Sanguinary Guard

Just try to laugh at their golden nipples. Also, they look like the Fabulous Custodes

My six-pack eight-pack is made of gold, your argument is invalid.

The Sanguinary Guard are an elite squad of Marines that are available only to the Blood Angels and their successors. The Honour Guard of a Blood Angels Chapter Master on the battlefield, these Marines are as deadly as they are fabulous, and they are very, VERY fabulous.

The story of these scrotum crushing badasses stretches way back to the times when Sanguinius reunited with the Emperor and assumed command of the IXth Space Marine Legion.

At first they started as their Primarch's bodyguards. The Guard always protected him through the worst--Mega-Arachnids on Murder, the Nephilim of Melchior, all that nasty jazz in the Signus System, the Siege of mother flubbin' Terra and most importantly the assault on the Vengeful Spirit where they sacrificed themselves to a man to ensure their Primarch got to Horus. After Sanguinius's death at the hands of Horus, the only surviving member of this inner order was Azkaellon. Despite desperately wanting to be by his Primarch's side, Sanguinius had made Azkaellon swear an oath to stay on Terra to help rebuild. Presumably many manly tears were shed.

Azkaellon was sad that he couldn't participate in the final battle alongside his Primarch, yet he knew that he couldn't jeopardize the final orders he was given. When the Horus Heresy finally ended and Raldoron became the first Chapter Master, Azkaellon made sure that the Blood Angels, and every single one of their successors would have their own Sanguinary Guard, so that these warriors wouldn't die out. The other purpose (and even truer than simply maintaining them) was to maintain them as a symbol of hope for the Imperium, as well as a living legacy for the space angel vampires.

To become one is not simply a field duty or honour of the highest calibre. To be a Sanguinary Guard is to become part of an order of those that can be described as mortals-become-gods, as well part of a living legend that is over ten thousand years old. It also means you can beat the ever-loving piss out of most anything in the known galaxy fluff wise, and you'll be spending a loooooot of time with Dante.

Following the literal rape of the Blood Angels and their home of Baal at the hands of both Tyranids AND Daemons in the current setting, only ONE of these fabulous boys is currently still alive. A single Sanguinary Guard out of 20-or-so Chapters of them. Though they seem to have recovered to full or at least partial strength. In Darkness in the Blood which is a sequel to the Devastation of Baal, half a dozen Sanguinary Guards accompany Dante on a mission.

Battlefield Role

A rare sight of Lamenters Sanguinary Guards.

On the fields of battle, these warriors act, as mentioned before, Honour Guards of a Force Commander (if he's lucky anyway, more often than not the Chapter Master will hoard their skills to himself rather than deign to deploy them elsewhere). Armoured in the best Artificer Armours, as well having Death Masks and Winged Jump Packs, the Sanguinary Guards are an impressive sight to behold. Their standard weapons are the Glaives Encarmine (that take the forms of axes and swords of all things) and the Angelus Bolters--imagine a storm-bolter on steroids with razor-filament shards that explode when the bolt detonates and are mounted on their armours wrists, freeing up their other hand. Optional sidearms include the Infernus Pistol or plasma pistol. They can also now swap their "glaives" for power fists. This naturally causes them to unleash immense amount of Cleave and Smite up close.

Variations

Angels Encarmine even add the alabaster colour to their Death Companies.

The Sanguinary Guard's looks differ marginally among the Blood Angel's successors (with only the right pauldron being painted in the successor's symbol and colours). There are only two known exceptions: the Angels Encarmine, who paint their Sanguinary Guard's armours in alabaster white and black wings, as opposed to the traditional gold with white wings (though even the wing colours differ from successor to successor), and the Angels Vermillion who leave the armor the same red as everyone else. Possibly because they don't have the same suits of ancient armour and swag all the other chapters do as a result of being contemptuous dicks--which is saying a lot.

The Blood Angels also have a unique sub-group known as the Erelim, who are essentially what you'd get if the Sanguinary Guard wore all black (including their feathers and skull helms) and were Chaplains. There's only five of them at any one time, and they've never been shown leaving Astorath's hidden reclusiam. Interestingly, their name is shared with the Blood Angels legion's Destroyer cadres.

On the Tabletop

Despite consistently being at less than half strength, the Flesh Tearers maintain close to a full Sanguinary Guard contingent.

Crunch wise you'll basically be paying for a terminator squad's armour save sans invulnerable save, plus fearless, sans relentless, plus free jump-packs and master-crafted power weapons and you have the ability to give the entire squad death masks which look cool but are pretty meh, as most things you'll be fighting will most likely pass it new changes are afoot! With the new errata the "fear" USR has been nixed in favor of "everything in base contact makes a leadership test, if failed they reduce their WS to 1". EVERYTHING. This is a huge deal as lower leadership models that could tarpit you before will die even faster, and Dante's will strike at a -2 LD modifier. Even other space marines. Sweet. Can take a chapter banner which gives another attack and re-rolls. Have a few nifty toys to take that set them apart from their terminator armoured brethren. Each can trade out their Angelus Boltgun for either an infernus pistol or a plasma pistol, and any can take a power fist instead of the Glaive Encarmine. Hook them up with a Sanguinary Priest and go MEQ hunting with sword-glaives or TEQ hunting with Axe-glaives or better yet give them all Infernus pistols and deepstrike perfectly with Dante right next to you opponents heaviest armoured vehicle and drink in his bitter tears. One downside that they'll hopefully fix in the newest update will by the option to turn one dude into a Champion.

