed by Chaotic forces that are far more long-term in nature; perhaps using sorcery to induce a seeping dread to sap the will of the defenders, corruption and mutation to spoil the land of its resources, or the use of cultists to bring down a society from within over generations. But, in the main, while Chaos may have the numbers, without munitions, reinforcement, and consistent logistics, their hordes of the Lost and Damned will be cut down like so much chaff in pre-prepared kill-zones.

But the Black Legion overcomes this dilemma. They, more than any other Legion, can sustain long-term assaults and are supported by a sizeable manufacturing base, hence the dragging bore the Thirteenth Black Crusade has turned into. The Black Legion of old would have cut their losses by now and run back to the Eye, but today's Black Legion can afford to dig in, like a pit-dog who bites down on his foe and doesn't let go. This staying power is then further backed up by the powers of the warp at the Legion's disposal. While Abaddon has never embraced the Old Four, they have certainly embraced him, and he shimmers with aetheric energies that he keeps at bay by his will alone, a feat never achieved by his father. His Legion is bolstered daemonic pacts, treaties with daemon-forges (typically run by the Dark Mechanicum), and influence from all four corners of the Chaos wastes. Some of the warp's greatest daemons have been bound by the sorceries of this Legion and hordes of lesser entities pop in and out of existence at their whim.

We must also not forget the mortal armies at the disposal of the Black Legion, not the chaff-like Lost and the Damned, but functioning, disciplined military forces that are pledged to the Legion. There is a core military force, comparable to the Imperial Guard, Blood Pact, or Sons of Sek, trained by Astartes but operating with human officers and an Original Legionary in overall command. Such mortal forces in service of Chaos aren't unheard of, but the size of this one is what sets it apart; again, a reflection of the logistical heft Abaddon has at his disposal. Very notable is the armoured division of these mortal armies, likely the greatest tank force in the galaxy outside of the Imperial Guard. These forces bear all the same heraldry as Abaddon's legionaries and they are valued and respected members of, if not the Legion, then the mortal brotherhood that exists in its shadow. Less formidable, though vastly greater in number, are the endless hordes of mutants, cultists, beastmen, the rest of the detritus produced by the Eye and Imperial society; the Lost and the Damned, those who are there to be used and discarded by the lords and deities they revere. In this regard, the Black Legion is little different from any other in their procurement and deployment of these forces, the size of the hordes they command being the only thing that sets them apart. It is often Word Bearers associated with the Black Legion that lead these hordes of mortals, tending to have plenty to bring to Abaddon's cause and knowing exactly how to whip them up to a maddened frenzy and convince them that running towards the guns of an impregnable fortress is somehow in their interest. Finally, as well as their lesser cousins the Chaos Knights, there is a Legion of Titans pledged to the Black Legion. Titans, lots of them and in variety; God-Engines. I needn't go into detail in what these are or what they can do, I only hope your heart trembles at their tread as does mine.

Chaos assaults upon the Imperium, whether they be Black Crusades or no, are a massive expenditure of manpower, resources, and spirit. What from our perspective may be just a small incursion, could be decades, or centuries in the making by the warband in question that has braved the Imperium's borders. But they cannot replenish, and so once their energy is spent, or they come up against a force they cannot best, they must retreat back to the Eye. This again highlights the victory that is Black Legion logistics: they can afford to replenish their forces almost as quickly as they expend them, and that is what makes them so powerful. Imperial logistics and infrastructure still has the edge in this regard, our supply chains are still a lot more robust and predictable than theirs, but, combined with the martial power, Chaotic gifts, and the rest of the Fallen Legions generally following in tow, this logistical edge held by the Imperium is looking increasingly blunted.

Please see the section in this volume titled 'History of the Black Crusades' for a further accounting for this greatest of Fallen Legions.

Iron Warriors

I've named the Death Guard, the Word Bearers, and the Black Legion as the Big Three of the Great Eye. They are the most well numbered of the Fallen Legions, each is whole and united in purpose, and they have a reliable military and industrial base from which to support their armies and launch campaigns. They are the most powerful Legions in the Eye and each is a mighty force in its own right. But, under this definition, it should really be the Big Four; where are the Iron Warriors? Quite simply, up until the Eleventh Black Crusade, the Iron Warriors have not sought amicable relations with any other Legion and this feeling has generally been reciprocated throughout the inhabitants of the Eye. If there could be said to be one Legion that Fallen Astartes, not fear exactly, such an emotion has largely been engineered out of them, but are perturbed by and are given a wide berth, then it is the IV Legion. It is a hard phenomena to describe. I've struggled to write this entry, it is the last one to which I've put my pen, and I do hope I achieve justice for this reason-defying Legion.

Should you be unfortunate enough to have attended the Schola Progenium in the days of your youth, or just a normal schola for those of us not subjected to the horrors of Imperial indoctrination, do you remember that weird, quiet kid? The one whose mum cut his hair for him and his clothes didn't fit properly? He did all that was asked of him, he worked hard and followed the rules, and received nothing for it. He was teased, he had no friends (he wanted them, he just suppressed too much anger to open up), and in group activities he would do all the work while others laughed amongst themselves only to later get all the praise. And this kid just soaked it all up with quiet stoicism. That was the Iron Warriors during the Great Crusade. They were the workhorse of the Imperial Legions, overlooked and unloved, looked down on even, despite their fearsome rate of conquest. They fought those inglorious wars that no one else would, unthanked, yet ever dutiful, leal, and, ultimately, trusting against reason in the purpose and worth of the Emperor's Crusade.

Then, one day, that weird kid won't take it anymore. He comes into school with billiard balls wrapped round a sock and smacks them round the heads of the popular pupils and spits in the faces of the pretty girls. He frightens the teachers, pinpointing their weaknesses and saying just the right words to get under their skin. He refuses to do his work, he gives an evil eye to all and sundry, his grades fail, and yet, come exams, he aces every one. He's still the quiet, weird kid he's always been, still no one wishes to be his friend, but nobody mocks him anymore, and the fear he once had of them is buried deep, deep down into the recesses of his mind, to be replaced with open scorn. All that anger he was holding in, crushing down within himself with the weight of a neutron star, he now wears it openly on his sleeve, a cold, steely ire radiating outwards to the world. That was what Perturabo and his Legion became once they turned traitor with the other Fallen Legions; the stoic workhorse was now an cold stallion.

The primarch of the IV, Perturabo, the Lord of Iron, was a military-strategy and engineering genius beyond peer, hampered only by an imbalanced and paranoid psyche. Indeed, upon being given command of his Legion, he decimated (as in killed one tenth) it for what he considered unsatisfactory results thus far. These red flags didn't go ignored, his brothers Dorn and Guilliman being especially vocal in their condemnation of such a waste of Astartes blood, yet the Emperor, in his wisdom, deemed Perturabo fit to lead his Legion. The Lord of Iron didn't love his sons, seeing them as figures on a spreadsheet to be spent or spared as the tactical situation deemed. Yet, despite his poor bond with his Legion, he suppressed his anger over its ill use at the hands of the Imperium, and held to his oath of loyalty with an ever harder, yet ever more brittle grip. When he snapped, he destroyed his adopted homeworld of Olympia in his rage, not much unlike the Curze of the VIII and his adopted homeworld of Nostramo. As well as his anger towards his father, Perturabo likely turned to Horus out of grief and shame of his actions that day, the Warmaster offering a moral balm for his conscience, Horus being the one to take on Perturabo's burden of choice from him, and so absolve himself; Perturabo may be an angry man, psychotic even, but he is not a psychopath. Seemingly ignorant to the irony of his words, he vowed to serve his brother as loyally as he served the Emperor.

Being the strategic genius he was, with a particular knack for siege-craft, Horus did him the honour of orchestrating and commanding the Chaos host on the surface of Terra during the Siege. I'm sure Horus saw this as a magnanimous gesture, but, in truth, Horus' mind was by now apparently so clouded by the caress of the Old Four that while he certainly could have led his armies from the front, sword in hand, as a commander from afar, he was in no position to conduct strategy. And Perturabo was an excellent choice for the role. The two commanders of the opposing forces, the Lord of Iron and his hated rival, Rogal Dorn, fought each other over the course of months. The two were generals testing each other over a board of regicide, playing a game of strike, counter-strike, feint, ploy, and withdrawal. The warring brothers were finely matched, with Pertrurabo slowly but relentlessly, and occasionally dramatically, pushing the Imperial defenders deeper and deeper into the inner reaches of the Palace.

If only Horus had left it there. Instead, the deluded Warmaster felt the need to intervene and take charge. After a failed ploy against the Saturnine wall designed to end the Siege quickly, an assault led by Abaddon of the XVII, one that wasn't even sanctioned by Perturabo (apparently), Horus took the chance to dismiss, or at least overshadow, his brother. A foolish decision, such setbacks as the Saturnine Wall happen in war and Horus' need to take charge at the slightest sign of failure is indicative of just how far this favoured son's mind had fallen. The assault turned into a chaotic mess, reminiscent of the baying madness we associate with Chaos today. The assault ordered by Horus was one of titans and knights, devastatingly effective, but the Chaos host lost far more in the way of manpower and resources, taking victories at a far higher price than necessary, than had they stuck to Perturabo's cool determination instead of Horus' fevered fervour. Perturabo was rightly furious; he'd been used and overlooked by his brother just as he had by his father. Just like that weird kid in school, he wasn't going to take it anymore. He swore then and there that he would kneel to no one ever again, and gave the order to his forces to withdraw from Terra. The great majority obeyed, and they would go on to form the basis of the Iron Warriors that has endured through to our millennium. The rest continued the assault, losing themselves to the baying horde that they were fast forming under Horus' command. Some would go on to form warbands under their own flag, some assimilated into other Legions, none were accepted back into the IV.

