Antares Echo Bornwhole and the Eclipse Rangers

By author Xandeross

The Twenty-Second Primarch: Antares Echo Bornwhole

Name:
Antares Echo Bornwhole. Sometimes called the Maimed Lord, amongst the Imperium, or the Great Liberator, among his own people.

Appearance:
Antares stands about nine and a half feet tall, brown-skinned with silvery grey hair. He is enormously scarred by vivisection and shrapnel, by Warp-lightning, and by nuclear heat. These scars have been tattooed gold, making him appear half gilded. Nearly a third of his body is bionic, including his left leg, left arm, and his eyes, each one obsidian-black decorated with gold inlays. At peace, he often wears the colourful patterns of Dawnline formal robes.

Talents and Personality:
In public Antares projects the image of the Great Liberator. A masterful statesman, diplomat, peacemaker, seemingly able to speak to anyone and find common ground in the unlikeliest places. A cunning and masterful general, able to make the hard decisions of command without being callous. A pragmatist, accepting reality as it is and making the necessary compromises. Yet also an idealist, holding an imperishable vision of the future as it ought to be. The future he will make. The future he invites others to make alongside him.

This is not a lie. But it is a mask.

In private, the mask slips. The melancholy, the cynicism, the suspicion, the doubts he does not allow himself to show when he is being an icon instead of a man seep out. The past weighs on him. He recalls burnt cities and dead companions, and though the sacrifice was worth it in the end it was still a heavy cost. He sifts through the ruins of dead ages and knows that everything he builds will likewise one day be forgotten dust. Being un-ageing, he might live to see it. He suspects hidden plots in a myriad of places; he might be paranoid, but that does not mean they are not out to get him. His humour tends towards a morbid sense of dry sarcasm. He allows himself to fade into the background, thinking much and saying little.

The idealism is still there. He believes. But the flame is banked, protected. Waiting for the correct moment.

It is hard, fighting for a cause he cannot bring himself to fully believe.

He looks back across the worlds behind him in the Great Crusade. He sees a world plundered for every one enriched, a genocide for every liberation.

He considers the unity the Great Crusade has wrought, and knows true unity can never grow from the barrel of a gun.

He looks across his fellow Primarchs. He does not see a family, but a coalition of warlords doomed to start eating itself once there are no more words to conquer.

He listens to the Emperor's grand declarations about mankind's future. He wonders if the Emperor sees a difference between mankind's destiny and his own self-aggrandisement.

He looks in a mirror. A tool made for conquest and destruction looks back.

And yet. The Imperium is a deeply imperfect thing, but for the moment it is a necessary one. There are terrible monsters among the stars to be fought. The scattered fragments of mankind must be brought into communion. And on the other hand, any attempt to fight it would bring nothing but destruction, the ruin of anything that could be achieved. So, despite all his misgivings and resentments, he fights for the Imperium. His will not be the first blow to shatter this edifice.

He might be the second.

Homeworld:
Tetrarch is a large star-system, with four stars, eight terraformed worlds, and numerous void colonies. After over thirteen decades of uninterrupted peace and prosperity under the aegis of the Imperium and over two centuries under the Twenty-Second Primarch, the Tetrarch system possesses over half a trillion inhabitants. Wealthy, highly industrialised, and technologically advanced, it is one of the great jewels in the Imperium's crown, and one of the great anchor points for its expansion in the far reaches of the northeastern Sagittarius Arm.

The government of the system (and many of its neighbours) is the Syzygy Concord. Starting as a wartime alliance, then a loose confederation, it gradually evolved into a true central government uniting the thousands of individual polities within the Tetrarch system and eventually beyond. A vast democratic commune dedicated to the life, liberty, and prosperity of all its inhabitants, the Concord is unusual in the degree of freedom it extends to its people—the people of the Concord pride themselves in being citizens with rights, as opposed to the subjects of most Imperial worlds who possess only duties and fragile privileges.

This is far from the only point of friction with the wider Imperium. The Concord possesses large populations of abhumans, considered legally no different from any other citizen—a sharp contrast from the restrictive laws of most of the Imperium. Its independent scientific and technological establishments frequently grate on Mars—made worse by the partial and deeply heterodox adoption of Martian rites and veneration of the Machine Spirit. And of course, the many bureaucracies chafe at any non-standard privilege, especially when such a wealthy system is involved.