Note that, while they're pretty awesome, they're not invincible, either in or out of close combat. Their lack of Invul means Grav and Plasma Weapons will make short work of them (a smarter commander will drop them behind LoS and make smart use of cover) and WS/I4 means that most of the top tier Close Combat Squads (Incubi, Deathwing Knights, Genestealers, Assault Terminators) will feed them their faces--though less so now that their death masks are actually a really viable option, giving the golden boys a solid fighting chance. They definitely need a Sanguinary Priest/Librarian with SoS to keep them breathing long enough to get into Close Combat and maybe to keep them going once they get there. Plus the offensive bonus of both those models is nothing to be sniffed at either, +1 WS from the priest or any of the buffs from the libby is really amazing.

A squad of these bad boys can be used as a blender/meatshield for Dante and a priest and can lead to a hilarious amount of high strength/low ap attacks on the charge. Will attract all of the firepower though. Add a librarian if you insist on aging your cheese even more. They will also function well as Tau Rapists and they will maul them to the last man\robot\battlesuit.

9th is here and fuck yes. 2 wounds! Force weapon equivalents! Death masks that -1 enemy morale!

Notable Members

Azkaellon

Big daddy of the Sanguinary Guard and one of the most revered heroes of old. He's actually portrayed in the novels as being a more morally complex character than one would expect of a space marine. Duty driven to a fault and downright grumpy he makes a nice foil to the gregarious and fatherly Chapter Master Raldoran. He and Raldoran willingly commit themselves and captain Amit to secrecy after Amit murdered a buncha space wolves in his blood rage, all to keep Sanguinius single-minded on his goal to stop Horus. Also he and Raldoran were some of the only ones able to hold off the initial bloodrage on Signus Prime, the others cheated and stood next to a Pariah. He gets shit done.

He also may or may not be turned into a literal angel. Or may just be acting like one. Or it may actually be Sanguinius' soul using Azkaellon's corpse as a medium... or it's just Sanguinius reborn! Fuck it's confusing at this point.

Devastation of Baal implies that the first of these is canon: when Dante goes through his near-death experience at the very end of the book, the Sanguinor specifically acts deferential to Sanguinius when interacting with Dante's consciousness, stepping back and throwing out an arm to "indicate a presence greater than it," as Sanguinius' soul appears to speak with Dante (befitting the original Sanguinor's role as a herald for the Primarch himself, and seemingly confirming they are related but separate entities). It's still ambiguous as to exactly how alive he is under the armour, though.

Sepharan

The former herald of the SG (oh more angel puns how original bitch please); not much is said about him save that he "went into hell itself to save his chapter's soul". Probably just went out for some brewskies with the boys from Fenris and wound up gridlocked in Cadia and had to make up a good excuse as to why he was late to the Sanguinala and why he had so many Traitor Legion heads with him. Like most of the Sanguinary Guard, he died during the Devastation of Baal, ripped in half by a Trygon during the Blood Angels' last charge.

Erephon

Blind, and liked playing life on hard mode so badly that when his eyes were gouged, slashed, shot, popped, needled, or sneezed out or however the hell he lost them he decided "Ya know what? Fuck Eyes!" He promptly began kicking more ass without his vision, closing seven hellgates in the space of a single battle. Never let it be said the Blood Angels aren't an equal opportunity employer.

Saranoth

His coming was so terrible it set Ork Waaaaagh! Rokchewa to flight. Jokes aside, he was probably the only SG who knows the rule that there is never enough Dakka. He eventually bit it at the hands of some unknown (possibly Tyranid) xenos that drained his body to a husk and wrecked his armour (oh yeah, it's the 'Nids), so you can get his artificer Jump-Pack in Deathwatch.

Andrastor

Stood alone on Cripple-Ridge against a Tyranid swarm. Either he defied all the odds and somehow won, or maybe he just bit it right there on that ridge and the tales of his victory are just propaganda. Both are viable options considering the source material.

Dontoriel

THE HERO OF CRYPTUS. The only member of the Sanguinary Guard to be named during the Shield of Baal campaign--rose to prominence during the assault on the manufactorum and the defence of Phodia City on Asphodex. Ate shit and died during the final hours of the Devastation of Baal; a fuckhuge number of Tyranid Shrikes ganged up on him and knocked him out of the sky, then tore him to shreds when he hit the ground.

Caraeus

The only member of the Sanguinary Guard to have survived the Devastation of Baal, making him the de facto Exalted Herald of Sanguinius and fairly hardcore for living through that final charge... What Karlaen did with the members of the Guard who went with him to the Diamor Campaign is unknown--as last we know they were ok. Weirdly, the codex lists "Brother Daeanatos" as the last survivor of the SG at Baal... it could be his full name (his given and angel name like Caraeus Daeanatos) or some such, but it's most likely a derp on GeeDubs' part.

Gallery

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  Just look at the handsome bastard!