Quitting the field before the rest of their Fallen cousins, the Iron Warriors did not make a straight dash for the Great Eye like the rest of the traitor host would later do, the avenging primarchs on their heels, but instead lingered in realspace. Following the Siege, the IV would gain the satisfaction they were denied on Terra during the events that would come to be known as the 'Iron Cage'. In this methodical, defensive battle, they humbled their Imperial Fist adversaries in pre-prepared kill-zones using artillery and enfilades, until the survivors of the VII had to be rescued by Guilliman and the successor Chapters of the XIII; such salvation was humiliation in the eyes of the sons of Dorn. The Fists survived, but the Iron Warriors made off with hundred of vials of gene-seed harvested from their foes, which they took back with them to their new homeworld, the daemon-world/factory-world of Medrengard, located within the bounds of the Great Eye. Finally, the Iron Warriors were contained within the realm of madness with the rest of the Fallen Legions.

The history of the Iron Warriors is unclear in places, more recent revisions casting doubt on established narratives. Did the Battle of Tallarn, that great tank battle, did it take place before or after the Siege of Terra? Was Pertrurabo truly involved in the ascension of Fulgrim to daemon-hood? Such a pairing of brothers seems unlikely. We also know for sure that the Iron Warriors quit the Siege, but, other than the fact that not all did so, we know very little about this event. What concerns us here is how Perturabo became a daemon-primarch. Some accounts put this down as occurring after the Battle of Tallarn (but before or after the Siege?), other sources claim it happened once the Iron Warriors were safely ensconced on Medrengard. We can almost certainly say that Pertudrabo's ascension occurred after the Siege of Terra, not before. So then how, or indeed, why, did Pertrurabo become a daemon-primarch? He never pledged himself to Chaos, not even undivided, and it doesn't seem he caught the interest of any of the Old Four. We can speculate therefore that it was an act of will on his part, an important step on his journey to understand and utilise Chaos, knowing that to master it was a fool's endeavour. Such autonomy on Perturabo's part is supported by his disillusionment at both the Emperor and Horus, wishing from now on to be his own master, and the fact that the one piece of information we do have regarding his ascension, is that it involved the sacrifice of all the gene-seed harvested from the VII after the events of the Iron Cage. Perturabo may have risen to daemon-hood, but neither he nor his Legion were ever worshipers of Chaos, in fact, they despise it.

This is a major factor in what sets the IV apart from the rest of the Fallen Legions. There are plenty of Astartes within the Eye who despise Chaos, Talos of Tenth Company for example (forgive my repeated use of his case-study, the man is just too valuable), and much of the Thousand Sons are far less enamoured than one might think, caring more for the intricacies of the warp than the machinations of the Old Four. But all other Legions are subject to it in some way or another; the XII eschewed sorcery but embraced the worship of Khar-neth, Abaddon may not be pledged to Chaos but he is surrounded by its trappings, for every Alpha Legionary that has stayed true another is corrupted, and even the Night Lords, for all their disdain and mockery of the Ruinous Powers, they at least acknowledge, somewhere in their black hearts, that they are relatively powerless in the face of it. Not so the Iron Warriors. They, more than any other Legion, can claim to have, if not mastered Chaos (let's not be absurd), then at least somewhat corralled and contained it, and they are anything but enamoured with it. And it must be this lack of enamourment with Chaos that is their strength. The history of the Inquisition is littered with excitable fools have stood in awe of the power of Chaos, its potential, "if only we could harness it!" they say, and I'm sure we're all familiar with the ignominy in which such souls end their careers. Yes, the Iron Warriors despise Chaos, like much of the Night Lords, but they don't let that cloud their relationship to it; after all, extreme hate is really just another form of enamourment. To them, this Legions of engineers and logisticians, Chaos is a tool that they can employ or discard. This alone doesn't set them much apart from those Inquisitors who have claimed the same, but in the case of the Iron Warriors, they can point to a far higher and consistent rate of success.

They are not immune to its effects of course, Chaos mutation is random and unpredictable, especially within the confines of the Eye, but they have some fairly brutal counter-measures they have come to rely on. It is standard practice within the Legion that should the slightest sign of corruption, or mutation if you prefer, appear on the limb of an Astartes, they will cut it off, or carve away the offending flesh; they utilise Chaos, they are nor enamoured with it. Hence, many members of the IV sport augmetic limbs in the manner of the X, but of course theirs is a less willing, if no less sanguine, sacrifice. In this spirit, in line with the other Fallen Legions, the IV makes great use of daemon-engines, as suits their mechanical way of war, but what sets them apart, is that it is a rare daemon in their arsenal of machines that is not lobotomised; their Defiler-artillery, slow, cumbersome, but devastating crab-like machines, produced in are particularly of note. And should the signs of the warp's maddening influence appear in the words or actions of a brother, if he is not executed, then he will be sequestered, quarantined, and left to overcome this influence or fall victim to it. Should he succumb, then these brothers are then further exposed to the warp's influence and go on to join the Legion's herds of Chaos spawn. As for their approach to the sorcerous arts, it has more to do with architecture and engineering then it does the esoteric and profane, relying on tried and tested techniques as opposed to the novelties, and unpredictabilities, of flare and passion.

It is how close the IV sit to Chaos within the Great Eye and yet the distance they are able to maintain that so sets them apart from the general Chaotic 'culture' of the Eye. To achieve this while remaining not only whole and united but, like The Big Three, maintain an industrial base on which they can rest a well-numbered Legion. True, these numbers may not match up to those of the Big Three, of which the Word Bearers are the least numbered, and, given their devastating military effectiveness, this might be their most un-nerving aspect in the eyes of military strategists who rely on the assurance of numbers to carry the day. And yet, for all their relative, very relative, mastery of the warp, they use it in moderation, largely still preferring to call upon old-fashioned military strategy and tactics that an Imperial general wouldn't have a hard time recognising if not quite comprehending. With disciplined units of Traitor Guard under their command, reared by legionaries on the combat doctrine of the IV, and artillery shells flying overhead, the Iron Warriors advance as stoic masters of the battlefield, an ability and drive that has proven, more often than not, to be greater than the unholy favour of the Pledged Legions, the guile of the XX, the terror of the VIII, the zeal of the XVII, and even proven themselves a match, more so if it wasn't for the matter of numbers, to the Black Legion.

Much of their success can be put down to the fact that Perturabo still leads his Legion. He does so largely from afar from Medrengard, his captains afforded far more autonomy than they were in the days of the Great Crusade and subsequent Heresy, but the Legion still benefits enormously from his long-distance strategic foresight, centralised logistical planning, and micro-managing genius. Of course, his ascension to daemon-hood makes him one of the most formidable beings in the galaxy, even if it has done little to aid his delicate psyche, but, as during the Siege, it is his role as a commander and strategist that has allowed the Iron Warriors to excel within the Eye. But we can speculate that Perturabo is also the reason the Iron Warriors are not in an even stronger position than the formidable place they currently occupy, and the rest of the Fallen Legions can be thankful for that.

While it may help account for his unnecessarily brutal (though ever logical) way of war, Perturabo does not allow the turbulence of his mind to interfere with his superlative military campaigns. Perturabo is a engineer and strategist without peer, but, it is in this political realm that his emotional imbalance has kept the IV from the place of dominance within the Eye it might otherwise have achieved. Abaddon may not have the Lord of Iron's strength or razor-piercing mind (we are comparing an Astartes to a primarch after all), and nor does he share his superlative military genius, but Terra, the man does not lack for clarity of mind or purpose, his psyche unclouded by doubt, shame, or resentment; Abaddon's invicta is pure. The same cannot be said for Perturabo, who is prone to bouts of choler, melancholia, volition, and the odd bout sanguinity. Sometimes, Perturabo wishes his Legion to be the pre-eminent one in the Eye and usurp the place of the Black Legion, at others he washes his hands of domestic politics and the Iron Warriors go quiet for a few centuries as they embrace isolationism. Or, he might be in one of his darker moods, at which point a good number of Chaos warbands will be wiped off the galactic map and a Legion or two will receive an unprovoked savaging. Perturabo is simply not of sound enough mind to lead his Legion with clear purpose and vision. Had it been his goal and purpose since entering the Eye, had he been able to pursue it with clarity, consistency, and drive, then I've no doubt the Iron Warriors would have long outstripped the achievements of the Black Legion; he is a primarch after all, and Abaddon is but an Astartes. He may not measure up to Perturabo in his strength or intellect, but, unlike Perturabo, he is there! He forges relationships, his word is reliable and his mind not prone to flights of fancy or resentful brooding. Having learned well from the follies of his father's family, the new Warmaster fights the Long War, not the internecine squabbles of a fraternity of demi-gods.

As you might imagine, there is history between Perturabo and Abaddon, a conflicted mix of resentment, admiration, and, in some ways, understanding. It seems the recrimination between the two springs from the failed assault on the Saturnine Wall during the Siege of Terra, and Horus's usurpation of Perturabo's command of the field. Perturabo hates Horus, and this hatred has transferred onto Abaddon, yet he also respects him for all he, an Astartes, has achieved. Meanwhile, Abaddon holds the Lord of Iron responsible for said failed assault on the Saturnine Wall, that Perturabo tricked him into assaulting it, and yet he loves him for it too; never did Abaddon experience a purer taste of combat than he did in the caverns beneath the Saturnine Wall; "Take me back!" he is said to have cried after he was finally extracted via teleport, half dead. The two have danced around each other ever since, sometimes in a threatening posture, other times taking a more stand-offish or aloof stance, and though Abaddon will admit to it even if Perturabo may not (unless he's in one of his once-in-a-generation good moods), the two have even had moments of intimacy together, these two individuals with a perspective on the galaxy few others can share. To demonstrate this fractious relationship, the Iron Warriors have taken part in their fair share of Abaddon's Black Crusades, though not as allies, and even auxiliaries is a stretch considering the IV Legion ever stuck to their own agenda and had little to do with the Black Crusade's wider goals; remember, the Iron Warriors bow to no one. This state of affairs continued up to the Eleventh Black Crusade, where the hatchet was finally buried as the Black Legion supported the Iron Warriors in their ultimately failed assault on Medusa. Abbadon indulged Perturabo's latest obsession and, in doing so, subtly doused Perturabo's harboured ambition to usurp the Black Legion; it might be said this was the Black Crusade that buried the hatchet between the two. They are not allies, but Abaddon no longer has reason to fear the guns of the Iron Warriors at his back.