Psychic potential:
Antares possesses moderate psychic power, mostly concentrated into a particular ability: the power to 'blend in'. He can blend into a crowd he stands head, shoulders, and chest above. He can blend into a shadow, into the background. If the people looking for him are very bored and inattentive, he can blend into nothing at all, remaining unnoticed without the slightest hint of concealment.

It is not a power without limits. The exceptionally strong-willed and attentive will at least be suspicious that something is wrong. Powerful psykers may be able to detect and overcome the effect. And doing something exceptionally noticeable—for example, violently killing people—will enormously degrade the effect.

Beyond this, he rates as a Zeta-class psyker; respectable, but far from world-shaking.

However, he also possesses theoretical knowledge of the basics of sorcery of daemonology, courtesy of the meticulous record keeping and moral vacuum of the Empyrodynamic Research Division. The original records are burnt now, the researchers executed, the Black Spire where they carried out their abominable experiments razed. But Primarchs do not forget. And he read everything.

Background:
Antares's lifepod emerged from the Warp over the world of Dawnline, a tidally locked desert planet dotted with the remains of ancient cities and manufactora. His descent was tracked by the tattered remnants of Dawnline's traffic control net, and within hours he had been recovered by one of the many nomadic scavenger tribes roaming the world's twilight belts. Flummoxed to find an infant where they expected only scrap metal, they took him to the people who dealt in such mysteries and miracles: the Order of Leibowitz.

The Order of Leibowitz was a quasi-monastic commune dedicated to preserving and recovering the cultural and technological knowledge of the past, existing in a symbiotic relationship with the scavenger clans of Dawnline. An obviously artificial infant was a bit beyond their experience, but they took him in and raised him as their own. As any Primarch, he grew swiftly and learnt faster. The restoration of broken machines and mouldering archives, the tending of hydroponic gardens and the excavation of ruins, these are the things he learned. Of war, little yet.

These were the happiest days of his life.

There was a conflict between the Order and a coalition of scavenger bands fallen on hard times, convinced that the Order was hoarding resources and technology to force them into submission. Antares was able to find a diplomatic solution and disperse the gathering army by force of Primarchical charisma. As they departed, they spread stories of a giant of a man, who fell from the stars and grew to adulthood in a few short years. Soon after, Antares took it upon himself to unify the scattered tribes and settlements into some more durable structure. But he would never get the chance.

News of an unknown variety of transhuman who 'fell from the stars' piqued the interest of the Witch-Queen of Veil, master of the Veiled Empire. (She was not about to tolerate a peripheral region unifying and becoming a potential threat, either.) So she did what she always did when something provoked her interest.

She reached out and took.

The Veiled Empire was the dominant power of the Tetrarch system, controlling several worlds and thousands of asteroids, moons, and drift colonies, and was even launching conquest expeditions through interstellar space. Established through the psychic power and strategic mastery of the Witch-Queen, it was entering a period of decline as the Witch-Queen withdrew from day-to-day rule to focus on decadence, depravity, and the study of the occult, leaving her warlords and bureaucrats to engage in petty power struggles.

Antares managed to destroy the first attack, small and overconfident. The second attack, larger and more cautious, he pushed back. The third attack was too strong, and he took the rearguard as the rest of the Order fled into the sunward desert. An antitank las-weapon took off his leg, and he was dragged in adamant chains to the Empire's dungeons.

There he was subjected to tortuous experimentation and psychic probing as the Empire's vivisectors tried to uncover the secrets of Primarchical biology. However, they underestimated his strength and intelligence, and never even realised his psychic powers. He escaped, scarred but unbroken, hijacked an aerospacecraft, and fled.

After being downed in the middle of the wasteland and hiding from gene-hound teams and circling aerospacecraft for weeks, he managed to find refuge among the low and impoverished. He became an urban legend in the slum-districts and underhive stacks where the Empire's panopticon did not bother to extend. Soon he fell in with the revolutionary underground.

