Crimson Eagles

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Crimson Eagles
Battle Cry	"Death From Above!"
Number	VII
Founding	First Founding
Primarch	Caligor Kincaid
Homeworld	Haravi IV
Strength	~75,000-120,000
Specialty	Airborne Infantry, Airborne Cavalry, Total War
Allegiance	Traitor, Chaos Undivided/Renegade
Colours	Variable Camouflage (Typically Jungle or Desert) with Maroon helmet

"The Crimson Eagles are consummate front lines soldiers, eager to fight and quick to end a battle. Using aggressive tactics and mixed unit assets to hit the enemy and hit them hard. The Eagles deploy almost exclusively via drop pod, or from dropping from swooping thunderhawks, both infantry and cavalry units.

Legion History

Unification Wars

The Seventh Squad, as they were known in those prehistoric times, were a respected force. What the Seventh lacked in ferocity on the battlefield they made up in efficiency. They rode in with the Seventeenth as infantry support.

>Forced a few settlements to surrender without violence, using diplomacy only

>Blew stuff up and went terrorist mode when they couldn't use verbal judo

>Famed front line fighters using equal parts subterfuge and force

>Became students of ancient Merican thought, adopting principles of battle and democracy, their loyalty to the Emperor as their commander and chief was unquestionable but their comfort with the Imperium as a societal construct was always...shaky.

>Most of the squad was destroyed during the siege of Luna, proving themselves in the end to Hektor

>>Notable battles

>The Burning of Ba'al-Timur

>The Liberation of Fidelphi

>The Demolition of Daecee

Great Crusade

>Forerunner force, pushing ahead in the great crusade. The very point of the spear

>Tried to bring worlds under Imperial rule peacefully when possible, preferring to liberate worlds under their own recognizance, thus their title "Liberators"

>However when they couldn't negotiate with the enemy they would trade the olive branch for the sword, holding no quarter with the enemy. However they learned from past engagements, namely Terra, that nothing frustrates a formal military more than asymmetrical warfare. While finding the practice cowardly and best left in the hands of other legions, they would find ways to implement irregular warfare preferring rapid tactical insertion and attacking vital infrastructure and personnel via airborne and cavalry assaults.

>They find their primarch, one of the last legions to do so, and easily adopt his commando tactics. However Cal does take his whole legion to Haravi and its moons for two years to train and full assimilate himself into the legion, to the Emperor's great disatisfaction.

>The pause in their crusade payed off, their effectiveness increasing tenfold. However their penchant for diplomacy was diminished slightly, the legion often issuing a single planet wide command for unconditional surrender before beginning to insert marines and decimating the world until resistance is either dead or surrendered.

>After Haravi is nuked and Caligor's heart hardened opposing worlds would count themselves lucky if they received any demands for surrender, the Crimson Eagles often choosing to simply raze them to the ground until the enemy was little more than ash.

The Heresy

>Hektor, knowing full well that a) Cal isn't a huge fan of the Emperor, since he's essentially a tyrant and stopped him from delivering the final blow at Bravig which would have saved his family and nation b) Cal will know when he's being manipulated and doesn't like people talking to him sideways so he more or less straight up asks him "Hey, wanna heresy?" with the promise of being able to forge his own democracy after the heresy, all he needs is the Eagles and his tactical accumen to break down the defenses of Terra.

>Cal considers this and discusses it with his legion, and they all decide to put it up for a vote. The majority of the votes went to rebellion, with a sizable majority of loyalists. Predictably the Eagles being the Eagles there is a giant legion civil war, which drags their allied Imperial Army Regiments in with them. It's amongst the bloodiest fighting of the Heresy. Once the smoke clears the surviving Loyalists book it to Terra, letting the Loyalist primarchs that Cal has gone rouge.

>The Crimson Eagles however finally join the fight, the definitive turing point in the Heresy.

>They finally reach Terra, and tear the place up. Caligor kills a Primarch and wounds another (we can talk about who) but loses and arm, leg, and eye

>Fucks off after Hektor fights the Emperor.

The Scouring

>I don't know what this is and the wikipage doesn't really make it any clearer.

Post-Heresy

>Goes full Big Boss and basically makes Outer Heaven, claiming a sector or two to rebuild his forces and claim some infrastructure. The worlds underneath him are relatively free, although they do tithe men and resources to support the Crimson Eagles.

>Remaining loyalists blow the Haravi the fuck up, and he moves his the Eagles to a space hulk duck taped to a space fortress and moves around as a PMC. A lot of the younger eagles fell to Chaos, creating the vast majority of piratical warbands out there.

>Caligor still questions if he did the right thing.

Organisation

The Organization of the Crimson Eagles is rather standard for an Astartes Legion, consisting of ten Chapters with five Companies each, the only variation in standard legion organization being the platoon level, in which squads fall under. The platoon formation allows for greater specialization within a company, and ultimately a chapter. While Chapters tend to prefer to stay relatively similar in performance and composition for simplicities sake, chapters and their companies often build a certain reputation for certain battlefield roles, such as boarding actions, or liberal use of promethium to suppress the enemy. Due to the extremely dangerous nature of Eagle deployments and their frontlines recruitment strategy their numbers tend to fluctuate rapidly, with fresh blood often going to those units most grievously in need of bodies.

Support Formations and Auxilia

>Heavy use of Inperial Army assets, usually those which compliment the Eagles doctrine or cover tactical gaps, such as armoured elements, artillery pieces, naval fleets, engineers etc

>Relationship with the Mechanicus was always tenuous, as the Eagles were notoriously tough on equipment.

Specialist Units

>Black Cats- Caligor's honor guard, modeled after his original Commando unit, the 13th Black Cats. Less of a honor guard than his personal hit squad.

Doctrine

Strategy

>Insert Marines quietly >Find squishy things >Get VERY loud >?????? >Profit?

>Airborne insertion and targeted destruction of valuable infrastructure and personel via high impact sexual violence supported by aireal and mechanized assests.

The Crimson Eagles

Tactics

>If grunts can't get the job done call in the guns on wheels. >If the tanks and fighting vehicles can't get the job done, call in the jets and choppers >If they can't get the job done soak the area in promethium and napalm and move on

Arms, Armour, & Equipment

>Assault packs, Stalker bolters, bayonets, volkite weapons

>Due to their fore runner nature and efficiency, as well as Caligor bullying the AdMech, the Legion typically had some pretty good gear, which os why the AdMech fucking hated them for busting it up. There was many times in which they had to resort to Heresy pattern as opposed to the preferred Maximus and shitty bolter patterns because thwy where so out of the loop

Geneseed

The Crimson Eagle geneseed is comparatively clean