But we've spoken enough of primarchs and Warmasters, too much in fact, what of the Iron Warriors themselves? Their Legion way of war follows much of the same precepts employed before the Great Heresy, bolstered now by the powers of the warp and liberated from the chains of a master; a methodical and mathematical application of the science of magick and war. No flare, no passion, just results. These legionaries are a dour and humourless lot, and there would be much more of them if it wasn't for this Legion's prejudice against recruitment and replenishment; not that it doesn't occur, far from it, but the Original Legionaries in the Iron Warriors guard their status with a jealousy matched only by those in the VIII. Not unlike the Night Lords, I imagine this parochial attitude is born as a result of their father's guarded psyche and the Legion's lack of embrace from the Imperium during the Great Crusade; in both cases, it seems to have developed a 'let them hate us so long as they fear us' attitude. If there can be said to be a rift within the IV, it is between the Original Legionaries and their new blood 'mongrels'. But please don't think the mongrels are without pride or achievement, the warsmith Honsou standing as a testament to the achievements of the mongrels.

But don't think this relative (and I do mean relative) lack of numbers hampers them on the battlefield. A single Iron Warrior is the best equipped and supported Legionary of any of his fallen cousins, able to call upon the IV's legendary logistical competence to designate pinpoint accurate artillery barrages and an ample supply of heavy weaponry and armoured vehicles. This isn't to mention the wide arrays of battle-automata in their ranks, Perturabo's own bodyguard being the mechanical beings known as the Iron Circle. They are also well supported by trained units of Traitor Guard and have the same access to the Lost and the Damned as any other Legion within the Eye. As such, the legionaries of the IV have a staying power matched only by the Death Guard and the Black Legion, the Word Bearers not quite matching up to these heights, who often act as more of a support/supplementary role to the Big Three when not conducting their own operations.

Let us now look at how the Iron Warriors operate as a Legion, and in this they are not unlike the Word Bearers, and the term Iron Warriors warband, a host acting with independence while remaining part of the IV Legion, is appropriate to use. The warbands of the Word Bearers are under the authority of the Dark Council, yet unless issued explicit orders or recalled for a joint effort, they have a large degree of autonomy in how they conduct themselves. The IV are the same, though perhaps a little more centralised under Perturabo. It's legionaries are so well versed in their way of war, and so ubiquitous are their dour attitudes and suspicion of outsiders, that the Lord of Iron, outside of whole-Legion operations, trusts his sons to operate largely independently, the better for him to pursue his obsessions and brood over his daemons. It must be said that since Perturabo abandoned the Siege of Terra he has become more trusting of his sons and husbands their lives more carefully than he once did, no longer employing the ruthless expenditure of his sons' lives to achieve results; that can be left purely to their mortal auxiliaries. Finally, given this Legion's history and preference for industrial warfare, it won't come as a surprise to learn that they have some of the oldest and most trusted relationships with the Dark Mechanicum, an arrangement from which both parties have benefited greatly.

Their Legion heraldry, or lack thereof, is also worthy of note. Their symbol is that of a crude iron mask, it's stamp typically bearing little signs of care in its creation, but more well known are the black and yellow hazard stripes that act as the trim to their armour, the sort one might see in any industrial setting since the late Mechanical Age on Old Earth. What, I imagine, once served a practical purpose for this utilitarian Legion now acts as the only dash of colour in a panoply of gun-metal, grey, and black; there is not an enormous amount of aesthetic variety between the warbands of the IV, largely varying around how often they clean their armour. But due this lack of heraldry, their no-nonsense, industrial aesthetic well reflect the grim and practical nature of this Legion, and in comparison the the IV, the Death Guard might as well be prancing peacocks. Having said that, being the Fallen Astartes they are, they are not immune from the odd spike, chain, and skull adorning their armour.

Taking all these elements of the IV we've looked at so far, together, they amount to the phenomena as to why the other Fallen Legions find them so chilling: they defy the reason of Chaos, its corruption, sorcery, the 'culture' of the Great Eye, and military logic in general. Perturabo's strategic genius has on countless occasions found the gap in the most unyielding of Chaotic forces assaulting him or, more likely, facing his wrath. Time and time again has a small Iron Warriors warband, devoid of the gene-sire's guiding tactical hand, held out against numbers magnitudes greater than themselves, overcoming their enemies through cool, considered, relentless strategy, contained ire, and a dogged refusal to lose. Over their millennia in the Eye, as the IV have repeatedly defied the odds against them, the Fallen Legions slowly came to learn their lesson, and assaults on the IV became fewer and further between; such an undertaking now would be a serious, considered endeavour. Even the sorcerers of the Thousand Sons take pause before joining an assault on the Iron Warriors; Fallen Astartes live in something like awe and hatred of the might of the sorcerers, but to the IV, magick is just another battlefield obstacle to overcome.

I also believe the nature of their contempt is another thing the Fallen Legions find off-putting about their Iron cousins. All Legions are contemptuous of each other to some degree, whether it is the mockery of the Night Lords, the disdain of the Emperor's Children, or the false smiles of Lorgar's Legion. Verbal sparring, threats and insults, showboating and the like, these are the bread and butter of inter-Astartes engagement, and not just the Fallen ones, but the IV keep their melodrama to themselves, brooding grimly on their own time. Otherwise, they give their enemies nothing, uttering their Legion words, 'Iron Within, Iron Without' if they deign to say anything at all; the arrogance of the III Legion especially has been humbled time and again by the bluntness of the IV. But their refusal to engage with the ego-flexing that seems to be so central to life in the Eye sends a darker message than words or posturing could ever achieve: 'We are better than you, we have nothing to prove, do you really want to go to war with us?' The message seems to have filtered through. Their hatred, when it has a target, is a focused and considered thing; it may not be the most pure of the Fallen Legions, that accolade probably going to the Black, but it is definitely the most concentrated and intense.

On paper, should the Iron Warriors ever take on the Big Three, bearing their relative lack of numbers, they should be annihilated. In reality though, from both my considered speculation and what I've gleaned from conversations with Fallen Astartes, should it come to war between the Iron Warriors and the Big Three, the Warriors would be overcome, but the Word Bearers wouldn't survive the conflict. I also believe they could overcome the Death Guard so long as they weren't supported by the Black Legion. As for Abaddon's own though, Perturabo might best the Warmaster in single combat, but in terms of full-scale conflict between the two, though the Black might outstrip the Warriors in men, materiel, and unholy favour, my money would still be on the IV.

The Red Corsairs

If the Black Legion is the success story of the Great Eye, then the Red Corsairs are the success story of the Maelstrom. Though they are not one of the nine Fallen Legions, the sheer scale of their reach and power means they cannot be ignored by Abaddon within the Eye. For this alone they are worth writing about. On paper, they are nothing but pirates and raiders, but, in truth they are so much more than that. They are empire-builders born of XIII legion gene-seed under the rule of Huron Blackheart, a bona fide military and logistical genius. Should Abaddon succeed in breaking through the Cadian Gate, he would do well to seek out the support of the Corsairs.

They were once known as the Astral Claws under Lufgt Huron, one of the Astartes Chapters that existed under the banner of the Maelstrom Wardens, those guardians charged with monitoring and keeping the Imperium safe from the malign influence of the Maelstrom warp-storm. How they became the Astral Claws is the history of the Badab War, a long, bloody civil conflict between Imperial factions that resulted in a victory for Imperial loyalists, and the Claws falling to Chaos to become the Red Corsairs. The history is a long one and this is not the place for it; it is a well-known conflict with several excellent histories on the subject, both sequestered and otherwise, that well chronicle these events. I will mention a thing often hinted at, but generally not made explicit, is the shameful actions of Astartes on either side of the conflict towards the Badab Sector's civilian population. The history of the Badab War is a tragic chronicling of massacres, scourings, and mass imprisonments which, to my eyes at least, punctures the myth of the noble Astartes. Some of these events one can do a decent job of trying to justify, but, more commonly they just show up the detachment of Astartes from the concerns of us mere mortals. We call them the Emperor's Angels, but if the accounts of the Badab War are to be believed, which I do, they have more in common with devils.

Anyway, we will focus on the conclusion of this war, when the Astral Claws made their last stand upon Babadis Prime as loyalist Astartes fell upon them. Their backs to the wall, declared Traitoris Extremis by the Inquisition, they fought like cornered wolves as they slowly gave ground to those who sought to put an end to their chapter once and for all. Their enemies were successful. As they held out in their last stronghold, their leader was now mortally wounded, inches from death. He should have died, the chapter should have been extinguished, but it is at just these moments the Old Four are most likely to make themselves known to the desperate and the hopeless. Betrayed, as he saw it, by the Imperium he had only ever sought to serve, the gods came to him with an offer he should have refused: "Give us your soul, bind your legion to us" they said, "and we will deliver your body from death and your chapter from oblivion." Almost dead, mind and body pushed to their limits, the Tyrant of Badab gave in to their whisperings; if he ever felt conflicted over this decision, his doubts didn't last long. Buoyed by newfound strength from the warp and aided by several unexplained disasters to befall the loyalists in quick succession, the Claws broke out of their entrapment and headed deep into the Maelstrom. Leading them was Lufgt Huron, better known now as Huron Blackheart, his broken body animated with unholy power, cutting a swathe through the loyalist forces to reach their remaining ships and flee with what men and materiel they could.

