Lions Rampant

Lions Rampant
Number	IX
Founding	First Founding
Successors of	N/A
Primarch	Cromwald Walgrun
Homeworld	Sommesgard
Allegiance	Chaos

This page details people, events, and organisations from The /tg/ Heresy, a fan re-working of the Warhammer 40,000 Universe.

The Lions Rampant once stood as stalwart defenders of mankind. Credited with brilliant leadership and numerous victories, their former glories are now forever stained by infamy. During the Hektor Heresy they cast their lot in with the traitors to the Imperium and are now among the greatest examples of the excesses of Chaos. Now they ride in an eternal quest to satisfy their dark master, the god of Chaos, Slaanesh.

The History of the Lions Rampant

Before the discovering of Cromwald, the Lions Rampant were an understrength legion known as the Highland Raiders. They were tasked with subjugating worlds that refused overtures of peace, and in such a role were often set against well prepared foes. They lacked for glorious campaigns in their formative years, especially in the wake of legions more specialized, organized, or simply more brutal in their ways. It was not until the discovery of the lost primarch that they would be catapulted to the role of a vaunted vanguard, earning their name and place in the Great Crusade.

Cromwald Walgrun, Primarch of the Lions Rampant

Appearance

Cromwald has all the bearing of an aristocrat; he carries himself with confidence and poise as befitting his upbringing. This, partnered with his modestly rounded features, tightly cropped charcoal hair and neatly trimmed mustache would see him fitted well with the nobility of the Imperium. Though given the typical imposing presence of a primarch, his middle aged, almost fatherly features are disarmingly pleasant to look upon, though his deep set brown eyes are those of an ever watchful hawk. Even when his great cheeks are drawn in an amiable expression there can be no mistaking that he is ever constantly judging those in his company.

Youth

The young primarch was discovered on the world of Sommesgard. Here he was discovered by an officer in the service to the Monarchy of Prathia. The captain was guiding a routine patrol as part of the summertime wargames exercised by the 131st grenadiers, and stumbled upon a child lost and abandoned in the woods. He responded by returning to headquarters with the child, and in the absence of any family, he would then adopt the boy a few months later. Dubbing him Cromwald, the captain would raise the primarch in accordance to the traditions and customs of the privileged upper class the Monarchy's officers were drawn from.

As a primarch, the child would grow swiftly. Captain Walgrun, despite being taken aback by his sons accelerated growth, raised the boy in the ways of etiquette, tradition, and ambition. He taught the child all he could about the privileges and responsibilities of the gentry. Before long the student had exceeded the teacher, and so it was with pride that Cromwald was entered into the academy to follow his adoptive father's footsteps as a soldier and leader of men.

The Military Academy of Her Lady of Grace was a prestigious institution that held a reputation for providing the finest officers in the Prathian army. Here Cromwald excelled in virtually every field; his superhuman intellect began to blossom into a sharp mind for strategy and a quick wit for diplomacy. He quickly proved a match for his instructors in the arts of personal combat and debate, and it was not long before his fieldcraft and generalship had excelled beyond all expectations. He graduated a lieutenant, but would not linger at such a lowly rank for long.

The wars that wracked Sommesgard were ceaseless as nations battled for the limited resources of the depleted planet. These provided the perfect backdrop for the grand march to unification. It began with a modest handful of routs against the rival nation of Calibrey. These routs turned into prolonged campaigns, and when the Prathian flag stood ascendant over their longtime rivals, Cromwald's rise to the rank of Field Marshal was all but assured. He had given the Prathian king the tool he needed to break the stalemate of the third great war of the continent of Maskovin, and soon the boots of Prathian troops would be heard across the whole of the mainland.

As a general, Cromwald had proven himself to the king of Prathia. His capable oratory had convinced his peers and liege that conquest could change the face of Sommesgard for the better. The monarchy would march as an empire, he proclaimed, and he would claim the honor of leading her armies. The king's blessing given, he rallied the armored might of his forces and chose carefully his first targets.

