Talons of Corvus

Talons of Corvus
Battle Cry	FOR KANE! AND EMPEROR!!!
Number	Unknown
Founding	Unknown, founded in M34
Successors of	Raven Guard (via Raptors)
Successor Chapters	none
Chapter Master	Chapter Master Kane
Primarch	Corvus Corax
Homeworld	Sarrajev
Strength	1000 Marines + a multitude of other operatives cooperating with/being part of their forces
Specialty	Guerilla and Cyber Warfare, Planetary Uprisings, Counter-Propaganda (and thus mercilessly fighting Tau), Assassinations, Use of specialized/experimental wargear and vehicles, Cybernetics
Allegiance	Imperium (but more towards the Emperor himself)
Colours	white, black and red

Successors of the Raptors Space Marines (and therefore by that extend of the Raven Guard), the Talons of Corvus are a secretive yet very active Chapter that most of the time has a large portion of their marines spread through many critical zones in the galaxy.

Essentially these guys are a much more heroic version of The Brotherhood of Nod.

The Chapter Itself

Origins

The story of how the Chapter came into being was a turbulent one. At the beginning they were simply three companies of Raptors send out to fight against the secessionist forces of the desert planet of Sarrajev that declared independence from the Imperium of Man after the planetary governor and his ruling council made a hostile takeover of the Adeptus Mechanicus facilities that experimented with new technologies from existing STC, as well as creating new technology under the supervision of the local Magos ranked priests. Being sent with two full Imperial Guard Regiments to retake the planet 20 years later (M33.991), the Raptors that were part of the crusade did not know what they were up against.

The moment the Crusade made planetfall, the Imperials were welcomed by an assault of angry cybernetically enhanced soldiers and serious firepower. Not to mention that the Imperial Navy Fleet and Raptors Cruisers were brutalized from the planet's surface via powerful anti-space gun platforms. The Imperial Navy crewmen and remaining Raptors and their serfs managed to evacuate in time, while the ground forces were sustaining massive casualties due to both the sheer numbers and better equipment the enemy troops had. The Imperials thought they were done for until a sudden ally appeared and aided them fend off the attacking secessionist troops. Turned out that some of the Tech-Priests managed to escape the hostile takeover by the planetary council and, along with other Imperial loyalists, created an underground resistance group.

The Imperials suffered large casualties. Most of the two Imperial Guard Regiments were wasted and without their commanders. The Raptors too were not lucky at all as their Captains also fell in battle, but at least they suffered less in the case of the number of marines they had. The only senior member of the Chapter, and thus only senior officer left and by that extension leader of the Crusade by default, was an elderly Chaplain by the name of Kane. Kane took command of the survivors and joined the loyalist rebels, then looked for the surviving Imperial Navy and Raptors that managed to evacuate after the ships were shot down by planetary longfire.

The situation on Sarrajev was not pretty. Not only did the ruling council treated the lower classes nearly as slaves, but their decision to secede from the Imperium caused the ordinary citizens to be even more dissatisfied than they already were. Kane, being not only naturally talented in oratory skills but also an experienced fighter in the ways of the Raptors, knew that without the support of the people of Sarrajev, retaking the planet would be brutally difficult if not impossible. He needed to turn the repressed hate for the council to explode into a fire of rebellion, and with the help of the resistance group and the technology the Tech-Priests had, Kane and the surviving Crusade force could actually pull it off. Without having contact with the rest of the Chapter, and without any other form of support, Kane enacted his preparations.

Twenty years later (M34.011) the situation on the planet was actually changing for the worse as unrest was growing among the lower class citizens. The council itself was furious over the fact that they could not find neither the surviving Imperials nor the damnable rebels. For twenty years the Imperials were limiting themselves to raids and other subtle operations, that lately increased both in intensity and scale, on military facilities and storages. To add more oil into the fireplace, the Tech-Priests that were forced to create new cyborg troopers for them were liberated by the rebels 14 years ago. One day however, the worst has come for them.

