Sky Serpents

The Sky Serpents
File:Serpents Icon.jpg
Number	XIII
Successor Chapters	Many
Primarch	Xun Tohilcoatl
Homeworld	Tepectitlan
Allegiance	Imperium of Man
Colours

This page is a work in progress, part of the Imperium Asunder project, a fan remake of the warhammer 40 000 history.

Summary of Legion XII

Numeration: The XIIth Legion

Primogenator: Xun Tohilcoatl

Cognomen (Prior): The Swordwind, The Hydra, Storm Wolves, ... 963 other Cognomens recorded in Primaris Level Archives

Observed Strategic Tendencies: Focus on Operations Level Actions, Infiltration and Encirclement

Noteworthy Domains: Jade Empire

Alliegence: Fidelitas Constantus

Homeworld

When Xun Tohilcoatl landed on Tepectitlan, it was inhabited by roving bands of hunter-gatherers and a few settled Bronze Age societies struggling through an ice age. Had Xun landed with the hunter-gatherers, history might have gone quite differently, but he was brought to the court of Xia Huangdi, lord of the perhaps poorly named Tianxia Empire. There he was tutored in the arts of the ruler. He became fascinated by the calendrical system and its relationship to the agricultural cycle. His investigations led him to develop a theory of momentum, and through subsequent refinements, of gravitation. This realization that as above, so below, led to the construction of ever more impressive infrastructure projects. When Xia Huangdi died, Xun was designated his successor. However, not all of the Imperial Clan supported this and rebelled against him. In the subsequent civil war, Xun annexed several nearby states that had supported rival claimants and integrated them into his own growing empire. Following the rebellion, Xun dismantled the old Clan system and instituted a Civil Service exam, to choose administrators based on merit.

Unification

When the Imperium found him, early in the crusade's 8th decade, they found Xun presiding over an orderly and more or less unified world, now advanced to an early pre-industrial stage. Following integration into the Imperium, Tepectitlan was brought into the Imperial administratum. For the comfort of his people, Xun requested that the changes were introduced gradually, and while the city of Tianxia was prepared as a legion command center, legion command and control operations were distributed across the nearby stars, with the Legion negotiating with Tindalos for their forge capabilities for supply. This meant that the legion supply chain was distributed and much of it carried with the fleet, supplied as they were by several Tindalan Forge Ships, which proved fortuitous during the Heresy.

Symbols

The Legion borrows from the culture of Tepectitlan, including the esoteric traditions of its inhabitants. Poetry and calligraphy are regarded as fine arts and the legionaries are encouraged to partake. Jade is highly valued and often worked into decorations on armor or luck-items. The warp is conceptualized as storm wind-- dangerous, but potentially useful. Self control and moderation are virtues, as is the idea of the individual's duty to their oaths. In native myth, the Storm Serpent is a great, feathered snake, akin to a dragon, that brings the rain. It has a dual nature, a destructive and ferocious side, that tears down the old, and a creative, protective side that makes the crops grow. Each Storm Serpent tries to temper their native aggression with intellect, not so much to suppress their natural inclinations, but to work with them. Destruction is recognized as a requirement for growth, the old status quo must be transcended. Creation and destruction, thesis and antithesis, each blends into the other and the warrior must be able to live with both. The non-negotiable, instilled by Xun Tohilcoatl, is progress. Without discipline and without order, society crumbles. Without wisdom, the infrastructure is lost and the city dies. With careful steps, bronze age farmers can learn to forge steel. They can learn to make medicine and live longer, happier lives. They can learn virtue.

Legion Tactics

The legion specializes in hit and run tactics and mobile warfare at the operations level. Legion strategy places a great deal of importance on information, so as to know how best to draw out and achieve local numerical superiority to crush and disorder the enemy. Once a breach in the lines is achieved, Xun Tohilcoatl prefers an aggressive stance, so as to prevent the opponent from regrouping. The legion is noted for its cohesion and ability to coordinate effectively with human auxiliae, as well as a high degree of technological proficiency, following its primarch's intense interest in technology, and as such, much archaeotech and armor is employed.