Huron's breakout from the Imperial noose was a magnificent thing, a war of bolter and blade concluding with daemons and sorcery, but even the power of the Old Four is not limitless, and once safe haven was reached deep within the bowels of the Maelstrom, Huron's body once more began to fail him. He had pacted with the Old Four to deliver him and his men to safety, and the pact was now complete. The Red Corsairs would pillage and raid in the name of the Old Four, and to this day the Red Corsairs pay the gods their due, but no more than their bargain is owed. Huron Blackheart is no fanatic and the Red Corsairs are not World Bearers. There are certainly elements within the Red Corsairs who take their religious convictions more seriously than others, but otherwise their relationship to the Old Four, like many Fallen Astartes, is a transactional thing. They will engage in worship and sorcery so far as it benefits them, but otherwise, in the main, they are not true believers and remain largely wedded to the old ways of tactics and strategy over prayer and faith.

As for Huron, not willing to depend on aetheric powers to maintain what health was left to him, he underwent months of intensive surgery to rebuild or replace as much of his body as was feasible with machine components. He was brought to strength once more, but at a terrible cost. Not only is he more machine than man by this point (in truth, he should really be interred in a dreadnought), not only is he in constant pain, but he suffers from terrible migraines thanks to his tick-tock brain implants. Every few months, the man must undergo surgery once the pain has reached a fever pitch, an advanced form of trepanning that relieves the pressure in his head, or at least sets it back some. It is a tortured existence, one that is sustained not thanks to the Old Four, but thanks to the miracles of archeo-tech and Huron's own enduring will and hatred.

That was a very quick and totally inadequate history of the Red Corsairs, but nothing written so far justifies their inclusion in our writings on the Fallen Legions. The reason may be a mundane one, but the answer is in their astrographic range, resources, and infrastructure; not unlike the Black Legion. The Astral Claws were, like so many Astartes Chapters, created from the gene-seed of the Ultramarines and this, combined with the exceptional logistic and planning abilities of Huron, make them the truest empire-builders of the Chaos factions we know of. The bane of the Chaos forces are supply, infrastructure, reinforcement, and co-ordination, but the Red Corsairs overcome these foibles. Their empire may be one based on raiding and piracy, but it is an empire nonetheless. Although they have factory worlds and daemonic pacts, the Maelstrom is not so rich in industry and resources as is the Great Eye, so raiding still makes up the main method of materiel accumulation. But it is a testament to the planning of Huron and the abilities of his underlings that their reserves are well stocked and their empire rarely lacks suffers from want. Mundane planning, logistics, and an eye ever on the future, that is the true strength of the Red Corsairs.

I call it an empire, and it is, but is is a flexible and dispersed empire, holdfasts easily abandoned if not worth defending, most of their strength bound to the ever-roaming ships, and much of their domain existing within the bounds of the Maelstrom, a place no sane Imperial strategist would try to reach. This therefore makes it incredibly hard to launch a sustained assault upon them, in that you might catch a small number of unlucky stragglers or chosen diehards, but the bulk will retreat into the Maelstrom where only a Crusade strength force could have a hope of gaining so much as a foothold; a realm of madness is an excellent stronghold for those who have abandoned all principles and honour. A further problem is that entering and exiting the Maelstrom is a much easier prospect than that proffered by the borders of the Great Eye. For all Abaddon's power, the passage his assaults on the Imperium take is a very predictable one; if only the same were true of the Corsairs. As pirates and raiders, this is an incalculable boon for them and a scourge for the Imperium.

And their numbers. What numbers! Even back in their Astral Claw days they were forever pushing the limits of what the Codex Astartes had to say about Chapter numbers, probably the most sacred tenet of that entire tome. They claimed the breaking of this tenet was necessary to safeguard the Maelstrom Zone, but it goes to show that although Huron was a genius strategist and logistician, he was no politician. Anyone with a touch of political sense should have well realised that pushing a Chapter not just past, but well past a thousand Astartes would invite trouble, no matter how noble one's cause might be. This is entry level political thinking that the lowliest adept would have clocked, but a good number of Chapter Masters, far as they are from Imperial bureaucracy, might reasonably remain ignorant of. In any case, thanks to their raiding efforts, ranging from trade-lanes to Fortress-Monasteries, they are well stocked in gene-seed and resources. Some reports say they are numbered at a pre-Heresy Astartes legion, though I believe this to be either an exaggeration or a reflection of the smallest possible size of a pre-Heresy legion. Personally, I think twenty to forty thousand Astartes is a reasonable number to work with, and a downright terrifying one at that. Their most famous raid in search of gene-seed was upon the Fortress-Monastery of Vilamus, homeworld of the Marines Errant. Of course, any attack on a Fortress-Monastery is a fool's endeavour, but again, such is the prowess of Huron Blackheart. He had the intelligence to know when the world was least defended, and the foresight to pull off his raid which, even lightly defined, Vilamus should have held out against. The Night Lords (Tenth Company…again) were also involved and Huron had the good sense to deploy them as a vanguard terror force. They ended up betraying him once their role in the assault was concluded, but then such is the fickleness of the VIII and the fault cannot be that of the Tyrant of Badab, who otherwise made great use of the Night Lords' special skills.

From what I understand, there is a fairly amicable relationship between Huron and the Black Legion. Abaddon would be a fool to not recognise what Huron has achieved and I know Abaddon holds the man in high regard and would rather have him as a friend than an enemy. It goes back to the logistical power of the Black Legion and their Black Crusades. Should Abaddon smash through the Cadian Gate and flood the Imperium, he would do well to have the Corsairs on side lest his assault founder against the industrial might of the Imperium. To have a second power-base outside the confines of the Eye would allow him to squat in the midst of the Imperium and keep alive his Long War. Let us hope it does not come to that.

The Thirteen Black Crusades

The history of the Black Legion can be traced by the thirteen Black Crusades that have so far launched forth from the Great Eye against the Imperium. All of these have been sublimated into myth and legend to some degree, appearing in songs, fables, poems, and those nursery rhymes mothers sing to their children lest they misbehave. They cast a long shadow over the Emperor's realm, those unstoppable tempests that are The Despoiler's will, harbingers of the Emperor's death and mankind's doom. Or so the prophets of despair and soothsayers of madness would have us believe. The legend and prowess of the Black Crusades has become bloated over the millennia. Terrible as these Crusades may be, we would be doing Abaddon's work for him if we were to fall for his Legion's propaganda. I hope therefore that this appendix of sorts to our history of the Fallen Legions will shine a light into the darkness.

The most obvious fact of Abaddon's Black Crusades is that there have been, so far, thirteen of them. Thirteen has long been a cursed number according to the perennial superstitions of our species, and it is just our fortune to live in the time of this particularly awful Thirteenth Black Crusade. Psykers talk of bells tolling to herald the Imperium's end, claiming this is the culmination of Abaddon's Long War, a final reckoning against the Emperor. This would seem to imply the previous twelve were all just ruses, or strategic ploys along the way, preamble intrusions building up to the unholy Thirteenth, the mere unfolding of Abaddon's grand strategic vision, pearls in his necklace of destruction. I hope you can see why this theory is so favoured amongst the paranoid, the dispossessed, and the mad. It is also favoured amongst the Black Legion itself, this being the line that is pumped out by their heralds and wordsmiths. Don't believe it; since Sigismund almost killed Abaddon in the First Black Crusade, the Black Legion has been writing their own history and they've become rather good at it. Under their interpretation, Abaddon has never known failure of defeat, in the same way that many in the Imperium argue our current state of misery is all part of the Emperor's divine plan. Deluded thinking both, frightened souls desperate to believe in an over-arching plan, no matter how great or terrible or against their material interests it may be.

But we must also be careful not to see the twelve previous Black Crusades as a string of unmitigated failures, as a small but vocal group of Imperials argue. While I don't hold apocalyptic conspiracy-theories in any high regard, those who adopt the unmitigated failure view I hold in downright contempt. By their assumption, any Black Crusade that has achieved anything less than the complete destruction of the Imperium is deemed a failure. Never mind the holocaust of the Third, the political triumph of the Tenth, or Abaddon making off with a Blackstone Fortress in the Twelfth. Such thinking is thankfully not common, generally confined to the most arrogant of academics and nihilistic of nobles, with plenty of sub-par intellectuals, almost all of them men, spouting their nonsense; cocky teenagers who will grow out of it and chippy adults who never really grew up. ''Failbaddon the 'Armless' is the moniker given to The Despoiler by this school of thought (I've no idea why the 'H' is dropped) and consider his Black Crusades as nothing more than Abaddon farting in the general direction of the Imperium. Unsurprisingly, no one in the Obscurus Sector holds this view and it is generally to be found in the safer zones of Segmentum Solar, or those on the Eastern Fringe far from the desolation of the Cadian Gate. A similar version to this view to be found in the Calixis Sector, but, to be fair, they are busy dealing with their own horrors and have little thought to spare for events on the other side of the galaxy. So regarding ''Failbaddon the 'Armless', and the other ignorant mockeries these fools have conjured, this is what I would say to them: Would you say that to his face? As one who has stood before The Despoiler and lived to tell of it, I can assure you they would quickly lose their tongues in Abaddon's presence.

So what are Abaddon's thirteen Black Crusades? A series of unmitigated failures or some unfathomable masterplan to see in the end of days? The truth lies somewhere in the middle. Some of Abaddon's Black Crusades are unquestionable failures, the Eleventh for example (unless Abaddon intended to abandon the Long War and take on the Greenskins instead), but others have netted great bonuses for the Black Legion and the wider cause of Chaos Undivided. I will also say, given Abaddon's commitment to the Long War, I don't believe he ever expected his Black Crusades to be wrapped up quickly, though at the same time, I imagine they are going slower than he once envisioned.

In this chapter we will sketch an outline of the Black Crusades the Imperium has seen so far, and in doing so, flesh out a little more Black Legion history. Before we do so however, a final note on Black Crusades in general. It must be remembered, as so many Imperial scholars and Inquisitors who should know better forget, that Black Crusades are not the preserve of the Black Legion and can be launched by any Chaos faction. To say that Abaddon is responsible for all Black Crusades is like saying Gazkull Uruk Mag Thrakka is the only Greenskin to ever launch a Waaagh!

