Editing The Crusaders (section)

==A father found, a Legion reforged==

Thomas Gaudin had come to manhood fighting battles on the polluted surface of Sturmundrang, leading mighty armies of armoured vehicles in rapid, high-speed strikes to swiftly end wars with the minimum bloodshed. He was already planning to create his own empire in the stars when the Imperium found him, and he was completely sold on the Emperor’s vision for a united Galaxy. The Legion he found however was not the rapier he desired, and so mustering his Legion he met with the survivors of the Sacred Band and told them of his vision of a Legion rebuilt to spearhead the Great Crusade, one that by its very way of warfare be spared heavy casualties and be able to swiftly bring worlds into the fold. Swayed by his words, the Sacred Band helped him spread his wish across the Legion, so when he began to remake it few voices were raised in protest, most notably Sacred Band member '''Elias Selig'''. What Gaudin did was remake the Legion to a greater extent than almost any other Primarch. Large infantry formations were broken up, Chapters made to be self-sufficient and mobile armored warfare with mechanized infantry with fast armor support the Legion’s doctrine. For nearly three years the Legion was out of the Crusade as thousands from Sturmundrang swelled the Legion’s ranks, Gaudin's own gentic material fixed the issue of slow growth of gene-seed and Gaudin retrained the Terrans to follow his vision of warfare. When the Legion departed Sturmundrang, it was a Legion transformed.

Before the Legion left, Gaudin mustered the entire Legion, over 60,000 Marines, and together they swore a mighty oath. They would be the great drivers of the Crusade, they would make up for their earlier tardiness by reclaiming more worlds than any other Legion, a tall order at the time but a challenge the Legion was willing to take. They would be the true inheritors of the Emperor’s Great Crusade, his Crusaders. Thus the legion became the Crusaders, the visual embodiment of the Emperor’s dream. Almost immediately they were pitched into the forefront of the Crusade at Keskastine, but now they excelled. Gaudin’s Mobile Warfare tactics allowed them to strike swiftly and throw their enemies off balance, cutting their armies to pieces and swiftly forcing them to surrender. Fast spearheads of Rhinos and Predators were let loose in the enemy’s rear areas, spreading panic and confusion. Carefully placed orbital bombardments and air strikes on both military and civilian targets helped to spread panic and break the enemies will to fight, though many thousands of innocent bystanders would die in these actions. Thus began a worrying trend for the Crusaders to use morally dubious actions to hasten the end of hostilities.

After the first few Campaigns, Gaudin began to divide his Legion, sending detachments off to spearhead advances in areas where the crusade had bogged down. Soon most of the Legion was spread out across the stars, operating far from their Father’s eye. Gaudin was pleased to see his sons bringing in more and more worlds for the Emperor and encouraged their autonomy, seeing his legion more as a number of separate expeditionary forces and not as a united whole. He himself along with his elite veterans moved from Crusader fleet to Crusader fleet, joining them for a hard-fought campaign only to move on to the next one. Like the Legion itself, the Primarch was restless and could never stay in one place for long.

Their relentless drive was not without cost though. The Crusaders are known to have moved swiftly on from planet to planet the moment that their enemies surrendered, leaving others to mop up any final pockets of resistance and establish garrisons on the conquered worlds. Many worlds flared up after the Crusaders had moved on, requiring others to complete their pacification. Several Primarchs complained that Gaudin’s zeal blinded him to the true needs of the Crusade, that worlds needed to be pacified and safely brought into the Imperial fold, not just conquered. But the sheer number of new worlds the Crusaders brought into the fold, among the top three Legions of the entire Crusade (The other two being the Wolves of Dawn and Winged Victory) silenced most of his critics, and the Emperor’s unwavering support of him also helped ease tensions.

The Crusaders saw service alongside many of their Brother Legions though not to the degree of other Legions mainly due to the Crusaders preferring to be pressing the boundaries wherever possible instead of being stuck in long slugging-matches. Though when they did serve as part of multi-Legion forces, their swift actions often ensured that victories could be won far in advance of campaign projections. The Legion never sought to antagonize any of their fellows by their actions, though when pressed too hard honor duels were arranged. Gaudin is known to have laughed off suggestions of tensions with the Winged Victory after they conquered a thousand sectors in a year and began to try and rival the Crusaders for number of worlds added to the Imperium. “We need a challenger to spur us onward. If all my brothers can show the drive of Lumey, this Crusade will be over quickly,” He is reported to have said, though rumours of darker sayings still linger.

Gaudin came to Ullanor to find the battle already over, much to his dismay. His own 35th Expeditionary Fleet had been in the vicinity of Desperation on the very furthest fringe of the Crusade, netting dozens of the distant and disparate worlds in that region. However at the triumph there he was honored highly by the Emperor, and asked to return to Terra along with his Legion as a ‘guard of honor’ separate from the position Alexandri had been granted as the Emperor's Praetorian. Privately he was deeply discomforted by this. His only desire was to prosecute the Crusade, and if his legion was recalled to Terra it could easily miss out on the Great Crusade. Gaudin had never considered what the future for his Legion beyond the crusade would be, and he now feared that his Legion could easily be censured and destroyed if it was stuck on Terra. However he could not speak out against his Father, and so he ordered as much of the Legion as possible to break from their campaigns and muster on Terra, the first time the entire Legion would be mustered together since they left Sturmundrang.