The Veiled Empire's domain over Tetrarch was far from unchallenged. Within, conquered peoples and revolutionary movements agitated for freedom. Without, independent nations and communes mustered powerful armies to resist any encroachment on their territories. A few even had Warp-capable starships of their own, waging cautious conflicts of positioning and bluff across the near stars.

But all of these forces were divided, as occupied by their own feuds as with opposing the Veiled Empire. A state of affairs the Empire's intelligence services worked hard to maintain.

Antares dedicated himself to building a grand alliance across the entire star-system. With his ability to slip through the cracks of a surveillance net, a skill that went beyond superhuman into the supernatural, he could travel across the system in ways impossible for anyone else. He had the sheer presence to make suspicious strangers hear him out, to convince enemies to bury the hatchet in service of a common goal.

Of course, the Veiled Empire would not simply let him do this.

It was a long and shadowy war, of subterfuge and transhuman assassins. A war in which nobody could be truly trusted, when the Empire's brainwashers could make a loyal friend into an enemy without even their knowledge, let alone anybody else's. At times, the Witch-Queen herself joined the hunt, forcing him to flee or hide. Antares struck back. Governors and generals were found dead in their offices. Hunting groups were massacred to the last before they could report a sighting. It was a lonely war. Few people could accompany Antares on his missions. Those who he could call companions rarely lived long, targeted by assassins or simply caught in the crossfire.

Antares hated it. He got to be very good at it.

Finally, when all the pieces were falling into place, the Empire attacked. They were not about to simply wait for their enemies to put their plans into motion.

As the war began, a system-spanning conflagration that stretched from knife-fights in the gutters to vast salvos of atomic missiles sailing between worlds, Antares was appointed by common acclaim to the position of Dictator, to command the common defence on behalf of the whole system.

By the time the war was over, a quarter of the people of the star-system would be dead.

It was war on a scale only a Primarch could truly comprehend and control. Billions of soldiers and tens of thousands of warships fought with weapons ranging from city-searing particle beams to autoguns assembled from scrap. Some died without ever being in visual range of their killers, seeing only dots on a tactical display. Some died feeling the breath of their killers on their face.

At the tip of every spear were the "warborn"—soldiers augmented so heavily that almost nothing of their original flesh remained beyond their brain. Remade to wage war in every environment, from frozen and airless out-system moons to the hellish cauldron of the atomic battlefield.

Most terrible were the abominations wrought by the Witch-Queen from samples of Antares's flesh and blood. The Empire's scientists and her own biomancy were unable to completely decipher the secrets of Primarchical biology. But they learnt enough to transform brainwashed children into monstrous mutant pseudo-Astartes. Their short lives were spent in terrible torment, unstable biologies ripping itself apart from the moment of their creation.

Some of them called Antares "Father" as he destroyed them. He is… reasonably certain it was a programmed response. The Witch-Queen twisting the knife.

As the situation grew increasingly desperate for the Veiled Empire, as conscript soldiers started defecting and peripheral governors started trying to cut separate deals, the most terrible weapons were unleashed. Bio-weapons ravaged void colonies and refugee camps. Things which Antares did not yet know to call 'daemonhosts' and 'Daemon Engines' took the field in small numbers. The Witch-Queen herself took the field more and more often, an Alpha-grade psyker clad in Golden Age of Technology war-plate. The only things that could really stop her were massed atomics or Antares himself. The two clashed on multiple occasions, without decisive result.

Until, as the war neared its climax in 751.M30, he finally managed to corner her, sacrificing his personal bodyguard, the Eclipse Rangers, to distract her and pin her in place. Volunteers one and all for a mission they knew would almost certainly be their deaths. As they fought and died against the Witch-Queen and her daemonhost bodyguard, he slipped in behind her and delivered the killing stroke.

The Veiled Empire collapsed soon after, its beating heart ripped out. Some regional warlords and true believers tried to fight on, but were crushed one by one. Antares himself shattered the Iridium Throne, declaring that Tetrarch would be free of empires forevermore.

Then Antares laid down the title of Dictator. It was an emergency appointment, and now the emergency was past. He called for a great constitutional convention, to determine the shape of the system after the war. The status quo had been irreparably shattered. Now was the time to build something new.