Auxiliae

Legion Auxilia Section 8

Legion Auxilia Section 8

Section 8 is a the elite of Sky Serpents Auxiliae. They are specially trained for observation and disruption work. They prepare the ground for a Sky Serpents invasion, and, following the Heresy, have been used as a stay-behind force on more than one occasion. Section 8 squads are infiltrated onto enemy worlds by a number of means, ranging from covert drops to the more common, if less dramatic, falsified documents. Once on the world, members of Section 8 prepare the ground for what is to come. Depending on their assessment of vulnerabilities and the projections of the Legion Command, Section 8 may be variously tasked with operations such as sabotaging infrastructure, generating social unrest, hiding supplies for legion operations, preparing ambushes, setting up locii for teleportatiin strikes, and general recon. Once an attack is launched, Section 8 is often employed to spread confusion, be it through false reports, spreading rumors and panicking populations, or unleashing fire from previously hidden positions to support the landing.

It is said that Section 8 was introduced to the legion after Xun campaigned alongside [Redacted].

Armory

The Legion's tactical doctrine of swift encirclement and mobile warfare means that mobility is highly valued. To this end, nearly every squad is assigned a dedicated transport of some sort, with these vehicles being preferred over jump packs or bikes. Most commonly, this is the rhino. (When the Razorback becomes available, Xun falls in love with it. Volkite razorbacks.... mmmm...) However, the legion is also well stocked with Land Raiders and Spartan Assault tanks, preferring the latter for deployment of 20 man despoiler squads. Another common means of transportation for 20 man despoiler squads is the Storm Eagle.

Squads are deployed in notional units of 20, the number of completeness in Tepectitlani culture. When deployed by rhinos or other such transports, the two squads of ten then support each other and fight as one.

The chapter is known for its deployment of armor, preferring Malcadors, Sicarans and Predators over the much slower legion artillery. When Vindicators are deployed, they are usually fielded in a stripped down configuration to allow for greater speed. (Like how Alpha Legion fields them in Book 6) To augment this arsenal, the legion also makes use of aircraft such as the Fire Raptor.

In the legion's thought, the airborne infantry and weaponry are the Fangs and Fire of the Serpent, to snap out of nowhere and deliver a killing blow. (The teleportarium deployed terminators also fall into this category) The tanks and mounted infantry are the Coils and Claws of the Serpent, confining and disembowling the enemy.

The Legion shows a marked fondness for Volkite weaponry, and devotes a great deal of effort to maintaining and producing the otherwise arcane weapons. This is because the legion sees Volkite weaponry as an idea solution to the problem of how to deal with foes with extensive numerical superiority. Because the legion's deployment is mobile, it runs the risk of being cut off and unable to take a defensive posture. Volkite weaponry has the range and destructive capacity to hold off a foe while the legionaries dig in.

The exception to this general mode of deployment is seen in specialized linebreaker formations, which are generally held in reserve until the killing blow is to be struck. This is where the legion fields its Mastadons and Typhons and Dreadnaughts, as well as terminators and breaching units.

Psykers are relatively common in the legion, and are deployed as widely as possible. I'll type up a bit more later, but basically they do scrying on the enemy and communicate with one another to enhance cohesion in addition to killing yaks at 500 yards with MIND BULLETS. So how the Storm Seers of the White Scars are Chaplains + Librarians, these guys are Vigilator/Master of Signals + Librarians.

Basically, if we were to write up crunch, they'd have a unique consul type for them--still working on the name. They might even have a rule like the Word Bearers Burning Lore or be able to upgrade a Praetor to a psyker for XX points like an Iron Warriors War Smith.

They'd probably have a rule to upgrade a tac squad to volkite for XXX points as well. And probably their LA rules would include scout. Really, it would probably look a lot like the White Scars with a provision that their compulsory troops must have DCs.

Likely in this universe, it's the Sky Serpents that invent the Damocles, which will have to get a cool Mesoamerican or Chinese sounding name.

While I'm at it, I'm thinking there's an elite terminator guard, that I'm oh-so-cleverly thinking of calling Jaguar Warriors. I'm imagining that the legion as a whole makes widespread use of glaives and macuahuitls, and these Jaguar Warriors would have a volkite in one hand and a macuahuitl in the other, and probably rad grenades/rad missile launchers, since these guys are for breaching and storming the gap.