The parallels between Waaagh!s and Black Crusades is a striking one, and helpful for anybody who wishes to understand how Chaos functions. Like a Waaagh!, a Black Crusade can be declared by a warlord with a target in mind, calling other captains to his banner, preparing and then launching a deluge upon his enemies. They can also occur when a critical mass of Chaos energies in the form of men, munitions, and passion can no longer be contained and hurls forth in a great orgy of violence, often with no overall leader, but with a shared sense of excitement, power, and momentum. Abaddon's may be the most famous Black Crusades, but there have been hundreds of others over the millennia, some as devastating as their name suggests, others little more than glorified raids.

First, Second, and Third Black Crusades (781.M31, 597.M32, 909.M32)

The history of Abaddon's Black Crusades is woeful from the Imperial perspective. Our accounts of the first three is a muddled mess, events of the trio scattered haphazardly across the recollections. To make matters worse, and a point of understanding to the apocalyptic conspiracy interpretation, mainstream Imperial histories lean very much in favour of the Black Legion's propaganda, unknowingly propagating their legend. Were Imperial historiography a little more diligent in its record keeping, and a little less committed to Edicts of Obliteration, then the Imperium may be a little more measured in its assessment of these Black Crusades. Alas, we are where we are, and it is only with access to locked away lore and personal experience amidst the Black Legion and other Fallen Astartes that allows me to write this particular history. I hope this brief sketch of the Abaddon's Black Crusades may shed some light amidst the paranoid darkness we find ourselves in and, with most of my years behind me, inspire others to dig further.

I've written of the First Black Crusade elsewhere in this chronicle and I tried to emphasis the haphazard nature of the enterprise. To briefly sum up the truth: the First Black Crusade represents the original attempt of the then-still-young Black Legion to break free from the bounds of the Great Eye. Through sorcery, bargaining, and loss they succeeded, but their true trial would come once they reached realspace. There they were trapped by Lord Sigismund and his Black Templars in front of them and Thagus Daraveck's Death Guard behind. They could not prevail against both foes, even after the deaths of Thagus and Sigismund. So the order was given to scatter, an order given by someone other than Abaddon who had suffered near-fatal wounds by this point. So scatter they did, it being the only way to save their host from destruction. The majority of Abaddon's forces fled back into the Eye, while the rest drove into the Imperium to rain and pillage whatever they could and, importantly, assault the then non-fortress world of Cadia.

These attacks were all successful, but the targets they found, at this point in Imperial history, were weak and undefended outposts; fringe settlements and servitor-crewed stations that barely appeared on the Imperial census. But it let the High Lords of Terra know their old foe was out in the galaxy once more and highlighted the strategic significance of the Cadian Gate as well as the lynchpin location that was Cadia itself. It must be these first incursions and assaults, which Imperial clean-up crews made short work of, that laid the foundations for the false Imperial history of the First Black Crusade. Small and slapdash as the Crusade may have been in real terms, for the primitive Cadians on their bleak world, we can forgive their thinking that the end was nigh and we can instead lay the blame on Imperial scholars for taking literally the words of shellshocked primitives. Almost no Imperial account of this Crusade reflects the humdrum truth of this conflict, preferring to portray Abaddon's first escape in apocalyptic, world-ending tones that are far more suitable for the Third Black Crusade than this proof-of-concept First. The Imperial accounts would have us believe that Abaddon led his forces crying blood from the Eye, setting the Gate afire as they hurtled towards and assaulted the fortress-world of Cadia, which emerged a ruin from a land reduced to ashen wastes; the 'First Battle of Cadia' they generously name it in some accounts. This, of course, overlooks the fact that Cadia's many fortresses, battlements, and trenches had yet to be built, it's people still used stone-tools, and the Imperium had largely forgotten of its existence. And yet, the lore that has built up around this invasion paints it as the apocalypse that wouldn't come to Cadia for another two Crusades. This First Black Crusade, as remembered by the Imperium, is far more worthy of myth than legend, and the Cadian Gate would indeed see its apocalypse come at the time of the Third Black Crusade. But first, let us look at the Second of Abaddon's Crusades, in which Imperial and Traitor history thankfully manage to largely converge.

The Second Black Crusade was a solid success for the Black Legion, even if it now looks a little quaint and unremarkable in hindsight, especially sandwiched as it is between the originality and daring of the First and the galaxy-shaking havoc of the Third. However, it must be remembered that without the Second Black Crusade, it is unlikely the Third would have been as great a success for Chaos as it would turn out to be.

One benefit of the First Black Crusade is that it garnered useable lore and intelligence regarding the realspace on that bordered the Eye. This intel was gathered by those vessels and warbands that didn't immediately retreat back into the Eye during the First Black Crusade but instead chose to raid and ravage as much of the Imperium as they could before finding their way back to the Black Legion's embrace. The wanton destruction they caused during their sojourns laid the ground for the exaggerated histories that would follow and the lore they brought back to the Eye was a great boon for Abaddon.

The objective of this Second Crusade was straightforward: destroy as much of the Imperial fleet that guarded the Cadian Gate as possible. This was achieved by assaulting Imperial vessels while they were still at dock or in repair; take out the docks and you take out the fleet. In this they were successful, and the defences around the Gate that were still being constructed at this time received a devastating setback which would soften up the ground for the next Black Crusade. I'll mention that, from what I understand, the only reliable warp-route out of the Eye, the passage leading to the Cadian Gate, had been discovered but wasn't utilised at this juncture as they were keeping that card up their sleeve for the next Black Crusade. So a solid win for the Black Legion, a reality-check for the defences of the Cadian Gate, but hardly a devastating incursion worthy of legend. But at least Imperial records largely align with the lore of the Eye, unlike their interpretation of the First Black Crusade which, from the Imperial perspective, has merged with the events of the Third. It is a muddled and contested history, hard to understand how it came about but we will do our best to parse fact from fiction.

The Third Black Crusade is the one that fully lives up to all the apocalyptic doom-mongering associated with Black Crusades. When a grandmother frightens her daughter's children with scary stories of monsters and daemons, or a preacher speaking of the predations of the arch-enemy, and when Cadians look to the pox-mark scars of ancient battles that litter their worlds, whether they know it or not, it is the Third Black Crusade they are harking to. A more cynical writer than myself might even go so far to say that every Black Crusade after the Third and before the Twelfth are mere footnotes to the Third and precursors to the Twelfth.

Considering the devastation of this Crusade, one might be surprised to learn that it was not actually Abaddon who led this assault upon the Imperium but the daemon-prince Tallomin, who battered through an underprepared Cadian Gate to make planetfall on the surface of Cadia itself. The Gate lacked the ships to defend such a vast space, for the destruction of its fleets in the Second Black Crusade had yet to be made good by the Imperium, and this is likely the reason for the long reach of this Crusade; a point in favour of the conspiracy-theorists I suppose. By the time reinforcement fleets arrived from the wider Imperium, void-superiority was well and truly lost to them, and the military commanders spoke more of containing the enemy than actually repelling them. Frankly, almost all of the Cadian Gate was written off in the eyes of high-command and all efforts were instead made to funnel as much manpower and resources onto Cadia itself and a few other bastions. This effort in itself was a gauntlet for the Imperial Navy, braving the crossfire between the forces of Order and Chaos to land what they could to support the beleaguered defenders. Although I cannot say so with authority, judging by the accounts I've read, the battle on the surface of Cadia was comparable to the Siege of Terra itself.

But, to my eyes at least, the most chilling aspect of the Third Black Crusade is that for all the horror of its reach, grasp, and impact, and the hushed tones it's rightly spoken in, it was in truth a diversion, a feint, a distraction from Abaddon's true goal: the claiming of the daemon-blade Drach'nyen. Imperial accounts will claim it was during the First Black Crusade that Abaddon claimed his famous sword, that he not only escaped the Eye, wrecked havoc throughout the Gate, instilled everlasting fear into the Imperium, but also made off with that terrible relic (I've seen it in person; it truly is an awful, hateful thing). This is why Tallomin led the Crusade, it allowed Abaddon and a select band of followers to claim the daemon-blade in a adventure worthy of a fictional telling all of its own. However, in my opinion, the Third Black Crusade and the claiming of Drach'nyen are separate events, so I don't feel the need to go into detail regarding how Abaddon got his hands on the thing. Thanks to both the havoc wrought by Tallomin that claimed so many written records, and left so few survivors, as well as the phenomena of Imperial amnesia, it's not so surprising that events from this time-period have become so muddled.

Daemon-prince Tallomin was eventually repulsed on Cadia, but the rest of the Cadian Gate was left as blasted land in a wasted void, the howling after-echoes of billions still screaming agony in the minds of even the least gifted psyker. We can be thankful this Black Crusade was meant as a feint and not the real thing, but we can also speculate that the Third Black Crusade was far more successful than Abaddon had bargained for, revealing the inadequacy of the Gate's defences and the power of the forces under his command. If true, this may have instilled a certain confidence in Abbadon's abilities, a hubris even, that might go some way to explaining the disaster of Abaddon's next assault against the Imperium.

Fourth Black Crusade (001.M34)

From this point in the history of the Black Crusades, Imperial history is a lot less muddled, still far from real events for great swathes of text and imbibed with Black Legion propaganda, but at least the chronology is finally in order.