Conquest of Berau

At the forefront of the young general's list of targets was the techno-barbarians occupying the ruins of the golden age city of Berau. They had long possessed an insular culture protected by advanced weapons. Their lasguns, armor and tanks outclassed the more primitive armaments of the rest of the world, though their numbers had always been too few to wage aggressive wars upon all but their closest neighbors.

Recognizing the necessity of technological superiority in his aspirations, Cromwald quickly mobilized his forces to invade. Ships bearing whole divisions of men and materiel were deployed, and from the eastern shores they marched into position for his carefully laid plans. He had studied his foe extensively, and when his boots graced the sands of the shoreline it was with an ultimatum for his foes: surrender, or face destruction in piecemeal.

Arrogant in their technological supremacy, the technocrats rejected his offer with scorn. Their envoy had scarcely returned to their masters with word when the first shells began to fall from the naval batteries. Under cover of sustained bombardment, Cromwald's armor had begun to move.

The campaign was a long one, by comparison to his future conquests. His armored divisions had dispersed across the countryside, using the terrain to mask their presence and prey upon the enemy in a series of lightning raids. When the enemy gathered their forces to strike, a whirlwind bombardment from hidden batteries would ravage their position. When the enemy troops raced to return fire, the self propelled guns would relocate. Efforts by the technocrats to chase were met with infantry raids upon their rear and armored support from the fore. One by one, the enemy's divisions began to fall. Never could he strike at the Prathians in force, for they used their mobility and coordination to harry the overstretched technocrats. With a front spread wide, the superior numbers of the more primitive army began to tell. It would not be until the battle for the city that the advance would falter. Here the technocrats would make a desperate stand, using all the arcane weapons at their disposal to thwart Cromwald.

((More to come at a later time))

Invasion From the Stars

In the wake of global unification, astronomers identified a sizable anomaly in the night sky. Ships from somewhere beyond the stars had begun to settle into orbit. Pandemonium set in amidst the people, who had long forgotten the days when mankind had walked the stars. No one knew what the strangers wanted, but Cromwald counciled preparation for the worst.

When the strangers landed, it was the field marshal that was to greet them from the turret of a braddigan heavy tank. He was wary of the red-robed envoys, who had chosen Berau as their landing site. His response arrived to see an armed force attempting to lay claim to the city. As he had with all of his previous conquests, he rode out to speak to their leader, man to man. The stranger, declaring himself a magos of the Adeptus Mechanicus, stated under no uncertain terms that he would take the city and claim a holy treasure that lay within. Cromwald, displeased at the arrogance of his counterpart, delivered his famed ultimatum of sovereignty. He proclaimed that his world would not yield to force, be it by their own or by the machinations from beyond. The magos would barter peacefully for the treasure of Berau, or he would face annihilation. The magos scoffed at the bold words of the barbarian before him. His insult would be the last thing to leave his lips; the combined firepower of Cromwald's guns obliterated the envoy and his honor guard from the face of the planet. So began the hardest fought war of his career.

The mechanicus fought like the technocrats before them had. They held strange and terrifying engines of war, and held the advantage of the high ground. Cromwald could do nothing to prevent the bombardment from the heavens that preceded the coming invasion. Populations were laid to waste by the opening days of the war, and concentrations of military strength were annihilated with no means of fighting back. It was a tense time, but the skilled oratory of the field marshal and his council steeled the people's resolve. The bombardment could not last forever; the enemy would need to land troops to claim their price. Neither could they fire upon Berau, lest they destroy that which they held in such high value. It was there he mustered his strongest troops, and prepared for the storm.

Dark days followed for the soldiers of Sommesgard. The mechanicus had landed in force with their secutors, myrmidons and tech-thralls. Tanks of unparalleled power stalked the ruins in the wake of bombardment by precision weapons. Deadliest of all the threats faced were the titans; a modest handful had made planetfall. For all of his prodigious skill, Cromwald's men were outclassed. Every victory secured came at terrible cost.

