Editing Sand Keepers (section)

=History=

==Beginnings: Crimson Hawks==
The nascent Eighteenth Legion drew their manpower from the sons of the Emperor's defeated enemies on Terra.  It is this that gave them their first moniker, ''The Janissaries'', but they would become better-known as the '''Crimson Hawks''' after their distinctive emblem.  Their best recruits were assembled into the XVIII Squad of the '''Sacred Band''' and followed Hektor Cincinnatus into the battles of the [[Unification Wars (Hektor Heresy)|Unification Wars]].  Led by '''Sasian Terca''', the Eighteenth acquitted themselves with honour in the blooding of the Merican Hives, though three of their number would be slain before the end of the campaign.  Their names, '''Aciprus Molfia, Hiapro Doquius''' and '''Niopus Cus''' form the beginning of the Sand Keepers' long Remembrance of the Fallen.

The Emperor was pleased with the performance of the Nineteenth Squad and ordered that they be released from the Sacred Band to take command of their gene-brothers.  If the Crimson Hawks did not spring from Terra as one of the first and most glorious of the Legions, they were not without their successes.  As they struck out to bring new worlds into the embrace of the Emperor, the Nineteenth felt certain that their own Primarch would soon rejoin them.  Yet brave Sasian Terca, Executor of the Primarch's Will in the absence of their lost gene-father, would die in battle in 820.M30, just two years before [[Darius Cyaxares]] was discovered on Simurgh.


==The Sand Keepers: None can escape their fate!==
[[File:Darius_Cyaxares.jpg|thumb|right|200px|Darius Cyaxares, Primarch of the Sand Keepers]]
The brothers Moelia, Aurus and Diatus, succeeded as Executors and were honoured to hand over command of the Crimson Hawks to their genefather in 823.M30.  Darius Cyaxares renamed the Legion the '''Sand Keepers''' for his own inscrutable reasons, but he retained the twins as his seconds.  Ill-fated Diatus Moelia died in a tragic accident the next year, but his last words would be immortalised as the battlecry of the Legion.  Aurus Moelia, saddened but resolute, remained as the sole Executor and second-in-command to the Primarch.

During the first years of Darius' leadership, the Eighteenth were relocated to the Death World '''Kumul''', where their Neophytes could be tested against the ferocious native predators.  The Primarch also instituted reforms of the Legion's military organisation.  Darius carefully selected new recruiting worlds to supplement the warriors drawn from Simurgh, often leading expeditions of conquest specifically for this purpose.  Under Darius' regime, each of the Legion's Chapters would specialise in a particular form of warfare and would recruit from a people whose traditions matched their own.  He also set the bolter above the other arms of the Legion, setting his Techmarines the task of developing new specialist munitions and simplifying their production.

Throughout the [[Great Crusade (Hektor Heresy)|Great Crusade]] the Sand Keepers acquitted themselves with honour, winning many notable victories, but they were never among the great conquerors of the Legiones Astartes.  Darius Cyaxares taught his sons that the wars of the Great Crusade were important, but that their true trial was still to come.  For a long time, this prophecy had a far-off air to it, but as the 31st Millenium began the Primarch announced that he sensed darkness swiftly approaching.  Attempting to head off the crisis, the Sand Keepers brought evidence of sorcerous acts among the [[Black Augurs]] to the Emperor, triggering the [[Council of Nikaea (Hektor Heresy)|Council of Nikaea]].  They also argued hard against the banishment of [[Void Angels|Winged Victory]], but to no avail.

[[File:Lewecke-gateport.jpg|200px|thumb|Dodu rises over Malluma]]
In their histories, the Sand Keepers and their Successor Chapters hold that disaster of the [[Hektor Heresy]] began with the exile of Winged Victory.  Shortly thereafter the main strength of the Legion arrived on the moon '''Malluma''', where they had been dispatched at the orders of the Warmaster Hektor Cincinnatus.  Contrary to the intelligence provided to them, the Sand Keepers encountered no [[Orks (Hektor Heresy)|Orks]] on Malluma.  They faced a far more dangerous foe, as the treacherous Warmaster had sent them into a deadly trap - a daemon world, ruled by the ''Shadow in Time'', a powerful child of Tzeentch.  The daemon separated Darius from his bodyguard and attempted to win him as the chosen of the Changer of Ways, but the Primarch remained true to the Emperor.  In the fight that ensued, the sacrifice of many Immortals banished the Shadow in Time.  Although the Sand Keepers and their Primarch suffered greatly on Malluma, they emerged resolute and certain that their hour had arrived.  The Legion regrouped and made haste towards the Solar System.

In the fateful Siege of Terra, the Sand Keepers acquitted themselves with utmost honour.  Between the mobile [[the Crusaders|Crusaders]] and the stoic [[Scions of Europa]], the sons of Darius took the middle group, able to adapt and complement their battle brothers.  The Sand Keepers disciplined and powerful Librarians played the pivotal role in keeping the valiant, but psychically-inactive, Scions from being overrun by daemons.

===Notable Campaigns===

*'''998.M30: [[Core Worlds Campaign]]'''.  Although the [[Void Angels|Fifth Legion]] would be more famously associated with the sudden violence of the war against the Core Worlds, Darius Cyaxares' men played an important role.  The Primarch himself was entrusted with the main responsibility in negotiations, but there was never any conception that he would be a bystander should the talks fail.  Indeed, [[Gaspard Lumey]]'s dispatches indicate that the decision for the ruthless blow against Karazak was based on Darius' intuition.  The Sand Keeper's military contributions at Valaya Station were no less important, breaking open the gate to the innermost Core Worlds and compelling the final surrender of these rich planets.