One day, the vox casters in many of Sarrajev's cities blared into life. A person, calling himself the Shepherd, called out to the people to rebel against the oppressors and to retake the planet back for the Emperor. It was more than enough for the people to simply throw away their tools and abandon any activity they were doing at the moment and come out on the streets. When the council send its forces to deal with the unrests among the people, they met not just with the simple citizens, but with actual combat ready soldiers armed to the teeth.

An uprising. Every city was aflame with the repressed rage of the people the ruling planetary council mistreated. Soldiers loyal to the ruling body tried to contain it all, but with no results to contain it. The council send out for reinforcements to the cities via air transport, but only one city received it for nearly all of them were shot down by a hailstorm of missiles out of nowhere. When the reinforcements arrived, they were met not with civilians and rebel soldiers anymore, but Skitarii and Space Marines in white and black with red. The reinforcements were routed and destroyed. Now the only place left was the governor's palace in the capital of Sarrajev...the place where the insurrectionists and the Space Marines marched off.

The palace was tightly defended, yet the rebel forces and marines had the advantage over the cyborg soldiers loyal to the separatists due to the fact of the weapons and cybernetics the Tech-Priests gave them along with their training and experience. When victory seemed to be assured, the governor showed his final trump card...A WARLORD TITAN, that was under the palace plaza, rose from its underground hangar and was powering up to wipe out the attacking forces. For a moment it looked like it was all over for the Imperials until one of their flyers dropped off something one the god machine that looked like a marine, yet had sleek cybernetics and massive lightning claws. The marine simply ripped a hole inside the awakening titan and crawled in. When the gargantuan walker finally activated, the inside of its head exploded, and the Warlord fell backwards on the palace crushing the governor and his council. And thus Sarrajev was liberated.

After gaining control, the Raptors made contact with the Imperium that the mission was accomplished. The rest of the Chapter was first to respond, yet when they managed to make contact with their lost brethren, they saw that they changed too radically over these twenty years. Especially when it came to the technology they sported, and the tactics they utilized. While the Raptors saw their brothers as someone completely different, the High Lords were actually impressed that despite being outnumbered and undersupplied, not to mention cut out from the rest of the Imperium, they decided to give the planet to the marines. Thus the Raptors who liberated the planet became the Talons of Corvus.

Tactics and Arsenal

The Armory

A very religious (for a successor of the sons of Corvus Corax) Chapter that utilizes the same tactics as its two progenitors, the Talons of Corvus take the Raven Guard and Raptors ways of war to the next level by applying cyber warfare and unique technologies that come from the underground Adeptus Mechanicus Factoria on their desert homeworld of Sarrajev. Specialized Bolters for assassinations, missile launchers with a wild variety of ammunition, excessive use of flamers in close quarters combat, and surprisingly for a space marine chapter, the use of specialized las-weapons of their own production.

The most interesting element of this Chapter is the experiments that revolve around their cloaking fields and light-bending materials. Created back when the Chapter was still just a group of Raptors cut off from the rest of their brethrens while trying to retake the separatist world that Sarrajev was once, the cloaking technology allowed them to create unique versions of certain vehicles. One of their originals, the Phantom Tank, is a vehicle that utilizes said cloaking technology along with the same loadout as the Whirlwind. Unlike the latter, the Phantom can have its loadout swapped for a regular missile rack. The tank can move and shoot at the same time. Combined with their emphasis on fast attacks and use of the above weapons, attacks of the Talons' forces prove to be incredibly devastating.

However, there are times when speed, deception and pragmatism cannot defeat, then they resolve to unleashing something that has absolutely no subtlety at all...