Only by riding out to meet the enemy personally would the invasion be broken. Outside the gates of the Berau slums he led an armored counter-assault to the mechanicus march. His presence was a threat the enemy could not ignore; killing him would sever the head of the fierce resistance they had met. In fixating on the enemy command, the mechanicus played into Cromwald's gambit. Though his tank was disabled, he escaped its destruction at the hands of a stalking titan with only the loss of his arm. His sacrifice was carefully calculated; behind their backs the mechanicus had been outfoxed. Vanquisher rounds, built by Berau technology, hammered into the titan from the rear and overwhelmed its void shields with their combined firepower. The god-machine fell before repeated hammerblows as troopers raced across the wastelands to reinforce the besieged city.

Victory had come at a terrible price. Even with his masterful strategy, Cromwald's forces had suffered extreme casualties. Each Mechanicus soldier to fall had taken five men with him; each tank to be destroyed had scrapped ten of its foes. Only grit and weight of numbers had allowed the defenders of Sommesgard to win the day, though many sons had perished.

The Coming of the Emperor

Defeat was a bitter taste to the Mechanicus. Two titans had fallen, causing great anguish among their keepers. Already they plotted retribution for their losses, and turned their efforts to calling for aid. They prepared for a renewed offensive, this time aided by a power far more formidable than their forces alone. Across the void the astropathic summons rang out, and from the crusading fleets of the Imperium came the answer: the astartes would come.

Less than a year after his final victory over the invasion from space, Cromwald was gravely disquieted. The leaders he fought under had lauded his victories publicly, but in their closed councils planned for further acts of war. The fleet in orbit had not left their system; it had merely withdrawn from orbit to lurk near their closest celestial neighbor. Alarms were raised when the small fleet was suddenly reinforced. Massive vessels appeared in orbit around the barren planet of Mairen. They rallied more and more ships to their fleet, then broke orbit on a direct course for Sommesgard. The situation was bleak; the casualties from the first invasion had sorely depleted the military might of the indigenous population. A second wave may very well be an irresistible force, though Cromwald was prepared to try. He prepared his men and ordered all forces to entrench as deeply as could be managed in preparation for the firestorm to come. They had a scant two days to make their defenses ready before the largest and greatest of the enemy fleet took to orbit.

Yet the inferno did not come. Observers noted a single small aircraft emerge from the belly of the steel leviathan. It charted a course to the planet surface, landing in what had once been the capital of Prathia. From this wondrous machine emerged a golden figure resplendent in radiant light. At his sides were a pair of figures, equally massive in full, faceless baroque armor. The awestruck messenger that met with this new envoy bore a summons: to the general who so skillfully commanded the defeat of the invading tech-priests, he wished to parlay.

Cromwald was taken aback by the offer, but accepted the summons all the same. As was his way, he extended all the hospitality of his home to the radiant figure; they withdrew to his private headquarters to speak.

What words were shared behind those closed doors have never been known to any but the Emperor and his newly rediscovered son. They remained at the table for two full days and nights, discussing in exacting detail a great many things. When they emerged, it was to a world holding its collective breath. All ears turned towards the field marshal, and a great cry of joyous exultation rang across the whole of the planet at the proclamation of peace.

In the wake of the meeting of Emperor and Primarch, the sovereignty of Sommesgard was assured. Cromwald would become her protector, wielding now a full legion of astartes to defend his homeworld and conquer in the Emperor's name. All this came from a formal decree from the Emperor himself; a binding carta served as a written oath to his son that no imperial institution would threaten invasion or violence upon the planet. To the mechanicus a severe censure was issued; the arrogance of their leading magos had sent the explorators on the warpath with a primarch. Worse still, his arrogance had cost said primarch his right arm. In payment for their misdeeds, the mechanicus would forfeit the STC discovered in the Berau ruins. Its stewardship, and the technologies behind the Vanquisher cannon would remain in the hands of the IX legion. Further still, the greatest artisans of the mechanicus were tasked with the forging of their crowning masterpiece in the field of bionics to replace that which had been stolen from Cromwald. The result was a miracle of technology; an arm forged of adamantine and ceramite that was every bit as formidable as the man that wielded it.