The Imperium learned its lesson after the Third Black Crusade. The First told the High Lords of Terra that their old enemy hadn't forgotten them, the Second allowed them to take the measure of said enemy, and the Third revealed the sheer scale and horror of what it was that wanted them dead. The defences that were put up to defend the gate, growing ever stronger since Abaddon's first breakout attempt, were showed up by the Third Black Crusade as utterly inadequate to the enemy they were built to contain. In truth, the Third only began to ebb after Abaddon had claimed Drach'nyen and called his forces to withdraw back into the Eye; to say they were repulsed on Cadia, as I wrote earlier, is only a half-truth. It must have been a hard decision for Abaddon to make, to withdraw when what was intended as a feint was succeeding beyond his wildest expectations, but he'd set out on his Crusade with a plan and he stuck to it, so withdraw he did; he was fighting the Long War, and would not lose himself to an easy victory at the cost of a long-term defeat. Would this have been the case had he done so? We don't know. But we do know that by choosing to remain committed to husbanding his Long War over the millennia, the Black Legion is now far larger and more powerful that it was at the time of the Third Black Crusade.

Despite the oceans of blood now spilling from its open wounds, the Imperium was lucky in the Third's aftermath. Over a thousand years passed between the Third Black Crusade and the Fourth, enough time for the Imperium's wounds to close and to begin construction of the sort of defences they now knew would be necessary to stand a chance of holding against the Chaos tide. And hold they did. Dozens of fortress worlds, space stations, and listening posts now littered the approach to Cadia, the planet itself transformed into the greatest fortress-world in the Imperium with a culture and people hardened by war thanks to the ravages of the previous Black Crusade. Abaddon intended to cleave through them all. For the catastrophe this Crusade turned out to be, it was nonetheless spun into a propaganda victory that Imperial histories have fully adopted. Within the Eye, the Fourth Black Crusade is remembered for the disaster it was, Black Legion propaganda seemingly being much more effective beyond the realm of Chaos than within. The Imperial telling of events is not inaccurate as such, it's more a matter of tone, reminiscent of the way the Imperium remembers its glorious last stands. The Crimson Fists on Rynn's World for example, applying an atmosphere of grandiosity to what is otherwise a military defeat.

Most Imperial accounts say the target of the Fourth Black Crusade was the citadel of Kromarch on the world of El'Phanor, one of the many fortress-worlds that now littered the Cadian Gate. But Kromarch was not in fact the intended target of the Crusade. Abaddon's armies were supposed to make a clean sweep of the Gate to arrive on Cadia and finish the work of the Third. Instead, after ravaging a number of space-stations, listening posts, and a few garrison worlds, its momentum foundered beneath the citadel walls of Kromarch. The Crusade moved in a wide arc, Abaddon personally led ten 'spear tips', language reminiscent of the Luna Wolves, onto the surface of El'Phanor to rip out the heart of the foe. However, faced with overwhelming firepower within just hours of making planetfall, amidst a force made up almost exclusively of Astartes, Abaddon was forced to accept that he had underestimated the Imperium's power and the Cadians' will to keep the forces of Chaos contained within the Eye. But Abaddon was determined to see Kromarch fall, it was now a face-saving issue more than anything. Kromarch would fall, Abaddon apparently cleaving open its adamantium gates with Drach'nyen. But, as Imperial history accurately records, ninety percent of his force was lost in the doing. Kromarch may have fallen, but Abaddon lost the best of his manpower and the wider Crusade was already exhausted; El'Phanor was nor the only world to prove formidable, and the lattice defence of space-stations were also found to be irritatingly effective at whittling down the momentum of the Crusade. The inner reaches of the Cadian Gate had been ravaged, but the bulk was untouched, and the defensive installations proved their worth.

Abaddon knew he'd reached the limit of his Crusade, so he called his forces together and they withdrew back into the Eye. From here we can only assume the propaganda department of the Black Legion went into overdrive, because the amount of sources that describe the Fourth Black Crusade as a failure is dwarfed by those that describe it as a victory; if Rynn's World was a victory for the Imperium, then so was the Fourth Black Crusade for Chaos. If one were to believe that Kromarch was the ultimate target of the Fourth from the start, then yes, it was a costly but undisputed success. For those who know the truth, that this Crusade was meant to be the last of them, then it is laughable. Nonetheless, it is a testament to the Black Legion that their propaganda department can spin this omnishambles into a victory. Yes, Kromarch was destroyed, yes that was a benefit to the wider goals of Imperial destruction, but for all the resources thrown at it, the Fourth Black Crusade was an unmitigated failure.

5th Black Crusade (723.M36)

If the Imperium learned its lessons from the Third Black Crusade, then the forces of Chaos learned theirs from the Fourth. Never again would Abaddon try to sweep through the Cadian Gate in one go and, from here, most Black Crusades were smaller and more focused in scope. From here, the argument of the conspiracy-theorists begins to gain some small merit; Abaddon sought to weaken the Gate, or find alternative strategies, possibly (as is speculated in hindsight) in preparation for some epic, final Black Crusade long in the future. The Thirteenth we are currently living through is often held up as proof of this view by the conspiracy-theorists and doom-mongerers in their apocalyptic mania.

The Elysian Sector was the target of this Black Crusade. Abaddon's captains, warlords, and allies invaded dozens of Imperial worlds while The Despoiler himself commanded the Black Fleet, void-arm of the Black Legion, and kept the Imperial Navy busy in a series of running battles and skirmishes. The longer Abaddon could keep up the dance, the more time had his armies to despoil the Elysian Sector. This strategy had two goals: one practical, and the other more esoteric. The practical (a la Guilliman) was to draw in and destroy loyalist Astartes forces in pre-prepared kill-zones. The strategy proved to be a successful one, and the Venerators and Warhawk Chapters paid a high price for their valour as they were killed by the daemon-prince Doombreed alongside Legion tactics borne from the Imperium of old. While the conflict didn't spread beyond the Elysian Sector, in military terms, the Black Legion and their allies have every right to be proud.

The more esoteric goals of the Fifth Black Crusade relied on the prolonged suffering of the Elysian sector's citizenry, hence the extended games of regicide out in the void. I'm not one for the intricacies of Chaos sorcery and the warp, but, as I understand it, a combination of great suffering and ceremonial practice weakened the barriers that hold the warp at bay from our physical reality, and has since made Elysia and its surrounding sectors, much of the Cadian Gate in other words, far more psychically volatile than they would otherwise be. Mutation, sorcery, and daemonic incursion are here far more prevalent than they were before this Crusade, and the ground is much more well-suited for the likes of Chaos to thrive in than your average Imperial sector. This effects seems to be irreversible and is the true victory of the Fifth Black Crusade, an illustration of how a Black Crusade can be used to chip away at Imperial defences and a point in favour of the apocalyptic conspiracy-theorists. Alas for such a worldview, not all Black Crusades are so clear cut.

Abaddon and his forces withdrew back in to the Eye at both his choosing and leisure with no question of humiliation or failure; the plunder they brought back with them was rich. While the Black Legion brought with them resources and weapons, the Word Bearers brought converts and lore, and the Emperor's Children, the Flawless Host amongst them, secured for themselves a whole generation of young, purple-eyed innocents who would be bartered for, toyed with, and abused by their new owners. For all its lack of strategic impact, the Crusade was nonetheless seen as a great success and buoyed the confidence of Abaddon for his next Black Crusade. Alas, it would not be hubris that would undo his next crusade, but treachery.

6th Black Crusade (901.M36)

Like the Fourth Black Crusade, the Sixth is a failure spun into a propaganda victory. This Crusade was undone by an old Sons of Horus Legionary by name of Drecarth the Sightless (the Blind Butcher of Irridous VII, for those who really want to know) and his war band, the Sons of the Eye.

The Sons of the Eye pre-existed the Back Legion, Drecarth abandoning the XVI in its death-throes, but they never joined the Black Legion, acting instead as on-again/off-again auxiliaries. Unlike Abaddon, who had long disowned his father, Drecarth still held Horus, the original Warmaster, in high regard, even naming his warband after his father's sigil (as opposed to the Eye of Terror as some scholars have claimed). Drecarth, therefore, never joined the Black Legion as he saw it as a usurpation of the Sons of Horus.. Further, Abaddon's famous disowning of his gene-sire, "I am not your son!", was an insult to Drecarth's memory of his primarch and the XVII. Drecarth took no action against Abaddon, but resentment festered within him. Drecarth and his fellows were present for the haphazard First Black Crusade, but they did not immediately return to the Eye when the Black Fleet scattered at its borders. The Sons of the Eye were one of those who broke out into the Cadian Gate and, in the case of Drecarth, beyond.

For over a millennia they raided and roamed realspace, gathering skills, knowledge, and experience, not to mention a healthy bounty of slaves, munitions, recruits and other boons. When Drecarth finally returned to the Eye he was a man reborn. No longer were his eyes (or lack thereof) fixed on the past and his father's legacy, now he harboured greater ambitions, but still nursed an old grudge against the old First Captain of his father's Legion.

The Sixth Black Crusade was planned in similar scope and scale to the Fifth, aiming to weaken the defences of the Cadian Gate, further blur the boundary between the realspace and the warp and gather information for further Black Crusades. It was to be a limited but valuable endeavour in service of the Long War. Drecarth, though, had other ideas. To hear the Black Legion tell it (and most Imperial scholars), Abaddon was forewarned of Drecarths' treachery, told by his seers and psykers of the plot to stab the Warmaster in the back and take his Legion as his own. Accordingly, Abaddon invited the Sons of the Eye to take part in a position of honour in the Sixth Black Crusade, Drecarth in the vanguard with Abaddon as they assaulted the forge world of Arkreach. After a gruelling campaign the forge-world finally fell, at which point Abaddon turned on Drecarth and slowly killed him in front of his men, Drecarth's last sight (I'll remind you now the man was famously blind) being his beloved warband pledging themselves to Abaddon. Of course, this narrative rests on Abaddon being foretold of Drecarth's intent and taking action to forestall betrayal; another instance of The Despoiler's power and omniscience.