I also imagine that they make widespread use of modified destroyer squads, since their weapons provide a means of compensating when outnumbered. They'd seldom use phosphex, but make use of rad weapons and maybe flamers or better, those mechanicum rad cleansers.

In a similar vein, they'd probably be fond of Lightning guns, but that's mostly for the visual and symbolic effect, rather than any strategic benefit.

So I'm thinking that they're distinct from the Angels of Light in that the Angels do much more jet-bikes and straightforwards assaults, from the Behemoth Guard in that they are heavy armor and nasty weapons straight to the face partying like it's 1916, from the Second Sons in that they aren't nearly so "dirty" with their weaponry, from the Warhawks in that their air cav is part of a two pronged approach with their ground forces and the focus for the Sky Serpents is 'confine the enemy with speed and confusion and then hit them like a ton of bricks' rather than 'ambush from ten sides', the effect is similar, but for the Sky Serpents, confusion is the weapon and speed is a good way to achieve that, and from the Fists of Mars by not being cyborgs, but I don't know enough about what they fight like to really go further.

Legion Organization

The Sky Serpent legion as a whole has a flexible and interlocking command structure. Individual chapters and companies are designed to be more or less self sufficient, but are not wholly interchangeable. Instead, various specialized formations exist at all levels, from Jaguar Warrior companies in many chapters to specialized chapters, such as the infamous Jade Lion or Ereshkigal Guard. Independent of such formations, various warrior orders and rites existed. The best known outside the legion is probably the Raven Path, the legion's primary techno-archaeologists, but many other such groups exist, such as the Vulpine Talon, specializing in research and design, or the Threefold Gate, the legion's Librarius.

Legion History

Great Crusade

The legion was as comfortable with conquest as it was with infrastructure and so tended to leave behind personnel to rebuild even before being reunited with the Primarch shortly before the end of the Crusade's first century. After being reunited, the legion began to build on larger scales, developing essentially a pocket domain of model worlds.

Vaal Cluster Compliance

Shortly after being reunited with his legion, Tohilcoatl led his men against the Witch-Kings of the Vaal Cluster. These foul warp-sorcerors ruled over an empire of enthralled gene-warriors, each nearly the equal of a Space Marine, but far less stable. After a few probing void engagements, Tohilcoatl found that the Witch-King's military forces were dependent upon witch-generals to maintain control of the gene-thralls. If the command structure could be disrupted, then the foe's defenses would crumble. However, the Witch-Kings were not unaware of this weakness and designed their forces to compensate. Without a witch to maintain order in a geno-thrall force, they would go berserk and the resulting psychic turmoil would make long distance communication near impossible. Thus, even if a force was broken, the opponent would find it difficult to communicate and exploit the breach. To combat this, Tohilcoatl and his War-Council developed a daring strategy.

Similar to the legendary Pacification of Luna, ships would be sent into Vaal space, powered down to avoid detection. These ships would stake out the Mandeville points in systems to be contested and hide in asteroid fields. Similarly, kill teams were infiltrated across the worlds of Vaal. Knowing that communication by Astropath would be nigh impossible, Tohilcoatl revived an archaic means of communication from before the dark age of technology, the radio. While it would be limited to light-speed, signals could still be passed in system without too much trouble.

With this limited means of communication in hand, the timetable of the operation was carefully projected and each level of the command hierarchy given general directives to allow them to press any advantage they found. They were, in effect, to operate as independent cells all working towards the same goal, all dynamically implementing a broadly agreed upon timetable.

Furthermore, it was realized that while Imperial communications would cease to function, those of the Witch Kings would continue without any problem. Infiltrated forces, then, simply had to monitor communication traffic and activity from the Witch-Kings.

Operations began with multiple, simultaneous planetary invasions, with the priority placed upon elimination of the commanding psykers. Once eliminated, the berserker horde could easily be lead into pre-planned ambushes. Similarly, comm-traffic and energy signatures would be faked on one front prior to a rapid redeployment of assets to another sector, so as to focus the entire military might on a single point. Once behind their lines, infrastructure targets were eliminated, forcing the Geno-Thralls to come to the Sky Serpents. Hampering legion communications did the Witch-Kings little good when they had to come to the prepared Sky Serpents.

