Order of Our Martyred Lady
| Order of Our Martyred Lady | ||
|---|---|---|
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| Founding | M.36 | |
| Daughters of | The Daughters of the Emperor | |
| Canoness Superior | Junith Erudia | |
| Strength | More than your favorite order | |
| Specialty | Martyrdom, Having more named characters than any other Order | |
| Allegiance | Imperium | |
| Colours | Black Armor, with Red cloth (Post-Armageddon). | |
"Even if you are able to kill me, heretic, my soul shall then become like fire.I shall be taken up by the Emperor and shall blaze as one with His divine light. For evermore shall I guide the faithful, lending them my strength until you and your cursed kind are scoured from existence. If you are able to kill me.
"
- – Canoness Arleille, Order of Our Martyred Lady
"In my rage, I can be anywhere, do anything. Vengeance is my path, and I must never once veer from it. "
- – Joseph Fink
The Order of Our Martyred Lady is an Orders Militant of the Sisters of Battle. Rather, what they are is THE Orders Militant, GeeDubs' personal poster child of the entire army and the one with the most storied battles, famous named characters, and a passion for sticking through their fights to the very bitterest of ends, and are just as interested in martyring themselves as they do the enemy.
About the Order of Our Martyred Lady
The Order was originally known as The Order of the Fiery Heart, and was run by Alicia Dominica's bestie: Saint Katherine. Katherine was an especially faithful and vengeful young lady who by the time the Reign of Blood ended at Alicia's hands, she had already been known as a slayer of heretics and warp-diddlers, and getting control of an Orders Militant was perfect for her to continue that level of religious violence in the name of stamping out chaos both within imperial territory and without. Becoming almost a massive inspiration to other Sisters orders in a way that was almost unprecedented; she was that beloved for her zeal and her combat prowess. Like most of Dominica's friends however, she was martyred, and from what we know, she apparently met her end on the battlefield, facing The Witch-Cult of Mnestteus...but after that, nothing. And that sent shockwaves throughout the entire Sororitas, and a massive period of mourning ensued, with week-long vigils being held all over Imperial space. But Katherine's order did not. Instead, they suited up, got every single member of their parish ready to go, and walked out of their Cardinal and Shrine worlds a new order, one in jet-black armor and robes, calling themselves The Order of Our Martyred Lady, and have been wreaking vengeance on heretics and xenos the galaxy over ever since. As a result, they are who you think of if you're thinking of the Sisters of Battle; the richest noble sipping champaigne and receiving holy blowjobs to the most wretched underhiver know who they are, and the sheer number of Temples they've set up would probably make Big E proud if he wouldn't have a constant headache from being treated like a god.
Whatever the Order was like in Katherine's day was likely one of determined sacrifice and a loud, passionate kind, spreading their love for the Emperor and his Imperium all over, dumping little sanctuaries wherever they went to make sure the idea stuck. But that is merely speculation. What they are now, is a death cult in Sororitas gear; fanatically devoted to the Martyrdom that their Patron Saint found herself becoming. Each and every Sororitas is taught that they will fight and die for the Emperor, and that dying in his service is the greatest show of faith they could possibly show. And as such, they tend to fight to the very last woman, and will sing praises and add their names to their psalms of vengeance that they sing during battle. Now, before you go around thinking these girls are all bugshit nuts (though you'd be absolutely right in that assumption), they see anyone dying in service of the Emperor or dying in defense of the Emperor's territory and it's people as those who deserve rapturous praise, so there's always a chance some shitheel guardsmen who somehow scored a killing blow against a daemon but died in the process will live on forever in a song that a Sister sings while she fills some Ork full of bolter rounds. Not a terrible way to be remembered, to be honest. And their tactics on the battlefield seemingly reflect their complete lack of regard, as they march forward, slowly spreading out until they're a wall of melta, bolter, and maybe even Plasma fire, with each sister ready to take out way more of the enemy than the enemy does for them. However, they are not all completely insane, as Katherine did appreciate military doctrine, and often compared notes with her fellow sisters from the Brides of the Emperor days, and so the killer secret of Our Martyred Lady is that they can change their formations, their entire strategy, and even their panties at frightening efficiency and speed, making them a very nasty order to make assumptions about. To say nothing of the fact that they happen to have their own Living Saint still alive and kicking to this very day that could show up whenever...
Because they're so omnipresent in the Galaxy, they've been in some of the worst fighting the Imperium has ever seen; Armageddon, Cadia, you name the place, if the Sisters were there, this is the order who shows up, and they are also the ones who usually end up with the highest casualties of any order. They did manage to avoid the one really bad thing that happened to the Sisters back in 5th edition, so they clearly let other orders fill in space. By M42, they've managed to use the "fall" of Cadia as a rallying cry to finish what Katherine started, and send these Warp nasties back to where they came from in the name of all who fought before they did, even if half their sanctuaries are on the wrong side of the rift.
Notable Campaigns
- Massacre at Sanctuary 101 (897.M41) - Sanctuary 101 was in the Vidar system way out in the Eastern Fringes, where the sisters stationed there got to be some of the very first humans to see what happens when a Necron Tomb World wakes up! Hilarity ensues. The bodies of the martyred sisters were mutilated and taken for inspection by the inquisitor. A statue was erected in their honor.