The Great Crusade

A Primarch Restored

Cromwald's legion had long fought ingloriously and forgotten among their brethren. The restoration of their primarch was the first step of many to change this fate; he set about redefining the nature of the IX legion immediately. He addressed the whole of his legion, massed on the fields of Berau in formation and watching from orbit above. To these men he delivered a firebrand speech of his heritage, of the victories he had achieved, and of the birthright that they carried in their gene-seed and their souls. No longer would they be known as mere raiders, preying on the enemies of man as carrion birds in the wake of their betters. They would become as lions, roaring their name unto the blackness of space and striding forth with pride to claim their place among the stars. All would hear the lion's roar and would submit, or they would face the kings of war on the field of battle. It was thus that the Lions Rampant were remade on the fields that had been so bitterly contested for so very long.

The process of remaking his legion was not so simple as speeches and bluster. Cromwald himself was faced with change; the Emperor had embraced his son, but he had found him wanting. For all his brilliance as a general and leader, the Lion was a man of many vices. Chemicals, drugs, perversions...these things ate at the moral fiber of the primarch. No longer could he merely partake discreetly and brush aside any inkling of scandal. He would be faced with a very real change in his ways, to mirror the dramatic reversal of his legions methods of war. The first year of his stewardship of legion IX was marked with prolonged transition and extensive training. The advances of the legion in the crusade had all but halted as the command infrastructure was rebuilt from the ground up. Officers were trained by the primarch personally in strategy and diplomacy, and in turn their new lessons were taken to the lower ranks. It wasn't until five long years of constant drilling, wargaming, and reorganization that Cromwald deemed his lions fit for the hunt.

Upon returning to the campaign, the newly christened Lions Rampant were an untested force. Carefully they chose their initial targets, picking worlds that would offer a suitable test of the new drill and doctrine. Initial successes against rogue human elements on a handful of lesser worlds saw them grow bold; those that did not accept terms of parlay had been invaded in brilliant campaigns that systematically overwhelmed the defenders. Skeptics within the legion were finding their fears baseless in the wake of the smooth operation of the newly minted command structure.

The true test of the legion's strategic worth would come on the blighted world of Yupsis, where the indigenous human population were enslaved by a technologically advanced xeno race. Paired with a detachment of the Mastondontii, the Lions made planetfall with mind to liberate the planet. On the great plains the armored fist of the Mastodontii clashed with strange alien armor. Though a company of vanquisher equipped predators from the Lions joined their brethren, the legion's full strength was committed elsewhere. Relying on the might of the steel wall blasting across the plains to draw attention, a series of rapid strikes to the enemy rear lines were executed to assess and hinder enemy strength. Pressed with a second assault from the rear, the aliens redeployed and shifted tactics to a more defensive posture. They halted the armored push into their front, but could not prevent themselves from being outflanked. The Lions were always one step ahead, turning the xeno counter push into an overstretched initiative. The aliens were swiftly losing ground, and when their doomed effort to reclaim lost gains struck it was shattered between the Lions precise deployment and the immovable anvil of Mastodontii steel. This first battle set the tempo of the war, as it was repeated time and again. The combination of the Mastodontii's strength and the Lions tenacity liberated city after city, which only added more fuel to the fires. The planet rose up in rebellion against the alien masters, and they were put to the sword to the very last. After the battle, before the fires had burnt out Cromwald invited the officers involved in the campaign to a celebratory toast. Here he praised Tollund before the whole assemblage, proclaiming a respect for the superb marshaling of their armored forces.