Designed with Knight STC as its basis, and combined with a gamut of other STC along with the tech they developed along with the Sarrajev Adeptus Mechanicus, The Purifier is the ultimate assault/siege engine a Chapter can afford. Inspired by the giant scorpions of their homeworld, this mechanical monstrosity towers over even the likes of some of Chaos's most potent daemon engines while not having anything heretical in it. Armed with a pair of War Claws with built in Flamestorm Cannons, a back mounted missile battery, and long tail with a built in giant Power Glaive and Long Lascannon, this monstrosity moves and annihilates everything in its path with surprising speed and grace due to its pilot being wired to the machine spirit when driving it. Due to that, the gargantuan walker moves incredibly natural for something its size and mass.

These are not however the only specialties in the arsenal of these sinister looking sons of Corax. Thanks to their joint research on efficient cybernetics (and minerals of their homeworld) with the Tech-Priests of Sarrajev, they managed to create their first cyber assassins/living tactical weapons, the greatly feared Moritat Cybernetica. Named after the Legiones Astartes of old that were known for their extreme actions, and complete disregard for personal safety due to their suicidal tendencies, these cyborg kill-marines utilize unique Shadow-Orb fields that makes them melt with their surrounding. Before an enemy can realize that he is in the same space with this equivalent of a Eversor (albeit replacing psychotic drive with cold fury and precision shots when on a mission), it is already over. It is said that the systems for both the Moritat Cybernetica and the Purifier were derived from two successful prototype Moritats that were since the Chapter's creation, CABAL and LEGION, who now reside inside heavily modified Contemptor Dreadnoughts.

The Tactics

Apart of the potent tech at their disposal, they are capable of inciting planetary wide uprisings on Imperial Worlds that were conquered/annexed by heretics or xenos and returning said worlds back into Imperial fold (as well doing the same tactics on Imperial Worlds that seceded from the Imperium). Combined with their use of cyber warfare that is only matched by the Vanus Temple Assassins, and their skills at counter-propaganda, the Talons of Corvus became a natural enemy of the Tau Empire as the blue-skinned space communists simply cannot deal with someone who can hack into their systems no matter how well defended they are.

The Chapter's skills for inciting rebellions on planets taken over by traitors, heretics and xenos are what makes them stand out among other Chapters. The Talons will send in a group of their Scouts (with Veteran Sergeants), their Deceptors (Librarians), Confessor Chaplains, Cyber-Theurgist (Techmarines) and lastly Skitarii/Serf/Guardsman Infiltrators to a planet they want to incite the uprising. They also bring with them hardware to manufacture weapons, ammo and quick to construct vehicles.

There the infiltrators recruit people to their cause and train them in secrecy. Before that, the Deceptors probe the recruits if they are not sleeper agents or turncoats (those who happen to be are killed on the spot). After a murderous training (and instilling fanatical loyalty by the Confessor Chaplains), these people become guerilla fighters who in turn blend with the usual people and recruit more volunteers that, depending on the situation, act as more guerilla fighters, or as either saboteurs. During that time, the forces utilize sabotage pretty much on every military/public or propaganda facilities that are vital to the occupants. These places are either blown up or, in the case of the latter, hacked by the Cyber-Theurgists via long range remote hacking Servo Skulls. After this they send messages to the local populace to incite the sparks of rebellion and keep repeating it, along with increasing the sabotage operations and raids on military facilities. After they finally build up unrest in the populace to the level where it cannot be contained anymore, the agents they trained and recruited turn into regular soldiers and march alongside the angry mobs that are at this point outraged to such heights that even the most horrid things the galaxy has to offer will have barely any effect on them.

It is this moment when the uprising begins, the Battle Company of the Talons of Corvus make planetfall in order to aid the insurrectionists and to take the planet back. Shooting down enemy transports via ambushes, assassinating key leaders, eliminating threats that could jeopardize the uprising, and finally outright fighting the enemy in the open during final stages of the insurrection. Sounds alot like the Alpha Legion to me.(the what?)

Threads

http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/43944461/ - the 1st thread

http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/43962808/ - the 2nd one

http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/44018095/ - the 3rd one