Behemoth Guard
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| Behemoth Guard | ||
|---|---|---|
| Battle Cry | "Listen to the voices!" | |
| Number | XIV | |
| Successor Chapters | none | |
| Primarch | Gengrat Vannevar | |
| Homeworld | Vernum | |
| Specialty | Technosorcery, gene splicing | |
| Allegiance | Dark Imperium | |
| Colours |  |
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"Let this be yet another reminder of the might of the XIV. We do what must be done while others cannot, or will not to save morale face. No one remembers, we are but soldiers first and foremost, not the kingmakers or politicians my brothers attempt to become. To be a soldier is to win, and that is what we do no matter the cost. Others forget this, and feel empty for it. It was war and conquest in which we were created for, and in which we all deep down revel in." -Gengrat Vannevar, adressing the assembled forces upon completion of the Sabbat Crusade
Homeworld
Vernum is a mountainous planet full of rich minerals, with large and rich equatorial jungles. The people of Vernum were a group spacefaring slavers, aggressively conquering and colonizing their system, and becoming the preeminent force in the system. The ruling elite consisted of wealthy businesses, and Oligarchic families which each sought out their own interests, loosely kept together by mutual need, and constantly in conflict with one another. The people of Vernum were also experienced gene-splicers and cybernetics manufacturers.
Gengrat was found 40 years into the crusade on Terrodyne, a world bathed in the light of the Eye of Terror. His homeworld was a mist-shrouded waste, inhabited by great beasts. The Industrial Combine which ruled the planet had industrial era technology, as if WWI era Europe was taking on Godzilla on a regular basis. A high rate of mutation on the world resulted in a high ab-human population used for menial labor and bait. Gengrat was raised in his youth in the deep swamp wastes by an abhuman witch named Grenwyth. Grenwyth lived in an iron hut, and on her shelves and walls were many tools of unknowable use. Gengrat's pod had been pierced by a tree, and his brain had been pierced by a branch. Grenwyth crafted for Gengrat an implant, using an ancient relic her family had kept for centuries. That relic was in fact a datastore, which stored within it thousands of machine spirits, tainted by centuries of degradation.. These spirits would whisper into Gengrat's mind for the rest of his days. Grenwyth taught Gengrat many of her technosorcerous arts, and of the great god Tzeentch who could make one's wishes reality. Gengrat used the powers he had learned from his foster mother to terrorize the outer wastes. Voices in his head told him which way to go through the mists. One day the voices lead Gengrat to the gates of the city, and demanded entrance. He ensorceled the minds of the city watch, and they escorted him to the Combine's council chambers. There he slew every one of the technocratic rulers, and claimed the planet as his own. When the Emperor discovered the planet, Gengrat merely left his throne empty and marched off with his father, not sparing a thought for the fate of his homeworld. For many years the Imperial Truth convinced Gengrat that Grenwyths teachings had been superstitious nonsense. However, always in the back of his head the voices called.
His legion had been dour siege specialists before being reunited and he taught them to enjoy their work. He taught them to listen to the voices in the engine manifolds. In the end, it was these voices that taught them the secrets of the imaterium.
Legion Tactics
The Behemoth Guard are used to grinding wars of attrition, preferring the straightforward approach of strength and overwhelming firepower to secure their victories. As the years go on they become more and more obsessed with the manipulation of matter through psychic means. Forgefiends, Heldrakes, and Obliterators are just a few of the many technosorcerous inventions of Gengrat Vannevar.
Legion Organization
The Legion is separated into Houses based upon the Houses they are recruited from, each with their own unique culture. Naturally, this causes brotherly rivalry between the houses that can cause trouble and politicking based upon the houses history. Each House is lead by a First, usually the best, or smartest individual of that House.
Grand Companies (Houses?)
IXth Grand Company 'The Brothers in Red' These are the warpsmiths, the binders of daemons, the ones who experiment with daemon-flesh grafts and field the mind-scaring abomination engines.
They operate under Forge-Tyrant Kalvas Toevah and in his portfolio militant are forces such as rune-bound daemonic hosts, the name of each daemon scribed in human blood in his grimoires, allowing the IXth to summon daemons at a moment's notice.
The IXth is also responsible for the abomination engines, physically impossible machines built from warpstuff, their steel quenched in human blood and daemon ichor. Their workings make use of impossible geometries and often feature the stylized metal-worked forms of beasts melding seamlessly into the gears and pistons of some incomprehensible mechanism. A common motif are wheels within wheels. When the IXth attacks, their daemonic slaves are unleashed. Survivors are fed to daemons, either bodily or in soul. The abomination engines crash across the battlefield, amid hordes of daemons and cultists, followed by their marine masters.
XXIIth Grand Company 'The Dreamers in the Deep' Lead by Mengthes Kraal, these guys are the Silica Animus and Daemon Engine boys. Where dudes like the IXth craft the aether into their baleful engines, the Dreamers in the Deep bind daemons to enhance their already potent mechnical creations. They make heavy use of forge-slaves who have disappointed in their human wave attacks, which are really only there to draw attention away from the prized creations of the company. These include legions of battle automatons, possessed by daemons, their weapons wreathed in warpflame, as well as armored vehicles augmented by daemonic influence. Amongst their most treasured creations are the massive land-crawlers, titan sized battle tanks, festooned with gargoyles belching warp-fire, with ectoplasmic cannons and are fueled by human souls.