False Friends

As the crusade ground onward, Cromwald had the chance to meet most of his brothers both professionally and personally. To him, his fellow primarchs were a class of soul that mirrored his own. Each was a leader of men and a master of whole worlds. Though some were crass, distasteful or "downright ungentlemanly", he was cordial especially to his brothers to which he had taken a disliking towards. It was his way to show hospitality and courtesy even in the face of one's rivals and enemies, and so it was with the likes of Nathanog, Gaspard Lumey, and several others among his kin.

While his haughty demeanor has alienated some of his fellow primarchs, others accepted him for the gentleman he was. To those who could abide his nature he was a fast friend, welcoming whenever the vicissitudes of fate would allow a pause in conquest to engage in more pleasant matters of recreation and sport. Often he would enjoy fencing with the likes of Roman Albrecht, who he found to be a kindred spirit, or indulging in debate over a regicide board with Uriel Starikov. For the former, it was a kinship that would prove tragic, as the latter had all but sealed Cromwald's fate.

It was over a regicide game that Uriel casually observed Cromwald's efforts to reach out to his kin. The master of the Children of Armok inquired with seemingly genuine curiosity about the other hobbies the lion had picked up in his time among the stars. The conversation drifted along as they do, and it culminated in an agreement to engage in a change of sport for a time, to keep things fresh. Cromwald only seldom could best Uriel at his game, but the practice of fencing was quite the opposite. The lion was an expert, thanks in part to his bouts with Roman. The two would duel sometimes in the wake of a game, and it was one such duel that marked the beginning of the fall.

Uriel had played a risky gambit with his blade, and struck Cromwald where flesh and metal were joined at the shoulder. It was hardly cause for concern, but for the fact that it had damaged his bionic arm. Feigning expertly at apology, Uriel summoned at once his best expert in cybernetics and medicine. The chief apothecary answered, and tended to his charge quickly and expertly. All was as planned, for in his tending he introduced a fatal flaw in the masterpiece of the mechanicus; a small, constant neural feedback that would erode over years Cromwald's senses. If unchecked, his own superhuman physiology would prolong the torment's onset and see him robbed of the ability to enjoy the physical pleasures and pains of the galaxy after decades of slow decline.

In the wake of this dagger thrust with a smile through his back, Cromwald would be pulled into the circle of primarchs gathered about the warmaster. His respect for Hektor had been great since first they had met; it did not take much to draw him close to the heart of what would later become a treasonous compact. His proximity to corruption all but ensured he would fall in time.

The Fall

In the waning years of the Great Crusade, an affliction had begun to settle into the primarch of the Lions Rampant. It had begun in almost imperceptible degrees; a twitch here, a passing sense of pins and needles there. His liquor no longer carried the same pleasing bite to it, and his duels with Roman and Uriel had lost the thrill that came from heated swordplay. Initially he had ignored such things to fatigue or a passing anomaly in his otherwise healthy superhuman physique. But as the years turned to decades, the tingling lasted longer. The indulgences of his station left him wanting; his now innocent vices no longer satisfied. It was disconcerting to the Lion, who had lived all his days a life of polite indulgence to mirror his industrious war machine.

At first he merely turned to stronger drink to toast his victories, and pressed himself harder in his bouts of swordplay. For a time this sufficed, and he was sated. But the feedback continued to slowly burn away his nerves, slowed to a crawling pace by his robust nature. Even the strongest cask strength vintage lost its bite; he would draw glass after glass in the celebrations of his champions only to find the taste to be tepid and bland. Toasts became binges as he hungered for what he knew to be eluding his senses, and he threw himself into his sport to recapture the thrill it had once brought to compete with masters. None questioned this; it seemed from the outside to be a simple case of overindulgence leading to burnout. His council within the legion advised he wait, allow his palate to recover and his mind to clear. In time he would again know the pleasures of a well earned libation.

Cromwald claimed to believe his most trusted men, though doubt gnawed at his mind. He had kept it silent from his brethren, but it was not simply his palate that was failing him. His limbs were growing sluggish and unresponsive. He masked it well, but the trained eyes of Uriel could see the effects of his treachery with every minor fumble at the regicide table. The conversion had begun.

