Darnath Lysander

Lysander, proving that "Vanilla" is not bad.

"My kind were created to feel no fear, but we understand it. We were all once men who felt fear as does anyone else, and we must know it because it is a weapon we wield."

– The man himself

Darnath Lysander is the First Captain of the Imperial Fists Space Marine Chapter. He's a pretty cool dude. He wears yellow and doesn't afraid of anything. Really quite the fun guy to be around. Apparently the rapetrain comes in yellow now.

Backstory

Lysander has what might be one of the manliest back-stories of all time. His backstory begins as a kid of only 13. After surviving a Waaagh! and a heresy, he was recruited on Holy Terra because a captain thought he was the second coming of Dorn. He murdered what we can only assume were scores of chaos. He also boarded and captured the Eldar vessel named the Blood of Khaine. It is generally accepted that the Blood of Khaine had the Avatar of Khaine onboard, so we can only assume that Lysander tore it apart with his bare hands. Unfortunately, other factions began powergaming, trying to stop Lysander and company from doing the incredibly cheesy tactic of Drop-pods and Teleport homers, so the cultists used Warp dickery to mishap a squad of Terminators into a mountainside. As his Captain lay dying, he saw it fit to bestow Lysander with the Fist of Dorn, the coolest looking Thunder Hammer that ever was. Lysander then killed all of the stupid chaos cultists (with said hammer), then got promoted to Captain.

For years, Lysander terrorized the galaxy with the Fist of Dorn, deep striking himself and other Terminators into other enemy squads and shoving fist-hammer up anus and similar hole alike, just like how you play him tabletop. He later happened upon an Alpha Legion base, and tore them to shreds. All of them. Years later, as he was chilling with some Terminators on their way to Deep Strike some poor xenos, he got stuck in a warp storm and was lost. During this time stuck in the Warp storm, he probably roamed the warp with Draigo, beating the everloving shit out of whatever poor demon they met. A thousand years of demon-killing later, he re-emerged back into regular space. Chaos-held space.

Immediately captured by Iron Warriors under the command of Warsmith Shon'tu (the self-proclaimed reincarnation of an infamous warlord of the same name who ruled during the Dark Age of Technology), who blew up his ship, then captured him and some of the survivors. The mad Warsmith then tortured them for a few weeks on their fortress world of Malodrax in between bouts of ranting about "his" past exploits. Tired of the Iron Warrior's shit, Lysander broke his way out of Malodrax's capital with his bare hands, leaving a trail of death and destruction. He broke out of a fortress-world full of Chaos Space Marines specialized in fortified positions and close combat. Naked.

After returning to Imperial space, he was screened for all types of daemonette STD's and for traces of heresy. Amazingly, he was clean. Being the oldest Space Marine alive (except for Dante), he was promoted back to captain of the first company. His first act was to go back to the Iron Warrior fortress world of Malodrax, and destroy all that remained. Due to his rampage earlier, he succeeded in destroying a few untoppled buildings and Chaos UNICEF, but Shon'tu... well, here is where things get fuzzy. In the book Malodrax Lysander beats the everliving shit out of the Warsmith of Malodrax, using special Inquisition anti-Marine poison for good measure. However, the book never actually gives the Warsmith's name, just that Lysander knew who he was. Why is this important? Because every other source makes it clear Shon'tu had long since escaped Malodrax and Lysander never found him.

Today, he walks around with his hammer and his hammer-wielding buddies whacking at the ankles of Traitor Titans.

A Bad Boss

This article or section involves Matthew Ward, Spiritual Liege, who is universally-reviled on /tg/. Because this article or section covers Ward's copious amounts of derp and rage, fans of the 40K series are advised that if they proceed onward, they will see fluff and crunch violation of a level rarely seen.

The poster-boy of the Imperial fists.

Darnath Lysander is not the sort of person you'd want as your employer. Even amongst genetically enhanced religious fanatics indoctrinated from childhood to genocide all deviants to death, he has a reputation for being a bit of a cockhead. For example, once upon a time, the Imperial Fists 3rd Company was surrounded by Iron Warriors, their Captain was killed, and the company was almost annihilated. The few survivors of the ordeal would later learn that reinforcements from the Blood Angels and Ultramarines were in the system and available for rapid deployment at any time, but Lysander, the commander of the Imperial Fists on the planet, was too proud to accept their aid, instead preferring to allow his marines to die in great, heaping mounds. In fact, during the subsequent trial, Lysander continued to deny that their assistance was ever needed and even suggested that if the Ultramarines hadn't intervened, he would have slain the Warsmith commanding their forces. (Incidentally, the Warsmith in question was none other than Shon'tu, which suggests that Lysander was motivated by revenge and not just stubbornness.) While Chapter Master Vladimir Pugh considered stripping him of his rank for allowing the unnecessary deaths of so many of his men, doing so ran the risk of causing a split in the Chapter, as many believed Lysander's actions to be heroic instead of the byproduct of a single-minded obsession with revenge against the Iron Warriors. As a compromise, he merely demoted Lysander to the rank of 3rd Company Captain (and promptly reassigned them to a crusade against the Orks, much to Lysander's disappointment).