Based on the foundations laid before and during the war, the Syzygy Concord was born. Antares became the First Speaker of the Ecumenical Senate, and was granted the honorary title of First Citizen for Life.

The years afterward were filled with hard, honest work. The long labour of reconstruction. The growing pains of the Concord as theory became practice. Reaching out across the stars to bring new worlds into the fold.

Then the Emperor arrived. He commended Antares for building such a strong and prosperous realm, and invited him to join the Emperor on the Great Crusade, to bring unity to the scattered realms of mankind.

The 'or else' was never said. But the size of the battleship he rode in on was its own statement.

There was much debate in the Ecumenical Senate on whether they should submit or fight. They had all fought long and hard to be free of psyker-warlords and their empires; would they submit to another one now? On the other hand, the best they could hope for in a war with the Imperium was an extended and bloody defeat; did their principles demand that they die for nothing?

In the end, they chose to submit. The Concord would become part of the Imperium, and Antares would become part of the Great Crusade.

The XXII Legion: the Eclipse Rangers

Name:
The Eclipse Rangers, formerly named the Storm Crows.

Insignia and Appearance:
The Legion's insignia is a white star, four-pointed, gleaming on a black night-sky background, encompassed in a white circle and haloed in gold.

The official colours of the Eclipse Rangers are flash-reflective white, with black and gold trim and insignia. However, it is exceptionally rare to encounter an Eclipse Ranger in these colours off the parade ground. On campaign, Eclipse Rangers are clad in dazzle-camo patterns matching the colours of the expected battlefields, often draped in cameleoline cloaks to further blend in and break up their outline. Since equipment is usually only repainted in preparation for a new battlezone, a regiment in transit presents a colourful record of previous battles.

Gene-seed Status:
The gene-seed of the Twenty-Second Primarch is stable and decently but not exceptionally compatible. The only consistent mutation is a tendency towards dark skin and silver-grey hair, similar to their Primarch. However, due to highly restrictive recruitment practices, the Apothecaries have begun omitting organs to boost compatibility rates. Some organs deemed 'nonessential' like the Betcher's Gland, preomnor, and Omophagea are absent in up to 50% of recruits.

Legionary Assets:
—The Eclipse Rangers number only 80,000 'true' Astartes due to the Legion's unusual recruitment policies.

—In order to compensate, the Eclipse Rangers make extensive use of Demi-Astartes and other forms of massively augmented soldiers—commonly called 'warborgs' in Syzygy parlance. These troops bring the total number up to 170,000, although most other Legions are sceptical of their value.

—Alongside the Astartes and warborgs are the tens of millions of neosoldaten, the Eclipse Rangers' auxilia. Cybernetically and biologically augmented, extensively trained, equipped with void-hardened carapace and the full combined-arms array of armour, artillery, and aerospacecraft, the neosoldaten are an elite force. Capable of aggressive assault in almost any environment the galaxy can throw at them, they boast that they are as worthy of being called space marines as any Astartes.

—The Legion's flagship is the Alert, a Gloriana-class battleship fitted out as a long-range strike and support platform. In battle she acts as a fire support platform. Cavernous aerospacecraft bays and massed torpedo silos give her the power to dictate the shape of battle while remaining relatively safe herself. Out of battle, deep cargo bays and churning forge decks help sustain the Expeditionary Fleets while away from fixed bases.

—The Legion does not maintain any single great fortress-monastery, regarding the centralisation of critical infrastructure a vulnerability. Instead the Eclipse Rangers have a network of smaller fortress-monasteries spread across the stars. Many of these bases are secret, hidden in uninhabited systems or deep space, their locations known only to the Navigators that travel to them. The first among equals of these fortress-monasteries is the Pit, home to the General Staff. Extending a hundred kilometres deep into the crust of a metallic planetoid, the Pit is capable of resisting even Exterminatus-level bombardment.

—Most remarkable of the Legion's satellite fortress-monasteries is the House of Silence. A great pyramid of phase-iron, constructed to house Tetrarch's psykers during the Age of Strife. With the Imperium taking over those functions, the fortress has become the home of the Order of the Monstruwacans, the Legion's Librarius. It is also the home of the Legion's very careful, very slow, and very secret research into the nature of the Warp.