- The Martyrdom of Praxedes (991.M41) - Hive Fleet Kraken hit the galaxy hard, and Our Martyred Lady came to help out the Imperial Guard who were getting nommed on the Cardinal world of Okassis. Praxedes, the Cannoness on call, helped the order completely stop the first wave just as they came to the Ecclesiarchial Chapel, but had to retreat in order to save those inside when wave 2 came. Praxedes then found herself confronting, fighting, and eventually defeating the Hive Tyrant in charge of this particular swarm of space locusts, at the cost of her own life. Without the big stabby boy and more importantly the Synaptic link, the 'Nids began cannibalizing each other, and the Sisters swept through them in order to get everyone out of there safely. Praxedes was made a saint in honor of her last fight.
- Third War for Armageddon (998.M41) - Your boy Ghazghkull's 3rd annual Humies vs. Orkz Sack Race attracted quite a bit of attention from the Order, as they held a fairly large convent on the planet in Hive Tempestora, and were among the first to be attacked, by fucking Ork submersibles of all things. They went about fighting them in a bitter, protracted losing war that saw them slowly but continually lose ground to the Greenskins, and finally be wiped out to a woman, even if they regrouped to reform battle lines. This was a dark day in their Order's history, as that sanctum had held up to almost everything before, and more importantly it wiped out most of the Order's Armageddon convent, leaving them down to less than three companies, and causing some of the very novice-iest of novices to question whether or not it was worth it in the end. The vets on the other hand, saw this as a prime opportunity to get payback, and amassed an army to defend the Sactuary of Saint Katherine, and did such a good job drawing attention to themselves that they effectively stalled out parts of Ghazghkull's WAAAAGH!!! as the greenskins found fighting these humie ladies way more fun than the legions of tanks and space marines. The final tally was half of the entire order being wiped out, and the vestments of all survivors now are blood red in their honor.
- Destruction of Chandry (M41) - Five commanderies of the order go to the mining world of Chandry to deal with Chaos Cults and never show up. The planet is Exterminatus'd to save time. Keep an eye on this, however.
- Purging of the Saint Garrat Scriptorum (M41) - The Order and a Witch Hunter from the Ordo Hereticus show up and mass-torture a number of Saint Garrat Scriptorum scribes from the Adeptus Terra and burnt the place to the ground. Those who survived that particular ordeal were about to lodge a formal complaint to the High Lords of Terra before the Witchfinder revealed that at least 300 of their fellow scribes were mutants, and showed this by plonking down 300 individual jars with evidence of obvious mutation in front of them. Needless to say, they kept their traps shut.
- Fall of Cadia (999.M41) - Failbaddon's crusade shows up on the beleaguered planet to finally do the deed and blow that sucker sky high. Just as shit's looking to hit the fan and Cadia will finally become a Chaos world, Saint Celestine and those girls who were lost on the way to Chandry show up and tear straight through Abaddon's forces. Celestine has a touch-and-go fight with Abaddon, where she finally forces him to go fuck off...so he can do some exterminatus to it and open the Great Rift. Whoops.
- Indomitus Crusade (M42) - Roboute Guilliman wakes up and decides to attempt unfucking half the imperium, and invites the Order to come along. This is where Junith Erudia is elected Canonness Superior, and does a good job burning heretics and daemons with the 2nd fleet.
- The Humble Saints (M42) - Those Alpha Legion shitbirds decide to induce Chaos taint on an Agri-World and the Order (along with the Iron Hands) shows up to stop them. They give it their all, but can't stop the planet from being swallowed by the Chaotic Energies. It's okay for the faithful though, as thanks for their tireless efforts, the Emperor apparently does the entire fucking planet a solid as Imperial faithful suddenly start gaining the ability to blast holy fire from their bodies like they're the Human Torch.
- War of Beasts (000.M41 - 015.M42) - The Order of Our Martyred Lady holds the hivesprawl of Oteck on the planet Vigilus for almost 4000 years, keeping riots down, fighting the supernatural, and making sure Chaos doesn't get a fucking whiff of safety under their watch, and had been doing it so well they knew the hive inside and out, which made fighting them an absolutely brutal task. Not that the Orks who showed up for the War of Beasts minded, but they got repelled over and over again and by that point the order was so deeply entrenched on the planet it was revealed the planetary governor really didn't have all that much power at all, and resented them over it. And when Genestealers and Orks showed up and began encroaching on the metropolises, they sprung their secret weapon: Being loved by every faithful citizen in the hive, and being seemingly able to banish any even slightly chaotic and synaptic nonsense they came across. When Space Marines finally got involved, they listened to their hard-ass Canonness rather than the Planetary Governor or the Guard, since they knew the place so well and were taking the continued existence of xenos on their planet as a personal offense. They finally tear the greenskins and gene-goblins out of their hidey-holes and bit by bit slowly take the planet back.
- Talledus War (M42) - Canoness Serita, three Preceptories, and a bunch of other Imperial forces show up on the Cardinal World of Benediction to tell Kor Phaeron and the Word Bearers to get off their fucking lawn and get a real job.
On the Tabletop
In 8e, the Order has one very important maxim that you should be marginally aware of: You're going to die. A lot of your units are going to die, and that is the point. They're a strategist's wet dream or worst nightmare depending entirely on how galaxy brain they are. Their conviction is "The Blood of Martyrs", which grants a miracle die anytime a unit with the <ORDER> tag dies, and gives a +1 to hit for any unit that loses a model, even if the model gets revived. Naturally, you're gonna need to run a Hospitaller or two and several Repentias to make sure you don't get the table wiped before you finally get to do some damage, and with use of their strategem, which if a unit loses a model they auto-reroll 1's to hit on the unit that killed that character, can potentially cause a lot of trouble for whatever Elite your opponent decided to paint up that day. They are also the home order of literally every named character the Sisters have, so feel free to pick a couple of them up while you're emptying out your wallet.
Just don't get too attached to them. Any of them.