In the book Architect of Fate, Lysander was attached to an Imperial Fist garrison on board a star fortress, so he clearly goes where he wants when he wants to. Continuing the theme of being a bad boss, he murdered the astropath so that a clandestine call for reinforcements wouldn't get out (the astro knew it was coming, and was okay with it in the end, so not so bad we guess?), had his injured Techmarine possessed so that he could kill a daemon dead, and manipulated the enemy Warsmith into unleashing his pet greater daemon so that his reinforcements could kill it. He won in the end, but lost at least one star fortress and got a lot of his own killed in the process. The theme there was that Lysander thought that no price for victory against Chaos was too steep, which just reinforces him as being pretty obsessive about revenge against Chaos, no matter how much it hurts his own side in the end. Although, if it really is that he's so obsessed with fighting Chaos, he should put his pride as secondary rather than refusing reinforcements and the like. On the other hand, putting fewer forces into harm's way when it is not strictly absolutely definitively necessary does have its own merits.

This is not bullshit, this is actually canon. Unsurprisingly, this garbage was written by everyone's favorite serial canon-rapists; see THIS and THIS. Cuz, you know, Ward will fling his own poo at every Chapter Master other than his beloved Papa Smurf in order to make him look good. Then again, considering Lysander's tendencies towards being a self-destructive teamkiller just so he can destroy the forces of Chaos, something sinister may be afoot here. If you gaze in the abyss, the abyss gazes into you; and Lysander's behavior is strangly reminiscent of his hated enemies disdain for every other thing in order to secure victory. Or he just has trouble remembering that not everyone has 2+ and 3++ saves, Eternal Warrior and 4 wounds like he does.

Recently GW seems to be trying to rehabilitate his image. For his flaws, Lysander has now turned down taking up the mantle of Chapter Master not once, but twice when offered by his fellows. The reason why is never stated outright, but whether out of humility, stubbornness or a burning need to cave traitors' skulls in by deploying some Thunderhammer time upon them; he is at least on some level aware his way of doing things might not be the best and that getting overall command would be bad for his Chapter.

On the Tabletop

7th Edition

	Pts	WS	BS	S	T	W	I	A	Ld	Sv
Captain Lysander:	230	6	5	4	4	4	5	3	10	2+/3++

Lysander is tough. Do not fight Lysander. He will win. He has a captain's stat line with an extra wound and a bunch of fun toys. Basics first, he has ATSKNF and Chapter Tactics (Imperial Fists: Bolter Drills, which Lysander gives 0 shits about), plus he has Eternal Warrior. His warlord trait gives him FNP, as if he needed more durability, and a unique rule "Icon of Obstinacy" that makes your space marines within 12" know no fear (rerolling morale checks! Because they really needed that. For toys he has a suit of terminator armor for a good save, plus he has a storm shield and the "Fist of Dorn" which is a thunder hammer that strikes at strength 10 AP2.

Lysander is dead 'ard and dead killy. Seriously, not only is this fucker striking at strength 10, he's got 2+/3++/5+++ with eternal warrior and he WILL NOT run away from you. While he's no tactical genius, Lysander will take most challengers that dare to step up. Seriously, even The Big Three, or Smashfucker will have trouble with this guy. By mathhammer he'll only consistently lose to a few independent character challengers like Kaldor Draigo, Asterion Moloc, Abaddon, or a few of the Phoenix Lords, like Jain Zar or Asurmen, with his "Fuck-Your-Eternal-Warrior" 1-shot sword.

8th Edition

	Pts	M	WS	BS	S	T	W	A	Ld	Sv
Captain Lysander	130	5	2+r1	2+r1	4	4	6	4	9(10)rf	2+/3++
	Range		Type		S	AP	D	Abilities
Fist of Dorn	Melee		Melee		+6	-3	3

• Special Rules
  • Angels of Death: Basically Shock Assault, making him hit 5 times when charging or charged.
  • Imperial Fists: Still useless on him.
  • Deep Strike
  • Icon of Obstinacy: Only 1 IMPERIAL FIST model may flee as a result of a failed morale test within 6".
  • Rites of Battle: Re-roll hit rolls of 1 for friendly <CHAPTER> units within 6".
  • Warlord Trait: Indomitable: Cannot be wounded by wound rolls of 1-3, regardless of the weapon's Strength characteristic. Makes him considerable harder to shift due to effectively ignoring 50% of all wounds.
• Wargear
  • Terminator Armor, Storm Shield, Fist of Dorn

Lysander has a captain's stat line with an extra Ld (which usually won't matter) and his chapter tactics are also usually irrelevant - he has no weapons to ignore cover saves with, and he lacks any guns he'd want to use on a building. His warlord trait means that even overcharged plasma and Knights can only wound him on a 4+ or better. The big seller is his melee weapon, which acts like a Thunder Hammer without the to-hit penalty and with an additional +2S, although if you give him an S buff you'll notice that it isn't a normal thunder hammer - e.g. under Might of Heroes, he'll go to S11, not S12. This difference will tend to be insignificant, however, as he's already strong enough to flatten even Knights with a good thwack.