Desperate to find something to bring life to his remaining flesh, Cromwald began to reluctantly turn to elements of his past. Before the coming of the Emperor, he had known several compounds that were commonplace among the Prathian gentry. Discreetly mixed into a drink, they would provide a wonderful buzzing of the senses that lingered and uplifted the daring soul that partook. It was, of course, crass to boast of such things or to indulge openly, but it was to the eyes of the discerning gentleman an innocent addition to the evening brandy. The Emperor had forbid it; he would not have his son addicted to chemicals that dulled the mind and fogged the senses. It had taken the Lion years of constant vigilance to rid himself of his urges, but now it took only a day to remember the taste of that which his father had denied him.

Once again, it had seemed that an equilibrium had been reached. Though Cromwald was turning to newer and more exotic compounds to ingest to remind his fingers what it was to know a gentle touch, it was all too easily kept quiet. He was an expert in such matters, and those captains who shared in their primarch's bounty would join him in a communal silence.

It was not to last. Discretion limited what could be used by Cromwald to stave off the slow numbness that was claiming his flesh. Only his bionic arm remained truly vital, and only by stepping down from his high command and taking to the field of battle personally could he stave off the suffering for a time. The familiar drums of tank cannon and bolt shell brought him back to his days as a junior officer. With great zeal he commanded his own vanquisher, and by forming the tip of the spear personally he could make is blood sing the hymn of battle. It staved off the suffering for a time, and it rallied the men to fight with their primarch in person. They redoubled their efforts where he walked, but it came at a cost. With his hand tipped to the battlefield, Cromwald's typical precision and flawless strategy demanded his devotion to the role of high command. In limiting the resources he possessed by taking to the field, his losses began to increase. It was never enough to endanger the legion, but it was enough for the eyes of his false friends to know the time was right to push him to the edge.

Pre-Heresy Legion Disposition and Tactics

Moreso than many legions, the Lions Rampant undergo a distinctive change in their tactics and weapons of war. Before the fall, they stood as a tightly organized, highly disciplined machine that worked in brilliant synchronicity. Upon embracing Chaos, this machine ran wildly uncontrolled, and while the brilliant minds that commanded the legion lost none of their prowess, the squad level discipline has been eroded away, replaced by a heedless abandon to make war and slake the endless thirst for the rush it brings.

Pre-Heresy, the Lions were built to engage in large scale, set-piece battles. Like pieces upon a regicide board, each unit had a role to fulfill and was expected to engage the enemy in accordance to the grand strategy relative to that role. The specifics of tactic in the field is often left to the commanders in the field; they are handed the task at hand, and are expected to accomplish their goals. To coordinate this complex strategic-level interaction of the full legion, Cromwald faced the issue of developing a strong infrastructure of intelligence and communications to maintain order and orchestrate his campaigns.

Legion Organization

Nominally, the legion operates in codex structure. The overarching command of the legion revolves around the primarch and his advisers, and steps down to the division, battalion and company levels of organisation. The differences lay in the constituent parts of the hierarchies, which sport additional assets dedicated to each level of command.

Every officer, from the lowest lieutenant to the primarch himself possesses a dedicated Consul, which ranges in numbers from three to thirty marine dependent on organizational level. Additionally, every battalion maintained a dedicated advance patrol platoon of thirty marines led by a lieutenant. These marines largely replaced the standard assault marine positions, though they seldom fulfilled the same battlefield role.

Secondly, the Lions varied greatly from the codex with regards to the division of armored assets from the infantry companies. Tank and artillery units were grouped into full company-strength detachments all their own. Though nominally these companies form a fully armored division, in practice they operated at the company level in tandem with other, more conventional units. While this stripped the organic support a codex legion's line company could expect from within its own ranks, it allowed for greater massed firepower to be deployed as needed, leaving the close support roles to up-gunned rhino transports and attached elements from the legion naval air support.