But what this narrative also suggests is that Abaddon embarked on an entire Black Crusade to show up the Sons of the Eye, and that is just far too petty a play from the man who wages the Long War. Here's what really happened:

Yes, Abaddon did invite the Sons of the Eye to join the Sixth Black Crusade, them and countless other auxiliaries. And yes, Drecaerth intended to betray Abaddon, but Abaddon did not see it coming and certainly did not get out ahead of it. When Chaos military campaigns are accounted for by Imperial historians, the endings of these campaigns are often put down to Chaos forces 'turning on each other', though in truth this occurs less often than Imperial histories would have us believe, and is usually a stand-in for abrupt ends to campaigns that can't be explained. In the case of the Sixth Black Crusade however, if Black Legion propaganda and Imperial paranoia hadn't got there first, then this would have been an appropriate usage for how the Sixth Black Crusade came to a close.

Like the citadel of Kromarch during the Fifth, the Forge World of Arkreach was not intended to be the endpoint of the Sixth Black Crusade; Abaddon was planning to reach much farther afield. And he likely would have, he had the numbers and the strategy to do so, if the Sons of the Eye hadn't opened fire on Abaddon and his legionaries just as Arkreach fell. Drecarth's mutiny was short-lived and unsuccessful, but the confusion and disruption it inflicted on the wider Crusade, and the many small mutinies that occurred subsequently, was enough to stall its momentum and bring it to a close. Pandemonium ensued, and the mutiny spurred a good deal of infighting amongst the rest of the Crusade as wild rumours of Abaddon's death and Drecarths' ascendance flooded the channels of communication, even though Drecarth and his warband were put down long before the wider infighting ceased. And so, the Sixth Black Crusade ended in fracture and ignominy, leading Abaddon to lead the tattered remnants of his Crusade back into the Eye.

The official Imperial history of the Sixth Black Crusade says that Abaddon stood triumphant on the plain of Arkreach, tore out Drecarth's skull and spine (a physically impossible manoeuvre), and "Thus did Abaddon deliver a dire warning to any who dared challenge his power." I hope the account just written puts to bed the lie that Abaddon saw Drecarth's treachery coming, but it does contain a grain of truth in that once Abaddon wrested the Black Legion and wider Crusade back under his control, and they were back within the borders of their haven, the dominance and hegemony of Abaddon and his Legion within the Great Eye was never questioned again. The Black Legion had passed the test of time and treachery, Abaddon's favour with the Old Four was apparent to all, and Drecarth's attempt at usurpation convinced any would-be Drecarths that Abaddon's position was unassailable. And of course, let us not forget the sheer will, charisma, and dominance it took for him to reestablish his control of the Chaos forces.

7th Black Crusade (811.M37)

The Seventh Black Crusade is known as the Ghost War, and for good reason. Like the Crusades Three to Six, Abaddon's host spewed forth into the Cadian Gate… and then largely just disappeared. It seems after the disaster of the Sixth Black Crusade, Abaddon wanted to try a more subtle approach to a head-on assault. Instead, the Chaos fleet bypassed every fortress-world and major defensive position, to slip through the Cadian Gate and cause havoc both within its borders and within Imperial space proper. This audacious tactic worked.

The Imperium knew Abaddon was coming, they were prepared to meet his fury with their own, and so were completely dumbfounded when he failed to hold up his end of the Crusade. The Chaos forces slipped past the strongholds to begin ground assaults and raids on inhabited civilian worlds within and beyond the Gate with impunity. If the Imperial Navy was slow in responding to the Black Fleet, then this has nothing on the Imperial Guard, who remained fastened to their fortifications while the planets around them burned.

The naval war turned into a game of cat and mouse, Imperials hunting for the bulk of the Black Fleet as Abaddon led them on a merry chase, and the longer the chase lasted, the more time Abaddon's ground forces had time to pillage, plunder, and destroy. As one may imagine, this was a very dispersed Crusade over a wide region of space containing countless conflicts and events we don't have time to go into. Several loyalist Astartes Chapters were involved in this war, the Blood Angels coming away particularly scathed, and, for us mere mortals, these conflicts can be categorised as business between supermen and needn't detain us.

So how, or indeed why, did the Seventh Black Crusade come to an end? Abaddon's forces were operating largely with impunity, the Imperial Guard being holed up in their fortress-worlds, and loyalist Astartes were far too few to impact the bulk of the Crusade. So how did the Imperium endure? To understand this, we must look to the history of our species and the mechanics of warfare.

In the Middle-Period of Old Earth, horse-lords from the Eurasian plains, Northern neighbours to the Dragon-Nations, flooded the basin of Eastern Europa. The defenders, lords and ladies responsible for their domains and denizens, did they join forces to meet the invader on the field and repel him? No. To my shame, I've never had great faith in humanity's ability to meet sudden and overwhelming threats, and the horse-lords of the Middle-Period and the devastation of the Seventh Black Crusade I feel justify this belief. The lord and ladies holed themselves up in their castles, their fortresses, untouched while their lands and people were ravaged. But they were safe. The horse-lords had no talent for siegecraft, and eventually, once their hunger for plunder was met, the tide ebbed and they would retreat into their own domains while lords and ladies emerged form their holdfasts and rebuild. If you understand this, you will understand the Seventh Black Crusade.

I earlier criticised the Imperial Guard for their static posture, and criticism is due, but on the strategic level it wasn't a bad call, even if, as I suspect, it was one born of indecision and fear. My suspicion is the that Abaddon wished to draw the Imperial Guard out of their fortresses and into the fray that was engulfing the Cadian Gate. The forces would be scattered over a wide front, fed piecemeal into the conflict, gradually be overcome, and leave the fortress-worlds deprived of manpower. Instead, they stuck to ground, denying Abaddon open or pitched battle, husbanding their strength as Abaddon's was slowly leached due to attrition and the actions of loyalist Astartes. Besides, the Crusade's forces were far too scattered amongst the Gate to take on fortress-worlds. Abaddon attacked everything, so could conquer nothing; though of course, he was free to devastate at will.

Imperial history offers an official end-date for the Seventh Black Crusade, but this is arbitrary. The Seventh Black Crusade had no conclusion. It, like the World Eaters, just slowly fizzled out. Abaddon must have realised that for all the sound and fury of his Crusade, it was not posing a strategic threat to the Cadian Gate as he couldn't get at the fortress-worlds. Further, these worlds were invaluable for co-ordinating actions with loyalist Astartes and the Imperial Navy, which was now fully in action and visiting increasingly effective retribution on Chaos forces. So, at some point unknown to us, Abaddon retreated from the Cadian Gate with the Black Legion. What I can say is that this occurred before the official end-date and that fighting continued for at least a century after the apparent end of the Crusade which, to the civilian population of the Segmentum Obscurus, is spoken in tones almost as hushed as the Third.

The Seventh Black Crusade was a strategic victory for the Imperium, but not one to look back on with pride. Not a single fortress-world fell, and the vast majority of defensive installations, satellites, stations, and moons and such, were left intact. In the space surrounding these bastions though, and into the Imperium proper, the earth was salted, and the civil, societal, and infrastructural elements of the Cadian Gate would take millenia to rebuild. Further, like the Fifth Black Crusade, the walls between the warp and realspace were greatly eroded all throughout the Gate. We can also assume an enormous amount of reconnaissance data and resources were brought back into the Eye. From the perspective of the legionaries who took part in this war, of any Legion or warband, the Seventh Black Crusade is remembered fondly for the free-reign the traitor host had to do as they pleased. Some legionaries I've spoken to have gone so far as to say they were actually bored by the end of the Crusade, and happy to return to the Eye for some good, honest combat. But for all the havoc it wrought, Abaddon knew the Seventh had run its course, and was not the key to breaking the Gate. What the Seventh proved was the importance of the fortress-worlds, Cadia especially, and that as long as they stood, Abaddon would never have a free and reliable passage into the Imperium.

Eighth Black Crusade (999.M37)

The Eighth Black Crusade is a strange one, more a ritual than a military campaign, steeped in the occult and esoteric. From a tactical or strategic perspective the Eighth makes no sense and this is what Imperial strategists thought to themselves when the Crusade began. To list a few examples; eight of the twenty crater-cities on the moons of _ were opened up to the void, killing all within, but the others remained unscathed. Nine hundred and ninety nine pilgrims aboard the Chartist vessel Divine Path were slaughtered in ascending order of the token they carried; the rest were left untouched. Across Segmentum Obscurus, in an event known as the 'Skullgather', thousands of Imperial men, women, and children were killed in a variety of way and in specific numbers, their corpses left in a series of patterns rich with meaning to the Old Four. As for the rest of the population, they were left unharmed. At the same time as these and other bizarre occurrences took place throughout the Segmentum, fighting took place at key strategic locations within the Cadian Gate. It seems this force was expected to do no more than keep Imperial forces busy defending the Gate's vital hinges (which we can now say were in no real danger) while more strange happenings occurred: genocides against seemingly innocuous, primitive worlds, or targeted assassinations against individuals who seemingly posed no threat to anyone.

While the Eighth Black Crusade holds little interest for military histories, for aficionados of the Inquisition, or those invested in the metaphysical workings of our galaxy, the Eighth Black Crusade is an object of great interest. While a stagnant war raged around them, agents of the Inquisition were able to deduce some sort of meaning from the bizarre occurrences taking place around the Great Eye. This is an exciting tale of cunning and intrigue following a band of intrepid individuals and their allies in service to the Ordo Malleus going up against secretive and terrible foes. It's a good story, some of which may even be true, but all that needs be known for our purposes is that they figured out that these strange events were all part of a Segmentum-wide Chaos ritual for the Chaos god T'zeen'th, the Change of Ways. I will mention that this story involved breaking a Chaos code-cipher which drove hundred of adepts insane in the unlocking. Unfortunately, their sacrifice, willing or not, was for nought. By the time the Inquisition broke the cipher, the ritual was complete and T'zeen'th was pleased. Abaddon returned to the Eye and took the Chaos forces assaulting the Gate back with him.