—Most terrifying of the Legion's weapons are the Berserker Corps: a small, semi-secret fleet of stealth starships, their existence not officially acknowledged, laden with Exterminatus weaponry and hyper-atomic mines, capable of laying waste to a world without revealing their presence. Occasionally undertaking missions to destroy burgeoning Orkish and xenos threats beyond the reach of the main fleets, they spend most of their time deep in the void, awaiting new orders to burn worlds.

—All of this is sustained by the Syzygy Concord. As with many Primarchs' domains, the Concord has expanded as the Legion conquered its way across the stars, currently standing at a bit over a hundred inhabited star-systems. More than a simple resource base, this is Antares' attempt to prove that autocratic empire is not the only way to organise vast interstellar realms. It is sometimes an uneasy balancing act, the mailed fist of Imperial domination within the velvet glove of republican friendship. His own role in the government he has created is surprisingly limited. Having resigned from all his previous posts when he took up the role of Primarch, his official position is Imperial Satrap, responsible for ensuring the Concord fulfils its obligations towards the wider Imperium and the Legion.

Legion Organisation:
—A squad is of 10 troops, led by a sergeant.

—A platoon is of 30 troops, led by a lieutenant.

—A company is of 100 troops, led by a captain.

—A battalion is of 100 troops, led by a major.

—A regiment is of 2,000 troops, led by a colonel.

—A division is of 10,000 troops, led by a general.

—A corps is of 40,000-45,000 troops, led by a Star Marshal. This is the largest subdivision, under the full Legion.

The Legion as a whole is directed by the Primarch and the General Staff, a collection of the most senior and trusted strategists across all the Legion's branches; not just Space Marines but auxilia and fleet officers as well.

For most purposes, the battalion is considered the primary operational unit, with individual companies often being weighted towards certain specialisations. It is rare for more than a battalion to be deployed on a mission, and units as small as single squads are often split off to pursue their own objectives. Even against foes requiring regimental deployment or even greater force, it is exceptional to see a full regiment fighting on the same battlefield.

Due to their different capabilities and logistical requirements, Astartes and warborgs are typically deployed in separate companies. Auxilia forces are usually semi-permanently attached to a given Eclipse Ranger unit, in order to foster close cooperation.

Expertise and Combat Doctrine:
The Eclipse Rangers operate according to a doctrine of 'Space-Surface Battle' which emphasises misdirection and electronic warfare, deep strikes and shock action, and heavy firepower. The central tenets of this doctrine are as follows:

The orbitals, atmosphere (when present) and surface of a target should be considered as a single contiguous battlespace, with developments in one area having ramifications across all others. A space-faring army cannot develop its full potential unless it is capable of directing units in all domains as a single cohesive force towards a single cohesive plan.

The Eclipse Rangers are only a single part of the Imperial war machine. A well-formed operational plan accounts for the strengths of auxilia, Imperial Army, and allied forces such as the Mechanicum, and uses all of them to maximum effect.

Major action, whether offensive or defensive, should be preceded by various 'masking' efforts to confuse the enemy as to the true intent. The true locations of units should be concealed and the enemy presented with mirages. Probing attacks should be undertaken across a wide front to identify weak points and conceal the ultimate direction of the main thrust. Intelligence should be acquired and enemy command, control and communications degraded.

In the main offensive, Eclipse Ranger forces are primarily deployed in aerial or orbital deep strikes to capture or destroy high-priority operational objectives. Enemy headquarters, key assets such as major artillery parks and logistical depots, seizure of key routes of advance or reinforcement, and hostage-taking of political leadership are all common targets.

Auxilia and/or Imperial Army forces push forward in echelon assaults, with the goal of breaking through the enemy frontage and penetrating into the depth. Initial assaults which find weak points in the line are reinforced; a failed attack was merely a feint. The ultimate objective is the total disorganisation, and subsequent destruction, of the enemy force.

When defending, a flexible multi-layered defence is used. Each line inflicts attrition before deliberately giving way in planned retreats, sapping strength from enemy spearheads in preparation for counter-offensives. Astartes units form heavy reserves, to reinforce key sectors or form the core of a counter-offensive.

Officers are expected to display initiative and aggression, seizing opportunities without waiting for orders from high command. Inflicting maximum chaos upon the enemy is worth a bit of chaos within one's own ranks.