IIIrd Grand Company 'The Pale Forge' These guys are out to prove that even without the warp, they can be just as fucked up as their brethren. And, to the horror of everyone, they succeed. They field bio-engineered plagues, or mount powerful sonic weaponry on tanks to liquefy enemy foot soldiers. They also field crazed prisoners and slaves, partially lobotomized with electrowhips in place of hands and fueled by stimulants, but left aware of just what has happened to them. At other times, they herd degenerates from cannibalistic sub-hive-sumps and unleash them in civilian populated areas. They also make extensive use of the sort of strange technologies from Old Night or xenotech sources. They're more like the Black Judges or the other more or less human opponents that the crusade toppled, as opposed to much of the rest of the legion, who sits around figuring out ways to weaponize children's screams.
Legion History
Great Crusade
One of the legion's most widely known campaigns was the Valsos Rift Compliance, about 20 years before Ullanor. The worlds of the Valsos Rift were held by a recalcitrant human culture, mutated far from the genetic baseline by centuries of half-mad experimentation into something barely recognizable as human. The Imperium had been vaguely aware of a void-faring society in the Rift and had sent a rogue trader flotilla to investigate and negotiate. Thus, when the Behemoth Guard fleet dropped out of the warp over the fortress world of Kolgrad, it was with some idea of the enemy they would face. Well aware of the welcome the Imperial negotiators had received, Gengrat dispensed with the more customary statement of intent and broadcast of a fleetwide oath of moment by approaching the world at full burn and initiating bombardment the moment the fleet was in range. Detractors of the legion claim this as evidence of an unstable temperament, but the statement that the mutilated bodies of the Iterators made was quite clear. The time for talk was over, and Gengrat was a man of few words. The skies of Kolgrad blazed as melta torpedoes detonated orbital weapons platforms, even as others fell to boarding parties of the notorious terminator clad Lamashtu, deployed from teleportarium into the midst of the platform's command bridge, or deposited on the outer hull to bore their way inside with melta-torches and chain blades, slaughtering even as compartments were vented to the outer void. The defenders of Kolgrad had been entirely unprepared for the violence of the attack and even as their defenses tried to compensate, even as the Ghidorah Rex, flagship of the legion plowed its way through frigate picket lines deployed to shield the orbital facilities from the legion's wrath. Even as the orbital battle turned into a slaughter, the orbiting cruisers unleashed their deadly payloads. Kolgrad was virus-bombed in the opening hour of the engagement.
Even as the atmosphere burned, drop pods descended, securing a landing zone for the armor. Encased in their legion plate, the legionaries were proof against the searing, unbreathable toxin fog the atmostphere had become. With the foe reeling from the disproprtionate violence of the assault, customized and void shielded mastodons, decorated with the aspect of a snarling beast thundered across the plains towards fortress walls, now cleansed of life by the life-eater virus. What fire came from the bunkers glanced harmlessly off of void shields. Where bulkheads had been sealed in time, Mastadon prows rammed through metal walls and unleashed the Behemoth Guard breaching teams into their midst to gun down the survivors. The only significant obstacle on the planet was the central fortress on the planet's southern continent. More a mountain clad in adamantium than anything else, the higher security protocols had protected the occupants from the initial blast and potent void-hardened weapons arrays protected the fortress from an armored assault by land. For this pinnacle of the Valsos' defensive architecture, the Behemoth himself descended, flanked by his Unspeakable Court. Gengrat chose the manner of the citadel's fall with the care of an artist, deciding to deploy Ordinatus Hydra and Ordinatus Dagon, screened by an un-ending horde of the IIXth Grand Company's automata. This was as much for the enemy as it was for him, and he decided to enjoy himself. He lay back in his dark throne and directed the bellicose machine spirits in the legion manifold, a thousand screaming voices all crying out for blood and singing the ecstasy of destruction. When the outer wall broke beneath the relentless artillery from Hydra and Dagon and a chorus of lesser guns, Gengrat himself lead the armored assault across the no-man's land in his personal transport, Ancalagon.
With Kolgrad in ruins, Gengrat pushed for the next planet.
The rest of the campaign was not nearly so swift as it had been on Kolgrad-- with the enemy aware of his willingness to use exterminatus class weaponry, further precautions were taken to ensure that fortifications could survive such a first strike. None the less, faced with such a foe, many worlds capitulated outright and were brought easily into compliance.
However, many held out, their ruling classes knowing that they would never be accepted into the Imperium. These worlds felt the wrath of the Behemoth Guard as they were cleansed in holy atomic fire. These battles became legendary for their bloodshed, as unnacceptably deviant abhumans were herded onto the battlefield by the Behemoth guard to clear minefields and make feints for thrusts. Whenever the world was of little productive capacity, Gengrat polluted the environment, effectively turning the planetside engagements into a perverse parallel to void warfare. On other worlds, such as the final battle of Valsos Prime, The Behemoth withheld atomics and the greater alchemical weaponry, opting instead for a conventional siege and armored assault.