From this account it would seem that the Eighth Black Crusade was a victory for the Black Legion: Abaddon set out to perform a ritual, he succeeded, and withdrew his forces in good order. While I don't dispute this, I must wonder just what was the material gain to be had here? An ignorant question from the likes of myself, but I've put the same enquiry to legionaries who took part in this Crusade, and while they reminisce with pride at the martial elements of the Crusade, and on this they will talk at length, but they too struggle to give a straight answer to this question. I was typically me with obfuscation, fanaticism, hostility, or indifference; as you can imagine, I pressed no one for a more definitive answer. I think it likely that the benefit of this ritual is known only to Abaddon, the Old Four, and The Despoiler's most trusted captains, some terrible consequence they hope to unleash on us one day. Otherwise, I'll nurse my suspicion that the Despoiler is just as confused as the rest of us as to what the point of the Eighth Black Crusade actually was.

Ninth Black Crusade (537.M38)

After the breaks in tradition that were the Seventh and Eighth Black Crusades, the Ninth is a return to form. A full military assault with proper strategy and tactics. The target of this Ninth Black Crusade was the naval fortress of Cancephalus, but Abaddon did not strike it directly. Instead he aimed for the surrounding, heavily populated hive-worlds, Monarch-Hive on Antecanis especially. By targeting these civilian worlds, Abaddon deprived Canephalus of the manpower needed to drive their ships; the most devastating fleet in the galaxy is meaningless without bodies to crew it. When what ships that were serviceable left port meet the Black Fleet, they were too few in number and had no reinforcement coming. Thus Abaddon had a free hand.

The conflict went on for another seventeen years. Seventeen years in which the walls between the warp and realspace were further weakened, in which two Astartes Chapters were destroyed (thanks to a munitorum clerical error, both Chapters are recorded as the Celestial Swords) and the Lamenters Chapter, as they so often are, were nearly destroyed. The Crusade came to a head on the hive-world of Monarch-Hive where the Lamenters made a desperate last stand having been abandoned to their fate by the Mortificators Chapters, who would not fight with such a cursed and melancholic Chapter. The siege was finally broken by a relief fleet of Ultramarines and White Scars. The Scars fell on the Chaos host in a mighty charge of motor and chainsword, supported by overwhelming firepower from the sons of Guilliman. By the time the Chaos forces were driven off-world and the Crusade quickly started to ebb, the loyalists realised there was little on Antecanis worth saving.

The Imperium was victorious, Abaddon's Crusade was decisively driven back, but it was a victory that took seventeen years to achieve, a decimation of much of the sector's naval assets, and the loss of two Chapters; I don't even mention the horrific cost to the Imperium's civilians, but then such is the price to hold the Cadian Gate. The Ninth Black Crusade, like the Fifth, is known for the conflicts between Astartes, which typically happen on a much smaller scale than their mortal counterparts in the Guard and Navy, and, of course, drag attention away from the rest of the history on offer. The military histories of the Ninth Black Crusade and the Gate's mortal defenders exist now on the top-shelves of libraries and the attics of old Imperial generals and in the hands of niche-enthusiasts, but they can be found and they are well worth studying.

Tenth Black Crusade (001.M39)

The Tenth Black Crusade is an easy one to overlook. It was small in both scope and scale, and it hardly left a trail of untold devastation in its wake. But, from the perspective of the Black Legion, the Tenth was a domestic political victory that buried the hatchet that had long lain between the Black Legion and Iron Warriors since the days of the Great Heresy, and both are all the stronger for it. Though it may lack the epic tone of those that came before and after, this Crusade was something of a game-changer for the Fallen Legions.

The Tenth Black Crusade was a joint campaign between the Black Legion and Iron Warriors that targeted the Helica Sector of Imperial space. The Crusade served the interests of the Iron Warriors, not the Black Legion, but such interests were worth supporting if it meant they could count on the sons of Perturabo as partners in future Black Crusades, or at the very least have no reason to fear treachery on their part. The Iron Warriors had joined Black Crusades in the past, but to call them allies would be a stretch and they very much followed their own agenda. Prone to obsession and mercurialness, Perturabo's latest fixation at this time was the Iron Hands homeward of Medusa, so Abaddon deemed it the target of the Tenth Black Crusade. While the Black Legion ravaged the outer worlds of the system, Abaddon remained upon the Vengeful Spirit as the Iron Warriors made a direct run for Medusa. Abaddon watched from his flagship as a war of attrition and cold calculation was waged in the classic style of the Iron Warriors.

The Siege of Medusa was not successful, the bulk of Iron Hands successor Chapters returned with reinforcements on their heels to liberate the homeworld of their parent Chapter. This was some disappointment to Perturabo, who nonetheless made off with a good stock of gene-seed, resources, and reconnaissance data, while Abaddon, who had no interest in Medusa himself, was pleased with the rapprochement he had achieved with the Iron Warriors. Like the Sixth Black Crusade, the Tenth further cemented Abaddon's authority within the Great Eye now that the Iron Warriors, those perpetual thorns in his side, were placated. Though he would never make an enthusiastic or co-operative ally, Perturabo was at least no longer a potential danger to Abaddon's flank or a king across the water. This is the true significance of the Tenth Black Crusade, it has allowed Abaddon to focus exclusively on the Imperium's destruction as opposed to domestic politics within the Eye.

Eleventh Black Crusade (301.M39)

The Eleventh Black Crusade, or the Hilarious Black Crusade as I like to call it. Of all the failed Black Crusades, this one was not the most devastating for the Black Legion, the First, Fourth, and Sixth probably take that prize, but it was certainly the most spectacular. And, like all Black Crusades failure, this too, impressively, has been spun by Abaddon's spiders into a victory.

The cause of the Eleventh Black Crusade is simple: Abaddon wished to secure an alternative route out of the Great Eye and into Imperial space. The Cadian Gate is the only stable region of space in and out of the Eye, its reliability is its greatest asset, but it also meant the only direction from which Abaddon can attack the Imperium and the Gate in force was by now littered with an impressive array of defences and generally just armed to the teeth. The plan, therefore, was to bind a daemon through ritual and sorcery and have said daemon guide the Black Fleet through the impenetrable warp storms that envelop the Eye. This was a smaller Crusade in scope, more agile and responsive, perfect for the uncharted waters they would soon be crossing. And this venture was not some haphazard whim, but the results of decades of warp tests and experiments. Abaddon's sorcerers, seers, and scientists assured him that success was all but guaranteed.

They were half-right. The bound daemon was indeed able to transport the Black Fleet safely through the walls of the Great Eye, but that was as far as the daemon held up its end of the bargain. Whatever diabolical tests and calculations that had been carried out up to his point clearly hadn't reckoned on the complexity of transporting the entirety of the Black Fleet; that, or the daemon, strung up by hooks and wires to the Vengeful Spirit's oculus, had already lost its mind by that point. In any case, when the Black Fleet lurched back into realspace, they found themselves tens of thousands of light years off course from where they wanted to be, and the bound daemon was a jabbering wreck Abaddon quickly euthanised in anger. On this occasion, Abaddon failed to master his ire, refused to stoically accept the shame of what had just occurred, and so ordered a full assault on the closest Imperial world, the Cardinal-world of Relorria.

At this point, Abaddon may have been able to salvage a little dignity for his Crusade, were it not for the unfortunate fact that an Ork Waaagh! had set their sights on the very same planet. What followed was a three-way engagement between Imperials, Greenskins, and Chaos. Orks and Chaos largely fell upon each other, Abaddon really was very angry and had lost a good deal of his strategic sense by this point, while the defenders of Relorria stood their ground, shooting frantically at anything bigger than themselves. The Imperials would be the first to fall, while warlord Murgor the 'Undred Teef would do so much later. The Black Legion does their best to chalk this up to a success (they did win to be fair) by making a big deal about the many ork specimens they brought back to the Eye with them, a long trip I'd imagine, to perform 'unspeakable' experiments on their new test subjects. But to pretend the Eleventh Black Crusade was anything more than a hilarious waste of time, manpower, and resources for the Black Legion is laughable. Needless to say, nobody every again floated the idea of binding a daemon to escape the Eye in Abaddon's presence again.

Twelfth Black Crusade

The Gothic War. Barely a millennia has passed since its end and its already the stuff of Imperial legend; and rightly so. We will say little here, this Black Crusade is by far and away the most extensively and accurately documented one of them all and there is little, nothing in fact, I have to add. To name but a few, excellent histories on the subject have been written on by scholars such as _ and _. Even outside the shelves of an Inquisitorial library, the breadth and reliability of accounts is quite astonishing. Let it just be said that the Gothic War has well earned the fear and reverence with which it's spoken.

Thirteenth Black Crusade (999.M41)

It would be inappropriate to write a history of the Thirteenth Black Crusade seeing how, in this writer's time at least, the Crusade has yet to draw to a close. So I will make a few notes and comments instead, but please don't take this to be anything authoritative. Despite being a member of the Inquisition, I am situated far from that hungry conflict that consumes so many Imperial lives with each passing day, and so I fear my word may be as good as any other in regards to this latest Crusade. Safe to say, it seems Abaddon has sunk his teeth into the soil of Cadia itself like a dog that bites and just won't let go, but isn't yet in a position to actually end the fight.

I won't do so, but one could argue that the Thirteenth Black Crusade is over and what we see now is the position from which the Fourteenth will be launched. It could be Abaddon can live with a holding position, and even now the dark factories of the Mechanicum are churning out fresh armour, tanks, bolts, and the breeding factories are producing the next crop of prospective Astartes youth. Mad demagogues roam and foment the madness that exists on those human-inhabited worlds within the Eye, fresh stocks of mutants rising from the sewers of an ancient, dead civilisation that once called the Eye its home, its few survivors now nomads in the void. This is the peril that brews, that lurks within the borders of the Great Eye, what the Imperium must be ready to face if it is to survive.

Black Crusades are not a force of nature. They are not some magical, foretold doom demanded by fate. They are military campaigns led by men, supermen they may be, but men fundamentally. Men can bleed, men can die, and we have our own supermen to match their strength. Our doom is likely, the odds are against us, but it is not foretold.