Strong emphasis is placed on the role of long-range precision strikes to disorganise and destroy the enemy. This includes missile artillery, air strikes, and as operational conditions permit and require, orbital and atomic fires.

It is possible to call the XXII a stealth-oriented Legion, but this is but a fragment of the truth. The Eclipse Rangers are a Legion built for the nuclear battlefield, where the surest defence is to not be seen and not be hit.

Legion Weaknesses:
Perhaps most significant is the nature of the warborgs. Although these radically altered military cyborgs can approach a true Astartes in raw performance, they require extensive maintenance for every hour they spend in combat. An Astartes can keep fighting with minimal rest for months on end; a warborg can fight for a few days before progressive malfunctions start happening. A significant portion of the Eclipse Rangers' strength can thus only be deployed on short-duration strike missions, with minimal ability to hold the territory they have taken. This is a major part of why the Eclipse Rangers lean so heavily on their auxiliaries and the Imperial Army.

The Legion's doctrine calls for aggressive and sophisticated action from their supporting forces. This is no problem for their auxiliary neosoldaten, but the Imperial Army's ability to do this can be… variable. The Eclipse Rangers can generally compensate for poor Army performance if it is anticipated ahead of time, though doing so forces them out of their comfort zone. Discovering their inadequacies in the middle of an operation can be a disaster.

Given the strong emphasis the Legion places on flexibility, mobility, and offensive action even on the defence, they are about as bad as Astartes can possibly be at holding static fortifications.

Beliefs and Practices:
The Imperial Truth is, of course, official policy in the XXII Legion. However, Antares considers the Truth a Sisyphean and counterproductive policy, and actual enforcement is spotty. While organised religion is nearly non-existent, many Eclipse Rangers still practise traditional rites and superstitions. Elaborate funerary rites and offerings to ancestor spirits, veneration of celestial bodies and astrological divination, and veneration of Machine Spirits are all fairly commonplace. Often those who practice these rites will swear up and down that they believe the Imperial Truth without seeing any contradiction. Active worship of the Omnissiah and Machine God are growing throughout the Legion, traditional Tetrarch machine-animism meshing well with Mechanicum doctrine. The Mechanicum itself is concerned by this, fearing the Legion could become a breeding ground for tech-heresy.

Beyond this, the Legion has elaborate traditions of decorating their wargear. Pauldrons are emblazoned with mission patches commemorating past campaigns. Swirling paint decorates outstretched limbs. Back plates decorated with personal sigils. Most significant are the war masks—shark smiling, tiger snarling, tusked and horned. Putting on the mask is regarded as an act of transformation, from an ordinary (trans)human being into a killing machine—and then back again. This is a practice originating in the warborgs, who often experience personality shifts when their mental augments shift into full battle reflex mode. For similar reasons, many Eclipse Rangers adopt special noms de guerre for when they head into battle, separate from their ordinary name.

The Eclipse Rangers believe that the Space Marines are a part of mankind. Like any soldier, they are called upon to serve and protect their society. They may be far more effective at it than a regular human soldier, but there is not a fundamental difference between an Astartes and a regular grunt. Eclipse Rangers are encouraged to develop interests beyond war, to maintain connections with their families, to spend time among ordinary humans when possible. An army without a connection to the society it serves is not a protector—it is a threat.

Recruitment and Discipline:
At the insistence of Antares, the Legion recruits exclusively from adults or those nearly adults. Aspirants are not admitted before the age of sixteen, and implantation does not begin until seventeen or eighteen. Recruits as old as twenty-five are typical. Recruitment is strictly on a volunteer basis. Antares has made clear that he would sooner see the Legion's Astartes strength dwindle to nothing than recruit from children.

Due to the relatively old age of Aspirants and the resulting low compatibility, the Legions' Apothecaries must test vast numbers of Aspirants to maintain strength. Fortunately the Tetrarch system alone has hundreds of billions of citizens to draw recruits from, and hundreds more across the other systems the Legion has taken into its domain. Every year, tens of thousands of Aspirants struggle across vast training fields spread across an entire solar system. These gruelling tests of mental and physical endurance are meant to convey, as much as possible, to the Aspirants the reality of a Space Marine's life, to ensure they are both willing and able to endure the physical and mental realities of being an Astartes.