Even as distress calls went out from the besieged worlds and reinforcements were dispatched, the second part of the Sky Serpent's plan kicked into action. As laden troop ships, confident of orbital control in-system, dropped out of warp, the concealed Legion ships struck, destroying some outright, capturing the command decks of others and venting geno-thralls to the cold void. The victorious Legion fleet then joined with the invasion fleet to eliminate remaining Thrall-ships before redeploying for the next target. With the planetary communication networks down and the geno-thralls dead, the legions pushed on rapidly, striking at those systems from which the reinforcements had been moved.

Even as distress calls went out from the besieged worlds and reinforcements were dispatched, the second part of the Sky Serpent's plan kicked into action. As laden troop ships, confident of orbital control in-system, dropped out of warp, the concealed Legion ships struck, destroying some outright, capturing the command decks of others and venting geno-thralls to the cold void. The victorious Legion fleet then joined with the invasion fleet to eliminate remaining Thrall-ships before redeploying for the next target. With the planetary communication networks down and the geno-thralls dead, the legions pushed on rapidly, striking at those systems from which the reinforcements had been moved.

This pattern of sudden, overwhelming attack, followed by the spreading of diffuse threats kept the Witch-Kings from regrouping effectively, the timing obscuring the method of operations for the Legion. Refugee and evacuation ships with valuable reinforcements were held up as they were searched for saboteurs, saboteurs who had spent weeks in position, waiting for the panic to spread before carrying out their missions. Though the initial cost in infrastructure was high, the stalling of the Vaal's war plans pre-empted battles planetside, and within two months of the opening actions, the Vaal Cluster had been successfully captured, with some worlds entirely spared lengthy campaigns, their fortresses emptied by the Witch-King's frantic redeployments.

Krag'thalax

These sorts of tactics were not always successful, but the Storm Serpents were nothing if not adaptable. One notable example was against the Krag'athalax, a foul xenos species, which spawned bio-soldiers in unending hordes. Assaults were initially stymied against the numberless forces of the enemy. It hardly mattered where you struck when the foe swarmed from every building, every corner of the globe.

Several assaults were thrown back before a different tact was taken. Volkite and incendiaries were brought forth from legion vaults and the attendant forge ships worked double-time to produce additional weapons and spare parts to maintain thousands of volkite weapons. Similarly, Tohilcoatl negotiated with several Reductor Covenants for Holy Ordinatus Ullator Engines. Various toxins and weapons such as phospex were considered, but it was decided that damage to the ecosystem would be excessive. It was decided, however, that rad weapons would be sanctioned, their cores changed out for elements with shorter half-lives. (Despite this precaution, areas of former Krag'athalax would remain uninhabitable for decades after the campaign's end).

With this technological superiority in hand and the legion's armor gathered, the legion deployed. The resulting campaign was grueling, and even with the mass effect of volkites, including no few Fellglaives, as well as other, stranger devices which reaped a heavy toll on the chittering hordes, as often as not it came down to bloody melee, particularly as the slow firing Ullator Engines recycled for their next shot. After each wave, the Storm Serpents would regroup and reinforce their defenses, designing kill channels, and meter by meter, they took each world, but each battle became easier as they developed better means to poison their foe.

Of the campaign, Tohilcoatl said little, though it is said that Sheridan found respect for his brother in that campaign, attested to by the fact the the Lord of Iron sent several members of the Stor Bezask equivalent unbidden to advise in the campaign.

Nikea

Tohilcoatl was a firm supporter of and helped in establishing Librarius Project. At Nikea, confident that the librarius was safe, he spoke against some his brothers and earstwhile collaborator's reckless experimentation (particularly that of the Warp Raiders), in hopes of cautioning them and showing to the Librarius' detractors that allowing psykers in the legions was not at odds with the Imperial Truth. He maintained that a careful and controlled study of the warp was instrumental to the future of the Imperium.