Warborgs are recruited differently. Typically they start their careers as neosoldaten in the Auxilia, before applying to become part of the elite. Those of sufficiently impressive service records, and who test as mentally compatible with the extreme augmentations are selected. Unlike an Astartes, there are virtually no physical compatibility requirements. The recruit's brain is extracted from their original body and implanted within a cybernetic warframe, laced with invasive battle-reflex neural augmentations. Although great pains are taken to ensure a decent quality of life, such a dramatic transformation requires extreme mental adjustments. Even with extensive psychological screening, a percentage of recruits eventually go mad. Although the procedure is in fact reversible to a degree, such mental breakdowns are often far more enduring.

Characters of Interest:
Star Marshal Eta Carina Rozhestvensky—Head of the General Staff and effective second-in-command of the Legion, Rozhestvensky is a multi-century veteran whose time in service predates Antares's arrival on Dawnline. An insightful and experienced commander of both void and ground forces, and long-time companion of the Primarch, none of the Eclipse Rangers doubt his suitability for the role, though some other Legions question a genetically unmodified human being raised to such a high position of command over Astartes.

Master of the Monstruwacans, Angavav the Black—Angavav's earliest memory is being rescued from the Empyrodynamic Research Office's dungeons by Antares—the foundation of a fanatical loyalty. A powerful and disciplined Gamma-class psyker and one of the lucky few able to become a true Astartes, Angavav leads the Order of the Monstruwacans; the Legion's psychic arm. In addition to his normal duties of training and organising the Eclipse Rangers' psykers, Angavav also oversees Antares's secret research projects into the Warp, along with certain… contingency planning.

Colonel Veikko Koivu—An old Terran-born Space Marine, by sheer depth and breadth of experience he could easily gain a position in high command if he desired. In fact he briefly served as Legion Master for a couple of years after the old Legion Master fell in battle shortly before Antares's discovery. But he refuses any promotion that would take him away from the battlefield, the only place he feels at home after centuries of campaigning. That said, he is the unofficial head of the unofficial 'Imperial faction', those segments of the Eclipse Rangers that believe unreservedly in the Emperor's vision. The loyal opposition, although none of them would dream of using the term. In this regard he has become a frequent advisor of Antares, a useful barometer for how his actions are regarded by the wider Imperium.

Captain Gavrill Bornwhole, the 'Suicide Queen'—Sole remaining survivor of a non-Imperial supersoldier project, Gavrill defected to the Imperium and was rewarded with elevation into the Eclipse Rangers. Remade into a warborg to replace failing and unstable flesh, Gavrill has constantly sought ever-greater augmentation, glorying in her transformation into a cybernetic engine of destruction. As the greatest duellist of the Legion, she leads her company in high-risk decapitation missions against enemy commanders and champions.

Battle-cry:
"RANGERS LEAD THE WAY!"

"FOR THE FUTURE OF MAN!"

Legionary History:
As one of the last Legions to be activated, the XXII took very little part in the Unification Wars for Terra itself. Their first major deployment was clearing the frozen moons and worldlets of Uranus, Neptune, and the Oort cloud of mutants and xenos pirates. It was in those zero-gravity warrens and airless shattered icescapes that they made a name for themselves as void operations specialists, storming space stations and dome colonies before the defenders had a chance to respond by gunship and jetpack assaults.

It was this style of attack repeated across the stars that would earn them the name Storm Crows: multi-axial airborne assaults aimed to overwhelm the enemy with speed and ferocity, sweeping in on black wings with thunder and lightning.

Their reunion with their Primarch was not without friction. Antares was unnerved to be called "Father" by thousands of men he had never met, disgusted by the practice of recruiting from children barely into their teens, and resentful at being conscripted into a cause he did not truly believe in. But these issues were overcome with time, as Antares reshaped his Legion.

Rechristened the Eclipse Rangers after Antares's personal guards during his war with the Witch-Queen, the XXII was transformed, enhancing their traditional doctrine with misdirection, electronic warfare, and stealth as well as embracing a role that emphasised their part in a larger war machine.